Where true Art is absent, depression is present
2018/11/08 1 Comment
Everything coexists under the law of compensation
2018/07/31 3 Comments
Thus,
Since SPONTANEITY, ENCHANTMENT, JOY AND THE ECSTASY OF LIVING are totally missing in this present so-called society, they are replaced by depression, gloom, shame, and a blatant lack of sense
Period
A sensation of being afraid all the time but not even knowing what it is that you’re afraid of
2014/05/07 Leave a comment
– Andrew Solomon
Whatever you suppress in your inner life will be played out as Destiny
2013/11/20 5 Comments
She:
Yes, your words do make sense, however I find it hard to relax and surrender. I am about to turn 24 this weekend, I am out of Post Grad school, in a new job and I burden myself with the responsibilities of my parents and my home. I feel I am duty bound to be happy and lively for the sake of others, like I don’t have time for my sorrow. I have to learn things at my job, do well, be fast, be up and about and all the while be cheerful and active…while in reality my mind wants to drown itself in whatever I am feeling today, stay indoors, cry, sit silent…but I can’t. Hence I end up telling myself “tomorrow you have to get better”.
I hate this conscious vacillation of emotions…but I have made myself believe that I can’t afford the luxury of surrendering to my depressed mind.
I don’t know what will be the result of my surrendering to depression, to this state of my mind. But I am truly scared of it now because I don’t know if I let myself fall, how if at all I will ever, come back up to the surface.
I hate this conscious vacillation of emotions…but I have made myself believe that I can’t afford the luxury of surrendering to my depressed mind.
Me:
“I am duty bound to be happy and lively for the sake of others, like I don’t have time for my sorrow.”- you say.
You see, I am far from giving you advises. Depression is an insidious process. It worsens, unless you consider it with loving attention. The thing is though that if you don´t have time for your sorrow now and deliberately postpone it, at some point, it will force you to take time and heed it. The more you flee, the more vehement it becomes.
Whatever you suppress in your inner life will be played out as Destiny around you.
The more you overlook the unpleasant emotions, the more complex and difficult to handle they will be, as they will sink into your subconscious mind, enhancing the gap within…
To the extent you can, think a little more of yourself. Put your predicament on the first place, because if you get in real trouble, nobody will be able to help – as most of the psychologists or psychiatrists today are afraid of courageously delving into these levels of the soul, impartially and professionally shedding light on the problem. That because they all suffer from the same disease – like most people today.
You say:
“I don’t know what will be the result of my surrendering to depression. I am truly scared of it now because I don’t know if I let myself fall, how if at all I will ever, come back up to the surface.”
Now – you may realize that it is the fear within you saying these words. It is this Fear which is afraid to look into its own nature, and lose the control over you.
You see, there are regressive levels within us which are not very pleased if we recover. These energies are very sneaky, as your success to get well is their failure, and your failure to recover from depression is their success.
So…this is what I can share with you, hoping you will hear with the heart.
Related articles
- The ultimate cure of depression (julienmatei.com)
A new way of existing
2013/11/18 1 Comment
This is Thomas Ross´ amazing comment to one of my posts about depression:
“You express a central, powerful, and daunting wisdom.
To step out of the duality, the ego, to let go the sense of time, the past, the future, to lose the sense of destination, to give up hope, which after all is rooted in a yearning and looking ahead that sends us back to the duality and grasping that doomed us to start – if we live in this way, no depression, no anger, no regret, no fear.
But “daunting” because what is so simple demands such strength. Like stepping off a cliff, trusting yourself to that degree.
This is not so much a “cure” for depression as it is a way of existing in which the very idea of “depression” can have no place.”
https://julienmatei.com/2013/11/18/the-ultimate-cure-of-depression/
The ultimate cure of depression
2013/11/18 34 Comments
Does is sound far-fetched? Check for yourself and reflect.
She:
I am depressed on most days and carry on with it, with no help. Some days I don’t want to get up from bed, even show my face to the world and I spend day under the blanket. It gets too much…the meaningless and endless crying, the way food becomes revolting to my palate..But I keep hanging on, telling myself over and over again, ” Today I am feeling so weak and cornered, like I want to curl up in a dark place and die…but tomorrow I will be better, stronger and surer of myself.
