Depressive feelings = cut back practice??

[michellegrace]

How do you know when to cut back on practice? I don't want to, but I wonder where the line is. I have been struggling with a lot of inner demons lately. I suspect that purification makes me see them more clearly than ever before, which can be disturbing. Thus, I regularly find myself in the midst of a very heavy and dense depression (or anxiety) that I can't seem to shake away for too long. It often pops up not too long after my meditation, which worries me, but meditation also helps to clear it away. For reference, this phase started about seven or eight months ago, just a few months after I started regularly mantra-meditating for 20 min, twice daily. I have had my ups and downs and am much better than when this phase started, but I'm still kind of emotionally unstable. When it started, my teacher thought it was the result of over-purification. I'm not sure what to think...any input?

[Panthau]

For me its the same - meditation is always calming and feels good. But afterwards i feel sometimes like you described, then
i need to cut back. I recently got the tip to rest after my meditation, as i completly forgot about that. Maybe its a good hint for
you too?

Atb,
Pan

[miguel]

Hi michelle,

i think its overpurification.Sounds pretty familiar sympthoms here.
Should reduce your practice to your own confortable level.

take care.

[Shanti]

Meditation takes you inward, but you need to balance that with doing things outward. If you are feeling depressed or lethargic, you need to add action/activity to the time in between practices. Get into some form of exercise program, go to a gym, walk, go do things with friends, eat heavier.

The most important part of this journey is the balance.. the balance between going inward and outward. All our lives we are too focused on the outside, that makes us anxious, stressed and unbalanced, then we discover meditation and go inwards... but if we start moving inward and forget the other side of life, it will pull us into depressive feelings and downs and fatigue and lethargy. That is why Yogani says, meditate and then go out and live your life. This balance is very important.

So try doing some grounding things as mentioned above. I think that will help. Also like Pan said, don't forget to rest after your practice. And as Miguel said, cut back on practices by a bit and find your comfort zone.

Wish you all the best.

[michellegrace]

Okay, I'll see if cutting back a bit helps, and I'll try to be more active instead of letting the depressive feelings keep me inside. I have had a LOT of down time recently due to spending a few months abroad in a much more laid back country than I'm used to, so that probably hasn't helped. I should try getting a little more external. Thanks tons for the input!

One more question, though. What's the best way to deal with heavy emotions, when they happen, so as to not produce even MORE karma? I'd like to say I could just release them all or stay mindful, but sometimes they simply leave me incapacitated.

[Shanti]

quote:Originally posted by michellegrace

One more question, though. What's the best way to deal with heavy emotions, when they happen, so as to not produce even MORE karma? I'd like to say I could just release them all or stay mindful, but sometimes they simply leave me incapacitated.

When in a low, trying to do much with the emotions will become a mind game. The best thing to do at those times is distract yourself and go do something that will get you out of the low phase. Then when the heaviness has passed, if you'd like to, you can try self inquiry. Have you read "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie. That may be a good starting point. As you continue with your practice, you will learn to catch the emotions before they become a full fledged down phase, this is when you can take the rising emotion and surrender it to your ishta/let it go in stillness (samyama). This however is very hard to do at first and like I said becomes a mind game and can get us more frustrated and down. So for now, when you are feeling low, do something to get out of it first, find a distraction. Then when the heaviness in the heart is gone, try to do some self inquiry if you feel drawn to it.


PS: The fact that you can identify the lows as not a part of you but something happening to you is really big BTW, many have no idea about this.

[swaha]

hi Michelle
in my experience, dealing with overwhelming emotions - whatever they are - was an issue until i started doing, almost daily, a certain method, based on catharsis.. it is called Dynamic Meditation (by Osho)
again, in my experience, this method can be practiced along with other practices (AYP or other yogic practices) and in my case it has even enhanced the other practises..
sometimes, depending on my energy, i feel i don't even need to do anything else.. Dynamic is enough!
it is a way to "clear the ground" from all emotions and then, a great relief and silence comes naturally..
u feel both energized and peaceful.
if u are interested to know more about Dynamic, check this demo: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4506616324224559004#

[Sparkle]

quote:Originally posted by michellegrace

How do you know when to cut back on practice? I don't want to, but I wonder where the line is. I have been struggling with a lot of inner demons lately. I suspect that purification makes me see them more clearly than ever before, which can be disturbing. Thus, I regularly find myself in the midst of a very heavy and dense depression (or anxiety) that I can't seem to shake away for too long. It often pops up not too long after my meditation, which worries me, but meditation also helps to clear it away. For reference, this phase started about seven or eight months ago, just a few months after I started regularly mantra-meditating for 20 min, twice daily. I have had my ups and downs and am much better than when this phase started, but I'm still kind of emotionally unstable. When it started, my teacher thought it was the result of over-purification. I'm not sure what to think...any input?

