Wisdom School

Wisdom School is a series of lessons created to explore the higher spiritual teachings and raise the consciousness of those participating. Posted lectures are given to assist students seeking to walk a real spiritual Path and transform their consciousness from regular mundane levels to that of more enlightened beings, aware of their soul and wishing to grow in Love.

The Spiritual Meaning of Depression and How to Overcome It

Knowing the Spiritual Meaning of Depression will allow you to move through it in Meditation

Spiritual Meaning of Depression

Can you imagine the millions of dollars spent around the world each year by people looking for a drug to take away their depression? You can be sure that it is big, big business and in a way, we can’t fault the pharmaceutical companies for trying to capitalize on the mindset that exists within us. They simply see a demand for something; relief from a very real, very painful problem and they provide a short term fix. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t looking to cure depression permanently. That’s bad business because once cured, then there’s no more need to purchase the

pill.

Unfortunately, what isn’t widely taught is that depression is a result of internal blockages and can be addressed on a spiritual level in order to be healed. It is a learned behavior and one that can absolutely be unlearned.

Depending on how strong it resides in a person and for how long it has been a problem will be indicators of how much work is required to move beyond any one incident of depression. And ultimately how long it will take to end the cycles once and for all.

The Basics of Depression

Before we start lunging for a permanent ‘cure’, let’s back up and begin with some basic understanding of what creates feelings of depression. The root of the word ‘depress’ means to press down. Depression should be thought of then as an energy which is pressing down on the life force within us.

That pressing down creates pressure and pressure after a while creates pain and pain restricts movement. So something within oneself is creating pressure and that pressing down effect prevents the flow of life and energy within.

The big turning point can come when we recognize that everything happening is created from within us. This is where we begin to reclaim the power. Be careful because the temptation is to get further depressed because, what if it IS all happening within us and we still can’t resolve it! So we feel even worse than before. Don’t go there. Take on a meditation practice with the intention of exploring what it is that is depressing you.

Depression can be a difficult condition to resolve so we don’t approach the topic lightly. The main reason it is hard to fix is that by its very nature, depression constricts our ability to act and action is almost always required to move out of a depressed state.

The Cause of Depression

Depression results when we recognize we have a problem and at the same time, we believe there is no way to fix that problem. Just think about that! We see the problem and believe wholeheartedly we can’t fix it.

Within our analysis, there are 2 flaws. The first is our interpretation of the problem. And the second is in our belief that we can’t do anything about it. The first problem comes from the fact the we are interpreting our situation through the lenses of very tinted glasses.

spiritual meaning of depression

We see and interpret what we imagine the problem to be through a spiritual consciousness that is wounded, limited and reactive. Then we exhaust whatever efforts we can muster and determine we are destined to live with this horrible thing forever. Despair takes hold and shortly after, the life force stops moving and we are thoroughly depressed.

Imagine for a moment that God looks at the state of the world. While God has the power and authority to fix anything, by His Infinite Love, He doesn’t violate free will so He can’t just go ahead and change whatever He wants.

But wouldn’t God of all beings be justified in looking at what we do to each other here on Earth and get thoroughly depressed? Here we perpetuate atrocity after atrocity on each other, feeling totally entitled to use each other, enslave each other, torture each other and kill each other for whatever selfish reasons we so choose. And no matter how much God sends us help, messages, Grace, Love, most of us remain pretty closed off and don’t transform one bit. Now that’s depressing!

But God never gives up in trying new ways to help humanity change, heal, evolve and ultimately live freely and in harmony with Him. God never chooses depression. And thus neither should we. But I know it’s not that easy for us.

Daily Attention to Feelings will Help

Another dimension to depression is that it is a condition of the feeling self or our feminine side. It is generally a complete lack of consideration of the feelings that eventually leads to an inner rebellion and a forced shut down of the person. So in this sense, it’s an emotional reaction that very quickly gets our attention and forces us to take notice. Perhaps if we walk through an example, it will all become clearer.

Imagine you have been in a relationship and in love with your partner. In your mind, all has been going pretty good. But one day you learn that your partner is sleeping with someone else and has been lying to you for quite some time. You live together so it’s an entangled mess and to top it off, you had just quit your job and gone back to school so you don’t have any income and have taken on serious debt for your education. Sounds like a great recipe for depression, doesn’t it?

If you are someone prone to depression, likely you don’t have a comprehensive process to deal with all the feelings such news will bring. Most people will become overwhelmed by how grim it looks and just try to figure out where to begin. Maybe you find a place you can stay in order to separate from your partner.

When the dust settles and you are apart, you might really begin to feel hurt, angry, betrayed, lost, broke, not to mention crushed and humiliated by the fact that your partner treated you so bad. Your emotions are flailing all over the place and you know that what would fix this is if only your partner didn’t have the affair in the first place.

Or maybe if they came to you and begged you sincerely to come back promising it was over. But in the second case, you still would have a real hard time being with them. But what if you are in love with them? Is there any way to make it right?

Depression and Despair Thrive when we see no Viable Options

That’s how depression starts. The only solutions we see are not possible and yet, the emotions and feelings don’t go away. They may even get inflamed by our negative thinking. Imagine that we start to wonder why our partner had an affair. What was it that we did or didn’t do that drove them away? How is it we couldn’t see it at all?

And with each of these thoughts comes an emotional reaction as we recognize more and more thoroughly how horrible of a person we are. In tandem, we replay all the conversations and recognize how we have been lied to and manipulated. We couldn’t see it then but now we are furious at what was done to us.

