Most of us romanticize love. Love is joy, happiness, deep affection, kindness, generosity, gratitude, sugar and spice and everything nice. We want to believe that there is a purity to love. It transcends the calamities and suffering of this Earth, and lets us soar into the vastness of the heavens. Love is our reward for suffering.

Similarly, we vilify fear and pain. They are the tools of the devil, to be avoided at all costs for the monstrosities that they are. In purity there is certainty, and in certainty there is a kind of peace.

Unfortunately for us, reality is not pure, neither is love, nor fear or suffering. When we aspire to a love that is pure, we inflict more pain and more hurt on ourselves.

Purity of Love

Our search for a pure love or a perfect love comes from a desire to escape the impure and imperfect. Impurity and imperfection are seen as failures, weaknesses, something less than divine. Our fear of failure or of weakness drives us toward a hyper-desire of success, which leads to a need for purity and perfection.

There is nothing wrong with aspiring to success. It is only when this need is fueled by fear, leading to an intolerance of failure that we run into problems.

In reality, love is not pure. When we love, we fear and we suffer. When we love someone or something, they become precious to us and we naturally fear their loss. The deeper the love, the deeper the fear. Since nature is impermanent that loss will one day occur, at which time we will feel pain and suffering. The deeper the love, the deeper the suffering. Those are the rules of life, the way we humans are wired, and the way our reality works.

Love and Addiction

What is addiction and how does it relate to love?

Addiction is “the state of being compulsively committed to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.”
~~[Dictionary.com]

Addiction can be seen as a condition of loving too much or loving compulsively. Life gurus commonly advise us to “not love too much”, as if love can be measured out in tablespoons, cups, and ounces. We have no more control of whom or what we love than the measure of that love.

But does addiction really originate from love?

I would argue that addiction originates from fear. When we love deeply, we fear loss. Because we fear the pain of loss, we develop an intense desire to permanently hold onto the object of our deep affection. This hyper-desire can become an addiction. We become clingy, quick to jealousy, and cannot let our love out of our sight.

After we suffer a loss, we can also become addicted to drugs, narcotics, or some other substance, person, or activity to numb or redirect our emotions from the fear and pain of loss.

My grandmother was a gambler. She lost much of her money and the family’s money due to her gambling habit. Ultimately, she was only given a fixed allowance because she could not control her addiction. I believe that she was addicted to gambling not because she loved playing cards but because she feared not having money and thus not having any value or love in life. As many of us are taught, she equated money with self-value and self-love.

Such gamblers often lose everything because they fear failing and losing their money so much that they play not based on skill but based on emotion. They make risky big bets and strategy goes out the window because fear is frequently in total control. They do not enjoy playing the game, and experience only brief enjoyment in the winning of a hand. Even the pleasure of winning quickly disappears as fear once again takes the helm and induces the gambler to win the next one and the next. Most of the time she is in terrible agony, anticipating an upcoming loss.

Love and Suffering

When we love deeply, everywhere we see love,
When love dies, everywhere we see loss and pain,
There is no escape, even for our agile consciousness.
We cannot travel to the past,
We cannot stay in the present,
We cannot go to the future,
Everywhere there is suffering.

Suffering is a human condition because love is a human condition. We are born to love and from love comes fear and suffering. When we try to deny this fact of life, we fear and suffer more. This was what happened to me when I lost my two beloved Huskies.

We are naturally wired to avoid or fear pain and suffering. However, if we overly fear suffering, then we develop a deep fear of loss, which can in turn cause us to reject love. Love can be very painful when we lose a loved one and that pain stays with us for as long as we love, which in many cases is for the rest of our lives.

Unfortunately, every time we reject love, we feed our fear of loss. As our fear gets stronger, we reject more and more, thereby leading to a very narrow and isolated life. My mother led such a life and it was not a happy one. In her quest to avoid suffering, she ended up creating a lot more unnecessary suffering for herself. She spent her life rejecting everyone and everything so she ended up alone, depressed, and full of fear.

After my dogs died, I was well on my way down that dangerous path. Luckily, an open minded doctor pointed me in the right general direction and I have since realized that the best way to deal with the fear and pain of loss is to face it head-on.

Facing fear and pain is difficult because I have to override my natural body’s inclination for protection. However, it is a very worthy endeavor because by facing fear we free ourselves to truly live and truly love. I never knew how much I let fear control my life and make decisions for me until I stopped running away from her. When I started really listening to fear, I saw that she permeated every aspect and most moments of my life.

