In case you haven’t heard the news, Richard Simmons is missing. Not missing in that no one knows of his whereabouts, but more like he is missing from public life–and has been for several years now.

A longtime mainstay of late night TV and shock jock radio, the lovable Simmons has been missing from radio and television airwaves for three years. The exercise guru’s home was a perpetual stop on the Hollywood celeb bus tours, and Simmons could be counted on to entertain the tourists regularly. He also taught a weekly exercise class at his studio, Slimmons, and was actively in contact with friends and fans around the world–and then he wasn’t. Simmons suddenly, without any warning, retreated to his Hollywood mansion. What is disturbing to some is not that he retreated from his fame, but that he retreated from those to whom he was close.

Enter “Missing Richard Simmons,” a new podcast called the “next cult audio obsession” by The New York Times. Filmmaker Dan Taberski was a Slimmons regular and a friend of Richard’s. Before Simmons disappeared from public life, he and Taberski had been in talks about a documentary featuring Simmons. “Missing Richard Simmons” is a continuation of that work and is Dan’s search for Richard–the deeper he digs, the stranger it gets. Simmons was last seen in public on February 2014, and the podcast premiered three years later almost to the day.

The show has not debuted without criticism, though. Wired magazine’s headline on the story sums up the disparagement best, “’Missing Richard Simmons’ is gripping. And also kinda icky.” Taberski is at the center of the of it all with critics claiming that the podcast is less the work of a friend and more the work of self-serving exploitation. I say, it’s a lot more complicated than that.

For many, Simmons might have been thought of as a has-been, a caricature, a wacky figure to ignore, but through Taberski’s storytelling, a much more complex and layered picture of Simmons emerges. While the exploration of someone’s life (and retreat from public life) without their consent seems wrong, the humanizing of a figure many have easily dismissed has merit. The podcast, just like the man it seeks to find (or more accurately to lure out of seclusion), is much more complicated than it first appears to be.

There are many theories behind the disappearance of Simmons, and for more on those you will need to listen to “Missing Richard Simmons.” The podcast will feature just six episodes, and you can catch each one on iTunes, GooglePlay, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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ColumnI’m always surprised when people are shocked when they discover that successful, funny, generally pleasant people are often dealing with depression, anxiety, or another type of mental illness.

While it’s hard to grasp in general, we all should know by now that a person can seem to have it all and still suffer from a mental illness. After all, you can’t bribe, wish, or pay away the sads — you kind of just have to live with them and hope for the best.

When Robin Williams killed himself a little over a year ago, the Internet was filled with think pieces about depression and how it affects all types people. Most of these articles were well meaning, but total fluff. The general reader is well aware that if she is feeling depressed, she can go to a counselor, call the suicide hotline, or tell a friend. But the tricky truth about mental illness is this: If you are depressed, it’s practically impossible to do anything. Getting out of bed feels like sticking a needle through your tongue, and talking to anyone feels like the most cumbersome burden.

So, how can these illnesses be taken more seriously? Education is key. And no, I’m not referencing some mental health pamphlet that can be found in any American medical office. I’m taking about the type of education that comes from people who many Americans know and love.

Two such people who recently revealed their brutal and on-going battles dealing with depression are Sarah Silverman and Lady Gaga.

Bust recently reported that Silverman penned an incredibly heartfelt essay in Glamour about the, let’s face it, totally shitty ins and outs of being totally overwhelmed with sadness. According to the website, Silverman wrote the essay “in anticipation” of the comedian’s upcoming film, “I Smile Back.” The film is about a woman who self-medicates to feel “normal.”

In the Glamour piece, Silverman describes her first experience with depression as follows:

“I first experienced depression when I was 13. I was walking off a bus from a school camping trip. The trip had been miserable: I was, sadly, a bed wetter, and I had Pampers hidden in my sleeping bag—a gigantic and shameful secret to carry. My mom was there to pick me up, and she was taking pictures like a paparazzo. Seeing her made the stress of the last few days hit home, and something shifted inside me. It happened as fast as the sun going behind a cloud. You know how you can be fine one moment, and the next it’s, ‘Oh my God, I f—king have the flu!’? It was like that. Only this flu lasted for three years. My whole perspective changed.”

