Dr. Randy Carlson
As mentioned in the previous blog, Getting through an Emotional Dip, an emotional dip is a downward emotional experience from a few hours to several days in your life. We also said while emotional dips are a part of life, they are generally unexpected, unwelcomed and unavoidable.
Let’s look at the invisible dip. You usually don’t see it coming. Life seems to be okay and then, boom, there it is. I had one of those in 1998. I literally woke up one day, and I was depressed. I don’t know where it came from or why it happened. There was nothing unusual in my life that I can recall. It went from day-to-day-to-day. As a counselor, I started to think, I’ve got a serious clinical depression here. I’m going to need treatment. I tried to talk myself through it.
Nothing I said and nothing I did made it better. I didn’t lose my faith. I didn’t reject my marriage. I didn’t do anything weird or bizarre. I was just down. Taking long walks alone at times, just thinking, praying, reflecting and spending some time asking God to lift this darkness I was experiencing was the only thing that helped me. It lasted for about a month and then suddenly, it vanished. To this day, I don’t know where it came from or how it started, and I don’t know why it went away. But it’s given me empathy for people who go through depression.
An invisible dip really leads to the question: why is this happening? And sometimes it’s hard to answer.
While I was teaching on this topic, one participant shared, “I didn’t realize it was an invisible dip at the time. In those times, I would usually go to family; and they were my support group. It made me realize how much meaning you have in their lives and other’s lives. So, in finding and remembering that I have purpose. It’s helpful to be reminded of that constantly, because if you are in that dip, and you feel like you have no purpose, there must be a reason that you’re still here. Recognizing that can help you reattach and hopefully move through.”
The Apostle Paul said, “I press toward the goal” (Philippians 3:14). The key to remember when you hit an invisible dip in your life is to keep moving. Our first tendency when we hit a dip is to pull back, but scripture is very clear that God is with us and we need to keep moving.
One of the best things we can do when we face an invisible dip is to get up every day, thank God, and keep our focus on the goal.
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