No retreat, no surrender that is spartan law!
When suffering from depression we have to options. Two listen to the feelings and thoughts of sadness and negativity that often come with physical pains or we can choose to take the difficult path, confront how we feel and challenge ourselves into situations.
It can be quite easy to choose the option of shrinking into our beds and from the world and let our negative thoughts and feelings win, that is fine, we all need to do it now and again but it is really important that we also find our inner spartans ( or spartan-esses) to fight back against depression.
The thing about being depressed is that it makes everything you do so heavy, like gravity has gone up a notch in strength and it feels almost impossible to do even the basic things but you HAVE TO FIND YOUR INNER SPARTAN, the ones that won’t give up and won’t be defeated until they have no breath left to take. You never give up, you never throw in your towel, that is not the way to grow stronger and you can be strong!
Fight back against depressive feelings and thoughts
Warning : The above video contains violent scenes.
The video above is a very famous fight scene from the 300 movie but you can interpret this scene in a new way that may help you in overcoming your depression. In life we are confronted with many many problems, some things that we can’t control and are very painful happen and we want to just run away from them and hide. That doesn’t work.
You need to see yourself as one of those Spartan’s fighting, each soldier attacking is the problem you face, nothing can defeat you , you are strong and undefeatable and you keep moving forward as you take on each soldier/problem. You swipe one problem aside, another one appears but you manage to fight each one easily until…
…a mass of darkness engulfs above you and you have to retreat under your shield…
This can be represented as taking a break or a problem being too big to tackle straight away. Notice how the spartans laugh at the massive attack, this is what you can try to do, see the funny side of any situation and choose to laugh at whatever the problem may be.
Once the problem is over you realise it wasn’t so bad, you are still alive to tell your tale and you recover to take on the next dark solider that chooses to challenge you.
Find your inner spartan / spartan-ess
So next time you feel you are overcome by your depression wipe down your mental shield, put on your helmet, pick up your sword and head straight on into your battle, you CAN defeat anything that comes your way with the right positive mental state.
Keep moving forward! THIS IS SPARTA HEALTH!
I hope you enjoyed this article and take on thinking about the Spartan story in a different way.