An odd but effective treatment....

Last night I had a good chat with a colleague, she had called to see how I was and that had been the main focus of the call, but then she said she had some things to mention when I was back up and running.  Well you don't tell a worrier that there is something to be raised but not now - our imaginations are always worse than the reality! So I pushed for the info, to find that actually the news of work tensions was a positive to my personal wellbeing.

It sounds counter intuitive but there is a logic behind it, having slept on it. One of the most powerful emotions that overwhelm me when low is that of feeling inadequate, not up to the job, or at its worst even the role of being a grown up human being.  Yet I hold these feelings in tension with a realism from the good days that I know I am more than adequate at the job of being a minister (more confident in that than in being a functioning grown up, though surely that is part of being a minister?)

A conversation about problems and issues that yes I may need to have a part of tidying up but that are not of my making was a reminder that the true comparison is not against the ideal but against equally flawed and vulnerable human beings.  In that comparison I do much better than in the depressive mindset of seeking total perfection.  It is a healthier perspective, and came from talking shop when poorly.

There is an infamous quote, sometimes attributed to Winston Churchill, sometimes not, about being accused of being drunk 'Yes but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly'.  To paraphrase 'Yes I may be useless for a few days but in the morning I will be competent and you will still be....'

Well it worked for me last night anyway, and today I got on with some guilt free occupational therapy. Discovery of a plant on the doorstep delivered yesterday when I was hiding, and other loving caring contacts today add to the step forward.