Depressed people need the holy inner light (positive emotions)

[MattMVS7]

I would describe positive emotions as some divine life force or flow of divine energy within our conscious being. This divine life force makes us alive on the inside since it makes our whole entire reality perceived as beautiful, good, and worth living for. In other words, it transforms our whole entire reality into something amazing, beautiful, and great. No other mental state can do this. All other mental states in of themselves are "dead" and "empty" since they do not do this.

I would also describe positive emotions as being a divine inner light or inner fruit. If you hear the word 'fruitful," then that means filled with inner positivity. It means you are in a mental state where you truly experience positivity in your life which is no different than, again, saying that you are truly perceiving things from a positive perspective (i.e. perceiving things as joyful, beautiful, and good). Again, positive emotions are that mental state and they are the only positive mental state.

When you feel positive emotions, it's as though you are filled with the force of the light and, when you feel negative emotions such as misery and despair, it's as though you are filled with the force of darkness. The goal is to become the being of light by pursing the force of light to make your life beautiful and to avoid the inner darkness which makes your life bad, horrible, and disgusting.

When we lose our ability to feel positive emotions, it's as though we have become dead on the inside since we lose that force of light within us. Intellect, morality, and character is just words, intentions, and ideas in our minds. None of these things can allow me to perceive/experience the sheer beauty and joy my positive emotions have brought my life and neither can it allow me to experience what I've experienced through my miserable struggles.

Those hopeless and miserable states I've been through were such horrible states that no words, ideas, etc. can allow me to experience something so horrible. Let me say a few more things here before I conclude this packet. People can act as though certain things are real and claim these things are real. For example, people have acted and claimed Thor was real. But that doesn't mean Thor was real.

So, just because people act as though value independent of positive emotions is real and claim it's real does not mean it's actually real. You cannot trust a person's claim just because they act as though it's real and claim it's real. That's the reason why I cannot trust people who claim that they perceived their lives as something beautiful and great despite their misery and inability to feel positive emotions.

There are many factors that can take away our ability to feel positive emotions and I don't trust anybody when they say that your life can still be something beautiful without your ability to feel positive emotions, that you can create your own value in life, and that value is something far more than just a matter of feeling good or feeling bad. I think our emotions are something far more than just pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Like I said before, they are like the inner light or inner darkness to our conscious being.

So many people go about their work and everyday life despite feeling miserable and they dismiss their emotional state as something trivial. They would claim that the true value in their lives comes about through helping others and contributing to the world. I completely disagree with this. You need that force of light within you to make any endeavor in your life beautiful and worth living for.

I don't care how fleeting positive emotions are; I still think they are the only real source of beauty and joy in our lives. To conclude this packet, I know my worldview/philosophy is like a religion. But I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of god, the paranormal, and the afterlife. If it's the case that these things do exist, then my worldview would apply in the form of a spiritual belief or religion.

But, if we live in a universe where those things do not exist (i.e. a purely naturalistic universe), then my worldview would still apply. But it would take on a secular form. I would describe the religious form of my worldview to be Spiritual Hedonism, Divine Hedonism, or New Age Hedonism since it would be the hedonistic philosophy taking on a spiritual/religious form.

But hedonism in a purely naturalistic universe would simply be hedonism. By the way, hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure (the positive emotions) are the only good things in life and that displeasure (the negative emotions) are the only bad things in life. So, according to hedonism, the only way our lives can be good and beautiful is if we are having fun, enjoying our lives, and experiencing profound beauty and joy through our positive emotions.

[inavalan]

In most cases, depressed people have a chemical imbalance in their brains, so the medical orthodoxy is to restore that chemical balance. That could jumpstart the healing.

Emotions, like joy, are experienced; feelings, like happiness, are felt.

Emotions are the feedback to our thoughts, given us by our inner self. We should heed that feedback, but most of us don't, not knowing the source of our emotions.

To address it spiritually, I believe, it's better to target the pure awareness state, than trying to force optimistic thoughts on yourself.

I believe hedonism, as a life philosophy, is akin to going to school with the sole purpose of having fun. Not good ...

[Starman]

What we call depression may come from different areas of our lives; yes, mainstream western (allopathic) medicine believes that depression comes from a chemical imbalance in the brain, but there is also Ayurvedic medicine, osteopathic medicine, homeopathic medicine, and other schools of medicine from various cultures that view depression in different ways.

Depression can come from our environment or weather patterns as well. People who live where there are frequent circular wind patterns often experience a lot of depression. People who do not get a lot of sunlight, or are vitamin-D deficient, experience depression. Depression may also be a learned behavior; we can teach ourselves from childhood experiences to become depressed over certain situations, when we are disappointed or our expectations are not met, etc. This may coincide with social or cultural behavior, like in some cultures people celebrate when a person dies but in many cultures people become depressed.

There are many reasons why a person experiences depression but one reason is for sure, depression is the most wide spread mental illness in the world. Human beings experience depression more than any other mental disturbance and people commit suicide over depression more than any thing else. Depression is usually grouped in three categories, 1) Acute Depression, which comes and goes rather quickly and is experienced by most people, 2) Incipient Depression, which is associated with events, anniversaries of loss, etc., and usually lasts much longer than acute depression. An 3) Chronic Depression, which is constant and usually requires medication or hospitalization. These are but brief descriptions and each category have many more details than I have shared here.

