Hi,

I don't find life be worth living any more.

The bliss is gone, and everything just feel useless. I am not sure if I can be happy again.

I don't feel I have any reason for living, except my dog.

I just want to go into dreamless sleep, and never wake up again.

I try to create meaning in my life, by doing things. It works for a couple of days, but then it just goes back to hopelessness.



Edward

Hi Edward,

If you look at how you feel from a positive perspective what happening to you is pretty perfect...

Been in the same place many times, felt the same despair, until I realized that I was creating the feeling of hopelessness by *trying to hard* to find happiness and meaning to my life.

Happiness is right here and now, in the nothingness of the present moment in every breath you take. Its about having faith in letting go, trusting in the moment... following your bliss. I personally have found as soon as I change, everything else changes, life changes to bliss as I connect to it inside me, by having faith. Also life will turn to shit if I try too hard to be happy by doing things that is not inline with what Goddess wants me to do... I use my descernment.

There is something I speak out loud when I do my nightly ritual; ( Mystress's advise from somewhere in k-Primer or here in fst, can't remember)...

"Divine Beloved please show me what I need to say and do to get the best results from my external reality."

Keep Surrending Ed... and drink loads of water. seems to work for me.

Hello Edward,
     I too have had been in your shoes many times. I understand how you are feeling. I agree with much of that Dave has replied. I have found since I have worked on mindfulness this has changed for the better. Being in the now, can bring you back to the feelings of bliss. A very important person in my life taught me something once. She taught me to cultivate peace in my inner garden. Turning inward going to your inner garden, to your divine beloved, this is where all your anxieties melt and the bliss returns. Trust in Goddess she loves you more than you can imagine, she loves you for just you. That is the beauty of mindfulness just being you in the moment. Surrender your fears and anxieties to Goddess and bliss will fill you. Try it once go to your inner garden think of something that is causing anxiety to you . surrender it to the Goddess and see how it feels . See how the anxiety just  melts away? Feel how the bliss starts to fill you again?  I go to my inner garden daily to cultivate peace in myself with the assistance of Goddess. Since I have been working on being mindful I have noticed another bonus. I have been experiencing a deeper more intense bliss than ever before.
       I hope that this will help you Edward my friend......  Be well

Hello Edward,

In the spiritual person the depressions can have good spiritual sides.
I heard once that it is like a state where the old is about to be gone and new is not yet here.
So we can either turn back to the old that would not satisfy us and we know it.
Or give up the old ways and old ego parts and go ahead wherever the spirit leads.
None of the two choices are very appealing...  especially for the ego.
My view is that considering the aspects of being the only component of our being that can have depression is the ego.
Higher self or divine beloved would probably not the good places to experience depression.

So I could advise to look at it detached (as the ultimate owners and creators of ego) Ok ego has depression..
There are perhaps reasons why it is as it is...  Ok, fine I allow the ego to have a depression..
I will just observe it... And when ego had enough of depression I will let it go, surrender it.
Thus limiting all resistance.
The less ego we have the less depression potential.  So no ego no depression.
So Enlightenment is in the end a good thing.
Trying to be in the present and remove all resistances or internal conflicts between what really is
and what you would want to be. Looking at our expectations that are not beeing met.
Surrender Ideas about happiness for now, just accept reality as it appears to be, limit resistance.
Just surrender the expectations and ideas.

I Don't want to sound light hearted about the feelings, I know very well the states of depression.
I  understood only recenly that it was about the reluctance to transformations of belifs or ego.
And this reluctance - resistance of reality drains out our energy. And with low energy often our
being does not work that well. Thus it limits our action potential.
And greatly distorts clarity of perception often also our inner insights.
Grounding and getting the energy back up is also a good way to deal with the situation.
To try to think about the situation or attempt to understand it in low energy state is not working too well.

Hi Edward!

