how to feel SAD
As someone who reckons with seasonal affective disorder every year, I often look to Mary Oliver’s poem “In Blackwater Woods” during each shift into winter. She writes:
“… Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
How do we do this well? How can we allow for whatever nostalgia, grief, or angst to be a part of our experience without feeling trapped there? And just as importantly, how do we strengthen our capacity to soak up coziness and delight?
The first step is to tune into our bodies, which may be challenging or seemingly impossible for people who have needed to ignore their bodies in order to survive. Tuning into our bodies first requires enough safety to feel them, even if it’s just wiggling your toes. You may start there. Embodiment can look like taking a few deep belly breaths, noticing the length of your spine, shaking it out, dancing, singing, counting, taking a walk, looking around at familiar objects or faces, closing your eyes, etc etc.
Whatever you do, the goal is to prioritize taking care of your physical feelings before trying to figure anything out cognitively. Oliver mentions the importance of loosening our grip on meaning when she writes, “the black river of loss
whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know.”
How human of us to want to know why! We are storytellers by nature. The thing is, our stories are subjective, and they are subject to the state of our nervous system. The stories we create are much more hopeful, the characters much more capable, when the vessel they are created from feels safe and strong.
What becomes possible and visceral when we ask the question “what do I need right now?” instead of “why do I feel like this right now?” What shifts in our body when we practice self compassion and validation? How does our relationship to grief, depression, jealousy, hopelessness, and listlessness soften when we are able to soften toward the feelings themselves? How does that change our ability to receive support from one another?
It seems basic, but this is no easy feat. Plenty of our society is built on shame and depends on self-inflicted emotional abuse and numbness. To practice softness, especially toward ourselves, is revolutionary. Softness allows for flexibility. Part of “In Blackwater Woods” that I love is its underlying current of clemency. To flow through grief requires us to hold it, too, with empathy “against [our] bones knowing [our] own life depends on it.” The same strength it takes to accept and forgive our shame and pain also allows us to let it go.
Colder months call for intentional energy conservation. The trees are letting go of their leaves where I am in upstate New York right now, and it’s fucking beautiful. The colors of fall help me stay present and access comfort while also holding my dread of seasonal depression a little lighter.
During this seasonal shift, I encourage you (and me!) to keep checking in with yourself. Are you carrying around the same expectations of your summer self and feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you need to pare things down. Are you forgetting to move and feel pent up or numb? Maybe it’s time for a stretch, walk, workout, or conversation. Are you feeling joyful or cozy? Take a moment and really get curious about what that feels like in your body. Maybe put a hand to your heart and intentionally absorb your joy one percent more.
As we practice acceptance and embodiment of our whole self, we strengthen our capacity do these three human things Mary Oliver mentions: hold what is mortal, love it like our lives depend on it, and then let it go.
Yours truly,
Katie