Depressed? Or Deep Rest?

There’s a clip of Jim Carrey that I’ve gone back to a few times.

He references a spiritual teacher, Jeff Foster, who reframes the word “depressed” as “deep rest.”

Deep rest.

Your body needing rest from the role you’ve been playing.

That idea stuck with me.

I’ve had days where I felt low. Just flat. I could have labeled it depression. Instead I looked at my sleep. It wasn’t great.

So I did something simple. I went to bed at 7 p.m. No scrolling. No pushing through. I slept close to ten hours. The next morning I felt clear. Lighter. More like myself.

I just rested.

Being rested also allowed me to connect better with my guides and higher self. It was a good reminder of how connected the body and the spiritual side really are. When I’m exhausted, everything feels foggy. When I’m rested, things feel open.

There are other things that have helped me too.

I do Bikram yoga. The heat. The humidity. Holding the postures while breathing through it. It forces my mind to slow down. There’s something about sweating like that, staying in the room, staying in the body. I leave calmer than when I walked in.

Running helps as well. It settles the mind in a different way. Intentional breathing. Even just a few minutes before bed. These daily things add up.

When I stopped drinking, my sleep improved dramatically. That alone changed a lot for me.

Magnesium helps. An eye mask helps. Keeping the room cool helps. Small adjustments, but they add up.

I’m finding there are less days that I’m down and more days that I’m up. And on the days that I am down, I don’t panic about it as much. I just try to get a good night’s sleep.

If you feel depressed, not connected, or just meh.

Maybe it’s just deep rest.

I know it has helped for me.