waking up from depression

each time someone experiences depression, it seems to be born anew although so much has been said about it. like falling in love or getting older, it is a new experience that begs to be realized uniquely. it is usually so gradual and silent, that the person becoming depressed does not even realize this is different. it feels more like “new me” than “not me.”

although different for everyone, these symptoms seem common: you start withdrawing, you stop enjoying the things you enjoyed before, you have less energy, things start seeming like a drag, you become more irritable, the lens that you look at the world through seems more negative, you are less hopeful, more sad. i think our ego tries to make sense of this and even creates rationales for why… “they weren’t great friends anyways,” “that hobby was a waste of time anyways”… maybe there is a psychic conservation of energy going on.

when someone is extremely depressed, 10/10 on the depression scale, it is more noticeable. the starkness of the difference makes itself known, usually. however between 2/10 and 8/10 is a wide zone of depression that can closely mimic normalcy. given the way things are in the world, how much pain and suffering there is, how much struggle there is, how unhappy and troubled most people seem, being depressed can seem more “normal” and status quo than not being depressed. in fact i know people get judged for being “too happy” or “too positive and woo woo.” it is possible that people even find you annoying unless you’re complaining about something or venting about how busy you are. again, like Brene Brown said, being busy is a status symbol. she even said (paraphrasing) that in some of her circles she will be eaten alive for being happy and pleasant.

the frightening part of the slow pervasive depression is the loss of agency, loss of potential and loss of the true livability and enjoyment of life. we can spend years in these semi-depressed/depressed states and it seem completely normal. so many of us settle for less happiness than we are capable of because we buy into the idea that life is supposed to be a struggle. we misinterpret challenges that help us grow as punishments, insurmountable obstacles and personal attacks. sometimes, tragically, the Buddhist idea of “life is suffering” is misinterpreted and adhered to too strongly (more on this here).

this is a call to not give in to depression and to wake up from the trance of it. it can happen due to situations or biology or both.  they feel very similar. those chemicals in our brain can act up (hormonal issue, genetic predisposition, other factors) and suddenly things start sticking more, more rumination happens, more despair is experienced. women who experience pre-menstrual syndrome can see this more experientially, all of a sudden you are crying at commercials or become highly irritable. the shift does not have to be much and it is powerful! the fact that it happens like clockwork is an easy way to see how chemically modulated our moods can be.

the stigma of having “mental health problems” is not diminishing fast enough. maybe we can rename depression to “feeling bad” and it will be more acceptable to talk about. chemically, it is not different from how diabetes or any chronic disease works. and just like it is not possible to cure diseases by “trying harder,” chemical depression does not go away on its own. i can see why there is some semblance of control when it comes to mental health. it gets tricky because it’s a chicken or egg situation. see once we’re depressed, we start withdrawing and then it feels like we are causing what is happening by choice.

yet just like in diabetes, there is an element of lifestyle choice. exercising, eating well, taking care of ourselves, DOES help. but it may not be enough. and it may not be possible when there is no energy. we have to be kind and accurate when we look at where we are and what we need to do.

non-chemical depression is also not “normal” and should be treated. it is also not a choice. in these cases i think depression serves as a symptom that provides the clue that something is wrong in the dynamics of our psyche. perhaps it is our psyche calling out for help. whether it’s a result of trauma or repression or functioning lower than our capacities, needs to be explored.

our souls seek to be happy, content, fulfilled… it hungers for authenticity and connection. when we become disconnected from our core, we become weary and disappointed with life, often forgetting that there are clues to grow in what we feel, if we stop to look at it. if i can look at the depression and try to understand where it is coming from instead of trying to violently swat it away or letting it be a chronic hum i get used to, i agree to work with it. the Buddhists say that every challenge has its own answer embedded in it. but we have to work with it, abide with it, enough to be able to learn and grow from it.

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faith and religion: differentiating God from the image of god

Brene Brown said “the other thing we do is we make everything that’s uncertain certain. Religion has gone from a belief in faith and mystery to certainty. I’m right, you’re wrong. Shut up. That’s it. Just certain.”

when we experience something we seek to define it, to find a name for it, to write it down, to take a picture of it and save it forever. there is something about the fleeting, the mysterious, the unknown, that as a species we try to grasp on to. one day as i was driving, the sun looked more beautiful than usual. the clouds covered the bright intensity but i could still see the orange-gray orb. there were wispy clouds floating by in an overcast and enchanting sky. for a moment it was just an experience, one that i cannot describe accurately in a thousand pages. and then i wanted to “capture it.” i wanted to share it with my friends, i wanted to keep it forever and i reached for my camera. i went from enjoying a blissful pure experience of magnificence to scrambling in my purse for my phone. i lost touch with the magnificence.

when human beings did not have language or symbolic consciousness, i would assume everything was just experience. yet at some point when the thunders roared or the seas rose, and when we had language, we started saying the gods are angry, that’s why there is thunder. we said the gods are happy, that’s why there is rain. and why wouldn’t we? clearly there is a mysterious force making things happen in our environment. it feels beyond our powers, it is unknowable, it can be fearful, it can also be merciful.