Once there was a time when also I wanted to be forgotten in sleep and sleep until the next evening only to continue sleeping after that. Few months earlier I was full of bliss and advancement on the spiritual path was swift and visible. Then however, I asked in my pride that Goddess would teach me to be humble. Little did I know what I had asked. Soon all the pieces of my life were falling apart and tried holding on to them as hard as I could only to find that life would then use more force to take them away. I was unemployed, lost my best friend and got injured which prevented me from exercising, one of last barricades I had had left. I was stuck, depressed and could not get anything done. The spiritual teachings, grounding etc seemed to help only for a moment and I felt I did not have the energy to do them. I was stuck into trying to get out of that state and the more I tried the harder I would fall again...

Reflecting back I see that I was stuck in between trying to control everything with my mind and surrenderring and trusting that everything is just as it is supposed to be. Since how can everything be as it is supposed to be when everything is as bad as it can get? Slowly however, I tried to gather bits of trust here and there and try to believe in life and slowly it started to pay off. I don't know whether you are in similar situation at the moment but if you are, here's a link to a good description of what is going on during the dark night of the soul. Maybe it has connection to you. It helped during that time to read about it.

http://www.themystic.org/dark-night/index.htm

Namaste,
J

Dont give up!

On my spiritual path, there is a kind of cycle of ups and downs. When the energy rises I go high on the wave of bliss. Then, the energy brings up issues, parts of my life experience that were there before but which I didn't yet perceive, such as depression, to become predominant for a while. I would guess this is what you are experiencing.

It also happens that I get into a state where nothing seems to matter; I am kind of anaesthetized while Goddess is removing my issues fast and without much pain. This is also similar to depression, as is the so-called dark night of the soul. Then, of course, depression can also manifest as a disease that is so to say stuck in the body and needs special yogic exercises, such as the Sat kriya, to be cured.

Vyana

  Blowing the lint off you...
   You and me and a lot of other empaths have some things in common: typically extreme empathy is caused by personal boundaries being damaged by childhood abuse + the child's tendency to stretch thier senses in order to be able to anticipate what is wanted of them and avoid more abuse; like the myth of how rabbit got his long ears from trying to hear if the fox was outside the rabbit hole.

  You cannot really go back to your childhood and rebuild your ego; even if Kundalini hadn't been working to erode it.  You have to move forward and deal with what you got;  become mindful to clear the karma lint from the body and refill it with soul self every day.

  The difference between us is I hate self pity, it shames me and the next step on that victim road is aggressive- growing sharp claws to shred the people around me, especially the ones whose crap is weighing me down.  For you, the hidden anger turns inward into depression.

  I have known a few empaths like that, when they get muddy they turn suicidal-catatonic.  The ironic thing is the tendency to turn anger inward comes from a desire to not hurt anybody and suicide hurts everybody in the worst possible way and it cannot be repaired.  I think you know this is a temporary phase, next week you will feel differently.  For you it does seem to be a recurrent phase and its time to consider another look at conventional psychiatry. Kundalini can mimic bipolar symptoms and thats a problem especially if you might be a little bipolar to begin with.  There are some new treatments for post traumatic stress that are effective.

  As far as spiritual treatment goes: blown boundaries plus the energy dynamic of feeling like you are the one responsible if someone is unhappy results in becoming a karma shit magnet.  It takes discipline to be mindful to breathe, stay grounded and practice energy hygiene every single day a few times a day to keep yourself in balance.  You have to love yourself enough to take the time to do it; and if your dog needing you alive to feed him is the best motive you can find, then go with that. We all think you are worth it; but you are the only one who can do this.

Breathing, especially to bring yourself back to your body frequently.  As children we escaped pain by leaving the body and it becomes a really bad, dangerous habit to continue with the detachment game as so many empaths, including myself do so readily. 

  Here is a pattern: something is triggered, some karma is incoming. Instead of being turned inward and attentive to the subtle shifts of the power chakra we dont want to be bothered with that and ignore it. This little resistance causes it to become a blockage and other stuff starts piling up behind it making an energy logjam that starts blocking the flow of your life energy.   Instead of tending to the logjam, we run away.  Out comes the convenient avoidance of those pesky pain, power chakra signals by shifting out of body to be able to continue with whatever has us distracted. Sort of like turning off the smoke alarms to stop the noise and going back to the videogame when the house is on fire.   

