Feeling my Indigo

Being extra brave today and pulling back the curtain to share how I've dipped into a depression lately.

Depression is something I've struggled with since college, but weirdly, I've never identified as depressed. I've always thought of it more as an anomaly, a aberrant condition I needed to fix.

And I have devoted A LOT of time to "fixing" it.

This week, I've been trying something new.
I've been trying to allow for the depression. To hear it, without necessarily believing all it has to say.

To make space for it, without needing to scrub it clean from my system.

To not have to wait until the depression is "fixed" until I can be a creative - until I can record my podcast, or work on my TV pilot, or do some actor marketing.

What is it to invite this indigo blue of my depression into my work, rather than desperately trying to escape it?

What would it look like to ... dare I say ... befriend it? 



******

If you're struggling with making time or space for your creative practice, I hear you. I'd love to connect. Come find me on Instagram @SamGarlandNYC.


(photo credit: Janae Jones Photography)  

Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!

#CreatingIsHealing🦋

Transcript

01:04 Hi friends, welcome back. This already is going to be a hard episode. I can feel it.
I'm already regretting it as I hit record. It's funny 'cause I have a dear friend who listened to a
few of my first episodes and said to me which I thought was a high compliment that I
engage in radical vulnerability.

01:29 And thinking about this week's topic, I realized I don't think I've talked about this really.
And one of the reasons I think I don't talk about it is I don't think I identify. With it,
which is exactly why I guess I'm here talking about it so. Not to be all mysterious, but
let me back up a little bit. I missed last week's episode in my own mind. I like to release
one every couple of weeks and I was up in Montreal visiting my beloved older aunt who
is like the artist and her family as I am and and we've just always really and also
stubborn Scorpio as I am, we've always just really gotten along and enjoyed each other
a lot. And the pandemic and the isolation has been really hard on her as it has on most
of us and also especially the elderly population who live alone. Anyway, I went out
because I wanted to check in on her and see how she's doing and she's not doing
great. I mean, she's. Alive and sprightly, and very energetic, as is most of my family. But
you know her her short term memory starting to go and she's showing signs of
dementia and her body isn't as strong as it used to be, and I'm living in Montreal is
tough - 'cause good Lord, those ice storms - I slipped and fell more than once myself
trying to navigate the sidewalk, so not that I'm particularly athletic, but I felt a little
safer falling than I would for her, so you end up staying indoors.

(03:00) Essentially, if you live in a in a climate like that. Even more. And. We're having really
good conversations about next steps and you know assisted living facilities and how
do we keep taking care of her? But the truth is. Seeing someone that you love be
ravaged by time. If I can be maybe a little dramatic, it's just hard it's. It's a lot of grief to
process. It's confronting your own mortality. How my body is also decaying, how my
mind will go. It's loving her and and there is no fix for it. There is nothing I can do
except. Help find, maybe you know some things that will help, but there is no fix,
essentially, for getting old and dying and that it feels really powerless and really tough
and... I came home from that. And Russia invaded Ukraine. And there's a whole other
level of grief and powerlessness and suffering that is being livestreamed for us.
And anyway, my point mostly being the world is hard, and if you're a feeling human, you
feel all of it, and I don't know that we've been taught tools for how to navigate that
well. When I woke up sort of Monday Tuesday. And realized that I was kind of
depressed. And. And so I give all this context, 'cause I'm like. I think there was probably
good reason to feel like nothing mattered, and it's all sort of hopeless. But what's
interesting to me was my reaction to it because. I think in my 20s I had really a pretty
serious deep depression and I worked a lot on that in therapy and was on medication
for a while and. And mostly have just done a lot of things to structure my life so that it

(05:00) doesn't get me as much and I function much better around it. And I was like built like
I've done a lot of reading on water, the systems, the mindsets, the work that you know
can really help combat that so. I don't fall into it as much and I was sort of surprised it
was back and I think what surprised me most was it felt. Like it was never going to
leave and there's a thing about depression where. Elise for me how it manifests
everything feels hopeless and pointless. And you feel like you will never feel joy again,
like it's not even a possibility. So there's not a like oh, this will pass there's just this just
is and will forever be. And that's a terrifying thing honestly and I think there's a blessing
in that I've been doing so much kind of life coach mindset work that I'm getting much
better at being what the Buddhists call like a witness or an observer. So I had a little bit
more ability to see my thoughts and say I've had these thoughts before and they have
gone away. And I don't have to necessarily believe that right now, but I had a little bit
more of my depression now when it comes, doesn't stay as long again because I have
so many resources. I have a therapist, I've got a life coach. I have a lot of resources
available to me and I'm constantly processing. Also, my grief, my emotions, what it is to
be human in the world.

