Depression and Fear
Depression and Fear. I am covering this topic in my podcast as well because depression is a term that has become synonymous with feeling. “I’m depressed”. Well, I’m here to tell you depressing in NOT a feeling. It is a diagnosis. It consists of a group of feelings and behaviors that get all jumbled up inside of us until we don’t have any idea what we are really feeling, so we call it depression.
If we use the common definition of depression, anger turned inward, we become aware of the
emotion, feeling or anger. What is anger? A defense mechanism against pain, hurt, and fear.
So here we are at the fear again. That wall that stands before us and causes us to become
immobilized and keeps us confined in our “safe place”. It may feel safe, but what is happening
to us on the inside when we continue to confine ourselves in our safe place? We become
stagnant. Our world begins to shrink around us until we are so incapacitated that we can barely
function. We just go through the motions of being alive, but we feel numb, dead. I watch those
movies about zombies, the walking dead, and it so reminds me of many of my clients in various
degrees of their own zombieism.
Resolving Depression and Fear within Yourself
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Depression is NOT permanent or terminal. It can be
resolved. No matter how much or how long, it is not a natural state of being. It is man-made.
The Divine Creator does not make junk. You were not created to stay in a box, cave, or any
other perception you have of yourself as depressed.
So become your own detective. Begin to look deeply into yourself. Make a list of all the
distressing thoughts, behaviors or events that contributed to your perceiving yourself as
depressed. Break the depression down into small pieces of the puzzle. Begin to see them as
isolated events that you have stockpiled, suppressed, repressed, until they became just one
big cloud that hangs over you. This is all doable. It is not above the human ability to do.
If you need help, reach out. Don’t let your multiple depressing feelings keep you from making
changes in your life that can begin to lift the depression. Take baby steps. Take it easy on
yourself. Don’t set yourself up for failure by trying to do it all at once. One day at a time.
Namaste