A big problem in all this is a lack of connection to the inner self and a lack of process to deal with our feelings. True, this is a tough situation. I would never diminish the gravity nor the pain of it. But it certainly isn’t cause to let depression take you over.

Depression is actually a choice we make even though it may ‘come on’ and thus feel out of our control. It’s like being caught outside when it’s raining. You can stand out there and say you got wet. You couldn’t control the weather. That is true but you did have the choice whether or not to remain outside when it started raining.

How to Manage Depression

Let’s explore how to manage our lives such that depression cannot live in us.

First and foremost, it begins with God and prayer. Pray to be delivered from the darkness that has settled in you. Keep a strong faith that God will receive your request and is sending help.

Next,you have to have a relationship to your feelings. You have to develop, practice and love the feminine side of you where your feelings communicate what is important to you. By actively opening to your feelings, listening to them and valuing them, you will generally be warned long in advance when something feels off.

In the case of the example above, if an affair was brewing with your partner, you would begin to feel something subtly amiss likely near when it started. Your feeling nature is very connected and in tune with God and thus picks up very subtle shifts in energy. In fact, it can read things that defy all logic which is why we often trust our gut feeling even though there may be no outward signs of a problem.

Having experience in processing your feelings is also critical for when the difficult situation fully reveals itself. We absolutely must retreat into meditation and sit with all the emotions and feelings that are triggered by what happened. And we have to have the maturity and the calm to realize that these feelings need room to breath, room to cry out and that they won’t continue forever. Even the deepest grief will pass away in time if we give ample room for the feelings.

In our example of the affair, we have to sit and feel all levels of emotion. The surprise and shock sitting on top of the confusion. The anger that rages on top of the hurt. The fear and anxiety that lead to despair. All these feelings need space so you can recognize the full gamut of activity going on.

The masculine energy in you needs to step in as mediator and probe, especially into feelings like confusion or shock. It has to engage those feelings and uncover what is going on more deeply under some of these emotions.

It needs to be the thorough one that gets to the root of the feelings. And also, it needs to not let any of these emotions ramble on and bring the whole process to a stand still. That’s how depression grows.

Step by Step

Sit in meditation, recognize and feel all the hard emotions and feelings. If your mind begins to entertain thoughts of self depreciation, the higher self needs to immediately cut those off. When attending to your feelings, that’s almost all that you do. You give them space and don’t rush through them. This step can be painful and so we often try to avoid it. But if we avoid it, we actually prolong it. So best practice is to recognize we have hurt in us and get to the business of feeling it.

Have faith that it will subside and we will be free to do other things. Likely it will resurface because it is susceptible to triggers from within and outside cues. But each successive visit within will likely be easier and a little faster.

The masculine has another role in moving out of depression and that is to be the action planner. The worst thing you can do besides ignoring your feelings is remaining stationary and not doing anything. Action and movement are the enemies of depression so use your reasoning mind to figure out what you can do with your time and energy.

Exercise is really one of the best things to do to counter depression. The endorphins released during and following a good exercise session really help elevate us out of the heavy physical state of depression.

As hard as it can feel, we need to plan out things to do and follow through even if we don’t feel like it. The depression is not us and doesn’t deserve to call the shots. For people who are accustomed to long bouts with depression, they will have to relearn a process for living. The depression will have a more stubborn way of holding on.

Finally, we will likely have to make some difficult choices. In the case of our example, we will likely have to accept the end of the relationship, accept the choices of our partner and how we may have contributed to the problem, forgive them and then begin building a life without them. When things don’t go as we hoped, we need to be strong and make new choices. Having a relationship with God in these times is essential and comforting.

Reviewing the Process

So let’s review how we face the ongoing depression or even one that has settled in. First and always, we should realize and honor that there are feelings in us that have been ignored. Make time daily to meditate and find out what is going on in you. If you can’t make sense of it and the inner landscape is too confusing, talk with your teacher if you have one and ask for help. If you don’t have one, immediately pray to God and ask for the Light to show up what is going on in you. With prayer, there is never cause for despair.

Remember that anger isn’t the final emotion, and that there is always something underneath anger that happened first. Generally we get hurt and then quickly jump to other emotions like anger and sadness. When these emotions go nowhere, we begin to entertain despair which is a thought process that starts the depression. We feel trapped, that there is no way out and thus we fall into a depressed state where nothing moves.

But can’t God do anything? It is written that with God, all things are possible. So you have to include God in the equation. At the very least, that means praying for clarity and help. Likely if something happened to you, at some point in the process, you will have to decide to forgive the person. Not forgiving them is a bad choice but I do understand sometimes it takes time before we can get there.

We have decided to do the feeling work and prayed for Light to show up what is going on. Give ample time for your feelings and emotions to reveal themselves. Then with the positive discerning masculine energy, we begin to reason through what happened, honoring the hurt and the pain but curbing the emotional reactions once we become more aware.

In this way, we are making it more of a pure grieving experience without the emotional time wasters. That grieving from being hurt will take time, depending on what happened. If we lose a loved one, that could go on for months.  We have to accept the pain of the loss and yet find the strength to continue functioning, learn about ourselves through the process and ride it out.

As this process gets more familiar, you will learn why this situation occurred. In the event of a sexual affair, you might see how you were responsible for it in some ways. You gain wisdom and strength as a result of staying present to the process. But don’t conclude that depression is a good teacher because it isn’t. The work you do to avoid depression, to care about your feelings and to remain active despite the pain… that’s what allows the wisdom to be gained. That and God’s Grace.

Read an account of the spiritual meaning of depression for a mother of 2 who suffered for years and was then healed by God.