{"id":2360,"date":"2012-02-07T20:27:04","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T01:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=2360"},"modified":"2012-02-07T20:27:04","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T01:27:04","slug":"using-depression-in-service-to-spiritual-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=2360","title":{"rendered":"Using Depression in Service to Spiritual Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote in the post on Depression and the Dark Night that I had used my depression in the service of my spiritual practice.\u00a0 I want to think what I meant by that.\u00a0 At least in the beginning, Depression was in charge.\u00a0 Depression forced me to find a spiritual practice.\u00a0 It also stopped me from moving forward in any conventional career or life-style.\u00a0 And it forced me to continually ask \u201cWhat purpose is there for my life?\u201d\u00a0 I suppose that in refusing to blame someone else for my misery, or take it out on someone else like my parents did, I was already making a spiritual choice.\u00a0 That\u2019s probably important, the many times I made the choice for kindness or compassion, or even silence, instead of cruelty or anger.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t say I really started to \u201cuse\u201d my depression until I began to work with Somatic Experiencing.\u00a0 I would have to say S.E. is a spiritual practice in itself.\u00a0 I\u2019ve described it to other people as \u201cvipassana meditation with an intense focus on sensations in the body.\u201d\u00a0 Having this new way to look at depression meant staying with it, staying in the present, and observing myself as objectively as possible<\/a>.\u00a0 This often brought me to a place of having more compassion for myself.\u00a0 Also understanding that my depression was the result of having been traumatized, and not a personal defect or a choice, helped me to release a lot of my self-hate and anger toward myself.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m feeling pretty depressed right now.\u00a0 I tell myself: this is because you weren\u2019t happy with your talk on astronomy at Breitzfelder Park, because you are tired from doing \u201cSacred Sites\u201d at Beverly\u2019s, because you waited an hour on the highway and never got to see Caryn.\u00a0 These are good reasons to be depressed.\u00a0 Some compassion for Jenny who\u2019s having such a hard time.\u00a0 I\u2019m also feeling sick \u2014 a little queasy of stomach, a little bloated & clogged in my intestines.\u00a0 I did do some abdominal massage and I have an appointment with Kellie in two weeks.<\/p>\n

Another thing I\u2019ve learned from depression is how to surrender, how to give in and trust the process.\u00a0 I have mantras that help me: \u201cI offer myself to this process,\u201d and \u201cThy will be done.\u201d\u00a0 The first one I learned at Kripalu and found very helpful.\u00a0 It\u2019s similar to AA\u2019s First Step which is \u201cAccept that I am powerless over __________\u00a0 (in my case depression).\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve actually worked through the 12 steps with a therapist.\u00a0 One thing that was comforting about AA was not having to believe in God.\u00a0 At that point in my life, god was judgemental and punitive, \u201cCapricious, Malicious and Willful.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 So it was a long time before I could say \u201cThy will be done.\u201d\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t do that until I had learned from experience that there IS an unconscious process that carries me to healing, integration and growth.
\nThere is a big difference between \u201csurrender\u201d and \u201cgiving up.\u201d\u00a0 Initially, I was so afraid of giving up that I would go on trying long after I should have quit.\u00a0 The few times I did actually surrender I thought it was giving up.\u00a0 At this point I understand \u201cgiving up\u201d to mean dropping the project and turning to distraction.\u00a0 This is different from \u201ctaking a break\u201d knowing that you will return to the project refreshed.\u00a0 For me \u201csurrender\u201d means letting go of the effort, but staying with the project, the depression, the pain in the heart, not trying to change it.\u00a0 Sometimes I use the words \u201ccompletely accept.\u201d\u00a0 They help me relax and let it be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote in the post on Depression and the Dark Night that I had used my depression in the service of my spiritual practice.\u00a0 I want to think what I meant by that.\u00a0 At least in the beginning, Depression was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,11,7,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression","category-journal","category-present-day","category-somatic-experiencing","category-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}