Silverman goes on to describe how she went through various therapists and different types of medication. While Silverman now is able to control her depression with a low dose of Zoloft and therapy, she knows that “it” isn’t gone. She says she gets through the tough times by remembering the following:

“I wouldn’t wish depression on anyone. But if you ever experience it, or are experiencing it right now, just know that on the other side, the little joys in life will be that much sweeter. The tough times, the days when you’re just a ball on the floor—they’ll pass. You’re playing the long game, and life is totally worth it.”

Lady Gaga also recently revealed she deals with depression. In a Billboard interview, Gaga said she still suffers through anxiety and depression everyday. She talks about her experiences to help her fans, especially the kids, realize that these intense feelings are normal and it’s the world we live in that’s messed up.

So, while the uncomfortable truths about depression, anxiety, and the pressures of the modern world are hard for most people to stomach, these unofficial “mental illness facts” need to continue to be shouted from the rooftops by people who are compassionate and lucky enough to have a well-broadcasted soapbox. If more Lady Gagas and Sarah Silvermans begin to openly talk about their messed up but totally normal feelings, people could begin to treat these sicknesses seriously, and with kindness.

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Climate change is a major bummer. Already, the warming planet is wreaking havoc around the world in the form of natural disasters, environmental contamination, ocean acidification and, oh yeah, almost zero fresh water for us to drink or bathe in. Plus, the thought of a planet without polar bears, as terrifying as they are, is enough to make anyone with a heart (not you, Donald Trump!) rather melancholy, if not downright weepy.

Even leading climate scientists and experts are struggling with depression over this looming doom, as Grist recently reported. The data alone are staggering enough to make anyone feel hopeless about all the human-inflicted damage to the planet; and the fact that, despite the mounting scientific evidence, there’s still so much resistance and denial about climate change around the world, also takes a pretty hefty toll on researchers and those among us who understand the gravity of the situation.

But the fun doesn’t stop there.

Scientists say our moods are more tied to the environment than we may realize. “We’ve totally misunderstood our connection to the natural world,” Ashlee Cunsolo Willox, a Canada Research Chair at Cape Breton University told The Tyee. Cunsolo is looking at how rising global temperatures affect the mental well-being of Canada’s Inuit: “Very few people are going to be untouched,” she says. Other studies point to the benefits nature has in boosting our moods, and with climate change threatening to wipe out many of our favorite nature spots, it’s no surprise this will have lasting effects on our psyche.

“Our psyches may in fact remain deeply vulnerable to environmental change,” Geoff Dembicki wrote in The Tyee. “After Hurricane Katrina, for instance, Harvard researchers found the rate of ‘serious mental illness’ among survivors to be double that of the general population.”

If a warming planet makes us depressed, and climate scientists become too depressed to do anything about it, this doesn’t bode well for the future of humanity. “Look to Australia, where 25 percent of kids ‘honestly believe [the world] will come to an end before they get older,'” reports Dembicki.

While the world is not likely to come to an end anytime soon, those of us who call it home (including Donald Trump and fierce polar bears), might soon find ourselves reconciling with a stark new set of nature-compromised circumstances. It ain’t gonna be pretty, the experts warn, and the slow build-up means increasing cases of depression along the way to what could be the total collapse of humankind. Pass the Prozac. The good news, however—if there really is any—is that we may be so busy dealing with climate change-inflicted natural disasters that we may not have enough time to lay around on the couch feeling blue. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram

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Does binge-watching make you lonely and depressed, or do you binge watch because you are already feeling lonely and depressed?

In roughly two weeks time, oodles of people around the world (me included) will be glued to their televisions, binge-watching the new season of “House of Cards”. And while this whole binge-watching phenomenon might seem like a harmless habit – since, you know, everybody’s doing it – new research suggests it could be a sign of something more serious.

A recent study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found that the more lonely and depressed you are, the more likely you are to binge-watch.

Researchers asked 316 18- to 29-year-olds about their binge-watching habits: How often they watched TV, how often they had feelings of loneliness, depression and struggled with self-control (i.e. the ability to step away from the TV), and finally how often they have binge-watching sessions. They found the more lonely and depressed participants were, the more likely they were to use binge-watching as a way of avoiding negative feelings.

Seventy-five percent of participants admitted to binge-watching, with most watching an average of one to three hours of TV and 13.5 percent watching up to five hours. (Five people reported watching seven hours or more!) Researchers found participants who watched the most episodes at once were lonelier, sadder and had less self-control over clicking to the next episode than people who didn’t binge watch at all.

