Why Depression is Not Reality
Feeling negative can be one of the hardest aspects of life. You see others around you seeming to do well, always much better than you and you can feel like you are in a dark tunnel looking at them from above.
There is no light for you and no hope of light inside of you.
Everything you do, touch and be seems to be tinged with darkness from the root to the tip. No matter how you hard you try to pull yourself up you find you cannot.
Other people will tell you things like, "pull yourself together", "just look on the positive side", and "just do things anyway", but there voices fade and you still stay in the black hole you have found yourself in.
One method I would say that has worked for me within these moments is to remember that depression itself is not a reality. I do not mean that for you on a day to day basis that it doesn't effect you seriously and it isn't a real problem, what I mean is that your views when you are depressed are not based on fact.
For example, if you met someone who thought everything was fantastic all the time, no matter what happened, good or bad they constantly never ever saw anything negative, that person would have something missing. It is through the ability to see what is negative that we can then feel what is truly positive, they would also not be looking at things realistically.
Realism is important.
People are always talking about positivity and negativity and are we one or the other, the world and life just does not work like that. Life and reality is more based on realism, realism is a mixture of the two aspects, positive and negative, for example in people's lives both will happen, some good things, some bad things, it may be tipped in one direction or another but there will somewhere be both.
When people are overly positive, they are not being realistic.
This is the same for people who are being overly negative too, this is not realism and this is not reality.
When the mind is in a depressed state we see everything with negative goggles, we can't see things around us that are amazing and positive and all we can see is those things that are not. Although we cannot snap our fingers and change this when we are in this state of mind, it does help, at least it does help me, to remember that this current state of mind when I feel depressed is not actually reality. It is reality with everything positive missing, but it is only missing in my perception.
It is still there, and when this state of mind stops, I will be able to see it again.
It is like going through a dark tunnel, you cannot see light, but you know it still exists, try as hard as you can to remember until you get to the other side and the light shines on your face again, which it will.
GEORGE MASON
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Very well put. Finding the way through to the light can be so challenging, it’s good to remember to try and have some faith in yourself even when you feel at your worst.
Thanks :-) Yes it can be the hardest thing to do but it can also make you such stronger, I always try to remember when I feel like that, its just a state of mind, there are many things that exist that are good that I cannot see, and it helps me a little till I can see them again :-)
Please feel free to leave any comments or feedback :-)
Obviously we can't force ourselves or pretend not to be depressed. Spirituality helped me a lot! When I went through my worst depression about ten years ago everything was literally darkness. I used to think it was a metaphor for depression, but the darkness was so very real. I really like Jim Carrey, and what he says makes sense to me entirely -- the non-duality that he speaks of is something that has helped me a lot throughout my life. Duality and nonduality are both real however -- they are both sides of One coin. Thanks for posting. :)
Yes I agree, the darkness can feel very real and can be a literal thing that shadows every aspect of life itself, can I ask what sort of spirituality helped you at when you were feeling like this? What helps me often is just feeling a connection with everything that exists, remembering I am just part of things, make you remember perspective. :-) Yes Jim Carey is pretty cool, he seems to have been through the mill but much wiser for it :-)
Hi George -- I didn't see this under my 'responses' or I would have missed it if I didn't come back to this article. I'm eclectic spiritually, so it's difficult to pick out any one thing. I have found that most religions/philosophies have some very similar, basic intrinsic truths behind them. When I was at my worst depressive wise, it was digging deeper into Hinduism and Buddhism, plus I had some profound spiritual experiences. In some ways, it came to me! I did chakra work too. Now, I'm pretty much a mixed bag spiritually. I agree that it helps to know that we are a part of a whole, bigger picture that is eternal and infinite. For sure our difficult experiences in life can transform us spiritually.
Yes I would agree with all of that, difficult experiences definitely alter how we perceive reality and from a spiritual point of view too :-)
What is chakra? I have read a lot recently about buddhism it seems to have huge amounts of wisdom in its teachings and is very interesting but like you I am generally open to all sorts of different ideas, from a spiritual point of view it seems insane to pick one thing and go with that as it seems unlikely that the entire universe could ever be so narrow, I would love to learn to meditate actually but my mind is so busy I find it very hard to get it to shut down.
Thanks for your reply :-)
I would be interested to see what you think of my 2 latest posts I wrote today about mental health, would be really good to get your feedback :-)
Hi George -- try 'universes' plural. According to string theory there are endless ones. I love theoretical physics. Chakras are seven spiritual centers located within the human body that directly affect our body functions and spiritual well-being. It stems from Hinduism but parallels with many other beliefs, such as Kabbalah and Edgar Cayce, to name a few. If you 'google' it there is tons of information about it. I used to teach it therapeutically and I am planning on posting some of my own articles about it soon. I always had trouble calming my over-active mind too. It took me years to get to a point where I can now. That's why guided meditation helped me a lot as opposed to self-guided. The ones that emphasize breathing are most beneficial. When we breath calmly and smoothly the mind and body are soothed and relaxed by it. There's lots of guided meditation/breathing exercizes on youtube. I'll take a look at your posts soon!
That is very interesting, I will look this up and read more about it, do you have any tips about meditation? I can manage to do breathing exercises when I am calm to a certain extent, but I really struggle with meditation, all the ones I have listened to are soothing voices talking about being on a beach somewhere and they actually stress me out more, do you know any good videos or podcasts or apps for this? Or what method do you use?
It happened to me too. Some of the guided meditations had a scene that actually started upsetting me. For example there was one on top of a cliff looking out over a beautiful scene but I have a fear of heights and that started making me feel panic. I just stop the meditation when that happens. It's a matter of finding what works for you. There were ones about 'healing your inner child' that worked for me. Try those on youtube by googling it. I recommend you read my article on the 'Chakras'. You may find something helpful there.