dont_worry
05-01-2015, 04:59 PM
I wanted to post this to offer hope to anyone out there is struggling, as I once did, with depression and anxiety. There was a time I couldn't leave the house for utter terror of crumbling on the pavement a in panic attack.
I won't dwell on my own story - I want to focus on trying to help. I'm no messiah or sage, or doctor - just someone who's been through this sort of thing and come out of the other side.
Here are some points, in no particular order:
1) Self love IS the answer to all your problems. I cannot emphasise that enough. I realised that the primary love must be for oneself. It has been said by many eminent philosophers that the best thing you can do for the world is to love yourself. From such a position you act through unfiltered love and compassion - towards others, and towards yourself. Study a part of your body; remember what it's like to have that childlike amazement that this thing - be it your arm, your toe, whatever - does what it does. It's so complex, so amazing, and it does it all in the service of YOU. See yourself this way and you cannot hate or hurt yourself. Realise that whatever has happened to you in relationships with others, pales in comparison to the importance of love for yourself. If you look around you will see so many people - happy with the one they love, unhappy because they're not - who are really seeking themselves. They just don't realise this.
2) Forgive yourself your perceived shortcomings (though these shortcomings are just fictions of the ego - see #3). You ARE - period. Not you are "something" - you just ARE. You exist. You have the opportunity of love and joy. Find amazement in that fact - a fact modern life does not reinforce. We are all used to being something, not just being. Those somethings that you consider yourself to be are just added, superficial layers.
3) Realise that you may have been living in the past, future, or both. Neither is the source of happiness. The past is gone, and has no power over you other than that which you afford it by keeping it alive in your mind. The future is a fiction that may never happen as you predict it. All you have in the world is you, and THIS moment. Practise mindfulness - a form of meditation to keep you in the now. This is fantastic for waking you up to real JOY - not pleasure (the two are not related), but real joy. There is no limit to the ways you can do this. Sit in the park and stare at a tree. Wonder at the trillions of atoms that make up your dining table, and how they hold together. This may sound stupid, but mindfulness keeps you in the now, which is all you have.
4) Realise you have an ego - that primal part of you whose ONLY consideration is survival, and to that end, the false sense of SELF. The ego is responsible for your fears, for your lack of confidence, for your unworthy attribution of importance to what others think - etc etc. It knows nothing of love. It is an outmoded mechanism that was useful when your ancestors had to run from big, angry creatures - less so in 2015.
5) Realise that modern culture and much of society is built around the sustainment of FEAR - ergo, keeping you scared. In this way, your ego is constantly kept supplied with ammunition. Ask yourself why every film trailer or poster you ever see has someone pointing a gun at someone on it, or why people love horror films, or why trashy magazines exist that feed like vultures on celebrities' disastrous love lives. Or why sport has been transformed to the level of vitriolic, mock hatred between fans of opposing teams.
6) If you don't already, EXERCISE. And I'm talking cardio (i.e. heart-rate-increasing) exercise rather than strength training e.g. weights. I always liken exercise to being like making love to yourself. It is a love story from you, to you, about you. Not only do you get fit, you also release endorphins - commonly known as the happy hormone. In my case, it was swimming and diving. I remember being anxious to the point of fainting, for no good reason, and dragging myself out of the house to go diving at my local pool. I hated every minute of the journey. But let me tell you, it is pretty much impossible to be anxious or depressed when you are in the primal throes of exertion and excitement as you jump off a five metre diving board and find yourself hurtling towards the water.
7) Exercise. Yes, that was point 6, but it's so vital that it's also point 7. Don't think about doing it - DO it. Your ego is your mind, and also the cause of your fears. So if you ask your mind whether you should do exercise, don't be surprised if the answer is no. Remember the ego is drunk on the concept of its own survival; it will not, therefore, vote for doing something that weakens it. You have legs; get yourself to the pool, or to the running track - whatever it is you choose.
