Is it wrong to distract yourself?

[JonW]

The weather analogy is a good one.
In Britain, of course, we're famous for talking so much about it, moaning about it, knowing that we can do nothing about it.
I used to really resent the cold weather. It always made me grumpy. Through last winter I realised I was enjoying the sensation of taking an inbreath during a cold snap. It felt delicious.
Like I say, Jenna, I still get sad, I still worry about stuff. But not like I used to. When difficult thoughts or feelings arise, I try to be mindful of them.
I'm a sucker for a dog analogy.
In the past, difficult thoughts or feelings felt to me as though I had a ferocious rottweiler on a lead. The rottweiler would drag me this way and that. It was as though I had no control over it/them.
Now, thoughts and feelings feel more like a slightly naughty cocker spaniel on a lead. I have a spaniel myself so the comparison is apt. Spaniels are sniffer dogs. They can't resist a tree or a lamppost. When Banjo is being walked on his lead he will often attempt to dart towards a tree to cock his leg. The trick is not to hold the lead tightly. When the lead is held tightly, my arm risks being wrenched out of its socket as Banjo pulls. The trick is to hold the lead loosely. If I'm relaxed, Banjo doesn't pull as hard. It's similar with thoughts and feelings. I don't struggle with them like I used to. I keep them on a looser rein, as it were.
When difficult thoughts or emotions arise, I sometimes try to imagine them as bubbles. Then I imagine popping the bubbles with a feather. I remind myself that they're just thoughts and feelings and I let them go. They're not facts. They're just secretions of the mind (copyright, Kabat-Zinn) and physical sensations. Let them go. If they return, let them go again. And again and again.
As Ezra Bayda writes, it helps approach things with a certain lightness of heart. Emotional reactions will still arise. Mindfulness meditation can help us see the bigger picture, help us avoid getting lost in our distress so quickly, so intensely, or for so long. We just need to be willing to practice being with what is. Again and again.

[Jenna]

Jon

Have just sent you a pm

I'm mindful of my feelings and thoughts but its not helping

J

[rara]

Yo, of course not! Go stick on your favourite film or go and see the person who makes you laugh the most!

[rara]

Being mindful of them is one thing but if that's all you do, you'll dwell on them

[BioSattva]

Being mindful of them is one thing but if that's all you do, you'll dwell on them

Really?

But the likes of Thich Nhat Hanh practice mindfulness 24/7 - and maybe they don't even practice anymore. It is apparently possible to be mindful in all that one does. Practicing doing that is the only way one can apparently arrive at such a place.

One's life is going to continue on whether one is mindful or not - it's better to actually be there in the preent moments to enjoy it, is it not?

[JonW]

Jon Kabat-Zinn recommends 45 minutes practice a day, six days a week for his eight-week course.
Often it takes that kind of sustained commitment, particularly at the beginning.
Sometimes it gets harder before it gets easier.

[Jenna]

Jon

That's a lot of practice. I often struggle to do 2 10 minute sittings but things are getting easier in terms of me being more aware of things.

[rara]

@bio yeah, that's not quiiiite what I meant haha. What I meant was being mindful on the darker things. Of course, Jenna, you can still practice mindfulness in something you have chosen to distract yourself with!

[OmniPada]

Jenna,

I feel for you. I know that depression is one of the most difficult things to deal with. More than anything you want to be free and can't understand why you can't be. I'd like to do everything I can to help you as much as I can. One thing that's similar with all other conditions of the mind, it's just a matter of viewpoint. And viewpoint can be changed by understanding. The more understanding we can bring to what is going on, how things are working, the freer you become. It really is all about understanding. There aren't any special chants, standing on your head, or having to meditate some special way, eat some weird foreign food, etc. Not even some mental tricks or exercises. Just understanding. And the cool thing about understanding is it's easy to do - all you have to do is pause and think about things.

So in the below, I want to start out delicately and tell you I don't have a magic pill or some special tea for you to drink. If only it were really that easy. And as I write, some things may click, others you say "hmmm, don't see it" and some things I may even make an assumption (baaaaad Omni - sit in corner now!) and I'll be wrong. Feel free to get your newspaper rolled up and swat me and set me straight. You're the one driving the bus, I'm just here to see if there's a way I can help you navigate out of this town that we don't want to spend any more time in.

Let me quote in this one line to start from:

Gareth my feelings about inability to cope with life and/or depression

Consider this viewpoint. You are able to cope with life and depression. You're already doing it. You've been doing it all along.

