Dealing with depression

The key component to the success of letting go of negative thoughts lies in the identification with these thoughts. People have many thoughts, only some thoughts grab their attention, those are identification thoughts. Identification thoughts are very real. People mistake them for themselves sometimes. For example, "I am worthless", is a thought with strong magnetism, that's why a person who believes it, believe it as an identity, not just as a thought that comes and goes. Every action and experience is then geared to prove that thought. If good things happen, they are dismissed by the mind, becuase the identification with the thought is very strong. The symptoms are low self-esteem, fear of success, feelings of unworthiness, negative self-image and unhappiness. May be this thought was initiated by some experience and then it was believed somewhere along the line to be true and reinforced somehow and after a while it turns into an identity, because it was never examined.

I finally understood that thoughts can do that, can seem more than what they are because of the strong identification with them. When there is an identification with negative thoughts, they have very negative consequences on the psychological and emotional health. They build your world and destroy it, because they seem very real. They are not merely thoughts, they are entities.

However, fighting thoughts is not very effective, because of the way the fight goes. The fight goes into extremes. A person first tries to eliminate that thought or get rid of it and then when that doesn't happen, he/she starts to pay more attention to the thought's activity, which then becomes more like an addiction that turns into war against that thought. When the thought doesn't go away, then we feel defeated and the thought becomes part of our identity. The negative thought sometimes stay as it is or it can multiply into other similar thoughts, which are just as troublesome.

Questioning the thoughts is a better strategey, because it sheds some of the conditioning that has been accumulated along the way. It shed what people know about themselves and assumed it to be true, because it simply was never questioned seriously. It sheds even the assumption that this thought has to go away in order for me to have peace of mind. The fact is that thought can exist, but if there is not identification with it, it loses it is appeal and magnetism.

The activity of thought happens in the mind. The mind understand opposites and polarities, white vs. dark, sweet vs. sour, happy vs. sad. If I am depressed, then I am not happy even if I smile sometimes or laugh, I am still as depressed. You can't get away with any glimpses of peace or happiness with the mind as evidence that there is something else. The mind also works with experience, so if the experience was of depression in the past, then that is carried over into the future.

One thing about the human brain is that it is not even fully functional; people don't use their whole brains, only a part of it. And the mind is not perfect, because every mind is affected by life experiences, the upbringing, and the belief system (conditioning) . And this conditioning is not perfect, because no one is perfect and the parents are not perfect and so it is always going to be imperfect. But when you believe your negative thoughts, your mind is convinced that this is it.

Most of the people who are successful transcend their limitation and are able to transcend some of their conditioning to become successful. Sometimes, they change their belief system and mental programing. However, this transcendance requires serious inquiry and some silence to actually uncover the way the mind works. For this reason, some people do meditation to observe their minds and their tendencies. Successful people involve themselves with like-minded people and so a group of people share the same reality. However, for experience transcending th mind always seem to involve a slowing down in reaction to thought and alertness to the mind activity, so you are not lost in it. The work is a great tool, because the minute you have stressful thought, you have the opportunity to question them on paper and in this way, you are shifting from automatic identification to inquiry.

when a person is depressed, the mind only views things in term of the depression. The past and the future are tainted with the depression. Even pleasant memories are viewed from a negative point of view and the future is gloomy and dark. So if someone wants to transcend their depression thinking, they need to also transcend their mind in a sense. They need to question their thoughts honestly and see them for what they are-thoughts.

We observe our minds and monitor our feelings and sometimes we try to do something about our minds. We seek counselors and try to get healthy and feel better, so we are in charge of our minds and we are more than our mental activity. But we don't always put it this way when we are doing things to feel better and improve, we give credit to the mind for initiating that positive change. I believe that our natural state is peace and feeling good regardless of the mind, so when that is affected we try to do something about it. Everyone wants to feel good regardless of their mental activity and conditioning.