This doesn’t mean that binge-watching causes loneliness and depression, it just means there’s an association between the habit and the emotions that might trigger it. I totally understand this rut – you know, because I’ve experienced it myself – and it’s such a slippery slope. I struggled the most with it when I first learned I had severe adrenal fatigue, and was much more interested in what was going on with the characters on “Grey’s Anatomy” than in my own life. Mainly, because the characters were capable of functioning in a compelling, high-octane environment, and at the time it took me two hours to pep talk myself just to check the mail.

But the more you avoid the things that are bothering you in your life, the more likely you are to create an even bigger mess – and the more likely you are to avoid it by hanging out in Shondaland. Slippery. Slope.

Here are a few things that helped me get out of my binge-watching rut:

1. Take breaks between episodes

Instead of watching one episode right after the other, I’d take a break between episodes and tackle something in my life I was using binge-watching to avoid. I’d head into the next episode feeling as motivated as I was relieved, until before I knew it I wanted to tackle life more than I wanted to watch TV.

2. Don’t binge on workdays

I never binge watch during the week now – only on weekends (and not every weekend, obvi). For me, binge-watching after a busy week is a refreshing way to relax because I feel like I’ve “earned” the time to decompress. And I always take breaks between episodes to get things done around the apartment and catch up with the people in my life. It’s become more of a casual pastime than a borderline addiction.

3. Exercise while binge-watching

I bought a FitDesk specifically for the shows I still don’t trust myself with – mainly, anything from Shondaland. No matter how hard I try, there are certain shows I just can’t peel myself away from after one episode. My mind is still thinking about the show while my physical being is bumping into walls and tripping over things. So now, I exercise in a pathetic attempt to make up for it.

Do you have any quirky binge-watching habits?

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So, how many of you have ever had a panic attack while at work? Have any of you had compulsive thoughts about a person, thing, or event? If so, The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast should be on your must-listen-to list.

Paul Gilmartin, a talented comedian, helms The Mental Illness Happy Hour. Gilmartin started the show to give people who are “affected by depression, addiction, and other mental challenges” a place to kickback, listen, and cringe. The hour-plus long podcast typically consists of an interview Gilmartin does with a listener, another comedian or creative type, or a professional. He and the interviewee traverse, in depth, on the guest’s mental bug-a-boos.

I’ve only listened to this podcast for a month or so, but I can say, as a card-carrying nutty person, that Gilmartin’s work is amazing. He is incredibly open with his guests and has shared his story on more than one occasion. The way he handles sensitive issues and mental illness is spot on. He never talks down to a guest or shames anyone for his or her thoughts or feelings. It is truly one of the safest, most cathartic pieces of art I have ever heard. I can’t count the number of times he’s had a guest on and I’ve said to myself, “Holy crap — other people do that, too?” Apparently, depression, anxiety, and weirdness aren’t all that uncommon!

Gilmartin founded the podcast to give listeners a place to connect because no matter how alone people with mental illness feel, they aren’t alone. To help facilitate an open conversation, he also has created a message board where people can converse. He also allows listeners to fill out surveys. The surveys allow people to share their inner turmoil in an open, anonymous, and non-judgmental way.

Along with providing an awesome, weekly podcast, Gilmartin also has a blog where professionals post to and give advice.

While this podcast is totally killer and should be part of your weekly playlist, remember: it’s not a substitute for therapy. However, it’s a great therapy companion. Think of it as adding 10mg to your daily antidepressant (or choice of herbal supplement), or getting an extra therapy session a week that’s free!

If any of this appeals to you, head over to The Mental Illness Happy Hour and get listening. I recommend starting with Lauren Ashley Bishop’s interview. It’s raw, hilarious, and amazing.

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The psychiatric drug industry is massive. More than $70 billion a year in sales, just in the U.S., are for drugs to treat mental health issues—mainly disorders like anxiety and depression. 

While psychedelic drugs—LSD, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, etc.—have been stigmatized as reckless party drugs that may even cause mental breakdowns themselves, science is proving the opposite is true and that they may be more helpful in supporting mental and emotional health than previously believed.

In a recent study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, MRI scans of brains under the influence of psilocybin were compared with normal brain activity.