(06:23) But it was really scary and it was scary in that sense of the flip side to that, I wanted to
share because I'm actually now that I'm thinking about this. Really curious how other
people define or experience depression because I don't think we talk about that
enough and I'm sure it feels different for people. But the other thing that happens is I
hate everything. Like I hate my body. I hate my life. My apartment is terrible and
disgusting. It will never be clean enough like just everything looks wrong and bad. And
it's not logical. It's not like. Oh well, if I cleaned my kitchen I would feel better. It's just
like no on like this deep bone marrow level. Everything about everything is wrong and
like you can't argue with that and you can't fix it and so it it creates the sense of like
there's no peace. There's nowhere to sit and be at peace 'cause everything about you
and your life and your choices and your decisions up to this moment are terrible and
wrong and you are wrong. I'm just like this is not a place I want to exist. And So what I
was thinking about was on top of all that I came back and hadn't been working on my
TV pilot script hadn't been podcasting, hadn't been doing anything that was deeply
creative and important to me. And so of course, I'm also beating myself up for that
because I've been really just taking care of my aunt. Took a lot more emotional labor
than I ever expected, and I was such a privilege to do it and so grateful to be there. But
I was like, Oh yeah, these plans I had to like do this other stuff kind of went out the
window. So I came back and was breeding myself for that. On top of everything else.
And. And what I found really interesting come a place where I can kind of see where
my mind is going for me often manifests

(08:00) in food. So if I'm just wanting to buy the entire grocery store out of their cookie
selection and eat all of them, I'm like, OK, something is wrong. There's something that
feels unbearable to me and I don't have language for it, or I don't think I have tools for
it, or I don't think I can handle feeling it. So I'm just going to shove my body full of food
until I numb out and I didn't quite go that far, which was good, but there was definitely
an uptick in like. I'm just going to have cookies for lunch and dinner for a couple of
days and what it made me really sit with was uhm. How much I didn't want to be a
depressed person, how much I was mad at my own brain for thinking the world is
wrong and bad and scary and painful and how much I wanted to? Be plucky, I wanted
to like. See my aunt and be like I can fix it in XYZ ways and we're going to win in
Ukraine. 'cause like we are so cute like I just wanted to take tragedy and despair and
turn it around and be I don't know is it Oliver Twist? I'm trying to think of like whatever
that plucky character that we are grown up with that I've apparently have identified
with subconsciously like I just wanted to be someone who took action and. You know
anyone in my role models who kind of take despair and turn it into action, and I wasn't
feeling that and I was. I was deeply, like, uhm, disdainful of myself and wanting to scrub
clean. The depression and what I realized was, and this is where it comes back to this
podcast and living a creative life is. I was deeply engaged and I want to throw all of my
energy into not being depressed, ever. And when the depression goes then I can be
creative. When I stopped feeling incredible sadness at the world and the suffering
when I stop feeling incredible despair at war when I stop feeling despair at life in
attitude, then I can be someone who writes a TV show. Then I can be someone who
podcasts.

(10:01) And guys if that worked, I would. I would celebrate that, but it really doesn't and I
realize that I've spent a lot of my past 20 years since I've been kind of out of college
and figure out who I am as a human and an artist. Like I'm a type a person, you tell me
something is wrong, mental health wise I'm like cool, cool. What are the 10 steps later's
always a seven point plan I'm like great we're going to therapy we're going to life
coaching I'm gonna get on these medications I'm going to research this like PS I
should say I'm not a doctor. None of this has medical advice. I've seen lots of Grey's
Anatomy. I can sound smart. I Google a lot, but like obviously I'm not giving anyone
advice about how to handle their own stuff. But I'm that person who does a deep dive
on everything and I've really focused my attention on. I guess this binary of I'm
supposed to be happy all the time. Depression is a bad thing and it is a failing as a
human to be depressed. 'cause it doesn't serve the world. You know I can see that I
just want to go to bed all the time and it takes me longer to get up and be functional.
And and I'm like, well I didn't go to yoga and I didn't. I didn't exercise today and so my
body is decaying -- like these are not things that are useful to the world. The world needs
me to be functional and productive. I have so much privilege. I have so much to offer. I
don't want to be falling apart when there is suffering in the world, right? So I am
shaming and blaming myself for how really just my brain is wired to process things
and. And when it comes to being a creative human, I I really was like, OK, so I've got to
just like wait until this ugliness this depression this thinking pattern it leaves before I
can speak again before I have anything to say and. And so while I want to turn on the
microphone and show it for this podcast was sort of to share what I've been in process
within. Apologies that this is the most succinct of episodes