Fear and suffering are often seen as terrible things that must be avoided at all costs. As we go through life, this fear grows. It is no coincidence that Hell is seen as a place of eternal pain and suffering.

However, when we start tending to our fear and pain, we see that they are not as monstrous as our fear and society may lead us believe. In fact, fear can be exciting, which is why many people ride roller coasters or go bungee jumping and sky diving. Fear can also enhance attraction as has been shown in many experiments. This is why scary movie date-nights are popular with the young. Emotional pain or suffering can also evoke deeper feelings of love. James Cameron’s Titanic was particularly moving because the pain of loss added a poignancy to the love.

When I let myself feel the pain of loss fully, I also feel a very deep love. Just as the dark makes the light seem brighter, fear and pain can make love more powerful. Frequently, we feel many different emotions simultaneously. Some may dominate at certain times but there is usually a mix. Love can be achingly beautiful and memories can be bittersweet. This is the reality of being human.

Unconditional Love

After facing my fears I finally understand that many of the things I thought I loved, didn’t come from love at all but from fear. I had to be perfectly successful, beautiful, youthful, happy, and productive in order to be loved. Love came with conditions … conditions set by fear. I feared failure, aging, suffering, pain, and not being useful. Most of all I feared not being loved.

I never received unconditional love from my parents and didn’t really know what it was until I met Shania and JJ. I love Shania and JJ no matter what. I love them through good and bad times, through aging and illness, and also through death. It did not matter whether they loved me in return. Every day with them was a song because I love them.

True love is unconditional love.

Many of us go through life busily looking for unconditional love, but in our mad striving we are never able to find it or even give it to ourselves. In our grasping for love we fail to recognize that true love cannot be directly pursued but ensues from us giving it to others and ourselves. Shania was especially easy to love. Whatever love I gave her she mirrored back to me many times over. Even though she is no longer with me, I will forever be grateful for sharing ten wonderful years with her.

Loving my mother is much harder. She rejected me my whole life so there are few positive memories and many painful ones. Yet, bitterness and anger of her and my difficult childhood has only created additional and prolonged suffering for myself. When we hold onto grudges and reject our natural state of loving-kindness, we hurt ourselves most of all.

In life, we often dole out love in little miserly bits as if it were a scarce resource. Love is highly valued by all, we have limitless amounts to give, and yet we selfishly hold onto it. We have silly rules and silly games that we play with each other because we fear rejection.

We are so hung up with conditions on love that we even made God’s love be conditional. There are God’s rules that must be followed, sins to avoid, karma to be accrued. We cannot enter Heaven’s gates until our ledger is properly balanced in the right way.

How to Find Love?

Since we have boundless love to give, should we give unconditional love to all? Should our love extend to even the vilest figures of history?

I do not think it is possible to give unconditional love to all. We are, after all, limited by time, and like all things we want to grow, love needs tending. Part of life is choosing which loves we wish to nourish.

The tragedy of life is that we frequently spend so much of it running away from fear that we have little time left over to tend to love. Therefore, the first step to finding love is to face our fears. If we tend to our fears, do deep listening, and weaken its hold on us, we will leave a lot of room for love to expand.

By recognizing the nature of fear, we can also start to recognize those who are filled with and controlled by fear. Sadly, both my parents fall into this category. It is important to remember that all of us have fear. It can neither be wished away nor trained into extinction. Fear will always be part of us. The trick is to tend to it properly and not be controlled by it. We can start tending to our fears at any time of our choosing. However, we have no control over the chosen time of another.

Your happiness and suffering depend on your actions and not on my wishes for you.
~~[Jack Kornfield]

It would be marvelous if my parents were able to give unconditional love but they are too beset by inherited and self-made fears to do so. It would be fantastic if they decided to change, but they have thus far chosen not to. Still, my inner child loves them in an unconditional way, and that is ok.

I was in conflict with myself for a long time over loving my parents. My adult self did not want to love people who continued to hurt and reject me, parents or no. But there is nothing wrong and in fact much good in letting a part of myself continue to love them. However, I am not on speaking terms with my father because it is only possible to have a one-sided relationship with him. Him dictating and demanding large sums of money, and everybody else following his dictates and giving him what he wants. If he ever decides to change I will happily accept him with open arms, but in the meantime, I am not holding my breath.

Memories of my childhood will always be painful and I have accepted that. My parents are not capable of giving unconditional love and I have accepted that as well. I am not sure if this is true forgiveness but this is the closest I have ever come to it.