  Why do we do that? Why make the distractions more important than essential self care? The body cannot be healed when we are outside of it busy ignoring its cries for care and attention.  Self esteem issues that get glaringly bright at these times though perhaps barely visible at a higher energy state. 

  When not embodied, we feel less... sex is a wierd idea, getting a hug isnt something we think of doing (it would bring us back to the body to face the mess its become) and hunger is usually ignored so the blood sugar crashing and fasting detox starts to mess up the body even further to the point where detachment isn't enough to quiet the cranky paranoid chaos the mind becomes, when starvation of the body triggers the base survival instincts, the adrenaline fight or flight reflexes.

   Off to the crazy place... when really the whole cycle can be prevented or stopped at any point by taking a few moments to watch your body breathing... until you return to it and keep watching, breathe through the emotional energy polluting it until you return to peace, and then the natural state of joyousness that is our true nature.   

  An excellent cure for self absorption and self pity is to find people who are worse off than you, and be kind to them.  Get some fulfilling volunteer work, I guarantee spending a few hours a week  reading bedtime stories to terminally ill children in a hospital or lonely old folks in a rest home will leave you counting your own blessings until you glow. Go drive for meals on wheels or give out items at the food bank.., find some cause where you can be useful and watch your self esteem grow, the old pains that promote the self destructive patterns fading away. 

   The old pain of cannot be healed by running away from it.  You keep trying that old childhood strategy and it gets predictably worse. You heal it by staying in your body and facing it, breathing through it and releasing it.  That is why it comes up, your body requesting your consent to let the old pain go.  Yes its painful and hard at times but wow so rewarding to get your life back.  Not be giving power away to the old noise anymore.

    Blessings...

Hi Edward,

I can, in a way, understand what you mean. I seem to go through similar cycles, cycles where I could be fine for a while but then fall into a slump. I could be totally fine then get into a state of anxiety where instead of thinking I am going to die..I think I should die - in order to escape everything! Clearing your energy-fields does work and it allows you to surrender more easily, or more accurately it allows you to see what is really going on. I find that I need to clear my energy a couple times a day because I feel icky otherwise.

I don't know what to add advice-wise, apart from trusting that this too shall pass.. I think Mystress and the other board members have covered it well

Sending you lots of love and hugs x

Someone's right about what the wind can do...

I heard recently that I still gotta do what it takes and haul my ass around. Get over being such a solitary and accept some things. It boils my noodle that I go to a Buddhist ceremony for the blessings and not the teachings. Tsk! There's no pretending I'm a student in those hours.

And later I feel worse for it to not join in the fun party of intellect going on there and everywhere. Spiritual-loving folks getting so real busy showing how much they know, and how they've "been there" and got it figured out. Really? Like life can't all be gone in a moment? Again and again and again and you can't do jack-shit about it sometimes? Nobody has it all set and figured out solid.

Disregarded and mistreated inside? Going to go on if only to treat your dog in the manner he is accustomed to? Don't you get how wild it is to say that? I myself am utterly uncommented on for what anyone sees of me and I have said all that you've written. You have a half-dozen responses and nothing else from you for a week. That's bullshit Edward. Pisses me off. I would have written a novel if I had ever gotten even this once like you've gotten, like "I have caring for you". Where are you now though huh? Fingers or brain went down the toilet again? Better treat this post here better than you're treating your dog and write back, I'd say.


Thinking about other people doesn't work. Oooooh! I wonder what they might say once or if they get over their own silent paralysis? It might be it! Might be the key, the thing I need!!! Dealing with that is too much work. Too much brow-beating. Please oh please say something!!!?! A person who writes what you write is looking at the pain of feeling in so much pain and _that_ is the fact! Meta-pain. Dig up the energy to explain meta-pain to folks who preach the love and light, and then watch your days go by there too. Time is ticking on Edward. Tick tick tick tick.

You got to get up. Get over the appearance of things and plunk yourself where folks are pouring it out. Which you did. By writing here. Blessings. How fabulous!

Yeeeee.... So there you go. Do it again. Then again. Get up. You are going to run into so many people pumping out the non-duality of things. Move on. That's not todays game for you. Lightful unity and lovingness with occasional shaktizaps is a recipe that causes utter chaos to someone where you are. Cobbling together moments of quiet mind causes the balancing.

