Sometimes the weight just won’t lift.

Sometimes it’s a low hum in the background that you’ve learned to live around. And sometimes it’s heavier than that — a weight that makes even small things feel impossible.

What’s underneath

Depression rarely arrives from nowhere. Beneath the surface there’s usually a story — of loss, of accumulated stress, of patterns of self-criticism that have run quietly for years. Of needs that went unmet, or feelings that were never safe to feel.

Understanding that story isn’t just interesting. It’s where the shift begins.

What keeps it going

One of the cruelest things about depression is that it creates the conditions for more depression. When we feel low, we withdraw, stop doing things we used to enjoy, and our world gets smaller. The less we do, the worse we feel. The worse we feel, the less we do.

At the same time, depression distorts thinking — making the future feel hopeless, the past feel like failure, and the present feel pointless. These thoughts feel like facts. They’re not. But they’re convincing enough to keep the cycle going.

How we work on it

I draw on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and Internal Family Systems (IFS) in working with depression. MBCT is particularly powerful here — research shows it reduces the risk of depression relapse by half in people who have experienced three or more episodes. Rather than fighting the low mood or trying to think positively, we learn to relate to it differently — with curiosity and compassion rather than judgment or avoidance.

CBT helps identify the thought patterns and behaviours that maintain depression. IFS helps you understand the parts of you that are carrying pain — and begin to offer them something different.

This isn’t about forcing yourself to feel better. It’s about understanding what’s underneath, and slowly, gently, beginning to shift it.