Many life gurus advise us to practice forgiveness as if it were the easiest thing in the world. I believe that real forgiveness can only come after facing our fears and pain, going through them, and reaching a true understanding of those who have harmed us. It is this real forgiveness that is earned through pain, which can ultimately bring us to a place of peace and love.

Meaning of Life

All of us want happiness and to be loved. So we rush this way and that way looking for both. But the urgency and mad grasping comes from fear and not from love. When we realize that and stop running, when we face our suffering and stop feeding it, unconditional love will naturally emerge because it was there all along.

When we give unconditional love, it will come back to us many times over. There is no need to hurry, true love is everywhere and always within us. We only need to open our eyes and see it, through our fear and pain.

No one knows the true meaning of life, if there is one to be known. But not knowing is the essence of freedom, and freedom is a very good thing. With this freedom we can listen to the stories of others, decide for ourselves what is good and honest, and come up with our own stories to warm our hearts and fill our souls with love.

Love, the Ultimate Good Emotion

Love is often spoken about in reverent terms. It is this pure and perfect part of us, the part that rises above, the part that perseveres, the part that conquers all. Many believe that our consciousness or soul is born of love and will return to love when we die.

Jesus is love. Buddha is love.

I love Shania and JJ deeply, crazily, with wild abandon, and all the way. That is my nature. Shania was a three legged dog. She was one of those super happy, affectionate, dogs who was very easy to love. When she was happy, I was happy. Since she was happy pretty much all the time, so was I. She also made many of the people around her happy. Most of our neighbors loved her and became friends with me because of Shania. Love has a wonderful multiplicative effect of spreading happiness.

This is one side of love.

I love Shania and JJ deeply, crazily, with wild abandon, and all the way.

Love and Loss

There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.
~~[Jane Austen]

Love, however, is more complex than happily ever after. As soon as there is love, a relationship, or an attachment, loss enters the picture.

• We fear the loss of our loved-one to someone else, this breeds jealousy.
• We fear the loss of other opportunities for love. What are we missing out on?
• We fear the loss of independence. How do I live with you?
• We fear abandonment and loneliness. How do I live without you?
• We fear the loss of our loved-one to illness, aging, and death.

My parents divorced when I was about 9 years old. Looking back, I now see that my mother suffered greatly from that loss. She did not know how to respond to her pain, and as a result, she said and did many cruel things. We children were caught in the middle and we suffered greatly from it.

Love is not simple. We can choose to label love-gone-wrong as over-attachment, grasping, or addiction, but whichever label we use does not change the nature or complexity of the emotion. Love can cause people to act in extreme ways and it can cause great suffering.

Love is not simple.

In the very beginning I tried to deny loss. I told myself that I was fine emotionally, and focused on the physical symptoms of loss purely from a body illness standpoint. Later, I thought of loss as the price I had to pay for love. I love both Shania and JJ, so the deep pain I feel after their death is the price I have to pay for all the love and happiness they brought into my life. Love came with strings attached, but I still saw love and loss as opposites: love is good and loss is bad. While closer to the truth, this is not an accurate picture of love and loss.

I now realize that loss is simply a continuation of love. I still love Shania and JJ deeply and all the way. They are gone, but my love for them has not changed. As a result, I miss them greatly. This, in turn, causes me to feel deep pain, sorrow, grief, and suffering.

I now realize that loss is simply a continuation of love.

Rejecting loss or the pain of loss means rejecting love and the pain of love. They are one and the same. If I did not love them, I would not feel the deep pain that I feel. Loss is the name that we give love after our loved-one has died or left us. Pain and loss are not a taint on my memories, but part of the love that accompanies them. I am not ill nor do I have anything to blame myself for, except for continuing to love.

When we lose a loved-one, we still yearn for them.
The love continues, and we feel pain.
The stronger the love, the stronger the pain.
This is what we call grief and suffering.

Recovering from Anxiety and Grief

How then does one recover from loss? Should I cast my love away now that it is no longer convenient? To avoid the pain, I tried very hard not to think of Shania and JJ, but that only worked for the very short term. In the end, I struggled, failed, and suffered even more.

I have a lifetime of unprocessed emotions, so I was carrying a lot of emotional baggage. This contributed to my anxiety and depression. However, a big part of why I was so stuck was because of the way I viewed my emotions – in terms of duality, opposites, good and bad.

