It doesn't always end up like that, but we're just using the example for our own purposes at the moment. Rebbe Nachman describes this classic scenario, where people get pulled, against their will into the dancing. He says this is how we need to treat our depression.
What?
Rebbe Nachman [Likkutei Moharan II:23] teaches that when we're happy, our depression flees to the sidelines, hides in the corners, trying to look like the wallpaper. It doesn't want to have anything to do with happiness, because it can't bear the divine presence, [which rides our happiness like a chariot.] So basically, our depression acts like all those who try to avoid the dancing.
What you have to do, he explains, is you have to grab hold of your depression and pull it into the dancing, you have to shine [the light of] your happiness into it.
It's not enough to stave off depression, to drive it into a little hole where it cowers, you need to drag it out into the light and make it dance till it's happy too!!!
[When I learned this Torah it made me ecstatic for more than 24 hours.. Only Rebbe Nachman could pull off a Torah like this.]
My wife, like any perfectly reasonable person, asked, "So how exactly do you do that?" I dunno. But, for some reason, to me, just knowing that Rebbe Nachman said it is enough. Somehow, for me, that's all the direction I need.
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