Depression is a controversial subject, not least in Law of Attraction terms. On the days when I’m riding high and feeling like an LOA purist, I wouldn’t consider giving the subject a second thought, let alone writing about it, but I recently came out the other side of a bit of an emotional dip, and I feel inspired to kiss it goodbye with some sharing. I know what I say will reach others who need to hear it. In fact, perhaps it’s one of the reasons I created the mess that I did!
I experienced periods of clinical depression in the past and these were always triggered for me by numerous difficult events piling on top of each other. Eventually the pile of things to deal with would become a little too high and topple over. In my case, the emotion I would use to describe the precursor to the ‘toppling’, is ‘overwhelm’. Prior to overwhelm, the mix of negative emotions could be anything from anger to sadness, frustration to guilt. It doesn’t matter really; they are all just negative emotions of one kind or another.
In my experience, the difference between feeling low and falling into depression is defined by the intensity of the negative feelings combined with an inability to shake them off and feel better within a reasonable period of time. So then, if I practise the LOA and I know that I create my own reality, I must understand that depression was of my own doing, and, just as I had the power to create my pain, I also have the power to make myself feel better. In which case, why would it feel so impossible in those times of despair, and why on earth would anyone get themselves into that state in the first place?
The answer is simply ‘momentum’. Depression is the result of low vibration emotions gathering too much momentum. One little negative emotion, if not managed, will attract another negative emotion and then those two negative emotions combined have the power to attract twice as many more negative emotions, and so it goes on. It’s just the Law of Attraction at work.
We all experience negative emotions – and that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. Negative feelings exist to give us wholeness, to give us contrast in life, to show us what feels good for us and what does not. This is how we get clear on what we want in our lives and without that clarity the Universe wouldn’t know what to line up for us.
But there is so much pressure on us to be happy and so much information out there on how to get happy that it’s almost as if having an unhappy day is a bad thing. We tell our children ‘don’t be sad’, ‘don’t cry’, ‘cheer up’, and yes, that’s because we care about how they feel. We love them, so we don’t want them to experience any pain. But, what that is actually doing, is encouraging them to switch off their negative feelings because it makes us feel more comfortable to see them smiling. And that’s because we don’t have a good understanding of what our negative emotions actually exist for.
The fact is that ALL our emotions are simply our inner guidance system and so every one of them, negative or positive, is vital to our ultimate well-being. Our negative emotions are supposed to feel uncomfortable because they are our soul’s way of communicating its disagreement with something to us. If we learn to take no notice of them, then we miss the important information they are trying to give us. And when we do this repeatedly we deny ourselves the opportunity to take the information on board, make the changes, or take the action that our soul wants us to take. Instead we carry on along a path that our soul isn’t happy with.
If we were to acknowledge negative emotions for the vital information that they are, we would be in a position to address our discomfort in its early stages and momentum in the wrong direction would not have a chance to gather. Depression would not be able to come about. We would see the negative emotions in a positive light; as a necessary part of life, and we would work with the information our soul was sharing.
I am a sensitive person, and most of whom this information resonates with, will be the same. It’s certainly a common characteristic of light workers. As with any characteristic, sensitivity has a light side and a dark side. On the upside, I can read the energy in a room, I’m empathetic, I feel things very deeply; all things I consider to be blessings. However, the other side of being sensitive is that I can feel as low as I can high, I can take things to heart, I can feel other people’s energy. At the end of the day, I create my own reality and I have a responsibility to myself to do whatever it takes to stay mentally healthy.
There was a time when I would blame my depression on my work load, on my hormones, on a life event caused by someone else, but these days I know I have a choice as to whether I allow my negative emotions to build up to become depression. Yes, I am sensitive and so some things will get on top of me where they might not affect other people, but that’s all the more reason to step up and do what it takes to manage my emotions. At the end of the day, when I maintain a place of good alignment, then negative emotions can’t gather the momentum they need to result in the outcome of depression.
The bottom line is that depression is a big fat signal to us that we haven’t taken heed of our inner guidance system somewhere along the way. Something feels wrong in the way we are living and it’s manifesting itself in this form of dis-ease. Depression is real, horrible, debilitating, and anti-depressants work wonders. I know; I took them for a long time! But I promise you there is another option. One that will bring about real change and not just act as a sticking plaster.
We can choose a different way; we can choose to live a life we love. The key is to find out what that entails. We think we are taking responsibility by stepping into the doctor’s surgery and asking for help and yes, that might be a step towards us getting better initially, it may certainly help turn the momentum around, but that isn’t the answer. The answer is to understand ourselves, to take heed of our inner guidance system and be brave enough to recognise that changes need to be made if we don’t want to keep hitting the place of toppling over.
When we learn how to live in our power, we discover how to naturally maintain our equilibrium and then the paths that are right for us open up. Last month was painful for me: I hit a low point like I haven’t done since before I started practising the LOA. But even though it felt more intense because being out of alignment feels very uncomfortable to me these days, I didn’t let the momentum gather enough to turn into depression. The result was a short and sharp experience.
Once I would have accepted that I was back there in that dark place until either things incidentally started going right for me again, or the effects of the medication kicked in. This time I looked at what I had done to cause it. I know that when I feel bad it’s because I’m not at one with how my soul is feeling. My soul always wants me to feel good, it knows I’m worth it and that I have the ability in myself to feel that way. I took responsibility and told myself it was temporary, I was doing the best I could, that everything was perfect no matter how horrible it felt, and that at some point the experience would make sense to me. I couldn’t see it straight away but after a couple of days the fog lifted and I saw things clearly.
Low days are normal: they exist for our benefit. Whether they give you information that you’ve consumed the wrong things for your body, spent time with people who deplete your energy, spent too much time doing things you don’t love, or given negative thoughts too much airtime…. take the information. Depression is a sign that you’ve neglected to address the things making you feel negative emotions. Don’t add to any negativity by beating yourself up for not doing better – especially if you feel you know better! Yes, it may have been easier before you knew what you know now, but you can’t not know what you know, so don’t even go there! Rest assured that it’s just about momentum and you can always turn that around.
If you are feeling low, you might find my free ebook ‘How to Raise Your Vibration’ helpful. Sending you a big virtual hug x