A lack of control over our affect often has to do with how we experience depression. Our affect is our ability to express emotion, and some people don‘t have the ability to express joy. These people will be gloomy no matter what success they experience in life; it does not matter how great things are going for them they will still be gloomy. Human beings often invest their happiness in another person or thing but happiness is an inside job and is not dependant on other people in our lives, money, position, or other things. Cognitive therapy, which deals with thinking, is the prominent therapy used in the U.S., However, there is also affect therapy which deals directly with emotional states but this therapy is not as prominent. Cognitive therapy usually uses psychotropic medications to deal with a person’s emotions, and believes that we can change our emotional states by the way we think.

What I am sharing here comes from my previous work in the mental health profession, but I also have some spiritual perspectives on this. There is a big difference between being lonely and being alone. Being alone is physical isolation and being lonely is emotional isolation; a person can be in a relationship and still be lonely, or a person can be in a crowd of people and still experience loneliness. Loneliness has to do with being emotionally devalued or isolated. We often use other people like a drug to fulfill our emotional needs but sometimes that person cannot fill those needs or is incapable of fulfilling those needs. Sometimes that other person is emotionally cripple themselves. However, we can emotionally heal ourselves over time by talking sense to ourselves, using a combination of approaches, and by nurturing ourselves spiritually.

There is literally a light within each of us, an extremely powerful light. I have seen it and felt it many times. An when that light touches us it feels like intoxicating love; it washes over us inside out, and changes our global perspective, as well as the way we see ourselves. Lots of people meditate on this light and the more we give it our attention the more it grows into our waking consciousness. I am convinced that it exists in everyone and it can rewire our brain, among other things. The light of God, or likeness of God, the light of the universe, is within us all. It cannot be extinguished but it can be covered over and thereby be dimmed. This is what depression does in my opinion; it covers our light. But that light is strong enough to break through depression, if we give it our undivided attention.

It took me decades of constant work on myself to rise out of depression and embrace the natural joy that exists within that light which is within us all. I tried psychotherapy, medication, etc., and that did help but I found everlasting joy in letting go of emotional states, and of course, I had to first learn how to let go. Today I am freer emotionally than I have ever been and I have a lot of joy in my life. I think the problem is that a lot of people do not want to work on themselves; they would rather take a pill or some other quick temporary fix. We need to be proactive in our health and research beyond what doctors are telling us, looking into different schools of healing from around the world, and most of all believing that we can heal ourselves and never giving up on ourselves.

I was a healthcare professional for 40-years, first working in the medical field and then in the social work and mental health fields. I am now retired, and what I am sharing here is but my experience, and even though I reference certain options my sharing should not be taken as me telling you what to do. We each have an individual puzzle that is unique to our own growth and development, and we each will come to know the truth by finding it for ourselves and not by copying others.

Peace and Good Journey

Originally Posted by inavalan

In most cases, depressed people have a chemical imbalance in their brains, so the medical orthodoxy is to restore that chemical balance. That could jumpstart the healing.

Emotions, like joy, are experienced; feelings, like happiness, are felt.

Emotions are the feedback to our thoughts, given us by our inner self. We should heed that feedback, but most of us don't, not knowing the source of our emotions.

To address it spiritually, I believe, it's better to target the pure awareness state, than trying to force optimistic thoughts on yourself.

I believe hedonism, as a life philosophy, is akin to going to school with the sole purpose of having fun. Not good ...

Agreed. In most cases it's a too rapid reuptake of serotonin hence the prescription of reuptake inhibitors. A little more complex since serotonin isn't the only transmitter. What, for instance, causes the apparent reuptake problem.

Partially agree about hedonism. However, it has it's place. Ecstatic excess can go some way to reducing the importance of ecstasy in one's spiritual pursuits....as long as one doesn't get addicted to it. It is also as valid a route to mystical enlightenment as self-denial - as in your example far more fun, it's experiential scope more fulfilling than abstention in my view.

♥

we have had mechanisms of shutting down
and starting up according to our environments
and what's happening. you're a good grown
and that's what should count to thus first
and only and last.

we'll take my word for it. i shall follow
that for me too.

[iamthat]

Starman provides an excellent summary of depression.

There is also the idea that depression has its origins in suppressed grief, for example the pain of being abandoned or rejected. Usually this originates in childhood, and we suppress the pain of the experience because it is more than we can handle. But that suppressed pain remains present and manifests in later life as depression. In the same way, suppressed anger may later manifest as outbursts of rage, and suppressed fear may later manifest as panic attacks.

The use of medication may help a person suffering from depression to cope with life on a daily basis, but until we consciously reconnect with the original feelings of pain and release them, we remain subject to experiencing depression.

So I question the idea that depression is due to some chemical imbalance in the brain. This may be an effect of depression but the cause is usually deeper.

I don't care how fleeting positive emotions are; I still think they are the only real source of beauty and joy in our lives.

