"Oxygen Choices":
The Knobs and Dials of Depression
There's a scene in last year's remake of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," where Walter is trekking along a ridge in the Himalayas and takes a phone call from his buddy at eHarmony: "I'm going to keep this short. I have to make oxygen choices." (The trailer is here, in case you want the visual.)
So this month, I want to follow up on my last article (here), which was a more general comment on the way in which depression relates to energy. Here I want to focus in more on "Oxygen choices," on the inevitable need to pay attention to the energy economy of our own mind, bodies, and relationships, and an example of how-to.
The Energy Economy
So, an economy is defined as a system for the production, distribution, and consumption of energy and resources. A capitalist economy, a socialist economy, the economy of a forest, the economics of a single household, all are talking about the same function, and there is never a time when life, at the level of a human being, a ladybug, or a whole planet, is not attending to economic realities. As I contended in the last article, for depressives to not attend consciously to the economy of one's own energy is to let depression do it unconsciously. Someone has to be twisting the nobs, pulling the levers.
If you're not exactly jumping up and down at this idea, this notion that like it or not you have to regulate your own energy, then you're feeling what every depressed person I've worked with has felt. It's a kind of dismalness of limitation-of limited resources, of limited control, of limited time, and of real and permanent losses-that is one of the core experiences embedded in depression (because it's there in life), and the only way through this is grief, the emotionally feeling through to resolution of the painfulness of these limits. We all have our valid reasons for this sensitivity to limits, but healing depression can't progress very far until this reality is acknowledged and engaged, and accepted.
Now, this doesn't really make limitation enjoyable, just more tolerable and eventually more poignant. That acceptance, however, opens up more room to learn and practice managing our own energy economy, becoming more elegant in making our own impossible-to-avoid "oxygen choices," and thereby making it less likely that depression steps in to do the management. (Imagine some venture capital firm hires a manager to rescue an ailing business, and they doesn't care how draconian the measures used if it saves the company.)
Ok, so assuming you've gotten over the hump of accepting responsibility, and therefore the necessity, for your "oxygen choices," then how does one set about becoming the manager of one's own energy?
One of the best ways, that combines both the need to study (in order to get intimate with) one's own "economy," and the need to practice making "oxygen choices," is to let the question, "Is this current/anticipated action energy positive, or energy negative?" guide one's choices through a day. It's a deceptively powerful question (or we could say, "metric," a way of measuring), because it allows us to hone in on the way energy actually works in us, and not get caught up in thoughts about energy. For instance, we can notice in the morning, "Oh, I feel tired," and then quickly follow that with, "But I shouldn't, I just woke up, don't be weak." Then we get caught up in the reaction to our energy state and forget to attend to the state itself. So this question is meant to cut through those follow-on thoughts to let us stay with just the observation, and then that allows us to much more effectively tweak the knobs and pull the levers of our own energy, which itself is so important because depression really doesn't like it when we're not taking that responsibility, and will step in to do the job if we're ignoring it.
So, to illustrate what this seemingly simple device is, we'll follow Tim throughout part of his day as he practices managing his energy economy.
Tim
Let's make Tim a software engineer (a common Bay Area profession), who is in his early 30's, and has an ongoing history with depression, beginning in his teens. In other words, having experienced it for so long, he can't take his energy economy for granted. There have been periods of "brown outs" in his life, which in his 20's he tried to ignore or medicate, but after several episodes, has surrendered to needing to pay attention to. He doesn't like it-he is typical in carrying the American, and male, desire to be powerful and autonomous-but he's practical enough to see that when he doesn't attend to his depression, and the necessary regulation of energy, he is in danger of sliding into another episode.
So, Tim just got passed over last week for a promotion he thought was in the bag, and though his job's still secure, he's feeling the sense of rejection, a very sore spot from his early history. He was initially cavalier with friends over the weekend-"Meh, doesn't matter"-but found on this Monday morning that he was experiencing lethargy and dread about going to work. Having been through this before, he recognized that he needed to pay attention to his oxygen choices, or risk the incipient depression blossoming.
So, feeling the urge to stay in bed, cover over his head, he asks himself, "Ok, so is that going to be energy positive, or energy negative?"
Now, this brings up the question of how exactly do you answer this question. Is it a thought, an emotion, a body sensation, or a theory that tells you the answer? As we'll see with Tim, although the other information can be useful, it's going to essentially be our bodies that tell us how much energy we have and how to distribute it.
So Tim has the thought that, yeah, it should be fine to sleep in a bit more. So he hits snooze and lays back down, but after a few minutes he observes his thoughts starting to swirl down into negativity, and a kind of heaviness settling into his body, and thinks, "All right, got it: I'd better get moving." So he gets out of bed and scans the options in his mind: do some exercise, turn on the radio/tv, make breakfast or buy food on the road to work. The mind produces the options, but the body will tell him which it actually likes, and therefore which will be energy positive or negative.
