Contraction offers insight and renewal; embrace it to live fully.

Melancholy teaches us about life's rhythms beyond happiness mandates.

Understanding suffering can enhance, not dim, our life experience.

It may not be an exaggeration to suggest that our culture worships expansion, which we can define as “an increase in size.” We appear to love anything that gets bigger: our vehicles, bank accounts, online presence, property, a reputation, whatever we can acquire, and how many hours we can devote to work. We may be so mesmerized by our fascination with expansion that we may not notice what is sacrificed. It may be that our tendency to reject contraction automatically aggrandizes expansion.

Disparaging Contraction

We appear to want a life that is simply a series of expansions, in the form of successes, celebrations, fun, wins, pleasant surprises, and the acquisition of new understanding or skills. On the other hand, contraction suggests a decline in activity, a slowing down, and pulling in. A contraction often happens when we experience grief, failure, fear, defeat, feeling lost, and fatigue. There are at least two reasons for our distaste for contraction. The first is our denial of death. Death may be the ultimate expression of a contraction, with sadness, loss of energy, and interests being reminders of death. The second is our obsession with happiness, which defines unhappiness as simply inappropriate. This happiness mandate leaves us confused about the nature of love, responsibility, freedom, courage, and maturity, all of which have their moments of defeat and loss. The unbridled pursuit of happiness leaves us with a distortion, a skewed vision of life.

Reclaiming Contraction

I look out my window in winter and see a major expression of contraction. Plants enter a dormant phase as they contract, slowing down growth and their metabolic processes. Trees lose their leaves to conserve water and energy. Animals are hibernating with their metabolic and respiratory processes slowing. Our bodies are constantly expanding and contracting. Muscle cells, lungs, and heart are in this expanding and contracting rhythm. Our psyches are also expanding and contracting. Success and defeat, gain and loss, feeling secure and scared, dealing with the familiar and feeling lost. We cannot only honor expansion but also hope to be fully alive.

Honoring Psychological Contraction

Have we pathologized psychological contraction because of our fear of death and our obsession with being happy? If we look closely at the word psychopathology, the prefix psycho comes from the Greek psyche, meaning "soul." Hence, the word psychopathology means “understanding the suffering of the soul,” and not “fixing the suffering of the soul.” We may lose an understanding of our suffering when we respond to a contraction as an unfortunate depressive episode and seek a pharmaceutical medication. So many of my clients feel shame the moment they decide that they're depressed, which means they are not happy. I encourage them to name what’s happening as a contraction and let go of the use of the word depressed and the need for shame. I also encourage the use of the word melancholy, meaning “sorrowful and dejected."

Allowing Contraction and Melancholy to Teach

There are concrete steps to take to learn from our contracted experiences.

Reminder. You may be experiencing the natural process of moving into a contraction.

Talk about it. It may be that talking to a friend or a support group helps you release any shame associated with the contraction. The goal is to understand the suffering rather than quickly filling our medicine cabinets. Masochistically prolonging suffering is not the goal, nor is turning quickly to big Pharma.

Call off the fight. If you are fighting with your melancholy or are uninterested in what it may be asking for, then get the help of a professional psychotherapist.

A significant threshold often accompanies a contraction. Melancholy has us stepping away from the hustle and bustle of conventional life. Stillness brings us to a threshold where some aspect of the unknown is willing to reveal itself.

Suicidal Ideation. Sometimes thinking of harming ourselves can accompany a contraction, especially when our thoughts darken. It’s a time for therapeutic support, not only for protection and safety, but also to discover what wants to die. The ego tends to amplify an important ending, deciding suicide is the answer. Typically, there is some aspect of ourselves that wants to end. It may be the one carrying a broken heart after a breakup, or the one suffering a serious defeat, or the one carrying self-contempt. We turn against life only because we believe it turned against us. These kinds of deaths want to issue a birth, something ends, and there is a born-again experience in tow.

It’s only too easy to believe that all acts of expansion are filled with joy and excitement, with no place for suffering. Attachment to perfection, workaholism, and romantic obsessions can bring us to our knees with burnout, stress, and disillusionment. We are less likely to compensate with expansive experiences if we allow the natural flow of moving from expansion to contraction. An old definition of the word contraction is “to draw together.” In the quiet and stillness of melancholy, we can draw together dreams, longings, and intentions. Contractions support renewal and preparation for participating in life with greater depth and meaning. Like the old oak tree in winter, we conserve our energy for the spring of our lives.

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