the big black dog

I have been one acquainted with the night, the poet Robert Frost wrote so eloquently, I have walked out in rain, and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.

In that famous poem, Robert Frost was talking about his depression. Winston Churchill referred to his depression as his “big black dog,” a creature who would come and go at different parts in his life.

Like Winston Churchill, and Robert Frost, depression has been my unwelcome compassion for many periods of my life. Over the years, I really resonated with the image of a big black dog, an animal who would come and go, appear in my life without warning, never telling me how long it would stay, and how severely it would disrupt my life. I thought it was something I just had to live with, these large emotions of mine that would overtake me, like a storm.

Don’t be so sensitive, I was told. You’re a drama queen.

As a child and well into adulthood, intense emotions were something to be feared and suppressed. As a young mom, I was deeply ashamed of myself for the times I had depression, believing that it meant I was a bad mother.

My first experience with noticing my thoughts came when I found the book 10% Happier by Dan Harris. Still a young mom at the time, I started a meditation practice and it was a revelation in its simplicity—allowing myself to sit outside in the sun for twenty minutes or so, and quieting my mind. It felt like cracking the surface of a frozen lake and discovering an entire universe under the ice, and that universe was my own mind.

I was later introduced to yoga by a friend and a chiropractor, who told me I needed to stretch. When I first found Old Town Yoga, I walked through the wrong door, during a class, and cheeks red, received information about classes offered. When I finally had the courage to attend my first studio yoga class, it was another, startling revelation. There it was again, that wide, luminous universe spreading out before me, but now, I could feel it in my body.

Practicing yoga felt like coming home to my body for the first time. I would cry a lot when I first practiced yoga. For perhaps the first time in my life, I felt beautiful in my body as I entered the poses. I found the time to take a breath. To notice my thoughts and allow them all to be welcome, them all to be beautiful.

I keep practicing yoga because yoga is, indeed, a practice. A practice of a moving meditation. A practice of noticing your thoughts. A practice of loving kindness, sending love out to others. A practice of balance and moving my body. Yoga reminds me that my body is beautiful whatever shape it comes in. Yoga reminds me that my body is my home.

Now, when the black dog comes back (and yes, he still does from time to time), I know he will not be here for long. So I don’t chase him off, instead, I welcome him. I say hello. I give him a pat on the head, and maybe a biscuit. I ask him if he needs a nap. I tell him I love him…for that big black dog is also me.

And if he chooses to stay awhile, I invite him to sit by my feet, and stay awhile, as I sit in the sunshine. And breathe.