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Old Sep 22, 2009, 11:59 PM
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FooZe FooZe is offline
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Member Since: Apr 2009
Location: west coast, USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by depressedalaskan View Post
Now a question for all who are reading this,
What should Babysteps do or any of us when we are feeling this way???
I don't know what Babysteps or anyone else should do. What I do do when I feel that way -- or any other way -- is just go ahead and feel that way until I don't. Here's a more sophisticated version of that:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Watts
...The process is best shown by a concrete illustration. Let us take, for example, a mood of acute depression. Three things may be said of it: firstly, that it is unpleasant in itself, secondly, that it comes without our consent and does not leave at our command, and thirdly, that we have some reaction to it - which is a factor distinct from and in addition to the feeling of depression itself.

We may call this mood a demon out of the unconscious which has "possessed" us. The way of acceptance begins by giving it our attention. Instead of trying to forget about it and repress it we make our minds up to deal with it consciously, almost as man to man. Instead of allowing our servant at the door (the Fruedian "censor") to send it away, we invite it to come in and have a cup of tea. Yes, it would perhaps be better to offer it a scotch-and-soda - and I mean this in all seriousness, because the idea is to encourage it, to invite it to be itself with a vengeance, really to be a depression. For this is accepting its independence of the ego, that is, allowing it to behave as it wills, or, as the Chinese say, to follow its own tao, because if we do not allow all other things their tao we cannot expect to have our own tao. In our own language we might say that to be in accord with nature is to allow everything to follow its own nature. As Lieh Tzu remarked, in explaining the secret of his mysterious capacity to ride on the wind, "I allowed my mind without restraint to think of whatever it pleased and my mouth to talk of whatever it pleased." So here, we allow the depression to take whatever course it pleases; instead of denying it we affirm it. This requires that we feel our way into its very heart and experience it to the full - one might almost call this a "higher masochism" - and though, to all common sense, it seems the most absurd thing to do, it results in the discovery that even the blackest mood has a profound meaning for us and is a blessing in disguise. It was not without reason that the Egyptians called the demons the mediators between gods and men.
-- from The Meaning of Happiness, p. 108 (quoted online here, about 5/6 of the way down a very long page.)
Thanks for this!
Anonymous29357, depressedalaskan, lynn09, marjan, Naturefreak, Rohag, VickiesPath