(Stillness in the Storm Editor) Is there a spiritual basis for depression? Many have contended there is. In the following article, 15 points describe some of these symptoms. Before those are reviewed, I’ll offer my model as to the deeper reasons we suffer from depression.
Psychology is a branch of science tasked with studying and understanding the psyche. Philosophy is a living use of that psyche, as it interacts with the world. Spiritual psychology, as I am terming and pioneering it, is founded on a blend of philosophy and psychology, asking the question: What are the factors of mind (psychology) and how are we supposed to use them to live fulfilling lives (philosophy).
Within this emerging body of knowledge, the question of why we suffer from depression is answered as follows.
Spiritual values are a set of objective things that influence the human mind and consciousness. All of life is meant to encourage us to seek, find, and align with spiritual values.
For example, one of the spiritual values is autonomy, the ability to self-direct, do things for yourself, and make your own decisions. When we incorporate this value of autonomy into our lives, we receive rewards—we gain empowerment and independence and this feels good; the body and mind generate positive emotions.
There are a host of spiritual values, such personal equanimity (feeling good in your own body and life), autonomy, companionship, life legacy, self-recognition, social recognition, and so on.
Spiritual values have one primary purpose: to encourage our growth, to move us toward the source of all things so that we might become like the Creator—a unique version of the Creator only we can embody. In doing so, you gain life fulfillment and develop skills that make you a positive force for good in the world. Whether or not you believe this isn’t important to the discussion at hand. But it is important in order to comprehend the etiological (causal and logical) basis of the spiritual psychology model.
These values are discovered in life experience, and once we make contact with them, we have to incorporate them into our lives, or we suffer. In essence, the spiritual causes of depression, with respect to spiritual values, are that when we fail to weave all our values into our lives, we feel existential angst and disillusionment.
Consider this example.
You’re a four-year-old boy. Life seems good. Your parents love you and you play by yourself with your toys. You don’t have friends but you have family and that’s all that matters. It seems like everything is perfect, paradise even.
But one day, you meet a girl down the street. You develop a friendship with her. You start playing with her and everything seems great. The games you used to play alone you now play with your new friend and it feels more fun and fulfilling than it did before.
One day, your new friend comes over and tells you that she is moving across the country, and you can’t play with her anymore. She leaves and you never see her again.
You go back to playing by yourself, but it just doesn’t feel the same anymore. You’re doing exactly the same things you used to do before you met her but it just doesn’t provide the same excitement and joy.
Now you start to feel disillusioned. The things that used to provide you so much joy don’t anymore. Depression sets in, and you’re now fundamentally unstable in your life. It seems like you can’t trust life itself anymore; you can’t trust yourself. You’re in the throes of deep depression.
What’s going on here?
Within the framework outlined above, the spiritual value of fellowship and companionship was discovered and incorporated when you started playing with your new friend. Once that occurred, the benchmark of fulfillment you used to measure your happiness was raised. Using a food analogy, it’s as if you went from eating plain brown rice to eating a delicious stir-fry with that rice. Only to go back to plain rice again after.
All of life is similar in that once we discover a value, it can’t be undiscovered. We have to find a way to give it life. The four-year-old child hadn’t discovered the value of fellowship yet and that’s why they were perfectly content before they met the little girl down the street. But once they did discover that value, it cast everything they experience before in a new light.
This is how the mind and consciousness works. It’s additive. In addition, it’s potentialized. By this I mean, your consciousness isn’t a blank slate, it’s more like a preprogrammed device. Things can be unlocked and once they are, they have to be worked with.
Why would the Creator of the universe do this to us? For the purpose of encouraging our growth.
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The founding premise of spiritual psychology is that all things exist for a purpose, and that purpose is for us to find and strive to become like the Creator. That’s what evolution is.
The way that plays out in our world is through seeking maximum fulfillment and wellbeing, what has been called the quest for perfection. But since it’s hard for people to differentiate between questing for perfection and perfectionism, we’ll just focus on fulfillment.
How do you realize the best quality of life for yourself? You do so by recognizing the things you value and striving to work them into your life. It’s that simple. And yet, simple in concept doesn’t mean easy in application.
The four-year-old boy, after having discovered the spiritual value of fellowship, felt the joy experienced from aligning with it. And as a result, he evolved and changed. It was as if a new room in a house was discovered that house clutter could be moved into. Or, it is as if you’ve been eating all your meals by hand and then one day someone gives you utensils—it’s a breakthrough. Your concept of how you eat changes at that moment. You can’t go back—only forward.
This is what spiritual values do to us. They change us, they make us grow. We gain new senses and activate new aspects of our being that are primed or ready to be stimulated through the alignment of the spiritual value.
The little boy in the example activated his fellowship aspects of being and the absence of his friend caused a deficit. This deficit resulted in feeling dissatisfied. The things he used to do don’t make him feel the same because he isn’t the same—he’s grown.