“The brains on psilocybin showed radically different connectivity patterns between cortical regions (the parts thought to play an important role in consciousness),” reports the New York Times. “The researchers mapped out these connections, revealing the activity of new neural networks between otherwise disconnected brain regions.”

This discovery may explain the sort of synesthesia experienced while under the influence of psychedelics—tasting sounds, seeing flavors and aromas, hearing colors, etc. While these effects are almost always temporary, the scientists see potential in treating anxiety and depression disorders with these experiences. “The fact that under the influence of psilocybin the brain temporarily behaves in a new way may be medically significant in treating psychological disorders like depression,” the Times explains. “When suffering depression, people get stuck in a spiral of negative thoughts and cannot get out of it,” lead study author Paul Expert of King’s College London told the Times, “One can imagine that breaking any pattern that prevents a ‘proper’ functioning of the brain can be helpful.”

Psychedelics can be life altering, even years after one experience. In the case of addressing depression, a psychedelic experience, the researchers noted, can serve like a brain reboot. “When ingested, psilocybin metabolizes to psilocin, which resembles the chemical structure of serotonin — a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, appetite, sleep, cognitive functions like memory and learning and feelings of pleasure,” the Times explains. “Psilocin may simulate serotonin, and stimulate serotonin receptors in the brain.”

This isn’t the first study to find benefits in psychedelic medications. According to the Times:

One study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2012, rated the vividness of autobiographical memory of subjects on psilocybin and found the drug enhanced their recollection, and ‘subjective well-being’ upon follow-up. The researchers concluded that psilocybin might be useful in psychotherapy as an adjunct therapy to help patients reverse “negative cognitive biases” — a phenomenon common in depression by which one has a greater recall of negative memories than positive ones — and facilitate the recall of important memories.

Other studies have suggested that psilocybin may modify obsessive compulsion by reducing symptoms like repetitive counting or hand-washing, and in a paper published in Neurology in 2006, the authors interviewed cluster headache sufferers who had used psilocybin to treat their horrific condition, and learned that even low doses — less than is needed to actually trip — could bring about remission. (I also know someone who claims psilocybin cured his stuttering.) A study published last year in the journal Experimental Brain Research found that psilocybin eliminated conditioned fear responses in mice, which has implications for sufferers of PTSD. And psilocybin has been shown to relieve anxiety, depression and despair in terminal cancer patients, who describe their experience as giving them a new perspective on their lives.

Psilocybin actually has a history of being explored as a treatment for conditions including alcoholism and aiding the terminally ill as far back as the 1950s, before being banned as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. “But clinical research into psilocybin became professionally marginalized, and research funding dried up about the same time it entered the mainstream as a recreational drug,” reports the Times.

Now, as the Drug War is being exposed as ineffective and incredibly expensive, the perception of psychedelic drugs is changing. Add to that the fact that pharmaceuticals don’t always work for everyone battling mental health issues. It can take a doctor and patient several tries to find a pharmaceutical drug that works for a patient, and the drugs can also have significant side effects. They are expensive, and they can present serious challenges to a patient who decides to stop taking their medication. The author David Foster Wallace’s suicide was connected to his psychiatric medication no longer working when he tried to resume the dosage after a period of time off of the medication.

Anxiety and depression disorders are the most common forms of mental illness in the U.S., with more than 20 percent of Americans taking some sort of mind-altering prescription drugs. These conditions are prevalent around the world, too, considered the leading cause of impairment and disability.

Even with a strong spiritual or religious faith, it’s easy to feel abandoned, anxious, confused, depressed and scared about both living and dying. While there are stigmas about psychedelic drugs, life itself is pretty psychedelic. And enhancing reality with intense psychedelic experiences can reawaken our connections to the mysteriousness of life–and death–taking away some of the anxiety. Often times that includes going directly into our deepest fears first on a psychedelic journey. But it’s the deep clarity and grounded perspective that almost always surfaces after the fear and discomfort of a psychedelic journey that has the potential to last. And if these experiences can reawaken our relationship to ourselves and the earth at a time when we need a good bit of both, isn’t it time we explore all possibilities?

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies. While people in the world around us can be difficult, often times we’re the ones that make it so. We treat ourselves worse than any bully possibly could. On the other hand, and equally problematic, sometimes we blame the world for our own shortcomings. The world must be out to get us and so is everyone in it. Stop negative thinking and making life more difficult than it needs to be. 

