Just sit with it

One of my clients recently shared how the only way for her to deal with her recurring depression is to just sit with it. It became evident from further conversations with some of my naturally depressed clients, that the tools being promoted to assist with depression might be counterintuitive at times. 

 

People are encouraged to adopt a range of tools to help them with their depressive tendencies. These include exercise, eating right, positive thinking, and mindfulness. All these practices have a value of course. Yet the most helpful tool, just sit with it, is rarely, if ever mentioned. 

 

You might ask, what do you mean by naturally depressed? 

 

Working with a range of individuals in my BodyTalk practice, it has become clear that some are naturally more inclined to become depressed. This is not situational driven, rather it is a natural tendency in the body-mind to lean towards depression. Until I mention that to them, they have never heard anyone speak about their natural tendency of depression. These individuals also seem to have a genetic and/ chemical basis for depression. In the spiritual world, the likes of Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle, represent this tendency. Both realize who they are as Awareness* through depression.  

 

Correlating Dr. David Hawkins** Consciousness scale with just sitting with it brings clarity on why it is so important. Its basis is in Acceptance, which measures at 350 on the Consciousness Scale. It includes the Emotion as Forgiveness, the Process of Transcendence, with Harmonious Life view, and the God view of Mercifulness (Power vs Force, Dr. David Hawkins).

 

Thus, by sitting with it, they Accept the depression, the individual does not want to change or modify either themselves or what they are feeling. They Forgive themselves (release guilt) for the feeling that just appeared to them, which facilitates the Transcendence of the depression, letting it simply dissolve over time. In this action, they are in Harmony with life, as rarely do anyone choose to have depression arise to them and they see the Mercy of life, by Accepting it, it dissolves as it appeared. 

 

Trying the other route, being proactive day and night, to focus on feeling good and negating the depression seems to have the opposite effect. The more they try to get away from it, the more the feeling intensifies, according to their feedback. 

 

A teenage client described how she uses reason to deal with sadness. She sits with the emotion of sadness as it appears, simply holding it in her mind with Acceptance, and then uses her Reason to negate it and ultimately release it with this process. 

 

Both these methods are forms of Acceptance, stepping back from it and recognizing that the emotion is appearing to you and that you did not create it. This can be used for any emotion that arises within your body-mind.  

 

The question then is, how different would your life be if you viewed emotions as appearing to you and then proceed to just hold them in Awareness*, instead of going to war with them?

 

 

* https://www.shiningworld.com/about/

**https://www.amazon.com/Power-vs-Force-David-Hawkins-ebook/dp/B00EJBABS2