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The depression emerges when the things we used to do to satisfy our needs and express our values don’t work anymore. I call this a catastrophic moment of self-appraisal. It sounds nasty, and it certainly feels that way, but it’s a good thing in the long run.
Tension is one of the primary mechanisms that make us grow. When we feel the tension or need for something, it activates us to do something about it. In the act of doing so, we learn something, we grow wise if we seek the truth and follow it wholeheartedly.
Wisdom is the result of properly reflecting truth in the mind and attuning our behaviors and attitudes around it, giving us the skill to realize our desires.
The little boy is now going to seek within himself to find a way to satisfy this need. He’ll learn how to develop social skills. He’ll gain mastery over his being and eventually learn how to satisfy this need. When he develops these skills, he won’t feel that intense pang of catastrophic self-appraisal because he’ll have the wisdom he needs to satisfy that need. When we have a pathway to achieve our goals, we don’t suffer from depression, unless we fail to do what is needed.
In another example, think of someone who never learns how to feed themselves.
Let’s say they are 25-years-old and they’ve always been fed by other people. What happens if this person is stranded in a supermarket with no one there to help them?
In the first few hours, they aren’t hungry, so it doesn’t seem like a problem. But then, they start to feel hungry; however, there’s no one around to feed them. This is when the catastrophic moment occurs—when you realize you have a need but you don’t have the skills or wisdom to satisfy it.
But our 25-year-old is observant and thoughtful. Even though they’ve never prepared food for themselves before, they’ve watched other people do it. In that moment of deep tension, when they realize they’re hungry but lack the skill to feed themselves, they go within. They start to use the creative powers of their mind to develop new plans to satisfy this need.
They see an apple in the produce section of the supermarket, and they decide to try something new. They pick up the apple and take a bite. Instantly, they feel the waves of pleasure that come from satisfying hunger. And something else makes them feel good. They feel the satisfaction of growth in wisdom—they now have the skill to feed themselves.
After a few hours, they start to feel hungry again. But this time, there is no intense episode of catastrophic self-appraisal. This time, they simply find some food and eat it.
What’s the moral to this story?
The universe is meant to challenge for growth. But we have to be humble.
We have to recognize that we lack wisdom, so we can go within and prepare ourselves for the receipt of new knowledge. Sometimes this feels really nasty. The catastrophic self-appraisal moment doesn’t feel good because we went from feeling competent to recognizing our incompetence. But this is required so that we can become receptive to the wisdom the universe is trying to offer us.
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From this perspective, depression comes when we get stuck in that catastrophic self-appraisal moment. We recognize our lack of skill, but we don’t activate so as to grow and learn.
Of course, there are many circumstantial reasons why life’s challenges are hard to meet. I’m not suggesting that your depression is totally your fault. But I am saying that the primary cause is lack of value articulation within your life.
Do you know your values? Have you developed ideals that express them? Are you constantly refining and improving these ideals and plans so your life is progressively more fulfilling?
Most of us don’t do this.
Most of us are laboring under the delusion that happiness happens to us, not through us as a co-creative actor. Yes, we can sometimes stumble into happiness. But the truly wise and happy in the long term learn how to generate their own happiness by constantly improving their ability to express their values in their life.
In the preceding related article, I offer some suggestions as to how one can reclaim power of their life through personal narrative.
With the wisdom of truth in hand, all life’s opportunities for growth can be seen as such.
– Justin
Read more articles by Justin Deschamps.
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by Elizabeth DeVille, December 24th, 2019
One of the greatest struggles for those living with depression is the stigma that surrounds the disease. It’s a challenge just to get through your own life, let alone trying to explain the many misconceptions or undisclosed symptoms to those that you love.
It’s not that the people in your life don’t want to help you. Often family, friends and loved ones feel powerless simply because they don’t understand what you’re experiencing having never been there before themselves. They picture the stereotypical depressed person, overcome with sadness, tears rolling down their face. Sure, that may be accurate for some people (they say there is a little truth behind every stereotype), but for many, life with depression takes on a different reality.
Here Are 15 Symptoms Of Depression That No One Ever Talks About, But We Want You To Understand:
#1 – Going ‘Crazy’
When you’re stuck in a bad place, not only do you struggle to trust those around you, but you also reach a point where you can no longer trust your own mind. From negative, destructive thinking to extreme anxiety, your thoughts may no longer coincide with reality and that can cause great confusion. You’re left wondering if you’re just going crazy.
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#2 – Feeling Judged
The negative thoughts that you experience when you are depressed not only come from your own mind, but also from the reactions of those around you, even those that mean well. For example, someone may try to cheer you up by pointing out that you ‘could have it worse’ or you ‘have so many reasons to be happy’. However, when you’re living in this dark cloud it can quickly come across as being judgmental, pushing the person further into their shell.