So here's another response. The fortunate thing is you CAN go to sleep with the intention to never wake up again. You sure as fuck can. That's the truth of what you wrote when you wrote what you wrote. All we can do is say Goddess has it handled. Right? Unless there's something more you are dreaming up? You were dreaming up something when you wrote here? What did you need, did you get it? Feedback?

Goddess will do as she likes. You can try for meaning or just make what you got more meaningful right now. You can type. So type. You can remember bliss. So remember it. You got a dog. Groom it.

You are right, action feels silly and evaporates in days or hours. The essence of life is cooking too quickly. Too much heat, just pooof! You can get it together and move forward on your project and be bawling 10 seconds later. It's the truth. It's hard and it is yours.

Nevermind the assholes who say "Take action, take beliefs, do do do! Do action!" They don't get it how they are pretending you have mountains of energy when you say life is in the pots. Perhaps you aren't so critical and do have energy to get done all the distracting things of where you've let your life slide. Got paperwork? Do it, cry on it, look at it dumbly, but drink some coffee, put a stamp on it and walk it to the mailbox. Next. Get this stuff out of the way. Shoes need shining? Need a haircut? Go get it done. Be an 80-year old man in body and feeling if that's the truth but GO GET IT DONE. That's your energy to recover that you're tossing out moment by shabby moment. Start where you can Edward. Groom yourself. Then groom your environment. Then you groom the next things like career and hobbies. But start with the thing you DO own and have, even if it seems like other people are messing with it.

Not really sure what to say to someone who hasn't squeeked out a word in 10 days except that thanks a bloody million for writing. Got me in a train wreck. And I need a manicure even if I feel worthlessness around looking pretty and that I'm sure a nail will snag as soon as I get to my car. It'll be good for a couple minutes. I'll take a picture to prove it was good because my memory and trauma struggle to let me remember I've had good times. Pictures are bad-ass and still there when you wake up again wondering why go on to another activity.

Anyway... sounds like your life has some pressure and you're unable to glide through it. Whooo! Fucking exhausting. If you want to find another person to tell you to LET GO in response to you saying you want to let go, then go for it. What a trip. Surrender it Edward. Let go. Yeah. Do give up. Isn't that what you hear a lot of? Neat!

Heh. So awesome. Spend the rest of your days looking for someone who has an exact match and perfect understanding of the pressures you feel, or get up anyway Edward and choose to be happy. Choose to get better. Choose it. Choose it over and over and choose happiness.

The ripples are endless man.

The reason for being silent after the initial post was partly because I was trying to absorb the feedback I've been given here.

I think I basically went as far down as I've ever been, since my teens.

My everyday life is as good as it can be. I have job and a career, just like I used to dream about when I was a kid. I have a decent salary and have all the material stuff I want to have. I own an nice apartment in a building I used to dream about five years ago when it was built. I have good close friends, who support me in whatever way possible. My relationship with my mother is also getting better, and I see her from a new perspective. I have a healthy body. I work out four to five times a week. In my sparetime I am able to do all the things I want to do. To sum it up, it's everything I could dream of.

I don't know exactly what the problem was. Right before the initial post I was so fed up of the voice in my head that never seemed to get satisfied. I ended up with beating myself in the head several times, and having headache for several days after the violent attack on myself. Trying to make the mind shut up.

This unsatisfied voice in my head, let's call it an ego fragment. I've been treating it as some kind of an entity, impossible to remove. So I've just ignored it. Until it was impossible to keep it shut any longer, and it exploded in to this - that it did not want to live any longer.

Physical death, or suicide, don't seem to be an option, if one looks at existence itself from an incarnating perspective.

After the initial post, about two days after a change happened. I don't know if it was because of Mystress blowing off the lint, but I figured out that I actually have to live with the voice, talk with it and comfort it.
It's like a little child. I probably split it off somewhere down the road when I was younger.

I started counting my blessing, and within 48 hours my reality went from hell to paradise.

