About the suicide/depression thing: I have some thoughts on why that happens, and have been interested to see these comments: what I have to say may just be the same thing in a different form. I got a clue from hearing a quote from the Dalai Lama; I have to paraphrase it, because I don’t remember where it came from, but I remember the gist, because it struck me strongly: “Life isn’t about happiness. It’s more complicated than that.”

Lately I keep coming face to face with how perfectionism gets in my way (and doesn’t exactly make me charming to be around, either). Don’t get me wrong: I believe that striving for an ideal makes us better. It’s just when we start insisting on it that things run amok. As Jane Austen puts it, “We can’t control our feelings, but we can our actions.” I used to focus more on the second half of that; now I’m taking a serious look at the first half.

Life on earth is a mystery. It includes much joy and beauty, but it is not universally happy. Pain and grief and anger are real, and to deny them (instead of allowing them to painfully and humiliatingly move through us the way they want to) is in a very real sense to hang on to them, to lock them up where they can’t move on as they’re meant to. Which means they fester.

There’s a sort of ethic in a lot of spiritual traditions about willing “bad” feelings into submission. Especially in the U.S., we are addicted to happy endings and feel it’s a sign of spiritual lack when we’re unhappy or deeply doubtful. I’d suggest that this is not only counterproductive; it’s actually dangerous.

Madeleine L’Engle quotes H.A Williams on this: “When I attempt to make myself virtuous, the me I can thus organize and discipline is no more than the me of which I am aware. And it is precisely the equation of my total self with this one small part of it which is the root cause of all sin. This is the fundamental mistake often made in exhortations to repentance and amendment. They attempt to confirm me in my lack of faith by getting me to organize the self I know against the self I do not know.”

While this is in Christian language, the meaning is easily translated to a broader spirituality. “Sin”, in its root meaning, simply means missing aim: when we do this, we are off track. Repentance means “to turn away from” – so when we turn away from messy emotions and try to do “better” than that (amendment), we are off track. When we try to force the mystery into our ideas of what’s right and what’s holy, we are off track.

Force is the key, here. I once read, in a book on child abuse, that sex entered into lovingly differs from forced sex in the way that a caress differs from a slap: same hand, same cheek – but very different feel.

So while techniques such as your own excellent version of EFT can really help us move in a better direction, it’s important to remember that some of that movement is really not up to us: it’s a bigger picture than that. What I’ve discovered is that trying to be happy and upbeat and deeply enlightened all the time strangles some of my deepest and most powerful and yes, spiritual feelings and connections. The mystery isn’t always comfortable, but it’s real. Feelings aren’t neat and pretty, but we control them at our peril – and believe me, I know this from personal experience, and run into this reality every day. If there’s a disparity between what we believe in our conscious minds and what we honestly feel, it leads to violence, or at least cruelty, against ourselves and others. How could all the atrocities of the world happen without denial of human feeling? And how can they stop without our changing how we express what we feel?

As the anonymous Zen saying goes, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” We may not always like the chore of feeling what we feel, but it’s as necessary to life as water (and washing the dishes). I am all for steering feeling in a better direction if and when we honestly can, but sometimes feelings we choose to label “bad” are really spirit, calling to us in its strange and painfully wonderful way.

I know this is not a popular point of view, but it is one that seems to work better in real life than forcefully pretending it’s possible for everything to be and feel wonderful all the time. As Marianne Thorne points out, in a way, it’s a kind of disrespect of the mystery of life, which flows on and is so much bigger than what we know.

That’s my take, anyway. I appreciate your raising this question on your blog, because I think it’s important, and it’s given me a chance to put my own thoughts on the subject into form.

Thanks for the brilliant and timely article about depression, pain, passion and purpose

Had recently been experiencing this after a huge burst of energy am now back on track nd looking forward to visiting Texas at end of this month more “yee Haa’ than Aaargh!

Hugs from across the Pond

Graham

Thank you for sharing and I especially appreciate you wisdom regarding daring to STOP having an opinion about depression one way or the other. I have found such peace in refusing to judge and refusing to have opinions about my ‘stuff’ of life.

I like your metaphor — ‘pruning our dead branches’ is important for our growth and actualization.

love and light,
Anisa

Thank you for your kind words… and I have to tell you – I LOVE you too! I recognize there are other factors for depression, but there was something about your question that triggered an intuitive knowing that we were really talking about ‘purpose’. Some of the comments below are very wise about digging deeper, learning to release attachment, and just learning to be and be okay with being. There’s great potential for growth in these acts and decisions. And, for you and I, there’s a knowingness that we must be intentional about our contribution. One thing that supports me more than any other is making sure that I have a least one area of my life where I can live intensely at all times. This area ebbs and flows with the moon as does my ‘intensity’ – one month it’s my family, the next it’s a creative project, the next it’s my work or my spiritual pursuits, the next it’s spiritual activism, and so on. I appreciate very much your husband’s wisdom…. reminds me of the ‘starfish story’ Thank you ~S~ for the honor of connecting and co-creating with you.

I hold the vision of your heart and soul fulfilled. love and light, Anisa

I believe that when we experience depression it is our Being, or our potential, guiding us to just be. To stop. To spend time on doing inner creativity. Doing the little things that make us feel good. To relate to our self.
Think of nature, it is either creating (growth) or disintegrating (dying). Yet even in dying/disintegrating, nature is creating something new ~ mulch to aid its growth.
When we are allowing and accepting a part of our self as dying (yet never the important part ~ Our Being), we can stop fighting the process and allow/know ourselves to be safe!
It is not wrong to allow part of ourselves to die … I just pruned some dead branches off my camelia bush today and yet it continues to bloom beautifully … just as we humans do.
I used as a mantra when I was depressed (in between the highs of helping clients do great things!) that “I am doing inner creativity now”. I stopped making depression a wrong or a bad experience!! And all I can say is it worked for me.
Thank You.