Depression and the Healing Power of Your Mind

If you are tired and depressed, and wondering if you can become happy, the answer is yes!

The journey from a state of tiredness and depression to a state of happiness begins with having your physical health assessed by a doctor. A "mind over matter" philosophy can sometimes make people ignore symptoms and put off a doctor's visit, which can allow the symptoms to intensify and become much more difficult to deal with. If you lean toward a "mind over matter" philosophy in your thinking, please don't make it an either/or choice. See the doctor . . . and also work with the healing power of your mind. Here are some ways to do that!

Do's and Don'ts for Working with Your Mind's Healing Power

1. Adopt a daily practice of simply feeling any physical symptoms and noticing the thoughts and images that may arise along with them. Practice being present and attentive with these thoughts and experiences. Don't label them, or judge them, or create a story from them.

2. When you notice feelings and thoughts, do breathe into them. Open your mind and body to welcome these feelings and thoughts. If you sense a blockage, gently breathe into it and be attentive to it with patient interest. Try not to follow distractions or desires for a quick outcome. Don't squeeze yourself, mentally, emotionally or physically. If squeezing is present that's OK. Accept the squeeze, open to it, breathe into it, and be attentive to it.

3. Do formulate aspirations for healing. We may want to ask for many things, but we don't know all the answers about what is good for us. If we did, we probably wouldn't have the problems we have! So the best and easiest aspiration is to ask for the accomplishment of one's highest benefit. Don't be too specific. Our idea of what is best for us may be mistaken, but our subconscious mind knows what is best for us. So you don't have to try to be in charge of figuring it all out. You can simply ask for the highest benefit to be accomplished, with the understanding and faith that the healing power of your being already wants that, and is always working towards that.

4. Do listen and sense the signals of guidance from your inner healing power. Don't disregard them! One of the ways we consistently disregard this inner guidance is by clinging to the comfort of unhealthy habitual patterns. Did you know that every time a person finishes a cigarette, their healing power immediately leaps into action to heal the damage? But any progress it makes is undone by the next cigarette! This is the same for any damaging habit –– it interrupts and erodes the constant effort of our innate healing power to move us in the direction of health.

5. Do enliven your sense of gratitude for the gift of your life and consciousness which is given brand new, moment by moment, breath by breath. Don't take the gift of life for granted! And don't let your mind become dull to the miracle that anything at all exists.

6. Practice appreciating your true identity which is simply that you are a manifestation of life itself, fully and completely. You are nothing other than life itself, an expression of its exuberant creative power, unfolding moment by moment. Don't believe all the personality stories about "who you are." Your personality is only an act, an enticing role you play; it is not who you are. Don't insist on being stuck in the habitual attitudes and choices that make up the act. It's your act, after all. You can play it as you like!

7. Since you are an expression of life itself –– appearing and living, on the spot, moment by moment –– do encourage your exuberant life force to enliven and transform your personality act, allowing the borders and boundaries of your personality to loosen up and soften up. Don't maintain an allegiance to any rigid attitude.

8. Practice smiling and laughing! Taking things seriously is not a virtue. Or, it's a false virtue. Warmth, kindness and good humor are the real virtues.

These perspectives deserve daily contemplation and practice. If you do them, you will definitely discover the answers to many questions that you think are holding you back.

You don't have to wait for answers. You can start right now paying attention to the fact that your inner healing power is always in action for your highest benefit. And that the intuitive awareness of your true identity, as life itself, is always expressing itself in the form of your unique body-mind.

So don't waste time squeezing and contracting! Or, if you do squeeze and contract, notice how amazing it is that you have the power to do that. Practice opening more and more to the gift of your life with every breath, in every moment. Good luck!