(This isn't always clear, and at times we have to make little experiments and then see in the moment, like with his sleeping in, whether we were right about our choice, and adjust from there.)
When he thinks of it, he feels the radio/tv as intrusive, so opts for silence. Thinking of making food makes his shoulders sag-he's already feeling alone, and the image of scrounging food solo in his apartment is on the "not oxygenating" side. But when he imagines going to his café where he's considered a local, he feels a slight surge of energy/interest in his solar plexus. "Alright, I guess I'm doing that." He's got to do his morning ablutions, which feels "energy neutral," but to use it for a potential boost, treats himself to a few more minutes under the hot shower, and then, in fact, does feel a little uptick in energy from the sense of self-care. Then he's out the door, feeling a bit buoyed, though still with some dark-ish thoughts swirling around.
He drives to the café and gets his coffee and muffin, and as he anticipated, does in fact feel good about the familiar surroundings and the pleasantries exchanged with the usual barista. Then he has a half-hour of commute traffic before getting to his job. He's thinking, "Well, maybe this won't be a disastrous day," which is responded to within a less hopeful voice that says, "Well, the day's young. Don't get cocky." To which he feels a slight sinking, which, given that he's in a space to intentionally track his energy, he is mindful of as it happens. Instead of slumping, he speaks out loud to himself (having experienced previously this as having a more punchy effect), saying, "Wait there, we're not powerless. We're being careful and there's no reason it can't keep improving." Since this is a realistic statement, and not Pollyanna, that voice of hopelessness/powerlessness calms down a bit and Tim feels his energy rebound from that slight slumping.
He switches on the radio, to news, which is his typical habit, and tracks immediately the angst that starts as the announcer announces the dismalness de jour...so he switches over to a podcast on his phone, an interviewer with a novelist he likes, and feels less that tug of fear and overwhelm, even a sense of pleasure (pleasure is energy!) and consolation.
He makes it to work and as he is entering the building, feels the uptick in dread. He thinks maybe chatting for a minute with the receptionist in the lobby will help, but she's busy and doesn't give him much attention. He feels a sinking in his gut, and the thoughts from the morning come rushing back: "I'm not valuable, I'm not worthy of consideration, the company is going to push me out, people find me boring." He keeps ruminating like this till he gets to his cubical (having said a quick and formal "hi" to a few colleagues on the way), feeling slightly panicky, and heavy.
Again, having put himself on watch early in the morning, he can see what's happening, even if it got away from him just there. So he turns on the computer but instead of diving into the storm of email-the thought of which feels daunting-he just stills his body and stares at the screensaver, a mountain scene taken by his brother. He lets it soak in, and thoughts of his brother also come in, his one family member who has been unqualified in his support and appreciation of Tim. As he sits there, a new thought comes in: "Well, if this all goes to hell, I can always take off to Europe like I've been wanting. And my brother doesn't care at all if I'm a tech giant or a beach bum, and he's not going anywhere." He feels the flush of relief at the thought, and his body responds by releasing tensions he hadn't realized were there, and by feeling progressively more open and energized. He notes this change to himself as a way of reinforcing that, in face, he can work the knobs and levers of his own energy economy, that he does have efficacy and an ability to influence his experience, and that noticing itself gives him more confidence, stability, and energy.
And with that, he continues on through his day holding in mind, and working with, that simple question, "Energy positive, or energy negative?"
Wrapping Up
Ok, we'll leave Tim there. You can see how the "oxygen choices" we make-whether considered or unconscious, experimental or habitual-in a single day are ongoing and consequential, especially when depression is standing there, like a butler with a dense, heavy cloak, offering it for us to put it on. Normally, we make these choices fairly fluidly and skillfully, but when depression looms, we have to be more methodical and considered; again, either we do manage consciously, or depression will manage unconsciously.
Also notice that Tim doesn't set into his day with a rigid plan for avoiding depression, but rather, makes choices, experimentally, from situation to situation, with that vital question in mind: "Is this choice energy positive or energy negative?" Sometimes he works with depleting thoughts, internal situations. Sometimes with his body, like in the shower. Sometimes in the field of relationship, as when he goes to the café. Sometimes with imager and memory, as at his computer. Any of these aspects of our experience are potential resources for stabilizing or increasing energy, and we have to experiment as we go along. As always, experimentation is critical. If we set out with a rigid strategy, and then it (almost inevitably) fails, we are worse than we began because now "we failed," which is pretty close to being "we are a failure," which is a hair's breath from collapse and depression.
Once we've accepted that we really are not able to muscle through our lives and thereby avoid depression, that we don't have the level of control we all secretly or not so secretly want, then we are able to show up to the vicissitudes of our own energy economy, and make more and more informed, skillful, and effective "oxygen choices."
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