Shadows & Sunlight

More thoughts on Depression -
Another element to draw into this discussion is how we are created. I am not a psychologist or anything here, but we all know that we have different personalities.
You could break this into two groups:

Light & Dark

Light personalities might be classified as possessing (for the most part) the following characteristics: cheerfulness, joy, bubblyness, optimism, motivation, good will, loud, emotions on the sleeve, life of the party, large crowds, social butterfly, perhaps naive, friendly, eager, uppity.
Key words: bright colors, swiggly shapes, hearts and flowers

Dark - emotional, dramatic, gloomy, quiet, pessimistic, deep, thoughtful, hard to read, sometimes morbid, shy, one-on-one, calm, moody, hardworkers, polite, not easily excited, tending to be selfish, wistful, solitary.
Key words: darker colors, respites, tears, journaling, secrets.

I am not saying that these are the only two types that everybody fits into, because we all have characteristics in both these groups.

Light is naturally a joy bearer - but seems naive of human experience. Dark can also be a joy bearer, but it may take time to get there. Dark may be well versed in human experience and yet may have no joy, the experience itself has quenched the joy.

We need to cultivate both - If we are lost in the Dark (ha ha), then we will never have hope. . . this sort of depression seems so dangerous. If we are too Light, then we will never be able to experience the sorrows & trials which we need to shape and conform our characters.



I guess I sort of see this as a color wheel - (I looked at many of these to try to get a good mix of both dark and light; this one seemed okay.) I think of myself as a deep violet I guess. Its funny how I am naturally drawn to that color & feel like it too. I tend to be more on the dark side than light (ha ha), which I think is why I struggle with depression. Anyway, kind of interesting. I know that they use color wheels for psychology and even Christian counseling. Its a neat way to express how you feel.


Abra had mentioned interest in how I dealt with it. . .hmm - I journal about it> a lot. . . it seems to help too. I read a lot of Psalms, the ones that David wrote when he was in the depths - and I cry a lot. It helps so much just to cry, even if you can't find a reason for it. It does wonders. And I pray that I can move on. The Lord is always good, even when its hard.