I started going to a psychologist a couple of months ago, and she seems to be pretty awake. She says that there is no wonder that I have post traumatic stress symptoms, due to broken boundaries and signs of childhood abuse. She says that I'm mostly out of the body, and that I slowly have to become more grounded in the body. I've been working a lot lately, with learning to respect my boundaries. No more over-time at work, no more trying to please other people, wondering if there is something that I've done to make them angry or sad.

I get sad and angry, when I think about how often I leave my body to be used as a trash can for others.

This weekend I finally broke the dry spell, that's been hanging over me for almost a year. I was really sexually frustrated, because I've surrendered all my sexual desires to Goddess, waiting for here to provide a lover. But she did not provide. However, I found out that since she wouldn't take away the sexual desires, then I must act and decide to get me a lover. It's like, you don't sit under a tree when you're hungry and praying for food to manifest in your hands. You get up, and then the food will be provided. Same thing here, I got up and decided that since Goddess is not taking away the recurrings thoughts of wanting to have sexual contact with someone, then it must be something I have to do. And before I knew it, I finally managed to have sexual contact with someone this weekend. What is interesting, is that the lover kept touching my tailbone.


Thank you for all the feedback. I'm still absorbing it, reading in a new light every time I reread.

One question: How do you clear out others peoples energy? Just ordinary grounding and identifying where the light is not?


Edward

I feel so much anger reading Edwards response. He used suicide language. Actual suicide language. He said he wanted to sleep and not wake up. That he wanted to give up on everything. He didn't write anyone for 10 days.

NO reason for living.

Then when he does write back, life sounds pretty good. Societally full for his European life. Career, job, home, caring friends, a therapist for months, us, ability to go flirt and pick up a new relationship. Not a prison.

... All these people wrote him, including me, and there is so much wisdom for him, so much trust in his claim to pain and so much fucking wisdom for him - and it was just.. what? A two-day low spot? Intense self-berating? And he had a comforting, ongoing therapist on the hook to call at any time? And probably hotlines or support groups? And his caring friends? And probably vacation time or sick days...

What a chain to yank. Suicide language doesn't get used for a fucking two-day low spot! And the things wrote aren't just... omg! You just went out and picked up someone to have a good lay with, you experienced the grace of gratitude, and you settled in your mind new strengths and self-weaknesses, it's good now and you feel clear enough to say it?

Really? No reason to live or wake up Edward. I had real feelings when I read it. I saw it for real. Thanks. I have too much pressure in my life to be slipping around this. S.

Sandra

What I wrote in the initial post, is something I've been feeling mostly for 1.5 years.

But after I released it here, I'm starting to feel better and letting it go.

I feel your anger, it makes my tummy ache. Why are angry at me?

edward

Hey Sandra,

Since it's pushing your buttons why don't you keep unraveling it a bit more (maybe start your own thread to jot down your feelings, so it becomes much more clearer where the real issues lie).  To me, it sounds like a fantastic opportunity to release some crap that you're still holding on to xx

Ed. don't take it personally - It's not really about you.

Hugs to you both xx 

Quote from: Sandra on May 06, 2010, 12:02:02 PM
I feel so much anger reading Edwards response. He used suicide language. Actual suicide language. He said he wanted to sleep and not wake up. That he wanted to give up on everything. He didn't write anyone for 10 days.
Really? No reason to live or wake up Edward. I had real feelings when I read it. I saw it for real. Thanks. I have too much pressure in my life to be slipping around this. S.

  Sandra this post is totally off line.  I knew Edward isn't really suicidal.  I felt no urgency to respond to his post aside from picking some lint because I know his orbit.  He gets moods, they pass and he returns to being his naturally bouyant self.  He knows better than to do something drastic and stupid when in a down phase and mess up his fabulous, enviable life. 

   When I did respond it was more on the general topic of empathic overload, and was partly a belated response to his other thread.   

Students are allowed to release and express thieir emotions in this space, to have a sense of safety in doing so.  Edward is allowed to talk about how he feels and you are not allowed to attack him for your mis-interpretation of it.  You arent allowed to post about it elsewhere either, in case you need another reminder of that rule. When I went to adjust Vyana's password I noticed you had not logged in, in 48 days. Pleased me actually that you were managing to stay away... but it underlines that you dont know who you are talking to.