• Love is good, loss is bad.
• Happiness is good, sadness is bad.
• Courage is good, fear is bad.

This flawed view of life created considerable internal conflict because I wanted to eradicate one side of the emotion equation, which is impossible. I cannot install courage without facing fear and I cannot embrace love without embracing the pain of loss.

To resolve this conflict, we need to move beyond this limited view of emotions as good or bad. Courage is not purely good and fear bad, they are both part of a whole. One does not exist without the other. Similarly, love is not purely good and loss bad, they are also part of a whole. The key to recovery is to stop rejecting and to embrace them all with loving-kindness.

A big part of why I was so stuck was because of the way I viewed my emotions – in terms of duality, opposites, good and bad.

Does this mean we must feel pain and suffering? Yes, we will need to face our pain and our suffering. This is necessary, just as we need to face our fear. Mindful breathing, emotion recognition and regulation (RAIN, RULER), cognitive behavioral therapy, energy therapy (tapping), somatic therapy, and more, are all tools that can help us tend to our emotions.

Facing our difficult emotions will help us build tolerance. Tolerance will expand our lives and ultimately set us free to access any memory, analyze any thought, feel any emotion, and no longer be controlled by our pain, fears, and worries. In this way we transform our pain into limitless freedom.

I bask in the glory of their love,
And cry in the shadow of their loss.
Love and loss, I hold both in loving-kindness,
And in so doing, I find peace at last.

Love and Letting Go

What does it mean to let it go? In the past, the “experts” advised people to try and let go fully after the death of a loved-one. Nowadays, the new recommendation is to let go of the physical relationship, but continue with the emotional and spiritual bond. I am not sure anyone can let go of those, even if they wanted to.

So what does acceptance mean? Acceptance means accepting my new life without Shania and JJ in it. In the past, when I woke up, I thought of the day I would have with them and I was happy. Now when I wake up, I think that they are no longer here, and I am sad. But that is ok. I lean into the fear, sorrow, and pain and think about Shania and JJ with love. The joy is still there. When we see that the pain comes from love, then the anger and self-blame drops away, some of the fear drops away, and the pain seems worthy to bear.

There will never be another Shania or JJ. They are the loves of my life and part of them will be with me for as long as I shall live. There will be other loves and it will never be the same, but to paraphrase a wise soul, “life is broken, but still good”. By denying the pain, I deny my love, and in so doing I deny myself.

Although, in the present, there are some things that you dislike, there are many more conditions that make happiness possible. It is true that when you walk through a garden, you can see that a tree is dying. But the sadness of that situation should not prevent you from enjoying the rest of the garden that is still alive. Don’t let the dead tree image stop you from enjoying all the trees growing strong and beautiful. Look again and you will see how many things there are in the garden of your life that you can still enjoy.
~~[Thich Nhat Hanh]

There will never be another Shania or JJ. They are the loves of my life.

“After two months on this program, I am now a lot better. I am almost back to normal!,” they exclaim, with postings of happy, smiley pictures.

Finally, I stopped reading this depression support page because it was making me feel a lot more depressed. So what was I really feeling and why?

I was envious of their progress because this particular program was not very effective for me. I was irritated and angry with them (blame) for making me feel even worse about myself. I was very disappointed and depressed with myself for doing so poorly compared to others. Finally, I was very afraid that I would never get better because all these other people were making progress and I was only standing still or regressing.

Your Puny-Pathetic Depression is Not as Good as My Awesome Manly Depression

Depression and Envy

Comparing my own performance with that of others is something that I learned early in life and that got reinforced in my many years of schooling, as well as at work. When I was young, I competed with my brother for my father’s attention. At school, my parents told me that I wasn’t good enough unless I got perfect A’s on every subject. That was what I strived to do.

In college we were graded on a curve, so we were literally in competition with everybody else. At work, we were also graded on a curve. Only so many people got the higher percentage bonuses and salary raises. Only the best got promoted. The bottom performers got the boot, with the well-understood company motto of “move up or move out.”

In short, comparison of self to others is a commonly reinforced practice. Unfortunately for me, it led to a lot of unnecessary angst and suffering, while I quested for a perfect life. Now, I was comparing my depression with the same results. Such comparison thoughts often result in harmful self-esteem attacks such as why am I such a mess, not good enough, not strong enough, not courageous enough, and much more.

