When you feel low, know that this is a platform from which you will fly. When you think you have reached a depth of lostness, that is when you are at a taking-off place. It is the place you will rise from. This is the tarmac from where airplanes soar and from where your spirits rise.
Even in depression, you are not incapacitated. You are dwelling in a moment of sadness and extending it. Regardless of how you feel or think you feel, you can get going. You can get out of the doldrums. Nothing says you have to linger there. It is not quicksand. It is a bed of your own making from which you get up now.
You feel some degree of hopelessness? Never mind. Get on with life anyway.
You feel some degree of helplessness? Helplessness and hopelessness are the same, just variant shades of blue, and both are untrue. They don’t hold water. Yes, yes, these feelings are real to you, so real that you have decided that you are bound to be held back by them.
Sense of hopelessness and helplessness are two flattened pillows that are not for you to sit on. Get up from them. Even if you don’t know another place to sit, get up from where you have been sitting. Stand for a while.
No matter what you feel overwhelmed by, it is your thoughts that overwhelm you. Perhaps you cannot change the whole world at this minute. Perhaps you cannot change your life at this moment, yet you can do something. You can wash a dish. You can wash your face with cold water. You can go out in the fresh air. You can plant a flower, pull a weed. You can take a walk. You can come back into your house, if not a different person, at least in a different state.
When you feel downhearted, you are feeling unsettled. You may feel unsettled because everything is the same. You may feel unsettled because everything is changing. Feeling unsettled doesn’t mean you have to feel depressed. Anything you feel is your choice. What does freedom mean if it doesn’t mean that you have choice?
You have the choice to stay downhearted. You have the choice to feel differently. You are only a victim of your own thoughts. You may feel that your thoughts are foisted on you, beloveds, but they are your thoughts. You are the owner or renter of them. You can break your lease. You can give your thoughts away. You can evict them. You can replace them.
Beloveds, you are good at changing your mind in many matters. You like a certain dress one minute, and the next you don’t. You like asparagus one meal, and then you are tired of it. When you are tired of your thoughts, replace them. Is this really so very hard? You can do anything you want. You can even stay downhearted if that is your choice, but don’t tell Me you have to and that you can’t do anything about it. You are the only one who can.
Don’t wait for someone in the world to rush to your side and save you. That would be nice and could happen, yet it is better for you to rush to your own aid. When you are drowning, rather than wait to be saved, it behooves you to get out of the water. If you are in the rain and you want to be dry, get out of the rain. Move. Is that hard to do?
If the news of the world depresses or oppresses you, then read a poem or a Heavenletter. Stop listening to the news, for, if you take it to heart, you are sure to become depressed. Avoid that which is avoidable, and come into the sunshine of My heart.