   I had a song in my head a few days, chorus goes
"If Venice is sinking
I'm going under
because beauty's religion
has christened me
with wonder. "

   ooo suicide language!  Nope, joyous song. Beautiful artist, look into his eyes as he sings and see the peace that abides there.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIYb9bBA9mY
same again a decade later he is still smiling and dancing for joy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSvBMJWl3xI&feature=related

   Your discernment went out to lunch, you looked at the words but not the energy and decided to play teacher hero with some big fat expectations and got all pissy to find out you were wrong and didnt get the attention and ego gratitification you wanted. Hero to victim just like that: and all your own drama, your own doing.

   Recognizing that the emotional reaction is your own stuff and surrendering it instead of spewing it at Edward is one of the basic lessons of FST.  The Mirror.  Getting grounded is foundation, and especially before you post. Show some respect for the space.  Discernment being another basic essential lesson that you just decided to not bother with before posting.  Not playing hero is a lesson too. When was the last time you even looked at an FST lesson?

  It makes me shake my head that someone who graduated years ago would post here demonstrating how completely they threw it all out the window.  Possibly I made an error in approving your FST Grad essay so many years ago but you were much saner then.

  Now you have an obsession with me, thinking we are exactly the same. Prevents any real communication between us. You don't see or hear me, just the sock puppet of me in your head.   If I wished you "good morning" you would be looking for a hidden meaning for three days. If I tried to pick lint off you I'd get poisoned because you dont want to let it go.  Your posts demonstrate that you dont respect my teachings enough to apply them at all. How am I supposed to help you?

  I dont want to throw you out, but I really think its better for you to stop feeding your obsession. Stop  coming here.



Disclaimer.
I am not a psychiatrist! This course is not recommended for people who are mentally ill. If you are mentally ill and awakened, I suggest you seek the services of a Jungian psychiatrist.

Mystress felt no urgency responding. I did. So I did.

I released and expressed my emotion. I was allowed to talk about how I felt. I didn't see attack one-sided. I felt real language was used and it was triggering for me, and I felt unethical to not say anything.

I was too heated. I saw the two last responses Edward and Blossom, and I knew to let it percolate more. So I have set the topic back down and looked more at it.

I do not need another reminder that what I post here is done in safety and won't be posted elsewhere. I have not felt any new wish to quote you in other places from the only time I once did so.

I do not log in unless I intend to post. I have been reading.

I don't feel a victim because Edward is alive and better today, better in his orbit. I'm glad for it, for him. I'm having emotion to the language used, and I released it without fear for mine own safety either.

I didn't mean to hero trip him. I did mean to offer my own wisdom on the topic in my 1st response. I didn't see my own immaturity. I felt strongly worded but I didn't mean to be his savior. I wanted to contribute what I knew.

You call it another spew on my part. Message received. I'm an infrequent poster. I felt it was an overload my way to see his initial post. I responded to it with more urgency than I should have.

I look at the FST lessons once weekly.
I never wrote or sent any essay.
I am not the person you are thinking of when you wrote about me graduating.
There was never any essay written, nothing approved.

Seems to be a misunderstanding.

God,

Mystress, I love you.

You're the most perfect human I never know.

Except myself.

Eveyone is perfect.

Falling back, in to the power chakra.

More human than before.

I've been flying around. Above it all. Because I got afraid.

Now I'm learning to fly again.

Takin my time.

Don't gonna think too much. 'Cause, everone knows.


Beautiful poetry.

  The real irony Sandra is that my general post to Edward is even more applicable to you...

   The "Zen madness" ends when you can laugh at your demons...
           Blessings...

Edward...I see you, I feel you, I hear you, and I have too been there.  Thanks for sharing.......  Sandra...I don't get you.  I felt your judgement and it felt very arrogant.....who are any of us to decide when or how someone responds to a hand up offered?  I have lost two siblings to suicide and yet there was nothing that he wrote that tapped into any of that energy?
On another note, Thanks Mystress for the password reminder.  I have missed coming here