Sorry  words can get away from me.

To Summarize: Away to deal with feelings of frustration is to make the conscious, recognize the feelings for what they are and let them flow/go.  Notice, experience, breathe and move forward… maybe with a silent prayer or positive thought towards the person you were hoping to help.

The above lead me to thinking about how we direct or don’t direct our conciseness. I suspect most people don’t think of conciseness as something they direct though that is one of the purposes of the practice of meditation. I would argue that such a practice isn’t something to do in an hour but in every moment.

Anyway. I visualize my conciseness as being dog like. Attracted to any experience that stands out especially fear. Sometimes its ok to let my awareness run free but sometimes I need to put a “leash” on it and ask it to heal (return to the still point). Especially when it becomes fixated on fear, a memory or an emotion like frustration which tends to intensifies the situation.  I find doing so in a calm intentional manner is most effective.

My thinking was that if you took up such a practice (however you wish to visualize it) you would be in a better position to influence those you wish to help. I suspect that your frustration with feeling frustrated as well as most of the student’s anxiety is a result of consciousness becoming fixated on the issue or emotion and so not being able to, ‘breathe’ and let the experience flow through.

This brings me to my favorite quote:

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”-  TS Eliot

good thing I don’t get frustrated when ignored 🙂

• This reply was modified 6 years, 12 months ago by Peter.

I’m sorry that your experiencing depression and feeling that you want to die and for it all to end.

Often below thoughts of wanting to die is a hope for change.  Which I know seems like a contradiction but isn’t. Life is a process of change a cycle of  birth/death – Birth and death not two sides of a coin but existing within each other.  We cannot change without also letting something go. Every act of creation is also a act of destruction, every act of destruction is a act of creation. Every choice we make also represents the choices we did not make and some times we get stuck mourning the choices not made and so lose sight of where we are.  Often a wish to die is a resistance to birth-death cycle. Wanting things to change while everything we actually do keeps things the same.

Anyway, I found your topic title ‘I want to lose hope’ interesting. It made me smile because of the contradictions such a statement contains. Contradictions that may be influencing the disappointments you have experienced and why you might not be able to let them go and move beyond them. It seems to me that your real hope is to see what might lie beyond your past experiences and where you might go next.

Your saying that your hope is to lose hope – you hope is to die (change) but before you can“die”, you need to lose hope???

It is my opinion that hope is a skill most people suck at. Unskillful hope is hoping for things that aren’t possible like going back in time to do something differently, or hope for things we have no intention to work towards, hope that change might magically just happen – without having to “die” or let go. (The First Nobel Truth is that all life is suffering, pain, and misery. The Second Truth is that this suffering is caused by selfish craving and personal desire – in my view resisting birth-death cycle that is Life and hoping that that reality wasn’t so)

When hope is unskillful a hope to lose hope just may be the correct path out. Unskillful hope can only lead to depression and becoming stuck.

It seems to me that there is a part of you, an inner wisdom, that Knows you, and knowing you, pushing you to let go of the past and seek out what is beyond the next curve in the road or top of some hill.  (Maybe this will to see what lies beyond the bend, what you can’t yet see or know with certainty, isn’t hope but faith in the birth/death cycle). Your authentic self needing you to have faith in the birth/death cycle, faith in your story and that yes, though you will experience disappointment their will also be experiences of joy… Regardless your story will be an interesting one. So maybe let go of this hope to lose hope and instead let your self hope for what you really seek. Trust this inner wisdom that wants to you to experience what happens next. I have no doubt that you are going to have a story worth telling. (Your story is already worth telling)

Hope is paradoxical. It is neither passive waiting nor is it unrealistic forcing of circumstances that cannot occur. It is like the crouched tiger, which will jump only when the moment for jumping has come. Neither tired reformism nor pseudo-radical adventurism is an expression of hope. To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime. There is no sense in hoping for that which already exists or for that which cannot be. Those whose hope is weak settle down for comfort or for violence; those whose hope is strong see and cherish all signs of new life and are ready every moment to help the birth of that which is ready to be born. ― Eric Fromm –  The Revolution of Hope

 

“We say that flowers return every spring, but that is a lie. It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal comes at a price, for even if the flower grows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring are themselves new to the world, untried and untested. The flower that wilted last year is gone. Petals once fallen are fallen forever. Flowers do not return in the spring, rather they are replaced. It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid. And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us.” ― Daniel Abraham, The Price of Spring

We have a great deal in common. In my opinion the philosophical implication of the parable of the talents when taken literally are horrific. I can’t tell you the fear I felt as a child wondering if I was living up to my potential and hiding my ‘light’ and the punishment I would end up facing for my failures.  And that was before ever questioning why one person would be given more talents then another.

