Do Something Hard
It may come as a surprise to those who know me or rely on me for their emotional stability, but from time to time I too suffer from bouts of depression and anxiety. Every therapist does, just as every healthy person experiences mood vacillations. Like waves in the sea, our moods cycle through positive in-the-moment feelings to swells of anxiety to troughs of depression and back again. Just as every day at sea and every ship is different; we all need to learn how to navigate our own personal sea of vacillating emotions. For me, physical activity and later learning to play guitar took me out of the day-to-day struggle and gave me a purpose and goals to strive for. Neither was easy and still aren’t. I struggle each day to stay the course and search for improvement. Philosophers have extolled life as a journey not a destination. That journey has meaning only if you give it purpose. To have purpose something must be worth striving for, and striving is not always easy. For me, and I hope...