Ryan J. McGinnis Counseling Services

01/07/2025

Healing is non-linear

01/07/2025

The natural voice and the synthetic voice:
January 7th, 2024

I have come to believe that if we were to be sycronized with the rhythms of season and daylight, many of our ailments would alleviate themselves.

It is just within the last century or so that we have made for ourselves perpetual synthetic light, and by that light we have made it the societal norm to push ourselves to be as productive on the days with the least amount of sunlight and the coldest weather as we are on the days with the most light and warmth.

For the last 30 years, January-mid March or so, I have annually battled a very deep depression that makes existence painful. But the records I have kept in my journals have left me a pathway through:

That if I listen to the natural promptings of my body, the natural voice, while I still the synthetic voice of self critique, then I am able to suffer bearably.

The natural voice prompting says “sleep. Sleep a lot. Conserve your energy. Be still. Hold space for thoughts and feelings. Even those scary ones.”

The synthetic voice, the one pushed on and into me says “You are lazy. In your laziness you are unlovable. If you cannot produce or provide then you are not fit to exist.”

My profession has confirmed for me that I am not the only one who hears the synthetic voice. Not only do many of us hear it, we judge others by it, and shame those who are already depleted.

If you are constrained to bed in the agony of your need for rest while at war with the expectation of perpetual production, then rest. Please rest. Rest until you cannot stand it anymore. And when you cannot stand it anymore then do.

And if you find that people are in opposition to your rest, then you will discover that they do not come to you with love for you but rather from a place of their own need of you. People needing you is not the same thing as people loving you.

01/02/2025

12/20/2024

I wrote this to and for myself on December 13th. I ponder it every time I leave home to run errands. It has served me well, and I suspect it might serve you:

My observation and experience of my fellow man as we go about the holiday season, both in my practice, and in my community, is that everyone around me is panicking. We whip ourselves up into a frenzy, in order to make ourselves more productive to achieve all of the things that need done this holiday season. In the final analysis, if you hold the space to take one, you have achieved, almost nothing by doing this, except the degradation of your emotional, mental and physical well-being as well as the deterioration of your household’s well-being.

You have to let go. You have to let go of this vision of the future that you are holding onto and trying to create. It is killing you and ruining your relationships. When you go to the grocery store, say these words to yourself:

Slow. Slow. Slow

Move with deliberateness and consciousness. Pay attention only to what you are doing and not what you need to do. Acknowledge the humanity of everyone you interact with, especially those in the service industry. Do not see your community as objects in the way of your goals. See your community as “fellow travelers to the grave” (a Christmas Carol)

12/15/2024

Rage isn’t the curse, apathy is.

“Anger is an acceptable form of grief.
You don't have to make your emotions palatable to those who are unmoved.
Rage isn't the curse, apathy is.”

12/11/2024

There is a part of you that you are ignoring and neglecting in order to make the holiday magic happen, or to preserve the peace in your home. If you continue to ignore this part of you, you will either freak out on everybody at precisely the wrong moment, or have a major depressive episode in the bowels of winter.

Check in with and listen to this part of you. Listen to all parts of you.