Depression – A Spiritual Journey
August 14, 2006 at 11:31 am | In Healing | 6 Comments
Depression is a seekers journey. It is a journey of understanding, peace, and inner guidance. In some respects, depression is a spiritual problem; a spiritual illness. It is an admittance of disconnection from our source, our total selves, our subconscious, our emotions, and our strength.
At times, depression can be overwhelming. You can go through depressive states and not even know your depressed. You can find yourself feeling like your missing something, but not knowing what. You can also feel that things don’t matter, or that its not so bad. Or you may feel overcome by deep sadness. It is a state of emotional and spiritual flux.
While there may be many causes of depression, there are ways to confront and overcome depression. There is hope. Finding strength and finding methods for relieving the imbalance is what this article is about.
It is by no means a complete list, but there are several tools that I have used to bring myself out of a depressive state and to reclaim my life. Let’s begin, shall we?
1) Recognition - Recognize what you are feeling now. Whatever you are feeling, become aware of it. Recognizing any sort of negative pattern is the first thing to do. When you increase your awareness, you are embracing your current state. While you may not know what to do next, you have taken an important first step in admitting to yourself that you are feeling what you are feeling, thinking what you are thinking, and that your life is mirroring these energies.
2) Grieve - Grieve for the losses in your life. Grieve for the people you miss, the things you cannot do or the things you want to do but can’t yet. Grieve for the choices you’ve made in your life. Grieve and feel, in some small way, that you are reconnecting with yourself. Your deep self. The self that you’ve somehow neglected over time. The soft inner self. Let yourself become aware of all these emotions, the conflicts, the struggles, the pain. Release your emotions.
3) Reclaim – Reclaim your lost, disassociated self. Reclaim your feelings, take ownership of them, no matter how bad. Say, at least their mine, for the time being. These feelings, once reclaimed and released, will gently dissipate in time. Reclaim the pieces. Reclaim the shattered emotional disturbances, the hang ups, the disappointments. Reclaim all of yourself. Say they are mine.
4) Channel The Energy – Find an activity, or a practise, that allows you to actively channel these energies. Find an outlet for them, a place to release everything. It could be a journal, an art, meditation, or qi gong 
When you have a way to channel these newly founded energies, you give yourself a way to become conscious of them, recognize them, and to release them. Soon this practise will become easier, and in time releasing these emotions will become second nature. This process is the part of the empowering.
5) For the Times You Need It - After a period of time, of recognition and release, you may find yourself slipping into old patterns or beliefs. When you need a boost, start by thinking of the things you are genuinely happy for in your life. Make a list, and keep these for when you need them. If you feel that you’re having a down day, thinking of these things will give you focus on something positive and uplifting and empowering. That will train your mind to recognize these patterns, and to turn your focus when you need to. By doing this, you are exercising your will to empower yourself in your life and your journey.
Any step in overcoming depression is a step in the right direction. Start small and with little bits at a time. Seek help, professional or from your loved ones if you need it. You might be surprised to find people will respond and support you in your time of need.
May you find peace and happiness on your journey.
Namaste
Qi Gong for your Car
August 13, 2006 at 9:22 pm | In Qi Gong | Leave a Comment
Here’s a little easy safe way to get qi gong into your day.
A trick I learned for doing qi gong in the car, on the bus, or at anytime. If you’re driving, do this at a stoplight, just to be safe.
Step 1) Take a deep breath and let it out.
Step 2) Bring your awareness onto your body. How does it feel right now? Where does it feel heavy, light, or tense?
Step 3) Once you have centered your awareness, breathe in, and when you breathe out, imagine the energy coming from the center of your body and emanating into the rest of your body. Do this three times.
Step 4) Next, notice if you have any pain or discomfort in your body. Bring your awareness onto these areas.
Step 5) Now, breathe into these areas of discomfort, and then exhale. Do this three times for each area.
Step 6) Take a deep breathe and imagine that this breath is filling your body from your toes all the way into your head. When you exhale, imagine that you breathing out that energy through your hands. Do this three times.
That’s it! How do you feel now?
If you have any comments or suggestions let me know!
Namaste 
8 Ways to Buy Back Time
August 11, 2006 at 10:24 am | In Time | Leave a Comment
More…
Have more time. Have more money. Have more resources. Have more bandwidth.
Need more? No problem. How about more time? Sure that too.
Its all good. The desire for more time, more time to do things, the things you like.
Once you get your more time, the most important question is, what will you do with it? If you have it, then you’ll have the ability to make more positive choices in your life. And you’ll have more time to think about the things you want to attract in your life.
I digress. Lets get to having more time first, then deciding what to do with it:
1) Give Up TV. Want more time, throw out your television. Don’t worry, there is always YouTube, in case you REALLY need to see a Family Guy Episode. The Internet has made old style TV obsolete. So don’t feel bad about tossing it. You’ll have two + more hours everyday. Woopee!
2) Learn to Photo Read. Photo who? Its like speed reading, but much much faster. But if you don’t read, read first. Even two books a year is better than the average adult. Here’s a good photoreading book. So read first, then read faster, then read fastest, then you’ll be reading like 20 books a month. Not so bad eh?
3) Exercise. Gives you the energy to keep on going in life. Increases your life span and your ability to cope with stress. Makes you live longer. You have more time to enjoy your exercise routine. More time to enjoy cantaloupe.
4) Refinance Your Mortgage With Friends. Learn to improve your relationships with friends. Also learn to improve the quality of the time together. Text less, cell less, spend more time together more. Do more things. Have more real life relationships than virtual. All this improves the amount of face time and decreases the amount of virtual time you spend/waste on text chit chat.
5) Triage. Make the best use of your time right now. Is this the best use of my time right now? Cut out unnecessary waste in your day; traveling, cooking, working, lounging around. Find ways to improve overall efficiency. Value your time. Then you’ll use it better.
6) Focus on Now. NOW! This is all you got, the past and the future are a hologram in your head. So invest more into here and now rather than a hologram, no matter how pretty. Now you can do this and that and all this that, and feel more productive and really discover what’s important to you right now.
7) Find Your Life’s Purpose. Steve Pavlina did it best. Discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes. Not so bad for 20 minutes, I clip my toe nails for longer. Take 20 minutes, setting in on a time for yourself, and go through the exercise. After, your life will make sense, and you’ll be happy. Or at least you’ll have a chance to be happier.
Have a suggestion? Let me know. Have any time saving suggestions? I want to hear it. The more the merrier.
Namaste
Road Less Traveled
August 10, 2006 at 10:09 am | In Relationships | Leave a Comment
I am on a quest to discover how to be in a relationship.
What do I need to do in order to be, want, and discover a relationship?
Somewhere along the line I had stumbled.
I have been single for over a year, and had wanted some way to be in intimate relationships, but didn’t have a proper model, nor the self confidence to do so.
It left me with less than more.
There must be some way? Some way to connect with confidence? In a healthy manner.
Rather than hodgepodge, flighty hope.
Tools. I needed tools. Techniques, methods. So I could ensure, or promote, some health and wealth in my life.
I had found something a little different than I had expected.
Techniques of Suffering
If I had really wanted relationships as I professed, change would be made. Insisted upon that, but what changes would be best? I felt without a compass.
I needed something concrete, direct and applicable NOW.
Not tomorrow, or with 20 sessions of therapy. No way.
Here, now immediate! If not sooner!
Road Less Traveled
I felt I was breaking new territory. Within myself, by at least admitting my lack of success. That should have been enough.
It wasn’t.
Then provide for me the way.
An MD described it.
Prescribed it.
- Scott Pleck.
“…experiencing the pain of problems constructively that I call discipline? There are four: delaying gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing.…”
No way.
Constructive pain management.
Confronting pain rather than avoiding it.
I had heard it before, zen monks may do this as a technique.
A way of dealing with trauma?
“To the contrary, they are simple tools, and almost all children are adept in their use by the age of ten. Yet presidents and kings will forget to use them, to their own downfall.”
I felt it then.
He was right.
An adult right. No removal of responsibility, denial of impact and purpose.
“For they are the tools with which pain is confronted rather than avoided, and if one seeks to avoid legitimate suffering, then one will avoid the use of these tools.”
Confronting pain. I didn’t like the sound of this. I had built my life around avoiding pain so this must not be right. Something along the way went terribly wrong. Somewhere.
I didn’t like this new found wisdom. It empowered choice and responsibility. Me. In short, gave me back what I had needed to choose this path. Simple, applicable methods of confronting relationships. And life.
“…examine the will to use them, which is love.”
The will to use these tools is love. What a way about it!
Love, the will to use these simple methods, to confront pain instead of avoiding it to bring joy into your life and in your relationships. A manual.
The whole text.
“What are these tools, these techniques of suffering, these means of experiencing the pain of problems constructively that I call discipline? There are four: delaying gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing. As will be evident, these are not complex tools whose application demands extensive training. To the contrary, they are simple tools, and almost all children are adept in their use by the age of ten. Yet presidents and kings will forget to use them, to their own downfall. The problem lies not in the complexity of these tools but in the will to use them. For they are the tools with which pain is confronted rather than avoided, and if one seeks to avoid legitimate suffering, then one will avoid the use of these tools. Therefore, after analyzing each of these tools, we shall in the next section examine the will to use them, which is love.”
-(from The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck, MD)
It became suddenly clear.
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