Initially, I tried to make myself feel better by talking down the person who was claiming fast success –

• She is taking antidepressants, so of course she is feeling better.
• My depression is so much more serious than hers.
• I had childhood trauma so I already started off at a disadvantage.
• She is super rich and beautiful, what does she have to get depressed about?!

However, none of these things are truly helpful, nor even true. People would also tell me to stop comparing, but that is on par with people telling me not to feel depressed, not to feel angry, or not to feel envy – it simply does not work.

So what does work? For me, the solution lies in doing more emotion-work. Here are some of my feelings –

1. Fear that I will never get better from my anxiety and depression.
2. Envy that someone else has gotten better. Shame that I haven’t gotten better.
3. Envy that someone else gets to do fun things. Shame that I cannot do those same things.
4. Anger that this group, which is supposed to make me feel better, has made me feel worse.

Fear, Envy, and Anger

Here are some thoughts and responses that were more helpful –

1. Fear and depression are just emotions, they are perfectly ok. I just need to feel them, tend to them, understand their message, and go from there.
2. I hold these problematic thoughts within me with loving compassion and analyze them. Yes, there are likely many people who have “recovered” from depression in a shorter amount of time, and that is ok. Am I happy with my own progress? Yes I am, and that is good enough!
3. In my prouder moments, I can extend my loving compassion and be happy for others. After all, I do not really want others to suffer. The suffering of others does not lighten my own suffering. On the other hand, extending loving compassion rewards me with feelings of pride and happiness.
4. What someone else says or believes has absolutely no impact on me unless I let it be so. As with the other emotions, I want to get more comfortable with envy and shame. The more ideas or belief frameworks I can tolerate, the more free I will be and the more wisdom I will gain.

Note that my feelings had very little to do with the other person or with the depression group. It had more to do with my own thoughts, beliefs, perspective, and how I deal with my emotions. In dealing with my internal landscape now, I reduce the intensity of the difficult emotions and change my perspective on the same set of facts.

Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.
~~ [Bertrand Russell]

Depression and Envy

Depression and Shame

Depression comparison also goes the other way. A common piece of advice I received from friends, colleagues, and family about depression is to “not feel so bad because my life is very good compared to many others.”

• “Don’t feel so bad, many people have it much worse than you do.”
• “Think about all the people who have lost parents, siblings, spouses, or children.”
• “He was in a concentration camp, but look at what he is doing now.”

I feel badly for people who have suffered, especially for those who have suffered greatly. However, this does not make me feel less depressed, nor does it remove the source of my own suffering or depression. Perhaps these statements or self-thoughts may help some people, but it does little to help me. Upon closer inspection, it actually encourages feelings of shame. This type of depression-shaming only makes me feel worse. I feel like I do not have the right to feel depressed after having lost the two loves of my life, because they are not human.

Now when I start feeling depressed, I tell myself this –

Yes, I miss Shania and Lara greatly because I love them greatly. Yes, I am in pain and want to grieve, and that is ok. I can go ahead and grieve and take as much time as I want.

I cry, sing our special songs, look at photographs, recall bitter-sweet memories, and more. I no longer try to avoid my deep sorrow. I simply let myself fully experience my depression.

Often, when someone is grieving or in emotional pain, the best thing we can do is to acknowledge their sorrow, let them grieve and join them in that pain. Happy talk, social-comparisons, and depression shaming does not work well, especially in the long-term.

When someone is grieving or in emotional pain, the best thing we can do is to acknowledge their sorrow, let them grieve and join them in that pain.

Sometimes, social-comparisons may give us some pleasure in the short-term. This emotion is called schadenfreude, which is “the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another”. However, that usually only happens with smaller misfortunes and the feeling is fleeting.

A 2011 study in the journal Emotion found that people with low self-esteem were more likely to experience schadenfreude when confronted with a high achiever’s setback
~~[US News]

A Closed Heart

My mother was a very unhappy person. She spent much of her time comparing herself to others, comparing me to others, and comparing everybody to everybody else. These social-comparisons powered her inner and outer critics and they were both very strong.

I have always lived in fear of my mother. I used to avoid thinking of her and would almost have a panic attack whenever I anticipated a phone call from her. This is because she always made me feel lousy. I was never good enough, never smart enough, never good enough at playing the piano, etc. In fact, she spread her unhappiness to everyone around her. Nobody ever loved her well enough, gave her a good enough present, appreciated her enough, and I have no memories of her laughing or even smiling. She was full of negative judgements, she made the people around her suffer, and she made herself suffer most of all. This type of social-comparison led her to reject others and to reject parts of herself. One of my core fears has always been that I would turn out like her.

