More Dealing With Depression
Just making some goals and plans doesn’t seem much solace for someone seriously caught in the middle of really bad depression attacks. When it can feel like you’re under attack from all sides, and such a situation has gone on for years and years…
Well, partly we should make plans and goals we want to work towards. It can help us feel back on track.
But, most importantly, we should do something else we haven’t done much of before:
Simply, we should let it be.
As hard as that sounds. The trick – or cure – for depression is to let ourselves feel depressed. To not try to make ourselves feel better. We should learn to request that the negative feelings hang around for years, even.
It sounds crazy, but it really is the answer.
When you look forward to something, you don’t fear it. Importantly, you don’t push it away with the same amount of energy. And hence, you don’t give it the energy to become worse.
When you feel anxious or depressed, try welcoming the feeling.
Crazy idea, right?
How could we do such a thing? Remember, you are not welcoming something that is really real. In reality, anxiety and depression are just like flavors, or smells – something that exists in your head. It can’t harm you in itself. It just feels unpleasant. Without form – let them be. There are limits as to how bad they can become.
If you let them stay, they will probably just wander off. Nothing lasts forever.
A phrase that might help in such cases, might be:
I’m happy for this depression to last three weeks, if it needs to.
I am creating these feelings by my own desire to be rid of them.
Hello, old friend. Stay around, I don’t mind.
If you have to, try saying it again.
Still having problems? Try it again. If you understand why your depression got started, you should believe this, and not merely use it as a strategy to get better.
That’s it.
Meditation can help you to learn this, as a basic mental process. We will list a whole lot of resources here soon, including Meditation Instructions, to help practice this. There are some good books you can read, too (also coming along soon).
Know that truly accepting depression will take a while. But once mastered, you will have mastered depression. I am proof that it can go away. Depression can be a thing of the past.
And if – or when – it arises, it can be welcomed as an old (but a little quieter) friend.
Thank you for reading this, and good luck.
