Down in a Hole

It all finally came to a head last week, sitting in my car in front of the yoga studio...paralyzed and hyperventilating, in the middle of a full on anxiety attack.

This is insane, get a fucking grip…this is a safe place, they know you, its just a yoga class…but no, I slowly put the car in drive and slink home, now furious at myself for how ridiculous this all is.

It was a culmination though, and if I could ignore it and slough it off for most of the summer now it was staring me dead in the face. The signs were all there and I was quite familiar with them. I had slipped back into depression, a minor slump compared to my past but it was real nonetheless. All summer long I had struggled with a lack of ambition, I had abandoned my daily yoga practise and I was spending most of my free time alone on the couch and stuck in my head.

When I was told this would be a year of big changes I could only imagine the positive possibilities and set out to make this a landmark year in my life. The card readings and my own angel cards had correctly predicted great changes but the reality was the changes were positive and negative; a year of two steps forward two steps back, amazing great fortune and personal growth but tied equally to great tragedy and loss.

The positives are beyond all expectations and I am grateful for all of the abundance I’ve been given; a great new job with a team that values me and offers me the flexibility to pursue all of my goals, my new career teaching yoga at studios that value my contributions and fellow students who look forward to being on the mat with me, family and friends who love me, mentors who understand me and never fail to challenge and guide me.

Yet inevitably I find myself dwelling in the deep negative recesses; being surrounded by loving friends and family and yet having to deal with the loss of two loved ones in less than a month, my amazing new job came after quitting a good company and being fired by another in rapid succession, my fulfilling and rewarding teacher training came about as a result of having to abandon my goal of travelling to Bali, my great new career teaching yoga leaving me feeling at times like a fraud who had nothing new to offer the community. Intellectually I can recognize the futility and foolishness of dwelling there but depression doesn't live in the intellect. 

Sobriety has no downside, and not drinking means having to feel the pain close to the bone. The days where I would have medicated myself into a stupor are long gone, so I can recognize the panic attack as a wake up call. A chance to see the symptoms for what they are and to retrace the steps that took me back into the light the last time I traveled this path.

A quick check of the calendar sees the year of big happy changes isn’t over yet, time still to see what else it has in store...

Down in a Hole – Alice in Chains

Bury me softly in this womb
I give this part of me for you
Sand rains down and here I sit
Holding rare flowers
In a tomb... in bloom

Down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved
See my heart I decorate it like a grave
Oh, you don't understand who they thought I was supposed to be
Look at me now I'm a man who won't let himself be

Down in a hole, feeling so small
Down in a hole, losing my soul
I'd like to fly,
But my wings have been so denied

Down in a hole and they've put all the stones in their place
I've eaten the sun so my tongue has been burned of the taste
I have been guilty of kicking myself in the teeth
I will speak no more of my feelings beneath

Down in a hole, feeling so small
Down in a hole, losing my soul
I'd like to fly but my
Wings have been so denied

Bury me softly in this womb
Oh I want to be inside of you
I give this part of me for you
Oh I want to be inside of you
Sand rains down and here I sit
Holding rare flowers (Oh I want to be inside of you)
In a tomb... in bloom
Oh I want to be inside...

Down in a hole, feeling so small
Down in a hole, losing my soul
Down in a hole, feeling so small
Down in a hole, out of control
I'd like to fly but my
Wings have been so denied