Check out this statement from a very very literal stance: "I just can't wait until I get that!"

Really? Well, since they *do* have to wait, and they say they can't - what's going to happen? Do they just suddenly disappear from reality because they can't wait? Reality is they are waiting, but somehow they're creating this absolute rule that says they can't. If their rule is true, and reality is true, then they must go out of existence to "not wait".

Turn that same thought to your statement and situation. How long have you been depressed? (rhetorical question) This entire time you've coped with it. How long have you been alive? (again, rhetorical) This entire time you've coped with it.

To not have coped with it would be the same as the one who can't wait, you'd have to go out of existence.

You may not like how you've coped with it, but what you've been doing all along is coping. Just think about it.

That's the first step, that you have been coping, only not the way you'd like to. A couple more steps to being free. If on any of these steps you "don't get it" - stop and ask questions. Just like when climbing stairs you can't jump from the bottom to the top, you won't be able to skip these steps as they each build on the previous, and each step leads you away from being stuck in depression.

So, if you're ready and you "get" the last step, let's take another step.

Let's imagine only for a moment that I could tell you that in exactly 1 year your depression will pass and you'd be free from it. But that you'd still have to go through this one year. Imagine the feelings you'd have. They'd be mixed. On the one hand you could lay around in self-pity groaning and moaning with the knowledge that there's another year of suffering coming. Or you could think "jeeze, I've already lived X years of my life in depression, I'll just sit through one last year and I'm done with this thing and never looking back" - and immediately your attitude would begin to lift you out, you'd probably find a quick eject button with that hopeful outlook on life and in a couple weeks you'd be done with the whole thing.

Well, all of that last paragraph is 100% true with one small exception. I don't know that it's a year. But know this, if it's "fate" (which I don't believe in) that you'll be in depression for the next X amount of time and you could chose how you were going to go through it, either self-pity and miserable, or optimistic knowing it's going to end - which way would you want to go through your depression?

The crazy thing is, if you picked door #2, then you're already on your way out. Don't get caught up in "but I don't know how" "I can't do it" "I'm unable" etc... Those are just traps of the mind.

If you can see these steps clearly, you may not "eject" immediately, but stick with this way of thinking and you'll realize you're coming out without doing anything special. Just seeing clearly will bring about the change. This is the point of meditation, to see clearly.

Another step.

What happens when you turn your meditative gaze toward the thoughts of depression? The feelings of depression?

Consider if your stove is warm (not hot) and you put your hand on it, you feel the warmth. Now you take your hand off and put it on the counter and feel the cool. The mind works the same way. When you put your mind on the source of your depression, you feel the "warmth" (depressive feelings). So just take your mind off of the source and instead look at the mind itself. Explore that feeling of depression. Explore the sensation of it. In doing so you've taken your mind off the stove and instead put it on the counter. Naturally the temperature will change in your mind from depression to observation.

What you see during this observation, just be patient with. Think about this: it was there before you saw it, seeing it is there doesn't make it any worse. And know that in seeing you free yourself.

Like a wound that is infected under your clothes. Perhaps you haven't looked at it in weeks. Removing your clothes to inspect it doesn't make it any worse. It's there just as it was before you looked. Same with the source of this depression. It's there now. Looking at it doesn't make it worse.

Each piece that you see, just pause with it. If it's pain, feel the pain. If it's loss, feel the loss. If it's fear, feel the fear. If it's alone, feel the alone. Whatever it is, this is what it is, this is what it's been all along, feeling it doesn't make it worse. It's actually freeing. Of course there is pain there. but ignoring it isn't helping it. And the really cool thing about it, technically it doesn't hurt at all. There's no permanent state of "pain" or even "depression". These are just states that arise and cease. The depression arises, and as it subsides it leaves nothing behind, no wound, no scar. Only a memory.

Parting thought: And how can one separate a memory from a dream? What is "real"? When you awake everything is as it was, no matter how the dream was. Same with any afflictive thought or emotion that we study. Once it's passed, like dream is gone and we're awake from it.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Namaste,

Omni

[FeeHutch]

Morning
I do feel I should reiterate the forum guidelines at this point. Posts here should not be used as a substitute for professional advice from a medical practitioner.
Jenna, we will all do our best to support you and share with you in the spirit of mindfulness but if you are struggling with emotional distress, overwhelming feels and experience around depression I would also suggest that talking to your GP or similar could help too.
I hope you are OK and feel free to PM me if you need too.
Fee