8) Throw yourself into music. Around the time I was really bad I discovered kundalini yoga, which is amazing in itself, but even more so if don't to the right music. I am a house/electronic music obsessive, and there is a LOT of very spiritual music in that genre that, for me at least, is very conducive to getting in touch with your true self, i.e. away from your egoic self. Try, as an example, CD1 of Guy J's 1000 Words. Sit yourself in darkened room, with one of these playing, with no other distractions. You might be surprised as how you feel.
9) Get rid of caffeine. You don't need it, and it isn't your friend as far as anxiety is concerned. Society has made it trendy and I've met lots of people who like to pretend they can't function without it. Your new friend is - for example - rooibos tea.
10) Related to point 5, remove yourself from any routine or activity that is built around FEAR. And by fear I don't just mean you being scared, but I mean more generally - negativity. Quit the horror films, the Jerry Springer-esq shows pretending to help troubled people but really just hauling them up as circus freaks. In fact, don't read the news! I've had some interesting conversations with friends around the theme of "why do you read the news"? "To know what's going on," they'll say. They read about murders, kidnappings, terrorism - etc. "But what do you gain from it, other than to reinforce prejudices and feed your fears?" That normally ends the conversations. If you're at a computer and loose on time there is no shortage of joyous stuff to read and watch. A friend sent me a YouTube vid of a dog on a trampoline the other day. I forget what I was doing at the time - it stopped seeming important. I just enjoyed watching the manifestation of joy.
This extends to all parts of your life. Diet, for example. Go vegan. Seriously. Otherwise, how can you hope to live through love and compassion if you are causing animals to violently lose their lives for yours? Instead, you have the option to live in such a way as to be in harmony with nature, not its aggressor.
11) Speaking of dogs, engage with animals. They remind us how to live ego-less, as our true selves, with no concern for what others think of us, for how we appear, for the past or the future. Animals are now, and now only - that is their only focus.
12) Treat medication and anti-anxiety products with extreme caution. Yes there are meds out there that can take the sting out of anxiety, but they are not the answer to your problem. They will, at best, merely make it easier to get through the day. You may decide that alone is benefit enough. But in the same way that paracetamol numbs the pain but does not address the cause of the pain, these will not address the cause of your anxiety. The answer is within you, but you have to want to accept yourself and implement some changes, like some of those I've tried to outline.
13) Google "Pale Blue Dot" - a famous image of the earth taken from the far reaches of the solar system. Look pretty small, don't we? And that's a relatively close-up picture - it was taken from within our solar system. In the infinite expanse of the universe, we're as small as it gets. Suddenly, your concerns and fears don't seem that important. If I were prime minister I'd hang this picture in every school classroom rule as a reminder of humbleness and humility, and most of all, as a reminder that what you think matters does not.
14) Laugh! For goodness' sake, laugh. To quote the poet Pablo Neruda, laughter is the language of the soul. In other words, it's up there with exercise and presentness in being something totally foreign to the ego. Ergo, it is powerful in countering the ego. Buy comedy DVDs, read humourous books - hell, amuse yourSELF. If you can make laughter, cardio exercise, being present and acceptance daily facets of your day, you will very quickly see changes.
15) Accept your current situation. Stop labeling it as unideal, and instead projecting yourself to an idealised future where everything will be as you want it. The here and now is ALL you have, all you've ever had. It is beautiful. If you stay present to the here and now - and not in the egoic domains of the past and future - you will find true beauty. Mindfulness is a great meditative exercise to promote this - try it. Sit in a park and stare at a tree. Sound weird? But you want to feel better, right?
16) Finally... love IS the answer. It really is. Make it your daily focus, in all areas of your love. Love and joy are the only worthwhile achievements in life. Abandon grudges held against people from the past, jealousies and suspicions of people in the present. Abandon minor gripes and disgruntlement - none of it's worth it, and it just saps your energy. Accept things are they are, or at least those things you cannot change. Like other people, for one thing.