Like you I  attend church out of respect of my family. I no longer have the energy to ‘translate’ the teachings into spiritual language and separate the organisation from the goal.

I agree the words within the bible when viewed literally through the eyes of certainty strips spirituality from them.  That can change when one reads religious tests as poetry and symbolic language but one must be open to symbolic language. Symbolic language can be difficult because it is necessary to let go of certainty and become comfortable with the idea of doubt.

Within the organisation of Church doubt is something to be feared and symbolic language a danger in undermining the organisation. Thus in my view that mar many spiritual growth – the reported goal of the organisation – means that there will come a time where one must leave the organisation.

I was taking to someone the other day who mentioned they had lost their faith yet continued to pray which seems a contradiction. She went on to talk about how she found a different spiritual path.  I suspect that see never lost her faith but had lost her certainty in the words she was taught.   Her experience forced her to acknowledge doubt and that it was in doubt that her world view opened and where could ‘see’ her faith – Faith as in what she leaned on when she didn’t know, when she doubted. Doubted G_d, doubted life, doubted herself.

I know asking such questions will not make you happier. Ignorance is bliss and often its better not to ask the questions. If, however you are like me, once a question has been asked, it can’t be unasked and so you will find yourself continuing to seek out your truths. Like you I was angry abut that, but that’s like being angry that my eyes are brown a waist of energy.

You might find the work of Joseph Campbell helpful. Maybe ‘Myths we live by’. His study of symbolic language and the stories/myth/religions may help you reconcile your experience and anger.

Recognizing that you are depressed is the first step, so you’re on your way. A part of the issue seems to be related to your conciseness fixated on the past and imagining a future that can not be. This tends to be a function of the id or instinctive component of personality. The mind can be like a dog fixated on something barking and barking. Only by diverting the dog’s attention will it stop and often a quick tug on a leash is enough redirect the dog’s attention. Conciseness is like training a dog in that we must learn how to direct it. We need to learn when to let it run and when to have it heel. A part of your recovery will require you to “tug on the leash” a little when your conciseness becomes fixated on unhelpful/unskillful thinking.

You may find talking to a professional helpful. Someone who can view your situation from a impartial perspective.

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” -Seneca

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality. -Seneca

Reading your post a riddle came to mind – what comes first the chicken or the egg. With regards to depression: Does the story we tell ourselves influence and create depression or does depression influence and create our story. Both?  My observation is that we tend to live the story we tell and depression often starts with the story (conscious or unconscious story) but that we can cross a tipping point were our brain chemistry changes and works against us stopping us from changing the story we tell ourselves and live.

I think you might find talking to a third-party professional helpful in determining how much of your anxiety is a result of the depression and how much is a result of having your conciseness fixated/stuck on your story of a horrible future.  Learning the art of directing your conciseness so that you can be in the moment may also be helpful. The first step is coming to terms with your depression.

You have not ruined your life. You are not your Past. You are not your memories, You are not your thoughts.

As a recovering over thinker with a tendency to fixate on what I’m afraid of I can relate to what your problem.

I found the process of learning to redirect my thoughts took time and practice.  My first step was examining the idea of fear so that I was not fearing fear. The purpose of fear is to get our attention and provide the body with a burst of energy in-order to deal with the immediate threat.

There are three responses to immediate threat fight, flight, or freeze. When the threat is not immediate we still might react as if the threat was immediate and run away or freeze. When the threat is not immediate we can choose to respond to it however if we are not conscious of what we are doing there is a tenancy to use the burst of energy to fixate on the fear where we can’t stop thinking about it, and in this way, get stuck in our fear or Freeze.

The reactive mind does not distinguish between what is an immediate threat and what is not so the first step when one is afraid is to make that conscious. Is what you are afraid of an immediate threat requiring immediate attention. In most cases you will find that the threats and worries are not immediate so there is time to breathe and respond instead of reacting.

The next step is to identify the worry or threat by naming it. What is the worry? What is the Threat?

Fear is often False Evidence Appearing Real (F.E.A.R) and more often then not the things we worry about and fear never happen so naming our fears helps us sort out the real from the imagined.

Once you have named your fear and identify what is real and what is imaged you can take steps to deal with it.  There will be times when you “fight” and time when you accept that you have done what you could, changed what you could and move one “flight” (you’re not running away from it but letting go having the wisdom to know what you can and cannot change) In this way you avoid “Freeze” and becoming stuck and fixated on freeze. (for an immediate danger freeze is a valid option but seldom helpful when the danger is not immediate.)

When I find myself fixated on my fear I remined myself of the following quotes which remind me to redirect my awareness away from the fear and change perspective so that I don’t become stuck

“In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle.” – Garth Stein

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage