I need your comments about depression

I don’t routinely beg for your comments, but do here, because I am very deeply curious about strong reactions to stories and opinions on depression. At the end of this article are some strong reactions that blind-side me. If those of you who see the connections clearly would describe them in your own words, I would value it deeply.

[blurb] We label a depressed state “bad.” Is that arbitrary conditioning? https://feelwithneil.com/2021/06/07/tree-envy-and-genesis/ (Tree Envy and Genesis)

Dormant, barren but for a few crackling withered and dead leaves that couldn’t escape the snare of prickly gray branches, trees are entirely alive through winter, but that form of alive is slowed and depressed into deep•rest, without which the freshness of springtime and the warmth of lush summer cannot be lived again.

They have gone dormant precisely to protect the fullness of life to come, unifying the dormancy with the fullness. As one, they are one; is it artificial for us to put them into a linear sequence on a timeline? If it is, why do memories evoke such strong emotion when recalled? When made present by recollection? Those emotions aren’t being felt in the past when that happens! And if memories can thus be made present, why can’t the emotions of anticipation count as present?

Why when humans slow down in a depressed deep-rest state to unify the future or past with the present, do we call it “bad”? Pain, sadness, suffering, depression… they are all forms of living which, like a dormant tree, are very much alive.

Trees do not get to choose a climate. They cannot uproot themselves and migrate toward the warmer equator. Do you think they resent that?

They don’t look resentful to me when the birds return to perch and sing songs in their canopy next season. They are at the mercy of the world around them.

But that is a very self-centered, egoic, anthropomorphic way of thinking and projecting the artificial constructions of our glorious mind onto other creatures, isn’t it? Are we a higher form of life than those canopies? We seem to think so, because we seem to ‘think’ we can control the climate and the world around us. ‘Think.’ Sometimes we think poorly or wrongly…

And when we look at someone gone dormant in a deep-rest state to survive for the fullness coming, we feel “bad” for them. Our feeling bad for them must contribute to their feeling bad. Has someone, or everyone, seeded a false reality in our mind with toxic words like good and bad?

Trees are blessed not to have such gullible minds, to not be born of ego. In their blessed state, they do not need a garden-God to warn them not to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Please – I’m begging – leave a comment with your impressions on the responses below, or the article itself.

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Neil D. 2021-06-07

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Reactions 1,2,&3 are a single share; I divided them myself for ease of commentary, but 2&3 have to be taken together for intended context. Your remarks on these shares would be deeply valuable to my curiosity about how people react to any stories or opinions about depresssion.

1. “…depression is too big a subject to minimalize as a place of regrowth. If one was able to add regrowth, they wouldn’t be depressed… if we could control it and what happens in that dormant time, I would sure like to know how…”
2. “…it wouldn’t be called depression if it were a place for inner growth–that inner growth is for self actualization… depression is way way way down under that pyramid.”
3. “Self actualized people don’t get depressed because they have good brains and don’t have a lot to worry about. Seriously.”


4. “Depression is inherently bad…. can maime and kill, so I take it a bit more seriously.”


5. “Depression cannot be controlled, cannot be thought of as self reflection. …explain how you can voluntarily control [neurotransmitters]?”

Related:
* Trees. Roaring. https://feelwithneil.com/2020/07/24/tree-roaring/
* Aching To Know https://feelwithneil.com/2021/02/16/aching-to-know/
* Ode to a Sacred Twig – An exercise for the soul https://feelwithneil.com/2020/03/12/ode-to-your-sacred-stick-an-exercise-for-the-soul/

Midwife for the soul (Rohr)

“We are not comfortable with waiting, see it as wasted time and try to avoid it, or fill it with trivial busyness. We value action for its own sake.”

We wind up running on empty, losing our sense of self, and blaming the world for it.

The article quoted here, about spiritual directors, may touch you as a person who needs one, or who can be one as a friend, in a support group, as a partner, or as a parent to young or adult children.

Being a midwife to the soul does not involve a one-time fix.

You may identify with needing the perspectives offered here – with needing a soul midwife – at the same time as being called to serve as one. That can be taken as a call to nurture your very own soul’s birth, over and over.

Excerpts

[W]e give birth and are born ourselves again and again: the birth of God in the soul is our own true birth. . . .

There are those who feel that something is happening to and within them. Their tastes are changing, and their balance has shifted. Sometimes they are brought up short by a crisis: an experience of conversion, a tragic loss, a period of great pain, a sharp awareness of being on a threshold.

As they approach midlife, women especially may feel impelled to explore their spirituality as they discover their new and unexpectedly authoritative voice.

Men and women of all ages and life experiences may sense a call, … the awareness that God expects them to do something with their lives. . . .

…the director’s task is to pay attention, to listen to what is not being said—or to what is being said but minimized. . . .

Spiritual direction is not a crisis ministry, even though the initial impulse to seek out a director may arise from a sense of urgent personal need. The midwife of the spirit is not an expert called in for the dramatic moments,… Like a midwife, she works with the whole person and is present throughout the whole process. She “has time”…offers support through every stage and waits with the birthgiver when “nothing is happening.” Of course, there are no times when nothing is happening.

Spiritual growth can be gradual and hidden; the director-midwife can discern or at least trust that something is indeed “happening.”

As a people, we are not comfortable with waiting. We see it as wasted time and try to avoid it, or at least fill it with trivial busyness. We value action for its own sake. . . . It is hard to trust in the slow work of God. . . . waiting is inevitable, ordained, and fruitful.

Tend only to the birth in you and you will find all goodness and all consolation, all delight, all being and all truth. Reject it and you reject all goodness and blessing. What comes to you in this birth brings with it pure being and blessing. But what you seek or love outside of this birth will come to nothing, no matter what you will or where you will it.