This has been written very ad-hoc, and I have no idea how it will come across. But I did my best! Good luck, wherever you are.
I won't dwell on my own story - I want to focus on trying to help. I'm no messiah or sage, or doctor - just someone who's been through this sort of thing and come out of the other side.
Here are some points, in no particular order:
1) Self love IS the answer to all your problems. I cannot emphasise that enough. I realised that the primary love must be for oneself. It has been said by many eminent philosophers that the best thing you can do for the world is to love yourself. From such a position you act through unfiltered love and compassion - towards others, and towards yourself. Study a part of your body; remember what it's like to have that childlike amazement that this thing - be it your arm, your toe, whatever - does what it does. It's so complex, so amazing, and it does it all in the service of YOU. See yourself this way and you cannot hate or hurt yourself. Realise that whatever has happened to you in relationships with others, pales in comparison to the importance of love for yourself. If you look around you will see so many people - happy with the one they love, unhappy because they're not - who are really seeking themselves. They just don't realise this.
2) Forgive yourself your perceived shortcomings (though these shortcomings are just fictions of the ego - see #3). You ARE - period. Not you are "something" - you just ARE. You exist. You have the opportunity of love and joy. Find amazement in that fact - a fact modern life does not reinforce. We are all used to being something, not just being. Those somethings that you consider yourself to be are just added, superficial layers.
3) Realise that you may have been living in the past, future, or both. Neither is the source of happiness. The past is gone, and has no power over you other than that which you afford it by keeping it alive in your mind. The future is a fiction that may never happen as you predict it. All you have in the world is you, and THIS moment. Practise mindfulness - a form of meditation to keep you in the now. This is fantastic for waking you up to real JOY - not pleasure (the two are not related), but real joy. There is no limit to the ways you can do this. Sit in the park and stare at a tree. Wonder at the trillions of atoms that make up your dining table, and how they hold together. This may sound stupid, but mindfulness keeps you in the now, which is all you have.
4) Realise you have an ego - that primal part of you whose ONLY consideration is survival, and to that end, the false sense of SELF. The ego is responsible for your fears, for your lack of confidence, for your unworthy attribution of importance to what others think - etc etc. It knows nothing of love. It is an outmoded mechanism that was useful when your ancestors had to run from big, angry creatures - less so in 2015.
5) Realise that modern culture and much of society is built around the sustainment of FEAR - ergo, keeping you scared. In this way, your ego is constantly kept supplied with ammunition. Ask yourself why every film trailer or poster you ever see has someone pointing a gun at someone on it, or why people love horror films, or why trashy magazines exist that feed like vultures on celebrities' disastrous love lives. Or why sport has been transformed to the level of vitriolic, mock hatred between fans of opposing teams.
6) If you don't already, EXERCISE. And I'm talking cardio (i.e. heart-rate-increasing) exercise rather than strength training e.g. weights. I always liken exercise to being like making love to yourself. It is a love story from you, to you, about you. Not only do you get fit, you also release endorphins - commonly known as the happy hormone. In my case, it was swimming and diving. I remember being anxious to the point of fainting, for no good reason, and dragging myself out of the house to go diving at my local pool. I hated every minute of the journey. But let me tell you, it is pretty much impossible to be anxious or depressed when you are in the primal throes of exertion and excitement as you jump off a five metre diving board and find yourself hurtling towards the water.
7) Exercise. Yes, that was point 6, but it's so vital that it's also point 7. Don't think about doing it - DO it. Your ego is your mind, and also the cause of your fears. So if you ask your mind whether you should do exercise, don't be surprised if the answer is no. Remember the ego is drunk on the concept of its own survival; it will not, therefore, vote for doing something that weakens it. You have legs; get yourself to the pool, or to the running track - whatever it is you choose.
