Living Life Authentically And The Hibernation Period

I am starting to see depression like a hibernation period.

A true space of deep rest, your bodies way of protecting you from the outside world. You minds way of telling you that you need a break. Your hearts way of telling you it loves you. It feels counter-intuitive in the way that depression manifests with it’s harsh rejection of life and the way it numbs you. But recently I have been leaning into my numbness.

Just today I watched the sun come up. The time was 6:03am and the earth was silent. Absently Phoebe whined in her sleep, her pudgy dog legs running after a dream ball, the sheets rustling as she ran. And I watched the sun come up over the building opposite my bedroom window, the dark from the sky turning dark blue to a misty ice, the tree in the garden opposite from grey to green. I sat with my coffee and thought about my space in the world. How long a year it has been, how many spaces my mind has been in. I puffed out a sigh and leant into my coffee. How many lessons the universe has given me. How much I have had to learn. To listen to my body, to ask my heart such questions. How many times has this sun risen to my uncertainty?

As I sipped my coffee I began to wonder if I have been in hibernation. I can feel myself growing. Changing. The feeling that is growing is resilience, a feeling in my chest so strong it beats alongside my heart. I breathe in the morning air, I puff out my chest. I am growing. Like a bulb under dark earth I have felt forgotten in the harsh winter of my life this past year, I see now I was just waiting for the sun. And the sun feels so beautiful on my fragile skin. I extend my arms and reach out to the sides of my world, my leaves appearing at my finger tips, my feet are my roots planted firmly on the ground at last. my heart and mind are the flower I have been waiting for, my colours so bold and so bright. I have been so fragile these past few months, my petals used to be pearlescent. But today in this morning light, I am bright and strong.

I have been living more authentically recently, working within my means to create the life I want to live. Slowly I have been working on my artwork, creating pieces that have felt so wonderfully me, works created by my soft heart to yours dear reader. Flowers and relationships, portraits created with love and kindness. I finally found the words to talk to my friends about how dark my mind has been, how its taken me to places away from their love and now shyly I return to their arms, still waiting. I have been creating again. It feels more important now than ever to continue to lean into this truth, the more I embrace my feelings the more I embrace myself and in doing so I am finding a strength I didn’t know I owned, acceptance.

Acceptance. It is a soft word. Acceptance means you are safe here. You are heard here. You are held here. No longer do I apologise for being anything less than perfectly happy all of the time. No longer am I adding guilt to my emotions by trying to present myself as happy for other peoples happiness. I am embracing my tears and my frustrations and my swinging moods with kindness. I am being shown by my loved ones that it is okay to share with them, that it is softer this way. Hearts hold me close. I hold myself closer still. I lean into acceptance. I am learning to feel safe.

I believe in choosing a creative life I have chosen to live emotionally, sensitively and with curiosity and wonder of the world and see all the things that make it so beautiful. I invite love so freely into my heart even though I have been hurt so many times. But I am being shown how beautifully it is to be seen, to be heard. I am seeing flowers again in all their glory with sunlight pouring over the petals. The sight can sometimes bring me to tears at their fragility. Those songs still take me back to all the loves I’ve shared with them, some still here, some been and gone. And the night time. The night time always makes me yearn, for art, for friends, for adventure. Sometimes all I dream of is dancing, sometimes I find the music in me to dance.

Alabama Shakes 'This Feeling' is the song I always play, it is a song I feel deeply in my heart and a song I will always need.

Say yes to yourself this week my love, start living this life just for you and watch yourself grow into that beautiful flower I see you blooming into, you are so simply beautiful my hibernating soul. You are so strong. And fragile. And so utterly lovely.

So utterly lovely.

Until next time babies,

Love Bitsifind x