This sketch illustrates depression, a quiet fear. The fear is an unspoken, unconscious fear of Self. It is a time of paralysis where there is no emotion or any real movement or growth. It is a time of mind-numbing sameness, routine, and the stubborn refusal to face one's Self. Depression is a refusal to turn around, face the light and begin the slow ascent up the stairs.
 
Words and Sketch, "Depression" by Jan Jennings www.janjenningsart.com

Lessons From Light Shining Through Depression

by Dr. Darryl Pokea
© 2004 all rights reserved

We are living in a civilization where it has become commonplace to pass pain around. Anyone can be vulnerable as they struggle to live. We all have witnessed the bullying and disrespect that generate helpless feelings in our workplace, our schools, with our neighbors, and within our families. While terrorism may be the overt manifestation of the insanity of passing pain onto others, hidden terrorism continues in each of us whenever we use one another as containers for our pain and carelessly discard them. Everyone's light is dimmed and lessons are lost when we use our pain as the new weapon of mass destruction.

When we don't deal with our own pain within, we more than likely pass it onto others. This, "passing of pain" creates a dampening of consciousness where waves of disempowerment and helplessness are learned. It is not surprising that the consequences of using others as a container for our pain can be witnessed in the frequency of "depression" throughout our population. While there are both biological tendencies and effects in depression, it is misleading to attribute the real origins of depression to these factors alone. Any of us as human beings can easily slip into depression as we begin to feel helpless and trapped. Often, unbeknownst to us, we can become vessels for massive clouds of disharmonious pain and despair that float unresolved and unprocessed that have been passed into the ethers.

None of us in our species can escape our lessons by passing what we do not wish to deal with in ourselves, onto others. Every one of us has been both the perpetrator and receiver of pain. We are all interconnected. Our entire species needlessly suffers whether we are the perpetrator passing pain on to everyone else, or whether we are a receptacle for that same pain. Both participants enter darkened states of being in which the life lessons we came here to learn are squelched and postponed. It has become commonplace for many to remain unconscious and automatic as they seek an externally defined prosperity that can exclude their own intrinsic sense of well-being. This is a prelude to depression. As we seek our sense of self in these ways, we can be earning a living, without living; we sacrifice our own peace of mind and disconnect from body and Spirit.

Depression is a defense that attempts to maintain control when things are perceived as going out of control, and these days, there is much to perceive around us as going out of control. As pain can overload any of us, perception is altered and the ego misleads the left-brain to veto the right brain and limbic (emotional) brain processes. Some of the right brain processes that are suppressed are: our sense of living in a body, our internal sense of self, and the intrinsic understandings of life that come from processing all of our feelings moment to moment.

Depression is not "a feeling." As feelings of helplessness, despair, rage, and sadness are blocked from surfacing, they congest into a confused volatile mass that the left-brain, under the ego's influence, concludes is hopelessly unmanageable. Then the left-brain, in chattering thoughts, dwells upon past negative experiences and predicts the same about the future, as it views pain in the world. This stops any healing thoughts or sense of well-being and eventually immobilizes any healthy activity in both the body and the mind. The numbing of feelings dampens the immune system, the body's healthy natural defense. The negative thoughts cloud consciousness. Much energy is expended as feelings are "pushed down" into our emotional brain and a narrow left-brain consciousness focuses on "put downs" from the past and anticipates them coming in the future.

The feelings that are bubbling to the surface, in spite of depression's attempt to squash them, are sacred impasse moments. They may be judged by our left-brain as quite ugly as they are often unprocessed rage, despair, helplessness, fear, grievous sorrow, etc. If we don't pause in moments of embracing and healing each of them, the opportunity to have the full range of the complements of these feelings: confidence, hope, courage, self-worth, empowerment, joy, etc. is also lost. Only in embracing the deepest sorrow can we also know the deepest joy. Without the light of understanding these painful emotions, we return to an endless cycle of depression. Here we continue the habit of hurting ourselves inside and those outside us, as they may suffer in seeing us suffer. All this promotes passing the pain again, as those around us may also suffer by learning to ignore our suffering and their own. We are all interactively connected to one an "other" collectively, and cannot ignore this.

For those of us who follow our Spirit's lead in true evolution and want to understand all that we are, another path is taken. This path breaks the depression and leads to an understanding that there are no negative feelings because every feeling has its transformational lessons as well as its rich complementary emotion. When we experience and understand fear, we can experience and understand courage. As we process our rage and feelings of helplessness, our confidence and strength also emerges. When we embrace and understand grievous sadness, we can embrace and understand the fullness of joy. In connection to our Spirit, we can understand that the feelings, which have been postponed the longest, may express themselves first. We can trust the cellular wisdom of our limbic emotional brain as it orchestrates the sequence for the release of feelings. We can compassionately observe the unfolding process, rather than control it.

We may accept the courage that our Creator offers as our Spirit supports our minds and bodies in the healthy release of emotions. When we embrace each of the so-called "negative feelings" with the Light of Understanding long enough, they do transform and dissolve into deep understanding of ourselves. Since not all of us are trapped by negative thoughts and feelings at once, those who are free from the habit can encourage us in making the needed changes. We can dissolve terrorism from within, when we process our own pain and cease passing it around to others. As we recognize and observe that we can shift out of the clouds and darkness of such depressed states, we learn so much about light, compassion and healing in ourselves that we may then extend the same to others.

As we climb the stairs in our evolution of both individual and collective consciousness, we must do so with balance. We all have times when we are caught in negative thought processes. Others can remind us in their moments of being free from such thoughts that we too may be liberated from what are old habits in our species. We each are responsible for balancing our own steps in our evolution as best as we can. We also have hands that can reach out to each other as we mutually balance one another in our collective journey. We can remember that every one of us is in the stairwell, taking steps in the evolutionary climb of our species.

The invitation to return to the Light from the deepest darkness is always there. Even if we have been imprisoned by the numbing states of depressed consciousness for a while, we also know that we have become sensitized in those dark states to see the pinpoints of Light in the distance. As we accept the invitation within, we may participate in wellness of mind that may be shared by everyone. In these wordless understandings, we are all to be instruments bringing Divine illumination throughout the entire stair well.

Dr. Darryl Pokea (pronounced "Po-Kay") is a professional speaker and author on Mind, Body and Spirit Interconnectedness and Complementary Medicine. Dr. Pokea invites you to his website to view synopses of his presentations and listen to samples of his healing music and soothing voice in his Meditation and Relaxation CD's at www.drpokea.com