How to let go of depression and the other saboteurs of happiness.

The muses, for me, are like a child, predawn, on Christmas morning. They stand quietly near my bed and lift an eyelid and say, “Are you awake?” I roll over and try to ignore the gentle prodding and then there will be a whisper in my mind. Some image – grouping of words – an inspiration of something that might be shared. I promise myself I will remember it all in the morning. But no. It is now that the phrases begin to tumble forth and, well, I might as well swing out of bed and follow the little one in the Doctor Denton’s up the stairs. I can nap later.

So here I am in a predawn hushed house. The fire is burning and the Tiffany lamp casts a warm colourful glow. Living with two young musicians and composers, it is not easy to find the house quiet until ‘way late or in this case ‘way early. Even the dogs, Zoe, the Golden and Skye, the Siberian, are too deeply asleep to leave my room where ‘all us girls’ bunk down each night!

What has me awake? What is it I want to share with you? What is so urgent? Well, I want to tell you about happiness. How to coax it into your Life so it’s not just a once in a while -got the promotion – won the lottery – just engaged – kind of thrill but an abiding joyful state of being. Once happiness underlies all the inevitable detritus – okay – call it garbage – that we might be called to endure we become like boats buoyant on happiness and easily navigating this often tough and heavy world.

If I want to talk about happiness, why do I begin with the title about weeping? Because Life is a walk we take alone and it can be sad. We drop in at birth and ease out at death and in between we a la main left and a la main right with any number of characters, lovers, cheats, family, betrayers, gurus and frauds. Each one teaches us something about ourselves and ‘dammit’ the toughest teachers bring us our brightest lessons – closer to happiness. Some of these lessons we can experience on a higher level and see their importance, but many have swooped in and taken us at a vulnerable, unguarded moment. They have embedded themselves deeply in our soul and our mind just doesn’t pick up on them. These experiences are barbed with sharp emotion – usually shame, vulnerability, or guilt and because they don’t make themselves clear, they attract similar experiences. We are left wondering why we keep picking the wrong kind of guy, people cheat us, or we become ill.

My Life work – or vision if you will – has been a force of nature beyond my choice, in a way: to stop the pervasive sadness that wove its way through the family tapestry. How far back does it go? It doesn’t matter. I can swing a cat (gently) and touch a batch in my immediate family who suffer in a way that makes their lives go out of ease and balance. Responses include illness, depression, addiction, and self destructive behaviour. I include myself in that. Are we any different from every family? Any individual? No. When we live in ‘dis’ ease even joyful events are only fleeting. Glimpses of a happiness we desire but cannot sustain.

Global cataclysms, manmade or natural, send shock waves through the universe – or the world as we know it, but they are not separate from us. They effect us directly or peripherally, but they rise up from each one of us – from our collective unhappiness and out of ease-ness.

Healing begins in our own hearts. Our own minds. Our own bodies. Our souls. We can’t ask or expect peace in the world when we can’t claim it for ourselves. We can’t ask for or expect happiness for our children if we do not model it ourselves. We can’t expect an Earth in balance if we cannot heal ourselves first.

My mother didn’t cry – she wept. When I was little – nine or so, I would climb into bed with her when my dad was on a business trip. In the night, as I snuggled into her side, I would become aware of the deep shudders that she tried to keep still and then I would feel the wetness of her face as the tears cascaded endlessly, in silent heaving. I know some of her past and it would cause this sadness. I didn’t know her future then , but she would have much to weep for. (See The Story)

I too have wept in the night. Overcome by fears and worries – nameless dreads – a friend used to call the night thoughts. I have invited the dreads into my waking life. They were real. Loss of business, house, death, suicide. Lotsa junk. People I trusted who betrayed me. Keeping my chin up, ever plunging on, stepping over broken businesses, promises, lives. What are ya gonna do? S**t happens.

Well, stop crying about it for one. And then start dumping out. I like the image of defragging a computer. When I finally discovered the ‘clean up the disc’ button, a little box came up with stripes of all colours. They represented whole files and ‘broken’ files. Whole files function – like learned competencies and the fragmented ones (red) were broken bits of files deleted, but not all gone. They gum up the works. Slow things down and cause all sorts of problems- ‘way out of my scope to describe or fix – except to ‘defrag’. We don’t even know they are in there and they just act like sticks in our spokes. Things function after a fashion, but nothing really works well and smoothly and every once in a while – crash!

For me – as much as I am keen to be computer competent – noodling ‘in there’ is like doing brain surgery with salad forks. It may not be something you want to manage unsupervised – at least until you get a little more familiar. Healing our soul is much like that. Healing the soul is vitally important as it is the seat of expressing all our life force through body, mind, and spirit.

If you want health and happiness, vitality, courage and peace – begin on the inside. So many therapies are amazing facilitators for this task. Body work by a conscious therapist becomes soul work. Simple gentle touch by a caring person can pop open a soul like a ripe milkweed pod. When someone puts their hands on your body, they plunge their reach deep into your subtle energetic body. Even sex as an act of incredible intimacy is a blunt object (no pun) compared to the incisive effect of soul or energy therapy. It is very effective and very sensitive.

Many who suffer from the effects of a discordant soul may be reluctant to ‘do the work’ because they fear reliving what has caused them enormous pain in the first place. But unlike psychotherapy – although it too has its place – been there, done that (card carrying member of the Carl Jung fan club) some of the therapies listed here on LightBeam are more efficient and effective.

I will be writing on my experiences with various practices like yoga, psychotherapy, time line therapy, hypnotherapy, Reiki, Journeywork and many others that have helped me defrag and be happy! It’s not a mystery to me that I grew up with a default setting of mild anxiety and unhappiness. But I chose not to stay there and I choose to share my experience and this resource so others may find peace and happiness. We are not victims of heredity, genes or the past – but only of our own unexamined and un-freed soul.

Yesterday a friend dropped in. As we hugged in parting, she shared her experience as she prepares to re confirm her faith. She said that each time she entered the church her tears would begin to flow and flow. Prayer and spiritual practice are therapies, for sure, that allow us to let go. Her tears will flow until all she needs to release is released. And she will be lighter for it. I shared that I too had a similar release from some anger (okay, a lot) that I had been holding. I had felt betrayed and justified in my anger. However ‘true’ the betrayal may have been, the anger only hurt me. Continuing to carry it just weighed me down – stole my joy. I applied some strategies and consciously released a huge load.

‘Oddly’, once released, life events and circumstances almost immediately shift to a more fulfilling, constructive and effortless synchronicity. Each time I shed another layer, I see the result reflected in life experience and wish I had thought of it sooner!

Enlightenment isn’t just for monks. It is for all of us who chose to ‘lighten up’. Defrag, drop the load, clear the clutter of unpleasant, unproductive memories and emotions. They just sabotage your happiness. Take charge of your own happiness – it is your right! And weep no more.

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