There was a time when I used to get all excited about Christmas. Just in case you don't believe me, have a look at the picture below.

I look at that picture and I think "is that really me?!" Nowadays, I seem to have lost my Christmas zest. I used to think it was because of the depression (which of course had something to do with it) but I now know there is something else at play here. Something beyond my being clinically depressed.

As my hubby was sitting next to me, driving along in the wintry sunshine, I had a light-bulb moment. Just like that. Out of the blue. It suddenly occurred to me that my bi-polar disorder was a powerful physical metaphor for my 'Emotional Swing-o-Metre'.

I have spoken many times of the monster that lived inside my father and that could switch him from a warm loving daddy into a dangerous violent one. This was how I used to experience my father's own bi-polar disorder as a child.

After a few days of being dozed off my feet, I have resumed my office-clearing extravaganza. As a result of all that sorting out, two things have happened:

It was bound to happen: after my few days of cleaning and clearing, I am in serious dozing mode. This is the bottom of my little bi-polar wave. Up and down, up and down. Today is definitely down.

The Buddhists have a great saying: if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. This is not a gratuitous invitation to violence but a reminder that we owe it to ourselves to be intelligently skeptical and humbly self-reliant. I am right there with them.

I have already said that I considered 'energy management' - which I prefer to call Personal Ecology because I am not that fond of management speak - to be a crucial part of coaching. This is all very well but HOW can I actually DO it? 

I started by being slightly conflicted about it because I held two apparently opposed ideas:

There is a lot of talk these days about Work-Life Balance, and so there should be. I think this is a very important area of coaching.

I will never forget the day I looked at my goals sheet in my office and tore it to pieces. I had not achieved (nor was I ever likely to achieve) a single one of my short, medium and longer term goals. After three years of illness, I had simply run out of time. It took me weeks to 'process' the pain, the anger and the disappointment I felt as a result.

One of the most challenging aspects of my recovery has been, and continues to be, allowing myself to experience what I experience. My great fear has always been to give in because I used to equate it with giving up.

The way I started dealing with depression was by fighting against it with all my strength. As it got deeper, I fought more and more until I eventually ran out of steam. I am now aware that I exhausted myself as much as depression exhausted me.