For me, I think just knowing the way the mind works, and using the questioning methods of Byron Katie are powerful tools, because it then becomes obvious that these are just thoughts and that thoughts can be wrong; the mind can be wrong, and so instead of immediately identifying with negative thoughts, there is inquiry. This takes a lot of the weight of negative thoughts, because now we are able to see through the menatl activity and some of the habits of our own mind before we concur.

Transcending thoughts and the mental activity which is geared toward extremes of past and future, allows people to be in the present moment. As a result entering the mind becomes a choice not a duty. You don't have to believe your thoughts especially the negative ones until you get to check them out first. Depressive thoughts and beliefs won't carry a lot of power if there is a choice involved. You have the ability to choose whether you want to believe your thoughts in the morning when you wake or not. This leaves room for reality to be experienced without the bias of thoughts and beliefs. Instead of waking up assuming yesterday's reality to be today's, you check it out for yourself and may be a different reality emerges. This can make a huge difference for people suffering from depression, because in most cases it seems like a never ending battle.

The ego that I am used to is the ego that Freud talked about. However, another definition of the ego is that it is a personality aspect that is inflexible, stubborn and resistance to change. It is the emotional aspect of identifying with thoughts and beliefs. It is evident in the difficulty to change and breaking habits--the feeling that this is too hard and overwhelming. So if you have developed a bad habit, like smoking and now you are trying to quit. In additon to the physcial addiction to nicotine, the ego is the emotional addicton to smoking and the nagging voice of negativity regarding quiting--fear of change. The ego is the personality aspect that survives in identification. Thoughts like--this is too hard; I can't do this-- and other self-sabotaging thoughts like that or even images of failure are ego-fueled.

The ego plays tricks like that. What does the ego have to do with depression and recovering from depression? Well, even though depression makes life miserable, it is after all something that the ego knows. So if someone has been depressed for a while and tries to feel better, and just seems like it is never going to happen;it is the play of the ego, because the ego survives and prefers the familiar no matter how horrible it is. So even though depression is horrible and miserable, but since the ego knows it, the ego will try to keep it going, because it is a familiar territory. The ego is not an entity, but it is a powerful part of the personality. But it is talked about it as if it was something or a phenomena.

The ego works with the mind and so if someone transcends the identification with negative thoughts and beliefs, they can also transcend the ego. If someone doesn't identify with depressive images or thoughts about the future or the past, chances are that person is more centered in the present moment. Thoughts about the past or the future, espcially negative ones, don't hold up much in the present moment, because they are irrelevant. The deeper someone is in the present moment, the steadier he/she is in balance. The work by Byron katie gives people the opportunity to question their stressful thoughts and beliefs and at the same time shed light on their ego. Normally, the ego doesn't survive in the present moment; it survives in the movement between the past and the future. So if someone tries to live in the moment, their ego is not very active.

Don't make it perfect, don't worry about being accurate, just let it out. It is about expressing the repressed anger, frustration, and sadness. This exercise is a tool to release negativity in the conscious and subconsious and the more you release, the more you'll able to just enjoy the moment. However there are rules to this technique
1. Very important don't go to people and take your anger out, this isn't about other people, it's about you and your depression, so just keep this in private.
2. Don't take the exercise too seriously. Exaggerate your release during the exercise, but when you're finished forget about the exercise and go back to normal life. This way you won't form another bondage to the exercise.
3. Have the freedom to be honest during those five minutes. It is your domain for those five minutes, so use it this way and then forget about it.
4. Don't blame or accuse yourself during the exercise. Projecting into other people is enough, beside you want to release the energy outward not inward.
After five minutes of blaming, cursing and pointing fingers, you should be feeling a lot lighter. A good indication that this technique is done right is when you just let it out without discretion and after a while you start laughing and finding the exercise amusing.

The point of this exercise is to release the energy, not to validate holding onto that energy. It is about letting go of underlying issues as well for depression. It is about letting go and you can't really let go if you are still dealing with negative feelings or issues consciously or unconsciously. Although this exercise seems very aggressive or radical, but it is necessary when you have too much going on and you feel pushed down by negativity.