Struggling With Consistency

It’s that time of year again.

The nights are growing longer as the season grows colder, and while frigid temps makes for some amazing adventures, the day to day effects of Winter Blues (more precisely known as Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD) have been battering me this year. To even mention the year, that number which simultaneously lives in angered-disregard as the dream-killer’s annum and, for some, the drastic realignment of our goals and motivations brought on by quarantined reflections.

“Val, what the hell are you talking about?”

Buy Peterson’s book here. I enjoyed his reading of the book on Audible.

Seasonal depression, alright? That’s what I’m getting on about. I’m saying that I’m both grateful and spiteful of this year, but aside from having to shelf a project I had devoted much of the past two years to (Shout-out all my AT 2020 NOGOs), I am now waist-deep in the hardest part of the year. This isn’t a sob story about why I don’t particularly like the holidays or me wielding the pen to create a narrative in which I can acquire some leeway to shirk my responsibilities to myself and the various projects I’ve been planning. Actually, it’s quite the opposite.

I reread Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life” on my recent adventure trip up the East Coast and found a little piece of gold that I’d previously looked over. Dr.Peterson cited data that shows the effects of running away from our problems. He wrote that the very act of turning away from something that is difficult or scary actually deepens our physiological response to those things. In other words, if you think something is difficult and instead of facing it you run away, you will subconsciously see that thing as even more difficult than you had before.

“Ok, Val, but seasonal depression IS hard, we’re not just playing mind games to make it that way.”

Don’t I know it. I can’t keep track of the number of times I’ve laid paralyzed in my own bed watching the sun rise higher into the sky, knowing all the while that I should be getting on with what I needed to do for the day but instead embraced the succubus that was sitting on my chest. That floating ship of serotonin sinking instantly and without warning, as if some monster from the deep had rammed into it head-on and killed every bit of momentum I had generated for the day. I felt it often, and I feel it now too, but maybe that’s just what we need. If pressure makes diamonds, imagine what the pressures of this year can do for us.

Imagine with me how you will feel when the sun starts shining again knowing good and well you maintained your composure in the dark. The way it’ll seem almost easy next year to continue with the momentum you generated in spite of your body and the world around you saying it’s ok to take it easy and push off your goals until later.

It was 36 degrees and raining like crazy yesterday. The clouds swooped into the mountains and guaranteed that night would come early as they stole our last little bit of sunlight. But it didn’t matter. If I can hike in worse conditions for days on end, I can run in conditions like these. I can train for what will be coming next year in spite of everything that fell apart this year. So that’s what I did. I made the decision to run, to work on my website, to look over some contracts for work, to put energy into relationships I had been neglecting for some time. I ran towards what I found to be difficult instead of away from it despite the amount of effort it took to take those first steps, and once I started moving it actually felt easier. I felt better about doing it instead of letting the shadowy-clouds of what it appeared to be grow and swirl in my mind. Hell, I actually ran that mountain faster than I had ever done so before, and by a significant margin.

If we reap what we sow, then we all need to be sowing often. We should constantly remind ourselves of the reasons we do what we do, of the things that set our souls on fire and make our lives meaningful. I may have failed to claim one of the triple crown trails this year, but that means I’ve been given an opportunity to try again. I’ve been reassured in my goals in a bizarre piston-loaded punch to the gut kind of way, and the only thing standing between me and summitting Mt. Katahdin is the time before my next attempt and the discipline I put into my preparation now.

After running my fastest time. The rain slowly began to let up as I came off the mountain and started working my way back to the house.

When Spring returns and it’s time for me to step out onto the Arizona Trail I’ll be grateful for the work I’m doing now. And in the future when I’m writing a post summarizing my second attempt at the Appalachian Trail, I’ll look back on this Winter and know I did what I should’ve. I hope everyone who read this and struggles with the same mental weights follows in suit. You can thank yourself for it later, and I look forward to watching you all succeed.

-Val