Sheet music and audio available for download at https://www.patreon.com/posts/pit-of-despair-129617603

PIT OF DESPAIR – Happy Mental Health Awareness Month! 🎗️ Is it wrong to have so much fun singing about the worst experiences of your life? I guess that’s how ‘the blues’ got popular. This song is particularly about letting go of caring too much about all the things you have no control over (i.e. fostering ‘light careless regard’). I’ve been pretty quiet lately regarding mental health issues, partly because at times it feels like people start to treat you like a ticking time-bomb if you’re too vocal about it. Regardless, I’m still filled with a longing to let people know what I’ve discovered in my road to recovery. First of all, if you’re perpetually unhappy (depressed, anxious, etc.), don’t assume that you’re normal and that this is just how everyone feels (some people call this ‘denial’). Secondly, while ‘the pursuit of happiness’ is inherently toxic (so, so toxic), there is much you can do to invite happiness in for a cozy cup of herbal tea (Bengal Spice = Yum). For me this has included:

• Letting go of toxic thought loops and replacing them with messages of trust (for me that is trust in God and Jesus, including prayers filled with gratitude for the wonders of the world and that I can let go of the past thanks to the atonement … you don’t have to keep punishing yourself forever because a former you was foolish).
• Meditation is all about the discipline of the mind. There are many forms, but most of them are about choosing the focus of your thoughts, rather than being swept away by the flood of your thoughts … you can’t always control your thoughts, anymore than you can control the weather, but meditation builds the strength of mind to refocus your mind on gratitude, your breath, lovingkindness, etc.. It has not only benefited me but people I love.
• Drugs for depression, anxiety, and insomnia often overpromise on how helpful they can be. Study after study shows that CBT, meditation, lifestyle, exercise, diet changes, and many other things can be more effective than medication. This is not a call of judgement; if medication is helping you, that is awesome. It just didn’t help me, and the side effects … oh, my (I’m convinced my insomnia medication was the straw that broke the camel’s back).
• Investing time in activities that bring you joy or into a ‘flow’ state. For me this has included joining an excellent choir (Cantorum) to experience musical bliss and bump elbows with people, doing lots of lyric writing, songwriting and composition, investing time in practice (lots of piano this year), and working toward worthy goals whether or not anyone else will care (i.e. recording and releasing songs, entering choral composition competitions, etc.). This also includes spending time in nature with my family (a big, huge love and thanks to my partner in life Dixie).

There’s more than I can impart in a single post, but these are some of the biggest things. My hope and prayer, in the words of a lovingkindness meditation, is ‘may be happy, may you be healthy, may you be filled with love and grace and gratitude and hope.’

Recording PIT OF DESPAIR was so much fun! I pulled my Godin Multi-Uke off the wall, my DigiTech Vocalist Live FX and ZOOM G3 out of mothballs and spent hours diving into finding and crafting patches … for the joy of it. The song is underpinned by my love for The Princess Bride and the band They Might Be Giants. I hope it brings a little joy to your life as it invites you to laugh at the ‘cares of the world.’

If you read this far … please post your favorite Princess Bride quote in the comments. 🙂

Post filed under All UkulelePlay! Blog Posts.