At one time or another we’ve all been blue. The Chinese considered autumn as a period when melancholia or depression was more likely to occur. You could understand this because the harvest season in the fall marks a winding-down of the spring planting. As a prelude to winter, the “fall”, begins a descent.
I think of depression as predominantly a physical condition because it is a “blah” feeling that appears as a lack of energy and vitality. Somehow, something in the human mechanism has gone sour, and the body/mind functions at a low capacity. You don’t feel out of control; you feel defeated. Just imagine if you ran five miles a day and felt both vibrant and radiant. You would be better equipped to handle any life crisis with poise and likely stave off any depressive feelings.
From the psychological side, the depressed person is “at a loss”, thinking, “What do I do?” Life is not turning out the way he or she expects and depression sets in. They thought they had a hold on things and it was snatched away. Depressed persons have given up on the outside world and focus a lot on themselves. They often make derogatory statements about their own actions.
Buddhists avoid depression by their acceptance of things. They recognize that nothing will ever stay the same; it is all impermanent. Within this ephemeral perspective, each individual continually transforms throughout their life. They will never be the same person throughout and they will never be in control of everything all the time. The strongest Buddhist acknowledgment is that life is simply pain and suffering. Once you embrace the pain, it starts to disappear. It’s only when you fight it that it hurts more. This echoes a coarse remark of the four letter variety, used perhaps by agnostics, “s— happens”.
The great thing about depression, and all other emotions, is that they all pass. If you go with the flow, then it passes faster. The martial arts of aikido and taichi embody this principle. They suggest that you do not fight your opponent, but instead go with their energy and use it against them. Kungfu your depression and it will “zou” or run.
Other approaches to fling your blues include doing things to keep your mind off your loss. Of course, you don’t want to overdo things to the point of burn-out, but cleaning your house or handling the paperwork you’ve always resisted can be a good distraction. Again physical activity works to push aside depression.
Constructive monitoring of your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes sheds light on how you set yourself up for depression. Why do other people get divorced, lose money or loved ones and not get as depressed as you might? A silver lining exists for any disruptive change in our lives. Crises lay the foundation for new insights, new perspectives, and new growth. You lose something, but you can also gain if you pursue it. You don’t gain, however, if all you do is focus on the loss. You can also have fun analyzing exactly when the change to the blues occurred. You couldn’t have been down all your life. It changed at some point; what happened? Do you need to relive that past time to get over it? Or do you need to get to the source of your depression at that time so that you can handle it now?
Perhaps my favorite recommendation to depressed people is to look for something that they are so charged about that they can’t keep themselves from feeling great. This can be a tough task, but if we look at who we are, our dreams will be so clear. Make the pursuit of the dream more important than attaining the dream.
When all else fails, consider singing the blues. The outpouring of feeling is a joy in itself. The word “sad” has roots related to “satisfied” and “sated”, to be “full”. When we are full of life, we might get sad because it can’t get more filled. When the harvest is done, we have nothing to look forward to for a while. When we open ourselves to the fullness of feeling, we have to let go of what has been and open up to what might be, however unpredictable. Sadness feels nostalgic for what we don’t have, but opening up to the feeling invites something more to our being. This eternal process of growth puts us squarely in the thick of life — how wonderful!