Pre Christmas I thought that I may be on the brink of post natal depression. But it turned out just to be a severe dose of self pity, entitlement and selfishness! Dom was ill, I was needing to pick up some of the slack and I got into an ugly spiral of thinking about myself; counting what he wasn’t doing and what i was doing and then remembering everything difficult and bad all at once. Resulting in a few episodes of tears. Bill Johnson said that he is ‘never more than three minutes from depression’. I now get it. As I got into a spin of focussing on myself and what others should and weren’t doing to help me, I went south fast and was tempted to believe all sorts of lies about myself and others. (I am not claiming to have all the answers for depression here, just sharing my limited experience.)

The more I talked through my feelings and what was wrong, the more i felt justified in my frustration, but this did not bring any hope or light to the situation, if anything it made it worse. Through all the wrestling I was crying out to God to make sense of all that i was feeling and He graciously led me to the following talk series which brought me a HUGE amount of freedom. So i want to share it with you all here. 

To listen/watch; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyADX-s58M0&list=PLWs3dXHyhcYmjXOQ__0uk43ukesSJTbpw
To read; https://www.awmi.net/reading/teaching-articles/root_grief/
Andrew Womack sets the bar wonderfully high with what it looks like to live free from self and I am nowhere near yet, but embracing the multiple ‘course corrects’ a day to try and keep heading that way.
As we aim to live God focussed rather than self focussed, we will find ourselves joyfully free. In the next few weeks we are going to look more at the theme of loving ourselves well, with the foundation of God-centredness rather than self-centredness. 
Stay tuned and if possible, do your pre-season homework by checking out the links above. 
Love Thea x