Dear Mermaid:

I read your assertion about not wanting your thread to be about religious debate and so it is no longer such by me. In my experience of changing core beliefs- of any kind- is that it takes extreme patience with oneself and extreme gentleness. No rushing it. When you feel the distress you feel, you don’t make it worse by thinking something like: “Why am I feeling this way=> something must be wrong with me=> What is wrong with me…=> I must be going crazy…” Instead, extreme patience and gentleness with the self will be thinking something like: “I am experiencing understandable distress because of changing core beliefs. There is no changing core beliefs without the distress, the two go together… I am experiencing this distress not because I am crazy, but because it goes together with changing long held, core beliefs…” When overwhelmed you distract with an activity or a relaxing activity and you do that again and again, letting time pass and more time and over a long time the distress will lessen and lessen. And you will be okay.

*Mike: thank you for your answer to me: since your depression stems from feeling guilty for who you truly am and living a lie, being dishonest to yourself and others, I hope that in practical ways, every day, you consciously act in ways that are truthful to who you are, with yourself, when alone, and with others. Your intellectual capacity is very much on the ON button. I hope that your everyday living is actual PRACTICE of doing right by yourself, of being and becoming who you truly are!

anita