Coping with Summertime Depression: The Light of Gratitude

July’s heat and the sun have made it pretty hot.

It’s steamy outside. But that’s just fine with me.  My feet aren’t cold, dark clouds don’t threaten snow, and everyone’s outside watering yards, humming a tune, and going for walks at night.

As we look over the horizon, August is almost here.

Author Natalie Babbitt captures some of the summer’s magic when she writes:

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noon’s, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”

I’ve been upbeat and productive these past few months.  I wake with the light thrown through cracks in my bedroom curtains. I charge up on coffee, create a killer to-do-list, and fly out the door with a sort of crazy, off-kilter optimism.  Looking out at the sun-baked, south of France Monet-like landscape, all is good.

I am out of the darkness of depression.

And for this, I am grateful.

Sometimes, I take the time to reaffirm the goodness in my life when things are on-kilter and going well. It’s like building up a reservoir of fresh water that I can tap into when my inner psychic streams run dry. I take the time to treasure the good people and things in my life. It warms my soul. And may even put a smile on my face.

For those struggling with depression right now, I know how hard it can be to feel grateful about anything. I’ve been there.

Many people experience summertime depression. They can’t conjure up the good to feel grateful about. Everything feels like a mess.  Fragmented, lonely, and depressed, they feel there isn’t much to hope for.  The devil of depression squeezes all the goodness out of life.

Fellow depression blogger Therese Borchard offers some great tips on how to cope with it in her piece, “10 Summer Depression Busters.”

Rather than any tips I can offer for the summer blues, I offer this reflection on gratitude.

The Sun of Gratitude

There are many ways to practice and think about gratitude. I like reading other writers views on it. They aren’t experts that have studied the topic.  They’re flesh and blood folks who’ve put pen to paper to meditate on it.

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Here’s a neat and timely tome from humorist and National Public Radio’s Prairie Home Companion creator Garrison Keillor:

“To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth, that, like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard. But a little faith will see you through. What else will do except faith in such a cynical, corrupt time? When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word. What is the last word, then? Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music, and books, raising kids — all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.”

The goodness of others is grace.

And grace to me is something to be grateful about.

It’s the universe’s way of reminding us not to fret too much, that things will work out, that our important jobs are, well, just a part of life, and that uplifting fortune cookie messages sometimes do come true.  If I could, I would stick this quote by author Anne Lamott on one of those skinny wrappers:

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it greets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

Think of the kind people you’ve had in your life from your past and today; the everyday saints who were dropped into your life for no other reason than to remind you that life can be good, that you are special and that life is worth living.

These people always leave us feeling better than when they found us.

Take the time today to reflect and take in the goodness in your life.  Depression may be part of your life.  But it isn’t the whole enchilada.

There is always the other side of the coin.

And it’s sweet when we think about it.

Further Reading:

The Neuroscience of Why Gratitude Make us Healthier by Ocean Robbins in the Huffington Post.

How Gratitude Combats Depression by Dr. Deb Serani in Psychology Today.

9 Ways to Promote Gratitude in Your Life by Therese Borchard at Everyday Health.

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2 thoughts on “Coping with Summertime Depression: The Light of Gratitude

  1. Summertime is a strange time for people with depression. Everything out there tells you to feel good, and thats excactly the problem in my opinion, you cant give yourself orders. And when we´re honest : thats the root of all of that, to force something 😉

  2. I’ve suffered from depression for almost all my life without knowing that I was depressed. Anxiety was easy to identify, however, when I had suicidal thinking, the truth was revealed to me.  

    My twenty plus years of training myself and others to become physically fit and winning a fitness competition, were in fact, part of my search for an outlet to overcome depression without success. 

    Writing was the only healing method that worked for me. 

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