I am still struggling with it. But I agree to what you wrote here, that in an attempt to heal oneself you have to get eventually enlightened. Dealing with depression is akin to a spiritual awakening for me. I am not yet there, but I have started the journey.
Me:
I so much recognize my experience in your words:
“It gets too much…the meaningless and endless crying”
It seems meaningless, but crying does help. I cried for years. I oftentimes even ran out
of tears, so harsh was the sorrow.
You say:
“Today I am feeling so weak and cornered, like I want to curl up in a dark place and die…but tomorrow I will be better, stronger and surer of myself. I am still struggling with it. “
Now, please pay attention.
Depression is ultimately inner cleavage – the direct outcome of separation. Depression is duality at work.
Time and thought creating distance from what is.
To heal means actually to suspend time and thought staying with what is, surrendering.
Thus, the greatest trial is to eliminate time, to meet and tenderly confront the pain in this moment, as if there was no tomorrow. You have to let go of trying to “be better, stronger and surer” of yourself. In fact you have to even let go of hope – I am aware this sounds truly paradoxical. That´s hard, really hard, because it´s like giving up everything – the false identity – you have been taught to believe in. It feels like dying. But that is the process I have been going through, I talk from experience.
It is overwhelming, no doubt about that, above all when you are on your own with no guidance.
Struggling “against” reinforces the pain, the separation, the inner
cleavage – unbeknownst you enhance it, creating even more distance to it.
You see, even the word “deal” loses its sense, because, after all, who is the entity
who deals…? The very entity – ego – who created the pain you are in.
“I am not yet there”, you say. Know that in this outlandish journey, there is no “there” anymore. If you want to recover, you have to bring all into Now, into Here…With other words, you have to give up time, thought and distance. Very difficult as these – time, thought and distance – are the very foundation of human identity and pursuit.
That´s Enlightenment – to give up clinging to the Known and totally surrender.
BE VERY CAREFUL, because your ego will do anything in its power to prevent you from understanding and embracing this insight.
Since I have been there and managed to come out, I might be able to help others. You may want to talk to me more.
Tell me if my words make sense to you.
Related articles
- Another chapter, another Life. The end of depression (julienmatei.com)
Another chapter, another Life. The end of depression
2013/11/17 13 Comments
After decades of gruesome depression, I am now free from it.
Imagine that… I have managed to heal myself with little or no
help at all, refusing to take any medicine.
It´s been a terrible journey in the most unthinkable barren desert.
Others with the same predicament have had the fortune of having
understanding people around them. Not me…I had no one beside me to give me a hand, except some indirect help I´ve been totally on my own, my only companion being my trustworthy inner voice – my saviour.
It´s been an Odyssey into utter loneliness and darkness.
In Hades – the worst thinkable hell. Hell, because no one was interested to know. To understand. To speak about it. No one wanted to listen. They all in some way or another face it, yet due to shame and twisted vanity they feign it away.
What is blatantly significant is that the true healing from depression entails deep spiritual transformation, with other words – this may sound far-fetched – if you want to heal thoroughly, you almost have to eventually get “enlightened”. My new and beloved consorts which seem to no longer leave me in the lurch – Joy, Tranquility and Ineffable Force – point that way. To illumination.
So I have found this post which in my opinion is until now the most articulate and well-formulated article about how depression feels.
Here it is:
Depression is humiliating.
It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune.
It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed.
You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it.
And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation.
If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier.
No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life. It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you.
If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself.
Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest yet be judge.
A letter to Frederike
2013/11/02 Leave a comment
Isn´t it curious…?
You may think that something has intrinsic value, but if you don´t receive any response, you begin to doubt the quality of your work… So oftentimes we easily forget who we are, because – at least in my case – I haven´t received any real feed-back, due either to disinterest or sheer envy. Indeed, it may seem like a weakness, but there are times when we need someone else´s objective assessment to remind us Who We Truly Are.
That´s what happened because of you appreciating my composition.
Although I have been writing for three years here on Mirrors of Encounters, I for the first time put a piece of my music on this blog. It was maybe a little step, but such a great venture for me…after these years of harsh isolation.