it is beyond the limits of my imagination because i can only imagine with the objects/characters that i already know of.

a beta fish born and raised in a fishbowl perhaps cannot know that there are cars and buildings and volcanoes and bottle openers and bubble tea out there. yet she probably knows hunger, and fear (if you tap the bowl), and anger (if you put another beta fish in there)… like that information is available to all, by instinct by design. a seed does not need to look at the parent plant to grow, the information it needs is already in its cells. there’s some intelligence there too, plants knowing to grow towards light, knowing to produce flowers if the conditions are right, knowing to fold its leaves when the sun sets.

the scientific approach describes it well… we have logic and hypotheses, never really immutable facts, but working definitions and theories about why things are the way they are. we become fascinated with what we don’t know and we try to define it and we try to build on it.

when we talk about faith, we refer to what is unknowable. having faith is like having hope, not knowing for sure, yet having a guiding light or direction. there is a deep desire to know and be closer to God. there is a potentiality to be closer and yet a humility or understanding that the world of forms cannot truly know God because God seems to defy form. perhaps real-izing God can only be done in brief glimpses. so we train our bodies and our minds to become more receptive to soul, we build holy places and sanctuaries, places where the limitations of form seem to drop away, and there are fewer obstructions to experiencing God. this is why Christian and Buddhist monks and Sufi dervishes and Hindu sadhus take refuge in nature, this is why those living the “regular life” pray in a clean place, unencumbered by disturbances.

yet religion is more about certainty. suddenly the experience of God and the numinous nature of what is experienced is solidified into an image, a book, a religion, with x number of tenets, and rules, and judgments, punishments and rewards. in religion, perhaps God becomes smaller than the experience of God. God becomes condensed into a representation that comprises of the justice system of the locale, the love and wrath of our parents, the promise of conditional reward and punishments, and an escape from the world because we want to all transcend. it seems to make more sense that God cannot be in this vile world, but is in the skies, and we must leave behind this earth to get a shot at living in God’s real kingdom.

it feels safe to have a rule book, to have a code to live by, to keep myself and others in line, to not have to struggle with thought and discourse, but to know for sure. on some level we never want to grow into adults and become self-reliant. a duality and thus separation is created between God and ourselves. and because we cannot imagine beyond what we have already experienced, we write our myths and stories, using what we already know. thunder seems to incite fear, just like when our parents are angry with us, it must mean the gods are angry with us. we feel loved and blessed when we get something good, it must mean the gods are happy and merciful.

can i sense God in the air i breathe, in the leaves fluttering in the wind, in the sunlight, in the red truck, in the asphalt, in the muddy pond, in my skin, and in every being? perhaps when my heart opens up into an expansive quality when i get out of my way, that i become closer to God. perhaps when i feel constricted and my heart becomes smaller and my experience becomes dull, i move away from God. perhaps… there’s something magical in this wondering and wandering quest.

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being childlike

i was talking to some friends about the 14th Dalai Lama and my friend’s brother commented (i’m paraphrasing): “I’ve heard the Dalai Lama is like a child, he went into training so young, he’s very wise but he has this child-like attitude.” i knew exactly what he was referring to as i’ve seen his eyes and his smile twinkle with curiosity, joy and awe at things.

there is a meditation with six techniques for settling the mind, one of which is: settle the mind like a baby looking at a temple wall. not inspecting or scrutinizing the details of the murals. just observing the rough design without becoming involved… in other words, we consider any external object before us while we are meditating to be merely a play of light and remain focused instead on our object.

but being childish or childlike is also used as an insult, to show immaturity and naivete. i’ve heard adult clients call themselves childish with intense shame, and i’ve heard adults tell children to “stop being childish” and i wonder what it means to be raw, emotional, unworked and why it is an aspirational state as well as a state to overcome. perhaps what we want is a modified child state- awe, curiosity, happiness without the intense vulnerability and propensities to “make mistakes.”

i wonder if we get angry because we want to deny our inner child or because we are so far removed from it that it makes us sad.

recently i saw our two month old niece smiling away and cooing to some bright paintings on the wall. we, the adults, sat around, wondered what she was seeing, what was she looking at, what was she so happy about. it invited us into a state of wonder to see the paintings with different eyes, we were reminded how cool lights and colors are, but as we did it we also tried to rationalize and provide a storyline about why she was happy. meanwhile the baby continued to aah and ooh.

at some point we grow up and the novelty can wear off. but more so it seems that there is social pressure to not be excited anymore. Brene Brown, in an online class on vulnerability, said if she really told certain groups how happy and excited she is about her day, she will get skewered. she said being busy [and unhappy and un-childlike (read serious and bitter)] is a status symbol.

life can be busy and not always what we want it to be. sometimes the maintenance of bitterness, and needing to prove that things suck, and the refusal to accept the possibilities that are present, prevent us from becoming unstuck and free.

could i be childlike and have no shame and fear? could i be childlike despite my shame and fear?

© The Paradox of Being. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of written material, ideas, and images without express and written permission from this blog’s author is strictly prohibited. Links to the original content on this blog may be provided.