Hi Michelle
The advice you have gotten is excellent and I would like to add my spin on it.
Depression is caused by thoughts ruminating or going round and round in repeating circles in the the head. Associated with these thoughts are feelings and maybe body sensations.
When we get into a depressive cycle it can feel like we are being drawn, spiriling downward deeper and deeper and it can be very difficult to get out of.

When actually in the depression there are things we can do like Shanti suggests, distracting ourselves with anything, be nice to yourself.
Be aware that an automatic responce to depression is to first give up the things that nurture us. So we can make a conscious decision to go and do things that nurture us, like visiting a friend, going to the cinema or whatever does it for you.

The Dynamic Meditation that Shawa suggests looks interesting and I'd say that could be very useful for shaking a person out of the cycle.

There is very useful work that can be done in between depression episodes. This involves training in being aware of our thoughts and how they work.
We are highly trained as problem solvers and the big problem with this and depression is that problem solving with the use of "thinking", whilst being brilliant for solving most of our problems in general, is the very thing that brings us into depression and then keeps us there.
So we have to train ourselves to recognise the negitive thinking cycles as they start and stop them consciously. By arresting the development of the "normal" automatic response of thinking thinking thinking - distract yourself by paying attention to things in the moment, by doing something nurturing etc.

It has been proven that neural pathways in our brain get entrained into negitive thinking cycles, and this can be re-activated very easily through negitive thinking and down we go again.
So it takes some time of actually training the neural pathways to a different way of working so that the automatice spiraling does not happen so easily.

Meditation can bring us inward as Shanti says and can leave us in a place where we are more prone to fall into depression through automatic thought responses. So it is very important to start training in recognition of the thinking processes, in particular the negitive thinking cycles.
Before they get a grip on you, arrest them as stated above and do nice outward things for yourself.

Best of luck[]

[tonightsthenight]

hi michelle,

with all due respect to the other posters here, i believe they're barking up the wrong tree.

i've seen Yogani say much the same things.  for example, saying that the release of intense emotions is due to "friction" from improper amount of energy flow in the nervous system relative to the purification level, as well as that it's a dysfunction of the production of ecstatic energy. that's just not entirely true in my experience, if for no other reason that i'm capable of feeling ecstatic energy (k prana bliss) while at the same time feeling these emotions in the background.   rather, these emotions are real artifacts that must pass through our conscious attention before release.

it isn't as simple as some of the posters here of said, and i think it shows that a lot of the human population probably don't have experience with severe depression or emotions.  this is a facet of the human condition that is not adequately addressed by APY or any other system that i know of.

you're intuition that this is about over purification is partly correct.  even with catharsis, ideally one would be expelling old emotions and cleansing the depression in such a manner that one wouldn't necessarily notice it.

however, at times of great purification, it is my experience that this balance is difficult to find.  as one releases these emotions, a lot of which may be carried from before birth (it seems to me), they just come out, maybe a little at a time, maybe in tidal waves.  it's easy to confuse these released emotions and/or depression with what you're current mindstate, which can be completely at peace at the same time.

i think the important distinction here is that some people are sensitive to deep emotions, and others aren't.  and everything in between.  in other words, that stuff is there for everyone, but not everyone feels it (hence the incorrect interpretations of its nature).

from what you describe, i feel that your experience is normal if you're doing purification.  don't worry, they will pass.  use self pacing to counteract the release.  there's really no solution besides that.

best wishes

[michellegrace]

Thank you all for the very useful advice! I cut back my meditations to between ten and twelve minutes, which was very stabilizing at first...but I'm starting to think that I need to cut back even more, because the depression is getting worse and happening for longer periods of time than it has before. I will definitely try to integrate this advice...I have started to try to implement more conscious positive thoughts when I see that repetitive negative ones have taken over, and it helps sometimes. If I can increase that mindfulness it will help a great deal. But the emotions seem to come out of nowhere sometimes, and the frequency and intensity is starting to worry me. I will see how distraction and mindful thinking works for a while, because both sound helpful, and I will try to implement this Dynamic Meditation, if it will finish loading on my horrid bandwidth. I think you all have some super valid points.

I'm terribly grateful for all the advice. And hey, maybe tonightsthenight is right and I will just have to ride it out. At least the emotions will spur some good angsty creative energy for writing. :-p

[tonightsthenight]

That's a great attitude Michelle, hang in there.

Remember that emotions are not us, and they are neither good nor bad.  You can let them go.

The trick to moving out of depression is not in the doing, it's in the undoing.  Let go.  When you let go the light inside of you has a chance to shine!

[michellegrace]

How lovely and succinctly you phrase that. Am grateful for your support. :-) (Today I tried the first half of the osho meditation --since that was all my Africa bandwidth could load--before my morning session. God, that was really purging. I had quite a depression-free day after that!