(12:00) I've been trying to like, bring this to a point and I can just tell my brain is sort of all over
the place 'cause I'm very in it and I appreciate the gift of your listening. But what I
came to you was come. What is it to not to not need to be someone who's not
depressed? Because when I looked at it, you know I was like my brain was feeling
terrible about the world and feeling very hopeless and pointless about everything and
hating everything. But I wasn't taking those actions. I still showed up to my job, my day
job. I still really productive. I still talk to friends. I had a phone call with my sister went
really well. I still had. I was still feeding myself. I went grocery shopping I. You know, like
I took out the garbage like they were. I'm a high functioning depressive like I am. Part
of that is training, like, I've learned to take the depression and bring it with me and not
have to just listen to it all the time. And there was definitely more lying in bed and more
overwhelmed and more hopelessness. But it wasn't the only thing that was happening
and and so I thought back to the week before that, I went up to visit my aunt. I actually
am on this new steroid medication to try to solve my stomach inflammation,
autoimmune blah. And steroids have a lot of side effects. I had a migraine every day for
a week. It sucked *** but I'm someone who used to get migraines in college and I got
really good at at actually just showing up to my life with a migraine. I got really good. I
again they used to be really debilitating and then I got good at. I would wear like that
entire week. I wear sunglasses all day just to like be on my laptop and I showed up to
zoom calls and sunglasses and I looked ridiculous. My friends were amazing about it
and my coworkers were great, but I looked ridiculous. But I just knew I had crazy light
sensitivity by the end of the work day, like 6:00 o'clock. I was in bed, I was exhausted. I
cancelled a bunch of social plans which sucked, but I still showed up. I still was able to
hold. The

(14:00) pain of a headache. Like every time I'd be like oh it hurts and I'm like yeah but you can
do hurt like you're this sounds terrible but like you're good at pain and I don't mean
that in like that should be anything anybody ever aspires to. I think a lot of what we're
trying to deconstruct this idea of like white knuckling through stuff I am for myself and
I think it's part of the problem of this productivity culture in this capitalist culture But
if you are someone who lives with chronic. Pain of any kind. And good at showing up
for your life when you are in pain is like a skill set that I aspire to you and I think of it in
a kind of Buddhist. Meditative space of pain exists in the world. Suffering is when we
resist the pain. So my desire to not have a migraine to be angry at the migraine to just
want my body to be healthy and functional and full of energy and do all the things I
wanted to do is actually where all of my suffering comes from and if I can hold the pain
lightly if I can be like, yeah it hurts and it sucks and I wish it wasn't this way but I can
still do XYZ. I'm going to focus on what I can do and then rest when I'm exhausted and
then cancel what I need to. I just had a fuller life and it was like something I was really
proud of and so having just had that experience, I was really curious about what is this
idea of depression as this thing that is so anathema to the person that I want to be
like. I just don't want to be someone, whoever has a despair in the world. Whoever
gives up on anything I want to be someone who believes I want to be someone who
has joy who brings joy to others. I want to be someone who is there available and
helping to others 'cause they feel like I have so much to offer that the idea that I would
need stuff that I would not be OK. I'm I'm like ashamed of it and ashamed of my own
brain because I think you know I do. A lot of mindset work and I know that our
thoughts have so much power and so I want to be someone who believes in hope and
believes that we will do better. Be better because that's like a guiding force so. What

(16:00) I started thinking was how can I change my relationship to depression? How can it not
be this thing that I have to scrub clean out of my system before I can be in the world
and and you know, when I think about creativity, it's also how I show up to friendships.
It's also high show up to relationships like everything that I want to scrub clean is a
thing I wish people didn't know about me and then I am less 'cause they don't know
that about me and and I don't let people into my life and I don't get to connect in the
way that is true for me. So it was affecting not just. You know the things that I talk
about here in terms of creativity. But just like my whole life was sort of shrinking 'cause
I just wanted to hide from everybody that I was feeling this way. So the first thing I did
was this idea of how can I hold it lightly? How can I not think about depression as this
thing that has to disappear today, tomorrow so that I can get back to my quote, UN life
as it was as though depression was an interruption to the life that I'm living and that
the person I'm going to be as an artist and actor or writer or singer, whatever it is that
is coming for me, is something that will happen. And depression is done when I've
solved depression. Then I get to be this other person who shows up in the world who
has an audience who performs. What if it gets to come along and? I am not OK with
that thought as I say it, I'm like, oh I just want to get rid of it. So like this is an active
practice of my own to kind of.