A Midwife for the Soul

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Neil D. 2021-06-21

Students shape teachers

During commencement season, we shower congratulations on graduates. And there are many occasions in our lives, and those of our children, when we reflect on one or two teachers who were major influences. I wonder how often these flip…

Most commencement proceedings do thank the parents and teachers, and rightly keep the focus on the graduates. They have learned well.

I’d like to congratulate the teachers aware that who they are continuously becoming is influenced by students.

From outside of an educational institution, the complaints of teachers are what is most visible and audible. But I think teachers spend very little time – if we measure and account for their hours – worrying about these complaints, especially compared to the time they spend nurturing our children. It takes a special kind of people to work with these adult matters, then flip a switch and turn toward our children, toward what is their vocation as much as – if not more than – their profession. Their calling.

Many of us think we can teach. But every single day? Against all of the background distractions? Even the teachers who make it to retirement age and are considered not-so-great,… well, they remind me that the vocation is not for everyone. Just doing it is remarkable, whether done exceptionally or not. I don’t think any teacher who reaches retirement can be just “average.”

I hope we have a heightened sensitivity because of the pandemic about the role teachers play as caregivers, not just educators.

When you ask a student what teacher or two influence them the most, sometimes it is in a favorite subject, sometimes not. These are testaments to the human beings, not the course. To the course of those human beings’ lives. Who those adults are continuously-becoming. The people as caregivers. Who give care – their sincere attention – to our youth, amidst many adult distractions. I’ll be damned – some parents can’t even do that well or always.

Perhaps life-long educators are born. But,… I suspect most – and the best – teachers are also the best learners. The ones who are influenced and shaped by the very students they care for. A constant dynamic is occurring in their souls and hearts as they interact with precious human beings during tender years through which they too once passed – lessons they are perpetually open to. Credit to their openness.

I hope to be perpetually open to learning and shaping by young people. With zero doubt, the teachers who have influenced me most by far are named Joseph, Gabriel, and Noah. My 3 sons, autonomous human beings who are separate from me and keep choosing freely to attach to me. Teaching me who I am.
In a course this important, I’ll take any passing grade.

Congratulations teachers. A+ for learning who you are through the gifts of other human beings. All enormous.
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Neil D. 2021-06-11

Wood, music, and earways to the soul

I know, I know. Everybody shares videos. Among the staged comedy in this one is the kind of acoustic beauty that touches every soul not dead. Made by 2 forms of wood—one hollowed out, another a long rod with hairs tautly stretched to span its length. For < 3 1/2 minutes, let your soul soar, propelled by your ears, overfilling and overflowing from your thinking mind.

(Thanks for sharing, Frances.)

Neil D. 2021-06-08

Related: “How do you feel?” “I don’t know…” https://feelwithneil.com/2020/07/19/how-do-you-feel-i-dont-know/

Tree Envy and Genesis

Dormant, barren but for a few crackling withered and dead leaves that couldn’t escape the snare of prickly gray branches, trees are entirely alive through winter, but that form of alive is slowed and depressed into deep•rest, without which the freshness of springtime and the warmth of lush summer cannot be lived again.

They have gone dormant precisely to protect the fullness of life to come, unifying the dormancy with the fullness. As one, they are one; is it artificial for us to put them into a linear sequence on a timeline? If it is, why do memories evoke such strong emotion when recalled? When made present by recollection? Those emotions aren’t being felt in the past when that happens! And if memories can thus be made present, why can’t the emotions of anticipation count as present?

Why when humans slow down in a depressed deep-rest state to unify the future or past with the present, do we call it “bad”? Pain, sadness, suffering, depression… they are all forms of living which, like a dormant tree, are very much alive.

Trees do not get to choose a climate. They cannot uproot themselves and migrate toward the warmer equator. Do you think they resent that?

They don’t look resentful to me when the birds return to perch and sing songs in their canopy next season. They are at the mercy of the world around them.

But that is a very self-centered, egoic, anthropomorphic way of thinking and projecting the artificial constructions of our glorious mind onto other creatures, isn’t it? Are we a higher form of life than those canopies? We seem to think so, because we seem to ‘think’ we can control the climate and the world around us. ‘Think.’ Sometimes we think poorly or wrongly…

And when we look at someone gone dormant in a deep-rest state to survive for the fullness coming, we feel “bad” for them. Our feeling bad for them must contribute to their feeling bad. Has someone, or everyone, seeded a false reality in our mind with toxic words like good and bad?

Trees are blessed not to have such gullible minds, to not be born of ego. In their blessed state, they do not need a garden-God to warn them not to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Neil D. 2021-06-07

  • Related:

    • Starving by soundbites and science (a)

    Our modern obsession with reductionist and materialist science is starving our souls. It’s the same with soundbite politics. And identity politics and tribalism.

    We are dissatisfied when objective explanation and consensus facts are elusive.

    We are obsessed with simplification.

    Paradoxically, we are not simple creatures.

    We are sometimes this, and sometimes that. We live.

    Life is lessened by subdued dynamics. Freedom oppressed.

    Our souls revel in the richness of complexity and mystery, for our souls are complex and mysterious.

    Our souls find simplicity delicious also, like our egos do. But our souls are agreeable to a much wider menu, and have the taste buds to savor mystery.
    –
    [excerpt from the upcoming series “The Sometimes of Individual Freedom: Treatise on Soul.” For more, at the bottom of this page under Leave A Reply, enter your email (remains private), and checkmark “Notify me of new posts via email.”

    What ideas rose in your mind as you read? Leave a comment, please.

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    Neil D. 20201-05-31