ONLY CONNECT

For the last few days, the negative voices in my head have been very loud. It's the usual litany: it's too late, what's the point, you aren't good enough. By this time I know those voices don't describe reality; they aren't connected to any "truth." I know that I can detach, put space around the voices, distance myself so I can have a different perspective. I'm aware it's possible for the world to look very different if I turn my vision just a few degrees, lift it up to that place beyond my shame and fear.
     But there are days, like the last few, in which I'm powerless over the voices of my despair. They produce feelings in me - oppressive, debilitating - and I can't rouse myself to act in spite of them. They have me in their grip and action, any action feels beyond me.
     I no longer think something will happen or I'll come across the magic formula and somehow days like this will never come again. It may be my metabolism or genes or a hard childhood - whatever the reason, I accept that sometimes I stumble into, if not the abyss, then onto the stairway leading down into it. 
     The question is how to get through. One way is to keep repeating to myself things I know that push back the negativity: reminding myself it isn't "real," it's only a part of me, a part I can bring down to size; other feelings are possible if I turn away from the mesmerizing voices that want to bring me down.  I can look for the places despair sinks down into my body, focus on them until I feel it dissolve away. I can close my eyes and look for the place of letting go. I can reach out to the benevolence I believe exists outside myself. I can try to connect.
     The answer is always spiritual. I can act as if I'm not bogged down in the muck but it never gets me very far. Just as you can't cook a stew until you light the gas, so I can't get up and do until I feel deep in my body the connection to a power, a force greater than myself. Even to search for it is to begin to find it and although I may have to take minuscule steps I can be headed in the right direction. My spirit wants to move that way. I want to be free. 
     Writing these words has made me feel better. They come from deep inside me. They move me toward connection.