"So you're feeling a sense of hopelessness," the therapist said to me.
"No, I'm feeling despair," I clarified.
"Same thing. You're feeling hopeless," she came back.
"Nooo, I don't feel it's hopeless, I'm experiencing despair. I feel disheartened, but there's still hope here," I said.
"Hope and despair are pretty similar," she said.
"Look it up." I shrugged. "I'm going with despair."

(We didn't last too long as therapist/patient.)

I relish in semantics ("the meaning, or an interpretation of the meaning, of a word.") The more you know about the true definition of a word, the more powerful it is when you speak it. Precision is power.

Depressed and Sad are two very powerful, similar, misappropriated words. Portal words. Sacred words. And if we look more closely at them, we can claim what's true for ourselves and set about transforming depression and sadness into their contrasting states.

Sadness hurts but it signals that you are very, very much alive.
Depression may be the cousin of sadness, sometimes the defended response to unyielding sadness, but it makes you feel anything but alive. It dulls, weighs, and messes with your memory of your true essential nature -- which is that of joy.

I've been through wrenching heart breaks. I've left a decade-long relationship that is still intertwined with my DNA; been devastated by betrayal in business; said goodbye to overseas love that was doomed from the magical start. I've cried those guttural cries that dying animals make, I've canceled meetings because grief caught me off guard en route. I moved arthritically, lugging my heart in a wagon, to get groceries and tend to life on the surface. And through it all, I've felt undeniably, and intensely alive. And this, this is sadness. Acute, sometimes enduring, but always sensory and evocative, sadness.

When you're sad, you're feeling. Sometimes, more than you want to. You wish you could be despondent, but the sadness is sharp and it bleeds your attention from you.

Depression -- a term our med-happy nation uses much too glibly -- dulls one's feelings. Where sadness makes you feel raw and skinless, depression is like wearing a snow suit and mittens and wondering why you can't feel the caress of life. Sadness strips you. As I was just reminded, "Sadness is so f--king cleansing." Depression is muddy and muffling and numbing.

Depression vs. Sadness
Each comes with different gifts, challenges and assignments
Each is a sacred state. Both divine and brutal.
But not the same.
When you respect the difference, you're closer to the cure.

. . . . . . .

INTERVIEW
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For 21 days, we’ll be doing 5 days of yoga a week and 800 words of writing per day.

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THE YOGA: There are several options for you to do the yoga portion of 21.5.800 5 times in 7 days. Here are the options: 1. Go to a yoga class in your ‘hood. 2. Do a yoga dvd at home. 3. Take a 20-40 minute savasana* at home on the floor.

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Follower Bindu on Twitter: @binduwiles

Dear Friend,

Om shanti. Sometimes when we are together, you ask me why I don't seem to get tired when I travel from India or give programs into the evening. Tiredness is a kind of sickness. When we work with honesty and love, everything happens without tiredness. When we know how to take cooperation from others, there is no tiredness. It is not a matter of how long we sleep that determines whether we feel tired. It is waste and negative thoughts and actions that create tiredness. Create positive thoughts and elevated actions and you will take strength from that, and your tiredness will leave you.

Work for money and you will count your hours and your salary. Work for love, and you can work 16 hours a day with happiness and without getting tired. Serving others brings energy. You will then feel your happiness accumulating.

Love,
Dadi Janki

I think a lot of us have a big story around needing sleep. I know what science says about sleep and overall wellness ("eight hours is a must.") But then, science doesn't have quite as much to say about the chemical effects of joy or enthusiasm. Many eastern teachers believe that we are a culture that sleeps too much. Some practicing monks get by on five hours a night. Apparently Einstein slept in four hour increments to just "rest his brain."

Rest is the Great Healer. In fact it's the only time that the body is concentratedly repairing itself. But it's worth considering that, under normal circumstances, perhaps we don't need as much sleep as we've been lead to believe. Happiness over matter.

One thing I know for sure about myself, is that if I'm enthusiastic, I feel fully rested on less sleep. If I'm complaining or stressed, I need more sleep, I crave it. I feel the same way now about sleeping as I did when I was five years old: I'd rather stay up because I just don't want to miss anything. I figure there will be lot's of time to sleep when I die.

How about you?