This depends on our ideas about emotions. Are they the source of beauty and joy or do emotions simply reflect a deeper beauty and joy? The element associated with the emotional body is water. Like water, emotions may be turbulent and destructive. Or the emotional body may be like a clear lake which reflects without distortion. True beauty and joy are qualities of the Soul or Consciousness, and these are reflected in the calm of the emotional body when it rests in a state of serenity.

Peace.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by MattMVS7

I would describe positive emotions as some divine life force or flow of divine energy within our conscious being. This divine life force makes us alive on the inside since it makes our whole entire reality perceived as beautiful, good, and worth living for. In other words, it transforms our whole entire reality into something amazing, beautiful, and great. No other mental state can do this. All other mental states in of themselves are "dead" and "empty" since they do not do this.

I would also describe positive emotions as being a divine inner light or inner fruit. If you hear the word 'fruitful," then that means filled with inner positivity. It means you are in a mental state where you truly experience positivity in your life which is no different than, again, saying that you are truly perceiving things from a positive perspective (i.e. perceiving things as joyful, beautiful, and good). Again, positive emotions are that mental state and they are the only positive mental state.

When you feel positive emotions, it's as though you are filled with the force of the light and, when you feel negative emotions such as misery and despair, it's as though you are filled with the force of darkness. The goal is to become the being of light by pursing the force of light to make your life beautiful and to avoid the inner darkness which makes your life bad, horrible, and disgusting.

When we lose our ability to feel positive emotions, it's as though we have become dead on the inside since we lose that force of light within us. Intellect, morality, and character is just words, intentions, and ideas in our minds. None of these things can allow me to perceive/experience the sheer beauty and joy my positive emotions have brought my life and neither can it allow me to experience what I've experienced through my miserable struggles.

Those hopeless and miserable states I've been through were such horrible states that no words, ideas, etc. can allow me to experience something so horrible. Let me say a few more things here before I conclude this packet. People can act as though certain things are real and claim these things are real. For example, people have acted and claimed Thor was real. But that doesn't mean Thor was real.

So, just because people act as though value independent of positive emotions is real and claim it's real does not mean it's actually real. You cannot trust a person's claim just because they act as though it's real and claim it's real. That's the reason why I cannot trust people who claim that they perceived their lives as something beautiful and great despite their misery and inability to feel positive emotions.

There are many factors that can take away our ability to feel positive emotions and I don't trust anybody when they say that your life can still be something beautiful without your ability to feel positive emotions, that you can create your own value in life, and that value is something far more than just a matter of feeling good or feeling bad. I think our emotions are something far more than just pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Like I said before, they are like the inner light or inner darkness to our conscious being.

So many people go about their work and everyday life despite feeling miserable and they dismiss their emotional state as something trivial. They would claim that the true value in their lives comes about through helping others and contributing to the world. I completely disagree with this. You need that force of light within you to make any endeavor in your life beautiful and worth living for.

I don't care how fleeting positive emotions are; I still think they are the only real source of beauty and joy in our lives. To conclude this packet, I know my worldview/philosophy is like a religion. But I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of god, the paranormal, and the afterlife. If it's the case that these things do exist, then my worldview would apply in the form of a spiritual belief or religion.

But, if we live in a universe where those things do not exist (i.e. a purely naturalistic universe), then my worldview would still apply. But it would take on a secular form. I would describe the religious form of my worldview to be Spiritual Hedonism, Divine Hedonism, or New Age Hedonism since it would be the hedonistic philosophy taking on a spiritual/religious form.

But hedonism in a purely naturalistic universe would simply be hedonism. By the way, hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure (the positive emotions) are the only good things in life and that displeasure (the negative emotions) are the only bad things in life. So, according to hedonism, the only way our lives can be good and beautiful is if we are having fun, enjoying our lives, and experiencing profound beauty and joy through our positive emotions.

Always look on the bright side of life- Life of Brian.

You know sometimes we can look on the bright side, sometimes we cant. Many factors are at play, not one thing. But mostly the nature of each person is as it is, until more can be found for them where they can find it and become it.

Emotions are guides to self exploration, much like everything we are. When I let go of conditioned emotional triggers and responses, that freeing up space in myself, allowed for a more natural arising of spontaneous joy of being. Its like I am dancing freely with myself open and aware, yet nothing is attached in me as being what I am. When I am just being myself now, I am not this or that. In some ways it feels a more open expanded state where I am more in neutrality of being. How I am each moment and day is dependent upon the totality of my being. AT the core of myself I feel complete and grounded, so whatever moves over that space, is often just a process to reconnect to myself aware I can reconnect to my inner state...open and aware of myself just as I am without all that processing going on.

IN stillness of being and in emptiness of myself, my completeness arises and often I notice in being, I am aware and listening, taking in, sharing and engaging with myself and life. Contentment is probably a good word to describe this inner state. The dance is just what I am moving as. I feel alive and energised when I am grounded, without process going on over my core of self. When all things are in alignment and balanced. I am also that too.

[kellyshane]

I was so down today. Then I started thinking about how positive could I spend this day. Suddenly I felt positive emotions and they are definitely like a force. So powerful!