A new plan, again: Day 26

I got depressed again last night. Just after putting up my last post. And you know what? I'm glad it happened.

For a start, it did happen, definitely, so I may as well make peace with that and move on. But more than that, it gave me a chance to do something that turned out to be really powerful, and that ultimately (I think) cut the depression short.

What it allowed me to do was become curious about my suffering.

This is not our usual method in the West. We tend to approach pain as something unwanted and other to be avoided, medicated, zapped into oblivion. Take enough tablets and numb the feeling down, and everything will be OK.

But in getting curious about my suffering I was able to see it in a wildly different light.

Here's what I did.

1. When the suffering, which was depression, a highly negative voice, arose, I looked at it and said to myself, "Now that's interesting."
2. I asked myself what it felt like. What emotions was I feeling? What thoughts was I thinking? Were there any physical sensations? How did they feel?
3. And I let all of that be. I let the thoughts arise, the emotions, the physiological symptoms. Let them do what they would do. And watched them.
4. And in doing so I became more present, more aware. I was not my suffering, or at least not just my suffering. I was also the space in which the suffering manifested. The ability to experience the suffering.

The flame of depression is horrendous, yes, but it cannot sustain itself without an energy that you yourself must feed it. Those ruminations -- I'm so worthless, I'm awful at everything, I can never do anything right -- they keep the flame burning. In becoming curious about your suffering you break that cycle, you turn off the gas.

There is still, of course, the gas that was already fed in. Maybe that is an awful lot. But you watch it, curiously, watch it flicker and dance. "How interesting that I can have a voice like that in my head. How interesting that humans can feel that way. How interesting that I would do this to myself."

You find there's a lot of energy in the flame, when you stop judging it, stop wishing it wasn't so. A lot of lifeforce. It's quite marvellous. Destructive, yes, but marvellous as well.

And eventually, without your identification pumping in more fuel, the flame goes out. And you're back as yourself.

That's what happened last night. And of course the depression will return. The negative voice. In fact I heard it many times today.

But I stayed curious, and the fire never really took hold. And right now I feel pretty good.

What suffering is there in your life? What do you push away and resist? Try being curious about it instead, accepting it and watching it to see precisely what happens. You might be surprised with the results.