I have since realized that all of us have this tendency or seed within us. The question is how we choose to tend to it. Do we simply react and keep repeating this tendency until it becomes habit, or do we respond wisely and weaken its grip on us. This is in our control.

Black and white judgements lead to a closed heart. Our strong outer critic causes us to withdraw, see inadequacies in everyone, blame everyone for our unhappiness, and reject everyone around us. Our strong inner critic causes us to stop trying, see inadequacies in ourselves, blame ourselves for our condition/unhappiness, and reject parts of our body, thoughts, memories, and emotions. Our life narrows and we end up alone, feeling abandoned, hopeless, betrayed, and more depressed than ever.

Black and white judgements lead to a closed heart and we end up alone, abandoned, and betrayed.

Cultivating an open heart is not easy, but here are some things that I try to do –

1. Every time I feel the urge to criticize others, I try to catch myself, do some mindful breathing, do some self-soothing, let my irritation pass, and do something constructive. I leave the event for later analysis.
2. Every time I start to criticize myself, I try to catch it, do some mindful breathing, and analyze my thoughts and feelings. If those thoughts are inaccurate, I do some thought-correction or adjustment. If those thoughts are accurate, I work on accepting them, getting comfortable with them, and doing some self-soothing.
3. When I make mistakes, I apologize when I can, forgive myself (because breaking life-long habits is hard to do), and continue trying.

Some people wonder why I am spending so much time inside my own head. Doesn’t it make me more depressed? Doesn’t it take up a lot of my time? Isn’t it taking over my life?

Analyzing my emotions, thoughts, and memories, is very different from rejecting and suppressing them. Previously, I was putting all my effort into stopping difficult thoughts, memories, and emotions, whereas now I accept, analyze, adjust, and soothe. The more I do this, the more comfortable I am with my own mind.

In the book Be Angry: The Dalai Lama on What Matters Most, they talk about how analyzing thoughts and emotions within a healthy framework can “transform deep pain into limitless freedom.” Such a journey is worth all the time in the world.

Only to the extent that a person exposes themselves over and over again to annihilation and loss can that which is indestructible be found within them. In this daring lie dignity and the spirit of true awakening.
~~[Jack Kornfield]

The journey to transform pain into limitless freedom is worth all the time in the world.

• The Mayo Clinic describes depression as “a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest.”
• In her seminal book On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross includes depression as one of the five key stages of grief.
• In her book This Is Your Brain on Depression, Faith Harper describes depression as a biochemical learned helplessness response to stress.
• In her book How to Heal Yourself from Depression When No One Else Can, Amy Scher describes depression as a misalignment or misconnection with self-needs or life fulfillment desires.
• Some people see depression as a chemical imbalance in the brain.
• Some people see depression as an inherited wiring of the brain that gets triggered by trauma or stress.
• Some people see depression as suffering, and as such, is part of the common human condition.
• Some people …

In short, there are many belief frameworks about depression, but as with many things in life, no one right answer. And that is one of the most frustrating and depressing things about depression – nobody knows what it really is and nobody knows how to “fix” it. What we have are lists of symptoms that may indicate that we have clinical depression, as well as a range of treatment options that may or may not “work” for us.

This article is about my own experience with depression, and my own framework for understanding it.

Depression – The Terrible D-Word

The Anxiety/Depression Loop

There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.
~~[Ajahn Chah]

All my life I have been suppressing my emotions. Not dealing with my emotions did not make them disappear or go away. They continued to stick around, combined to create new variants, and became much more intense. Not dealing with emotions simply meant that my conscious brain was checked-out. Whenever a negative emotion bubbled up, there would be a busy signal, a do-not-disturb sign, or even worse, a confirmation that negative emotions are threats or illnesses that needed to be “fixed”.

In earlier normal times, I would be ok, because –

1. I had not yet collected a critical mass of emotional baggage.
2. I did not have a large number of negative emotions coming in at once.
3. I was not in a hyper-sensitive state.

However, during times of great trauma, such as the loss of a loved one, I quickly get into trouble.

1. The unprocessed emotional baggage translates into a bunch of wiring or pathways in my brain that are unhealthy.
2. During times of trauma, stress, or significant change, I am experiencing many intense emotions in a very short period of time.
3. Because of the trauma, I am in a hyper-sensitive state, so I feel the emotions more strongly.

