Depression is Vital

Depression is not simply a lack of expression.  As Michael Bernard Beckwith would like us to believe. Many people, in the self-help industry myself included, have spent our professional careers preaching to our clients and followers how to avoid the pain of depressive feelings, how to stay positive, how to change your brain pathways, to essentially avoid the pain of the past. And although it’s an important skill to be able to do, to learn how to take control of your own thoughts and eventually feelings, there’s something that dies within us when we don’t embrace the full spectrum of what it means to be human.

If we stay positive the entire time, if we completely avoid ever allowing ourselves to feel pain or low moods, we stunt ourselves, we block our hearts, to our own suffering and more importantly to the suffering and pain of others. There’s a danger that if we believe that state of mind creates our reality, then we can easily lose the necessary human empathy for others less fortunate than ourselves, who aren’t able to change there feelings and their life situation just yet.

We’re meant to have fully living, feeling hearts of flesh, that are able to feel everything, to feel the immense gratitude to the Universe for everything in our lives, to be able to truly celebrate from the depths of our being, but also and more importantly, we’re meant to be able to feel and empathize with the pain and suffering of others.

If we numb ourselves with positive thinking, with making depression into a mere psychosomatic, spiritual, self-fulling prophecy, merely a lack of expression, then we disconnect with the millions of sentient beings on this planet who are feeling pain. And if we have cut ourselves off from our own pain, if we have denied ourselves the luxury and compassion of feeling our own, how are we ever going to have genuine heartfelt compassion and empathy for those who are suffering?

Being positive is all good and well, but don’t fool yourself too much, don’t create a ‘false self’ which hides your real wounds. Don’t push too hard at your mildly fake enthusiasm and pretend you are something you’re not.

Can we embrace our own pain and suffering, whilst not traumatizing ourselves again? Can we live with our pain, and yet still learn to live happily and be deeply grateful and happy?

As Micheal taught us in The Secret “It’s a FEELING Universe”, it’s not our thoughts that create reality but rather our feelings. Thoughts and words are not enough to make sense of being human, it’s not enough to try and change ourselves and the world with thoughts and words.

Words don’t hold the truth, they are like falling cameras, merely snapping at fragmented moments of the Universe. Words are secondary to our brains own experience of life, the primary language of our brain are feelings, colors, rushing of internal visual landscapes.

Depressing feelings can be so deeply heart wrenching and soul opening, that it takes you to fields within yourself that no spaceship can ever imagine to travel.

Often people with manic depression are the most expressive writers, artists and poets who because of their deep variety of feelings and experience are able to communicate and express truths about the human condition, about the nature of reality that other people who aren’t manic would never be able to.

So rather than ignoring and pushing our low moods into the grass, avoiding them, instead let’s realize that depression is part of the full range of human emotion, it is part and parcel of the process of rebirth, just as winter is to spring, and depression opens us up to authenticity and genuine empathy.

It’s about not fearing the pain, darkness and hurt, but allowing it to be and feeling it. It’s OK, it too is Divine… It too is what God wants you to experience as a human being and there in your heart break that’s where you become whole. As the Kotzker Rebbe said: “There’s nothing more whole than a broken heart.”

I feel it’s important to respect and notice our low moods just like we would notice and respect the weather. But just as the weather, our low moods are not us. 

It might come as a surprise to some people reading this, but we are NOT our feelings, feelings are merely experiences, like the weather, low moods, like grey clouds come and they go and yes, if your not prepared for the weather, then it might be a little bit annoying all the way up to terrifying, but if you know that low and high moods are a natural part of being human, you can feel safe to feel them, to embrace them.

If you don’t feel even mildly depressed seeing homeless people suffering from mental and emotional health problems, addiction and social exclusion in our cities, then something human in you has died, if you don’t feel upset by other peoples suffering, how will you ever genuinely connect with another?

Knowing yourself better, will make your own low moods and depression easier to manage, you might want to make sure you follow some of the great advice on this website for example, about sleeping well, being active, eating food that will encourage the stabilization and mood improvement, but don’t deny yourself the full range of human feelings.

It’s okay to feel and even enjoy all of the seasons of your moods, and when things get tough and you feel really low and very depressed, know that you’re allowed to cry, you’re safe to feel everything that’s in your heart.

Like tears, rain pours and at the right time you might even choose to go out in the pouring rain and allow yourself to feel everything it wants to give you. You will become a greater, more authentic human being for doing so.

Those people who have had secure, safe and loving childhood relationships, know it’s okay to feel upset without that defining who they are, they allow themselves to cry, they are able to then brush themselves down, knowing that they are deeply loved and cared for by their parents and ultimately by life itself.

Whatever happens, you can weather the storm, because eventually, just like a winter storm these clouds will pass, and there will be blue skies and sunshine, there will be moments of love, incredible joy, insight and laughter.

When you’re ready, you’ll be all of yourself from the highest and most bliss-ful to the lowest and most abys-mal without you cracking at the seams. You’ll be able to hold both and be both without being attached to either. All of you present to the wondrous glory of the great mystery which shines through you.