Hi Openhanders!

We've been asked quite a lot recently about feeling down or depressed and how we might deal with that. If its something that is important to you right now, you might like to read on...

Its that time of year again!
As I make my way around my daily business in our home town of Glastonbury at the moment, it seems lots of people are feeling quite down - depressed even. What's more its clearly not a local malaise; people are feeling it across the globe. So what is this all about and what might be the best way to deal with feeling down or depressed? This article contemplates the issue and provides some tools and advice for how we might deal with it.

Post festive blues
Of course it tends to be difficult at this time of year due to post festive blues - the anti-climatic let down from all that pre-festive hype and irrational exuberance. I feel it is much compounded this year however due to the underlying energetic shifts - we are rapidly moving into the era of consequences. Take a look at the mounting global debt crisis for example - it seems many consumers went on a last minute spending boom ahead of an anticipated recession (crazy isn't it? or am I being judgmental?). Of course relationship issues tend to be exacerbated at this time of year too.

So many people are likely to be feeling quite down and anyone who is remotely sensitive will be feeling it. For anyone who is empathic, the effect of course will be even more greatly magnified.

So what might be the way forwards through this?

In our new film "Gateways of Light" (http://www.openhandweb.org/gateways_movie) we say the key to evolutionary growth is to attune to the lightness not the density or difficulty. But what does "attunement" really mean?

Well first and foremost it does not mean to avoid the density - not to try to cure depression for example. In my view, if we try to do that, we are simply denying a naturally arising expression and thereby giving more energy to it. Meditation will help greatly because it can release healing endorphins into the body - these dock with receptor cells within our bodies thereby preventing the chemicals that cause the feeling of depression from invading our cells.

However, if we have the attitude of mind within the meditation that we're going to "cure the depression", we may find ourselves efforting and as a result block the release of endorphins.

We could also try to pretend we're not feeling miserable as many self help teaching and writings tend to suggest. Of course the trouble with this approach is they create identity - that which is avoiding the depression. If we are consciously on a path of Enlightenment this is counter to our natural direction of unfolding - which is to move to the place of non-identification with such feelings. All that we're really doing is sweeping the feelings under the proverbial rug which we're bound to trip over at some point again in the future.

So the first and foremost point about attuning to the light is not to avoid the dark. If feelings of depression arise they are arising for a reason. In which case my suggestion would be not to avoid them but to sink deeply into the feelings - go right to the centre of the feeling and allow it to wash through us. Seek not to change or deny.

Neither does it help to "beat ourselves up" about the feelings or feel that we're in some way not acceptable or inadequate for being this way - society tends to always want us to be well, to be perfect; seek instead to acknowledge where we're at and be awesomely accepting of that state.

"Don't tell me how wonderful things will be...someday.
Show me how you can risk being completely at peace,
truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment,
and the next, and the next, and the next..."
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

If you consider yourself to be very spiritually connected but your depth of connection has temporarily waned, well try to remember that spirit exists in and through all things - 'wallowing in the mud' is also a spiritual experience! I often speak of becoming awesomely okay with the way things are - well this is exactly what I mean. If you feel depressed - be okay with that.

If we keep doing this and stay present with the feeling, then at some point we'll suddenly wake up to the fact that we're actually watching the feeling and are beyond it. We'll suddenly find the key and open the doorway of the inner prison - it could be a word, a song lyric, a vision, an animal which synchronistically appears (providing you're watching for it). In that moment we become free from it. The fragment of our soul that has been identifying itself with the feeling is now liberated and reintegrates with the rest of our Soul Consciousness.

At that point, rather than having the feelings stuck within, they can flow through and out.

So in summary, my recommendation would be...

• stay with the feelings, whatever they may be
• go right into the centre of them and let them wash through
• keep moving to the place of the Observer of ourself
• meditation will help greatly but don't effort to cure the feelings
• look for the key which reminds us who we really are
• watch for the moment we feel liberated from the drama
• feel the flow of the energy through and out
• centre once more in the completeness of the soul

If you'd like more help and advice, you might like to see our forum thread on the topic "Muddy field"... http://www.openhandweb.org/muddy_field

Much love and empathy

Chris
Openhand Foundation
unfolding into light
http://www.openhandweb.org