like the weather- feelings move through too

Last night I felt a spirit in my room. It helped that it was windy and stormy outside, and that there was something making tiny little rustling sounds somewhere underneath my bed. Monsters, perhaps...
When I woke up this morning, it was gone- that feeling. I went for a run and there was sun breaking through the clouds at times. I felt like it really was a new day- not just another day, but a new one. I felt like I had somehow returned to myself, or to someplace I loved and felt at home in.
Self-doubt and feelings of nothingness have been my companions this year and last fall. I thought I would do a ritual to get rid of them. For my birthday, perhaps. You know, strip down and jump in some cold body of water. That would do it- no more doubt and self-criticism. Strip- relinquish- gone. the end.
My Spiritual Director (kind-of like a therapist person, but more spiritually oriented) smiled as I told her about my plans for a ritual. Then she asked me what these feelings look like. I realized they had a form. A very cartoon-like form, in fact. My self-doubt and feelings of nothingness are embodied in a little long-haired furry creature who has two tiny feet and two tiny hands that barely stick out of his gray fur. With two big eyes and not much expression at all. Just a strong attitude of nothingness. Sometimes this little guy sits on my shoulder. Sometimes he gets right down and personal and gets inside my heart.
Once I realized my feelings had a creature to go with them, then they didn't seem so heavy. I could TALK to them, by golly!
It seems like the harder I tried to convince myself that I was "over" my bouts of depression and feelings of worthlessness, the quicker they turned around and stuck right to me.
I don't know whether I have achieved some sort-of "healthy" relationship with my feelings, but I am savoring feeling at home in myself right now. And it does help to not ignore my less-than-loved parts of me. Hell, I could make a comic strip out of them! Or write a valentine to them!