It's been a long month

since I last posted.
I've gotten myself caught in a spiral of depression and have lost my meditation practice. You know how that works: you skip a day and sleep in a day. Then the next. And the next. But my depression symptoms worsened and that made the skipping even more significant.

I could kind of feel it coming on. Paranoia starts to ramp up and then the ruminative thoughts. Finally I discussed it with my prayer partner, who also suffers from depression.

"I wonder if I should increase my medication?" I asked.

"Well how long has it been going on?" she asked.

I told her I didn't want to answer. It'd been 3 weeks. And so she gently walked me through the same conversation she and I had had last year about her. And so I decided to increase by half that very night.

The ruminative tape turned off overnight. I was overjoyed by the silence in my brain! I've gotten better and better over the last couple of weeks and then went to a workshop at Asheville Yoga Center. Led by Amy Weintraub, founder of LifeForce Yoga, the workshop touched on many techniques for using yoga, pranayama, and meditation for treating depression. It was a good workshop and I came away with the conviction that I need to do more yoga nidra.

The days are also getting longer and warmer here. Today it hit 75 degrees. That always does a lot to alleviate my symptoms.

I'll be writing more about this and other things.