(17:22) You know, yeah, not make it a defining quality. Not making it a firewall. I don't know if
that's the right word, like a reason Pull up stakes and just shut down, but a thing that
maybe exists and that is in the end part of who I am and is a wiring issue or a chemical
issue. However, as you want to think about depression, there are lots of theories on
that, but not making it separate or other from me was the first thing that I was
thinking about and the second was which I think is. Is just a tandem or an expansion of
the first idea was how can I change my relationship to depression and this goes to like
the parts work that I've been doing for a year or two. Now with my therapist, which I
think I don't. I've talked about here, but essentially this idea that we all contain
multitudes. We all in our systems have. You know whether inherited from teachers or
family members or peers you know throughout our lives. Sometimes we've interpreted
them. So like we'll carry around in us. The very shrill taskmaster, and sometimes that's
an old teacher or a mom that you had, and you have that in your brain, but we sort of
internalize the people that we know, and then we also just have parts of us that are
maybe like the sad part or the joyful part, or the I want to go outside and play is maybe
in competition with like I just want to lay in bed and never move right, and part of why
people are we so. Just like frustrated with themselves 'cause they set goals like
working out or writing or being creative or rehearsing and they don't do those things
It's usually because you've got one part of you that has a desire to create and be in the
world and share their creation. And then you've got other parts of

(19:00) you who either feel shame about that or feel scared of that, or right, like we're all sort
of little villages or communities of a lot of different competing desires and needs. And
that's why we can maybe make a decision to do a thing one day, and the next day we
don't follow through. And we're like what? The hell like I was so committed to showing
up at the gym and I didn't show up at the gym. What's up? And it's 'cause another part
of you won that day and and had a stronger voice, right? So that's the idea behind
parts work and. One of the ways that it has shown up for me that I was thinking about
it was what like what is the color of depression in my body and where does it exist in
my body and how can I relate to it like? Like a friend like someone I care deeply about.
How can I be curious about? You know the way that it came to me was sort of this, UM,
indigo blue color and it's like just a layer below my skin between sort of my bones and
my skin like all across my body. And. And and so I just kind of got into this very gentle
practice of checking in on it and being like, hey how you doing? Like what do you need
from me? How am I? How can I show up for you today? And. That may sound
completely silly. I get that, but I actually think it's a revolutionary act to show kindness
to the parts of us that we are most deeply wishing weren't a part of us that we. Feel
shame for that. We wish you know that we feel anger towards 'cause we think they're
interrupting the life that we should be living or want to be living the you know all of
that. Actually creates so much more chaos and resistance and shut down in our lives
and also is not the kind of human I want to be like. I'm so much better at showing
infinite compassion to friends and strangers

(21:00)
than I am to myself and. That's a skill I am trying to expand to myself to revert, not to
reverse. I don't want to stop showing kindness to others, but I'm trying to figure out
why it's so hard to be kind to the parts of me that I judge so harshly, and so that's the
practice I've been in and bringing it back to creativity in a creative, creative practice.
How can I ask this indigo blue to show up when I sit down to write? How can I ask it?
Do you wanna? Maybe I change the goal? I had this deadline of tomorrow to finish.
There's this really great Film Festival submission actually for TV pilots and I wanted to
get this, whatever that's probably not going to happen. And how can I, rather than
again binary? It either happens and I make the deadline or I just stop writing. How can I
ask the indigo blue? Hey can we hang out with my characters today? You wanna like sit
and just like maybe free right? And chat to them and find out what they're thinking
about like how can I make creativity? Not this. I have to be 1000% fully uhm. I just had
this vision of like I had my protein powder this morning and I worked out and I'm ready
to go for the day right. This sort of like roar of creativity. I'm ready or there's nothing
right? That's the the thing that I'm struggling with. This all or nothingness? And what is
it to soften and say hey I wonder what the indigo blue has to say on the podcast
today? And can I speak from that place? Rather than trying so hard to rid myself of
that in order to speak, because then actually I have nothing to say like I, I'm two in the
middle of it to have anything else that I want to share. That's that's where I'm at. And
so the shaming and the shutting down also means that I just don't speak.

(22:52) OK, I don't have any advice for you guys today I just wanted to share my journey and
wish you well in the world as I think for all of us it keeps swirling on the microcosm
griefs and the macrocosm griefs. Being human is hard and you showed up today and you win all the gold stars for showing up today. I love you guys. Be well.