Researchers have now concluded that over 90% cases of depression is due to self-inflicting thoughts. In simple words, the culprit is the MIND! The mind makes you feel weak, negative and does not allow you to enjoy simple things of life.
In my earlier article I had discussed one of the techniques, about diverting the mind. If you force think a strong positive thought (best are selfless thoughts), the mind finally gives up on the depressive thought. You can read the whole article here… https://www.facebook.com/groups/eternalenergyindia/permalink/1658370030943014/
The other way is to attack the problem right at its source. What is bothering you? Is it someone’s behaviour? Is it something you have to let go off? Is it a financial worry? If you are not too perturbed, narrow your thoughts to the one which worries you the most. And attack it right there. Take help. Be generous, approach as many people you can, you can approach people like me too. Or you can go to professional psychologists/psychiatrists to seek help.
I am taking case studies in this article to give general observations for everyone’s benefit. These case studies are useful to those who would like to address the depressive thought at its source.
The first case study is about a lady, young, living a good life in a big city. She is depressed all the time. The main reason is because of her looks. She feels she looks ugly and fat. And come what may, weight loss does not occur!
To understand this better, let’s look at her outlook to her own life. She has discounted all the positivities… a good life, good family and shifted her entire focus to her body! So the body has this natural tendency to put on weight due to many reasons. One of the reasons is due to depression!!! One of the primary causes is binge eating. When you are depressed you tend to binge eat.
The best thing for her to do in this case, is to shift her thoughts to the higher. Shift it from the body and stretch it beyond her self-limiting interests. So she starts looking at her talent, let’s say for example she likes to paint, or sing or any other talent. She then dedicates that talent to a higher cause. So she develops a higher vision, a higher goal and reaches out. When she does all this, she also defocuses from the body perspective.
Here’s a chart that can explain this further.
Let’s look at another case study. This lady is very dynamic, young and is a successful professional. She also has a deep desire to extend and reach out to the society, to carry out tasks for the welfare of the society. But she is placed in a situation where she is unable to step out of her home and get into activities that gives her professional satisfaction and also reach out to the society. This situation depresses her.
Any situation we encounter is a temporary one. The situation may look like a permanent one, but nothing is permanent. So the situation will change.
Many situations we encounter is a direct result of our own past thoughts. So we should feel encouraged that the situations will change if we just drop the negative thoughts and increment the positive thoughts. This can be done by various ways, sitting in meditation for instance. When one has the inclination to perform actions, and is unable to do so it is extremely frustrating. But meditating on those actions or just thinking about those actions itself contributes to a paradigm shift of thoughts to positivity. This shift of thoughts will ultimately change the situations around us.
The final case study is about another lady who has to leave her comfort zone, her surroundings and move to another place far away. She is particularly attached to objects and beings in her present environment and the very thought of moving to a new destination is depressing.
We all encounter this thought at any point in our lives. Nothing with us will remain forever, not even our body. But yet, it’s a challenge to accept the fact of separation. For this, one has to train one’s own mind for a long time using meditation or other techniques, which I will write about in further articles. The art of mind detachment is a very interesting subject. In fact, it is one of the most important aspects of life. Also, the aspect of perhaps encountering an unknown future is also very scary to many. So any change in the comfort zone is resisted by the mind.
The best is to slowly train the mind, by insisting that “I don’t live here”, “I live elsewhere”. And train the mind to look forward to the new are by looking at the positives in the new place/destination.
Also some aspects of physical separation can also be tried about. For temporary periods.
All the above case studies were given to understand how to flush out the problem right at its source.
Keep a watch on this space, I will write more techniques to combat depression. If you like these articles, do join our Deep Awareness programs. Register here: https://www.eternalenergy.in/deep-awareness/
Enjoy your life!
Jayanthi R. Iyengar