I kind of broke the ice. Broke the narrow limits of my doubtful confinement. I no longer felt that hiding is an option, but showed to others my real Face. In effect, I showed my real face to myself above all, approving of and allowing the Real Me shine through as the musician and composer I am.
When being who you truly are, no longer hiding of yourself, there is no reason to feel insufficient or embarrassed. Or depressed…
Guilt is history when you approve of yourself. When you say an unreserved “Yes” to who you are, the way you are. Knowing who you are, wanting to be like someone else, or comparing yourself with anyone is out of the question. Something totally superfluous.
So collaterally we touch something very essential here:
Depression is basically guilt, it is hiding from ourselves, it is
self-denial, UNLIVED LIFE. Can you see this with no delay?
I take it again. Depression is unlived life. When we don’t live, we deny ourselves.
It is obvious: When you fully live, no longer hiding your true inner force, you become so unreservedly clear, so transparent so there are no left overs. Fear can arise only when we don´t fully engage in the action at hand – fear is thus a “left over”, an accumulated sum of fragmented actions.
So this is beyond any doubt:
Fear is fragmentation. This engrained way of living fragmentary, has created this enormous fear that we all know. Fragmentation creating fear, creating thought, creating time, creating depression.
When you accept, engage and are fully present in the Now expressing yourself pervasively, past and future become irrelevant, so there can be no Fear. Fear is bred by comparison – that is, thought creating time and distance -, so when there is no comparison, fear withers.
When Fear dissolves in wholesome action, there is Beauty, there is Expression there is Love.
And only in Love we thrive.
The pathology of normalcy
2013/10/03 Leave a comment
Stress, loneliness, depression, boredom – the madness of everyday life. Ever-greater levels of sadness, implying a recognition, on the visceral level at least, that things could be different. How much joy is there left in the technological society, this field of alienation and anxiety? Mental health epidemiologists suspect that no more than twenty percent of us are free of psychopathological symptoms. Thus we act out a “pathology of normalcy” marked by the chronic psychic impoverishment of a qualitatively unhealthy society.
– John Zerzan
For those interested to read more I much recomment this link:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-the-mass-psychology-of-misery
Running away from gloom and lonelyness enhances your loneliness
2013/08/28 5 Comments
He says:
I am undergoing an intense feeling of loneliness. Well, I am not able to relate with people around me except a very few. I find most people boring and irritating, so I run away from everybody. I feel low and gloomy if I spend time in my room for a long time.
Yet in the effort to overcome the gloomy loneliness I search again the company of others,
just to find myself avoiding them nevertheless.
What causes my lack of interest in people?
What is the major problem here?
What is the solution?
My answer:
There is no solution to the problem of loneliness:
No matter if you are among people or by yourself in your chamber, you will feel lonely.
There is no “way out” as long as you are fighting yourself: the effort to overcome the gloomy loneliness will enhance your loneliness.
You just have to lovingly stay and confront this gloomy part of yourself. On your own.
Easier said than done…Still, if you dare do this, you might be free from depression for ever – that, of course, if this is what you wish. Fact of the matter is that many people were they given the chance to recover from an illness, they would be rather reluctant, as they have built their identity on the very disease they suffer from.
Anyway, no medication, no therapy will ever help you recover for real, but your readiness to go along in-depth with your problem. That is not to say it is an easy undertaking.
You just have to have the guts of facing that big turmoil and stop running…Be with it, as if you were with a child: no complaining, no justifying, no thwarting…Eventually there is nowhere to go…- it comes a time when your soul forces you to heed yourself.
This inner conflict of yours has nothing to do with “people”. It´s not “people” you dislike, but yourself, more exactly, that wounded level within yourself…that unloved part of you…
You see, if you were well, you wouldn´t bother so much if people are boring – which they often are – that because when you are connected to your real self, you have less a need to be with people. When you are well, you don´t have any urge to flee, in order to escape yourself, as you are at ease, and home in your own body… Again, then you wouldn´t really mind how others are or aren´t…
So, forget people, the lack of interest is for yourself, for the one you truly are…Stay with what is, even if it hurts. Learn to show yourself the interest your soul craves from you.
Julien Matei
Mirrors of Encounters 