1. You let people steal your time.

It’s more important than money and success because you can never get it back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Yet, often times we let the world steal our time. Whether we stay late at the office five days a week, let the same gossipy acquaintance talk our ear off daily, or go to events we don’t really care about–your time is a precious resource so don’t let anybody steal it. You don’t realize how important your time is because you don’t think you’re important. Stop negative thinking that allows time suckers.

2. You procrastinate.

I wrote an article recently about the real reason we procrastinate. And in fact, we’re only hurting ourselves. A video from School of Life shines a light on why you may be procrastinating, claiming that the fear of failure and not succeeding may actually stop you from getting anything done.

3. You assign intent.

When something bad happens, do you always think the person that caused it was trying to hurt you? Whether it’s getting cut off in traffic or a friend that forgot to text you back. It always cuts deeper if you think it was meant to hurt you. Stuff happens in life and trust me, you’re not the center of everyone’s life, you’re just the center of your own. If the cashier at the coffee shop frowned instead of smiled, give her a break because she might just be having a bad day.

4. You don’t trust yourself.

Asking for advice is great but at some point you have to learn to trust yourself. You’re the only one that truly and completely knows what you want out of life, so don’t expect others to fill in the gaps. Trust yourself and your abilities.

5. You compare yourself to others.

Gauging your own success by comparing yourself to others is a no-win game. On one hand, comparison thinking is natural because our minds love to rank, file, and organize, but it’s too easy to get sucked into the depressing pattern of jealousy and competition. Notice when you’re doing it and halt the behavior before you get in too deep.

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Try these untraditional comfort foods for healthy and delicious ways to improve mood.

The idea behind the traditional interpretation of “comfort food” is not so ill-conceived. When our blood sugar levels are low, we are hungry or we are upset, nothing feels quite as satisfying – as filling, in more than the physical sense of the word – than sitting down and enjoying a delicious, warm, nostalgia-ridden, heavy meal. It’s comfort. But beyond this brute definition of comfort food, there’s what lies between the fine lines. Some foods provide comfort because of their nutritional content and how they fuel the body to biochemically relax, fight stress and feel physical comfort. Why destroy your dietary goals after a break up by feasting alone on a pint of ice cream when real comfort comes in a lighter, healthier package?

Here are 5 ways to improve mood with real foods that help to fight stress and overcome bouts of depression without weighing you down or defeating their initial purpose.

Now, it will take more than just a bit of one of the following comfort foods to completely dissolve you of all your worries, but they will contribute to you keeping your cool. Better yet, all of the following 5 comfort foods are vegan! Sit back, relax and enjoy.

1. Asparagus

I love when asparagus season is in full swing, and it takes very little effort to enjoy them. A dash of salt and pepper, a drizzle of olive oil and a stint in the oven later, you have yourself the perfect side dish. And that’s exactly what asparagus is good for – ease. According to one study, asparagus attenuated the elevated weight of adrenal glands and increased the reduced weight of the spleen induced by stress, making it a fit anti-stress food.

One cup of cooked asparagus contains 67 percent of the RDA of the B-vitamin folate, which, when deficient in the body, induces oxidative stress, increased blood pressure and insulin resistance. A diet rich in folate can prevent this from occurring.

2. Chocolate

It’s true. Women’s intuition has outpaced scientific revelations when it comes to chocolate. A recent study has shown that dark chocolate lowers blood pressure due to the antioxidants polyphenols and flavonols.

3. Cashews

I always pick the cashews out of any nut mix I encounter, mostly because they taste the best, but maybe I was fishing for comfort, too. Cashews are rich in zinc, containing more than 50 percent of the RDA in a 100-gram serving. Zinc deficiency has been linked to mood disorders, anxiety and depression. Just be sure to limit your serving size, as cashews are high in calories and fat. A handful is enough.

4. Blueberries

When life gets tough, it’s not like we run to the refrigerator and feast on berries, hoping to chill out, but maybe we should? Blueberries are exceptionally high in antioxidants and vitamin C, an anti-stress warrior. Vitamin C lowers blood pressure and attenuates the adrenal stress hormone, the anti-inflammatory polypeptide response to prolonged exercise and circulating cortisol.

5. Avocados

Avocados are creamy and full of healthy fats. They also contain a power antioxidant called glutathione, which blocks intestinal absorption of certain fats that cause oxidative damage. Because avocados are largely fat, they also fill you up and keep you satiated, which is its own form of comfort.