#3 – No Hope for the Future
Not only do you not see a happy and positive future ahead of you, in time depression will leave you with an inability to look forward to the future at all. The dark cloud that currently dominates your thinking forces you to focus on the failures of the past and present. The future, after all, appears hopeless.
#4 – Change of Appetite
The connection between depression and food is a complicated cycle. Poor eating habits have been found to make depression worse, however, depression often leads to poor eating habits. When you are in that dark place, you may find yourself turning to food for comfort eating countless amounts of ‘junk’ or forgetting to eat altogether.
#5 – Odd or Twisted Dreams
Studies show that depression not only impacts your thoughts when you’re awake, it can also impact your dreams. Those suffering from depression may find themselves experiencing weird, twisted or generally ‘odd’ dreams. Often these dreams are frighteningly life-like.
#6 – Warped Sleep Schedule
Depression has a way of messing with your sleep schedule. You may find yourself completely unable to fall asleep, awake haunted by your toxic, negative thoughts all night. On the other hand, you may sleep for hours on end only to wake up still feeling completely worn-out and exhausted, as if you hadn’t slept at all.
#7 – Feeling Completely Alone
You could be surrounded by the most amazing group of family and friends, but depression has a knack for making us feel completely and utterly alone. If you are reading this because you are trying to better understand the struggles of a loved one, know that it’s nothing you’ve done. The disease isolates those who suffer.
#8 – Physical Aches and Pains
Generally, when you talk about the impact of depression on our lives, we are talking about the mental struggles and challenging emotions. However, no one seems to talk pay attention to the fact that depression can manifest itself in a very physical way. It’s not at all uncommon for those who are suffering to experience chest pains, muscle aches, joint pain, headaches or other otherwise unexplained aches and pains.
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#9 – Dislike of Mirrors
Okay, your hatred for mirrors itself isn’t the symptom, but it’s a result of the symptom. Depression erodes our confidence and self-esteem, often leading those who suffer to dislike their physical appearance. The very presence of a mirror leads to self-deprecating thoughts.
#10 – Completely Overwhelmed by Life
It’s not necessarily that just your depression or treatment efforts are overwhelming, everything in life is. There are days that even the effort to get out of bed is more than you believe you are capable of handling. Daily chores like making a cup of coffee or getting dressed seem impossible, as your life leaves you feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to cope.
#11 – Feeling Completely Numb
Many people assume that depression always equates to feelings of extreme sadness – crying in the corner unable to stop, however, this isn’t always the case. Many people find that they go a step further, completely shutting down emotionally. This means you feel completely numb, no happiness and no sadness – just nothing.
#12 – Altered Life View
People may try to appeal to your logic in an attempt to help reset your way of thinking, however, depression is anything but logical. As you start to rationalize your depressed thinking, you will find it harder and harder to distinguish between the truth and the disorder.
#13 – Inability to Ask For Help
How many times do we hear family and friends, after they discover we’ve been struggling, asking why we didn’t just ask for help? As if it’s as easy as picking up the phone… The truth is that depression erodes our feelings of self-worth in such a way that we feel like we would be nothing more than an inconvenience or a bother. It literally prevents us from asking for the support that we need when we’re in that dark place.
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#14 – Extreme Guilt
Whether you are feeling guilty because you finally convinced yourself to ask for help, or because you believe that your disorder is somehow impacting the lives of those you love in a negative way, those who live with depression often also live with extreme guilt. This can prevent people from seeking the help that they need to recover, either from loved ones or professional assistance.
#15 – Irritability
An incredibly common symptom of depression, it’s surprising that this one doesn’t get more attention. Why? You’d think that this would be one of the easiest signs that others could watch out for. Bogged down by everything you are currently experiencing, those who are suffering from depression often become grumpy or highly irritable, snapping at those around them and exhibiting little to no patience.
Image via Family World News
Stillness in the Storm Editor: Why did we post this?
The preceding article reveals symptoms of depression that help one identify chronic issues so as to activate the healing urge. The introduction of this article reveals a system of understanding the fundimental nature and purpose of reality, as it relates to soul growth through the pursuit of spirutal values. Much of life’s suffering comes from an improper understanding of the purpose and nature of things. With this knowledge in hand, one can empower themselves to overcome any obstacle and in the process realize a fulfiling life that can contribute to positvely working to make the world a better place.
– Justin
Not sure how to make sense of this? Want to learn how to discern like a pro? Read this essential guide to discernment, analysis of claims, and understanding the truth in a world of deception: 4 Key Steps of Discernment – Advanced Truth-Seeking Tools
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Source:
https://awarenessact.com/15-symptoms-of-depression-that-no-one-ever-talks-about/
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