Depression Loop – Not dealing with my emotions did not make them disappear or go away.

All this leads to a high risk of developing the anxiety/depression loop. My anxiety/depression loop looks something like this –

1. I wake up and realize that my loved one is dead and I will no longer experience the joy that I felt with her. I may feel a heaviness in my stomach. I think, “Oh no!, another day of feeling horrible.”
2. I feel fear and depression.
3. I get nauseous, I get gassy, I may get abdominal pain, I have difficulty breathing, I start to freak-out.
4. I think I have tried everything and nothing helps. I will never get better. (There may be other negative, self-defeating thoughts here.)
5. I feel more fear, helplessness, hopelessness, fatigue, depression, etc.
6. Loop to step 3 and repeat.

This loop is self-perpetuating and the more it gets repeated, the more it becomes a pattern of thinking. As my freak-out quotient rises, my body goes into full fight-flight mode (also known as an amygdala hijack). Since this loop is self-perpetuating, I may experience a series of such emergency alerts, to the point that my brain gets stuck in this hyper-aroused state for long periods of time.

As this continues, my brain may try to protect me further by looking for more causes/triggers that threaten my survival. Food, time of day, various activities, smells, mold, location, and more, can all be pattern matched to my current condition, thereby triggering even more amygdala hijacks. I cannot sleep because I am wired all the time, with my body thinking it is constantly under threat. This lack of sleep and stress to my body causes me to be bone-tired all the time, leading to more feelings of tiredness, hopelessness, helplessness, and depression.

When this happened to me last year, it led to a significant narrowing of my life. I stopped talking to friends, developed many food sensitivities, lost my appetite, favorite songs and movies now made me feel sick, and I did less and less until I wasn’t doing anything at all except lie in bed feeling terrible. Faith Harper calls this the depression funnel, others call this the downward spiral of depression, and I call this my very own hell. I started to really hate my life, I rejected different parts of myself (especially the parts that were in pain or having difficulties), and I started to really hate being me. I was then deep in clinical depression territory or what some call the dark night of my soul.

The fun did not end there. Every time I would get a positive emotion, I would think “I feel almost normal but this will not last.” Sure enough, upon thinking this, I started to feel fear and the loop starts again. This is why during the depths of a depression loop, I am unable to feel any happiness or positive emotions. Ultimately, this loop can lead to thoughts of suicide because that is seen as the only way of escape from this never-ending suffering.

Clinical Depression – The dark night of my soul

Recovering from My Depression Loop

Only to the extent that a person exposes themselves over and over again to annihilation and loss can that which is indestructible be found within them. In this daring lie dignity and the spirit of true awakening.
~~[Jack Kornfield]

My first step in recovery lay in the primary cause of my depression loop, which was my rejection of negative emotions. To get out of this endless loop, I needed to start dealing with my emotions, especially with fear and depression. I needed to engage or insert my conscious mind into the process again, so that I could respond to my emotions in a healthy manner rather than rely on automatic subconscious reactions.

Rather than trying to get out of feeling “bad”, I relaxed into it. Here are some of the helpful and true things I said to myself –

• I feel fear and that is ok.
• I feel depressed and that is ok.
• I can have good and bad feelings at the same time and that is ok.
• I can feel depressed, afraid, happy, and excited at the same time, and that is ok.
• I am not perfect, and that is ok. I am good enough.
• Life is not perfect and that is ok.
• I cannot control everything, and that is ok. There are many things that I can control.
• My body needs to grieve the loss of my loved ones, and that is ok. Go ahead and grieve and take as much time as you need.

The key, I found, to dealing with my emotions was to develop effective self-soothing techniques. There are a variety of methods for this including the RAIN method presented by Jack Kornfield and others, as well as the RULER method presented by Marc Brackett. Cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness meditation, somatic therapy, energy therapy, and more are additional tools. We can also get external help with medication and talk therapy. A big part of self-soothing involves building up self-esteem and self-love.