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Yes, this is another Internet post on Robin Williams’ suicide. But hear me out.

Like most people my age, I grew up watching Robin Williams do what only he could do. “Mork and Mindy” is one of the earliest sitcoms I remember watching, only this one I watched with bated breath. There was simply no one cooler than that silly, adorable alien. What would he do next? Everyone was asking that same question because, no one ever knew.

My dad had a video recording of Robin Williams’ live performance at the Met and my siblings and I would watch it sometimes daily, even though most of the jokes were over our heads and significantly inappropriate for children our age. Still, we loved watching him morph into other people, shapeshifting right before our eyes like some supernatural creature. There was always something inoffensive about Robin Williams’ way of handling offensive topics, something genuinely kind and childlike. Perhaps that’s why my dad let us watch that performance repeatedly. Perhaps that’s why America grieves so heavily over this loss.

My family and I also fell in love with Robin Williams as T.S. Garp in the 1982 movie “The World According to Garp,” a film we watched more times than I can count. He personified what it meant to grow up in a world as the terribly shy, sexy and then sad John Irving character that Garp was; the way Robin Williams played him made it so perfectly humbling and beautiful, especially in the final moments of the film. I’m 100 percent certain that Robin Williams as the writer Garp influenced me to become a writer. To a ten-year-old, he made writing seem like both a responsibility and catharsis. He justified journeying into my own imagination and gave me permission to explore my own well of creativity as well, even if it would never compare to the abundant warehouse of inventiveness that was Robin Williams.

Along with the millions of other adoring fans, the news of Robin Williams’ death hit me in the gut, hard. Much harder than I would have ever imagined. I have cried three times in the last several days imagining his last lonely moments alive—what those once hilarious voices in his head must have been saying, and the tremendous, unbelievable grief that was no doubt hovering like an unmovable boulder. An Orkian space egg that would never make it back home. The heartbreaking fact that it came down to that unbearable moment for him—that friend to all of us, diffusing the absurdity and rigidity of our culture for decades—punctuates the profundity of his career. It illuminates the raw and sheer absurdity of being human–the pain and beauty and the line that so often blurs between the two.

One of the biggest tragedies in the wake of Robin Williams’ death is the repeated mentions of him as being a “coward” or taking the easy way out in committing suicide and abandoning his family. It has sparked controversy and newscaster name-calling, but it also has brought attention to the severity of depression and the brute finality that suicide is. A commitment indeed.

When I heard Robin Williams being called a coward, my immediate reaction was the opposite; that he was so very brave. Not that suicide is a brave or heroic decision or ever even the right one, but coming to terms with our darkest feelings is brave. It’s the hardest of the human endeavors that even our most beloved stars struggle with deeply, often times more than we can imagine. A line of friends and strangers miles long would certainly have met Robin Williams to support and console him if he had let the world know he was moving towards his ultimate decision. He knew this without question. He chose what he chose anyway. Who are we to say he made a wrong decision, let alone one of cowardice?

Euthanasia for the terminally ill is legal in some countries, and it hopefully will become as widely accepted and appreciated as receiving any type of medical treatment for terminal illnesses. Robin Williams’ disease wasn’t physical—there was no tumor eating away at his lungs or brain (although news has surfaced that he was suffering from early onset of Parkinson’s disease). But he was suffering from a debilitating, painful illness that he couldn’t stand for one more moment. If that’s not terminal, I don’t know what is. Perhaps if he could have just held on another day, things might have changed. The darkest hour is always just before the dawn, after all. But instead, he decided he’d had enough. He took inventory, hopefully made one last joke to himself, and then bravely left us all with the most candid glimpse of what it really meant to be Robin Williams.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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“When you’re depressed, nothing matters. When you’re sad, everything does.”
– Gloria Steinem, via @spiver, aka Susan Spiver, author of The Wisdom of a Broken Heart

“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.

Danielle LaPorte is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide for Creating Success on Your Own Terms (from Random House/Crown). An inspirational speaker, former think tank exec and business strategist, she is the creator of the online program The Spark Kit: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs and co-author of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan. Over a million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice on DanielleLaPorte.com, a site that has been deemed “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.”

You can find her on Facebook and on Twitter @daniellelaporte

Image: foxspain

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