8) Throw yourself into music. Around the time I was really bad I discovered kundalini yoga, which is amazing in itself, but even more so if don't to the right music. I am a house/electronic music obsessive, and there is a LOT of very spiritual music in that genre that, for me at least, is very conducive to getting in touch with your true self, i.e. away from your egoic self. Try, as an example, CD1 of Guy J's 1000 Words. Sit yourself in darkened room, with one of these playing, with no other distractions. You might be surprised as how you feel.
9) Get rid of caffeine. You don't need it, and it isn't your friend as far as anxiety is concerned. Society has made it trendy and I've met lots of people who like to pretend they can't function without it. Your new friend is - for example - rooibos tea.
10) Related to point 5, remove yourself from any routine or activity that is built around FEAR. And by fear I don't just mean you being scared, but I mean more generally - negativity. Quit the horror films, the Jerry Springer-esq shows pretending to help troubled people but really just hauling them up as circus freaks. In fact, don't read the news! I've had some interesting conversations with friends around the theme of "why do you read the news"? "To know what's going on," they'll say. They read about murders, kidnappings, terrorism - etc. "But what do you gain from it, other than to reinforce prejudices and feed your fears?" That normally ends the conversations. If you're at a computer and loose on time there is no shortage of joyous stuff to read and watch. A friend sent me a YouTube vid of a dog on a trampoline the other day. I forget what I was doing at the time - it stopped seeming important. I just enjoyed watching the manifestation of joy.
This extends to all parts of your life. Diet, for example. Go vegan. Seriously. Otherwise, how can you hope to live through love and compassion if you are causing animals to violently lose their lives for yours? Instead, you have the option to live in such a way as to be in harmony with nature, not its aggressor.
11) Speaking of dogs, engage with animals. They remind us how to live ego-less, as our true selves, with no concern for what others think of us, for how we appear, for the past or the future. Animals are now, and now only - that is their only focus.
12) Treat medication and anti-anxiety products with extreme caution. Yes there are meds out there that can take the sting out of anxiety, but they are not the answer to your problem. They will, at best, merely make it easier to get through the day. You may decide that alone is benefit enough. But in the same way that paracetamol numbs the pain but does not address the cause of the pain, these will not address the cause of your anxiety. The answer is within you, but you have to want to accept yourself and implement some changes, like some of those I've tried to outline.
13) Google "Pale Blue Dot" - a famous image of the earth taken from the far reaches of the solar system. Look pretty small, don't we? And that's a relatively close-up picture - it was taken from within our solar system. In the infinite expanse of the universe, we're as small as it gets. Suddenly, your concerns and fears don't seem that important. If I were prime minister I'd hang this picture in every school classroom rule as a reminder of humbleness and humility, and most of all, as a reminder that what you think matters does not.
14) Laugh! For goodness' sake, laugh. To quote the poet Pablo Neruda, laughter is the language of the soul. In other words, it's up there with exercise and presentness in being something totally foreign to the ego. Ergo, it is powerful in countering the ego. Buy comedy DVDs, read humourous books - hell, amuse yourSELF. If you can make laughter, cardio exercise, being present and acceptance daily facets of your day, you will very quickly see changes.
15) Accept your current situation. Stop labeling it as unideal, and instead projecting yourself to an idealised future where everything will be as you want it. The here and now is ALL you have, all you've ever had. It is beautiful. If you stay present to the here and now - and not in the egoic domains of the past and future - you will find true beauty. Mindfulness is a great meditative exercise to promote this - try it. Sit in a park and stare at a tree. Sound weird? But you want to feel better, right?
16) Finally... love IS the answer. It really is. Make it your daily focus, in all areas of your love. Love and joy are the only worthwhile achievements in life. Abandon grudges held against people from the past, jealousies and suspicions of people in the present. Abandon minor gripes and disgruntlement - none of it's worth it, and it just saps your energy. Accept things are they are, or at least those things you cannot change. Like other people, for one thing.
This has been written very ad-hoc, and I have no idea how it will come across. But I did my best! Good luck, wherever you are.