Recovering from My Depression Loop

My new anxiety/depression response looks something like this –

1. I wake up and realize that my loved one is dead and I will no longer experience the joy that I felt with her. I may feel a heaviness in my stomach. I think, “Oh no!, another day of feeling horrible.”
2. I feel fear and depression.
3. I get nauseous, I get gassy, I may get abdominal pain, I have difficulty breathing, I start to freak-out.
4. Because of emotion recognition, I am now aware of what I am feeling (fear and depression), as well as physical symptoms related to those emotions.
5. I think, “Ah, my good friends fear and depression have come to visit and that is ok.” I invite them into my heart and start talking to them, trying to ascertain what they are trying to tell me. What is it that I fear? What is it that I am most depressed about? Why? To keep myself from being overwhelmed, I usually deal with the most present emotion first, which in my case has been fear.
6. Based on what I discover, I may “thought correct” where possible. For example, I remind myself that recognizing and accepting my emotions have already started to help. By leaning into my fear instead of running away from her, I am already more comfortable with certain thoughts and memories. Each time I sit with fear, I get a little bit more comfortable with her, and things get a very little bit easier.
7. Some thoughts are true and beyond my control. For example, my two beloved dogs are dead. No more walking, playing, talking, feeding, loving. This is a fact that I need to work on accepting. I tell myself that they are gone, but that is ok, because I will always have them in my heart, and they continue to teach me new lessons every day.
8. By facing my fear and pain, I am now slowly regaining access to more memories, thoughts, content, activities, and locations. Each time I face a fearful or painful memory, my tolerance for it increases. I may use mindful meditation, tapping, or stroking, to help with soothing of challenging sensations, memories, or thoughts. The more triggers I become comfortable with, the more my life expands.
9. For physical symptoms, I shift my awareness toward that part of my body, breathe into and out of it, and send feelings of loving-kindness to the areas that hurt or are having difficulties. This is to remind me to continue loving all parts of myself, especially those parts that are currently under stress. This is in contrast to previous times where physical sensations would cause thoughts of self-rejection such as I hate my sensitive tummy, why is my tummy hurting, I am so weak, I am such a mess, I am so damaged from childhood that I will never get better, etc. Instead of turning on myself, I now send feelings of loving-kindness.
10. When more emotions get triggered, I simply loop back to step 4.

My single most important lesson learned is this – “Feeling bad” is totally ok.

Previously, I was spending all my energy and brain power trying to escape from “bad” emotions. I wanted the salvation fantasy, the fairytale ending, the magic fix that would bring back only the good feelings and let me live happily ever after. This core belief is simply inconsistent with the realities of life.

By letting myself feel all of my emotions, I no longer need to be at war with myself. I can finally start to relax and let go, little by little, of my iron-need for control.

By letting myself feel all of my emotions, I no longer need to be at war with myself.

What Is Depression?

I have shared the emotions and thoughts that led to my depression, as well as the knowledge and techniques that I have found helpful, yet have still not defined depression. So is depression an emotion, a mood disorder, or a mental illness? Is it part of grief or totally different from grief? Is it a biochemical learned helplessness response to stress or a misconnection with self-needs? Is it due to a chemical imbalance, unhealthy brain wiring, unhealthy thinking habits, part of human suffering, or something else entirely? Which definition is correct?

I think that depression can be all of those things. I felt depressed (the emotion) after losing a loved one. As such, it is part of the grieving process. When I rejected or suppressed my emotions (misconnection with self-needs), I developed the anxiety-depression loop that started to really disrupt my ability to function in life. This caused my depression to become a mood disorder or mental illness.

As part of this loop, my nervous system, immune system, and other body systems became overly stimulated, causing physiological changes as well as chemical imbalances in my mind and body. This loop also resulted in unhealthy habits of thinking and revived old inherited habits (inherited brain wiring). All this caused a lot of unnecessary suffering.

God, grant me the Serenity to Accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.
~~[Serenity Prayer]

Am I fully recovered?

I am still a work-in-progress and will always be so. I will always miss my dogs and memories of them will likely be bitter-sweet for a long time. That is ok. When I think of them now, I let myself feel all the emotions that arise, including depression. More and more often now, I also feel the happiness I shared with them and I am grateful to have access to those memories again.

My tummy is still gassy and sometimes nauseous, but I now eat whatever I want and there is no increase in symptoms. My tummy may continue to be depressed for a while, and that is also ok. Mindfulness breathing and loving awareness helps with these physical symptoms.

I purposefully face new fear triggers regularly, and this has allowed me to reconnect with friends and relatives, often in a deeper and more authentic way. I also enjoy more activities.

Am I fully recovered?

My goal is to to get comfortable with my current self and my current life. My goal is to love myself just as I am, and that is good enough.

At the beginning of my journey, I was always grasping for the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, I relax into the darkness and learn how to dance beautifully within it. In doing so, I am starting to slowly see the light that is within me all along.

Depression – Work in progress