Depression affects many of us at some point in our lives. If you are suffering from a chronic condition, serious injury, loss, or emotional trauma, you might find yourself suffering from depression.
Most of us understand that depression can have many causes, but did you know that there are differences in the brain that occur with depression? According to this article at WebMD, the hippocampus, a small part of the brain that is vital to the storage of memories, appears to be smaller in people with a history of depression than in those who’ve never been depressed. Further, a smaller hippocampus has fewer serotonin receptors, a chemical known for its calming affects. http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/causes-depression??
There are many ways to treat depression from psychotherapy to herbal remedies. Any treatment or combination of treatments could make a difference for you depending upon the source of your depression. And it seems, there is a common underlying metaphysical meaning that you might want to explore for supporting your treatment(s) of choice. When I meditate about the root metaphysical cause of depression this is what I hear.
Metaphysical Meaning Behind Depression
Depression is the result of not feeling worthy to experience the pleasure of life or the hope that life can offer you soulful fulfillment. Because you feel let down by what life has presented you, you have given up hope (at least temporarily) that you can enjoy a satisfying life right now.
Loss is consistently involved in depression. You might feel a loss of hope, clarity, ability to trust yourself or others, health, ability to live your purpose, happiness, innocence, control, acceptance, love, awareness of your divinity…you feel a loss that is profound and deep.
In some of our current spirituality, we attempt to jump over our feelings of depression, telling ourselves that what we are feeling is not real. All we have to do is get back in touch with loving feelings and everything will be all right.
To some extent this is true. Love does remedy depression. However, if you ignore your current feelings, are you really loving the whole of who you are? Is it possible you are ignoring the part of you that most needs your love?
Louise Hay describes the metaphysical meaning of depression as: Anger you feel you do not have a right to have. Hopelessness.
Depression and Selective Love
Loving the parts of ourselves that we perceive are working and ignoring the ones that feel bad, isn’t full and complete love is it? It’s selective love, and if some of us were to trace the root cause of our depression, we would probably find that somewhere in our journey someone (maybe even ourselves) loved us only selectively.
So how do we learn to love ourselves completely? We’ve got to discover some compassion for the parts of us that we consider to be unworthy. We need to hold in our energetic arms the things we have done or experienced that caused us to feel unworthy to be fully and completely loveable.
How do we get there? For those of you that read my articles regularly, this suggestion won’t be a surprise. Consider this guided meditation created to help us hold our most vulnerable feelings: Holding Meditation.
Depression has been called “anger turned inward.” Anger and sorrow are natural responses to feeling unworthy. However worthiness is a natural state of being, and it arises from within us when we hold in deep compassion with the parts of ourselves that are feeling unworthy—the parts of us crying out to be understood and loved.
If you want metaphysical support, you could find comfort from my sound healing session recording specifically for depression.
And here are more ideas for supporting yourself emotionally and spiritually through depression.
You will also receive a complementary subscriptions to Misa's periodic Inspired Healing Messages and daily Prescriptions from Heaven inspirational e-cards.
Thank you for this article. It’s exactly what I needed this morning. I’ve always found ways of suppressing or pushing down my depression, by buying things or doing something to ‘fill the void’ until the feelings passed. I’m currently in a position where I can’t do anything except be with my depression. Unworth is something I’ve been plagued by for years, and only now have I started to work on feeling worthy & deserving. It stems from past childhood abuse & sexual trauma, and this–“…we would probably find that somewhere in our journey someone (maybe even ourselves) loved us only selectively”–rings very true for me. If I was “bad,” my dad (who was my abuser) would withhold love & refused to speak to or acknowledge me. Thank you again.
Jessica, we do find ways to hide from our depression don’t we? What a gift you are giving yourself to choose to be present to those uncomfortable feelings and their roots. The grand spiritual journey it seems gives us profound opportunities to allow the Divine to love us so completely, and to love ourselves so deeply, that the capacity or lack of capacity for any human being to love us unconditionally does not affect us. You might find this article and the 10 Emotional Needs of the Soul to be helpful:
https://sacredfeminineawakening.com/meeting-souls-emotional-needs/. Thank you for taking a moment to share from the depth of your heart and experience. Truly, it is through our honest and heart-felt sharing that we find strength in one another.
Please send me your free guide to beating the odds — I am already registered to receive Prescriptions From Heaven (I love them!), so your website would not let me proceed to ask for the free guide. Thank you for your insights on depression. Although I have not experienced depression for several years now, it has been a constant presence in my life earlier, due to extreme childhood sexual abuse. Your insights are right on.
Carol, I’m delighted to hear that you have healed so deeply and are not experiencing depression any more. Saying so here, no doubt, will inspire hope for those still in the midst of their healing. I’m so glad you asked for Beating the Odds. Consider it done.
Back in 1970 having started a handcrafted pottery business, early in those first years our income was often pretty sparse and I was working hard physically and would often feel quite depressed, with a cold sweat fear, trying to manage many things. One evening I was reading in my studio and several shelves of books broke loose from the wall and came crashing down on my desk which was right under those shelves facing them. The books broke my glasses which were on the desk and some of the books went sliding across the floor. It took a couple of days to summon the will and the energy to get them back in place and organized, but a day or so after the crashing event I was again at the desk and all of a sudden the wall in front of me seemed to open up there was a tall blond woman in a white robe standing there. I may not have been fully awake, but I wasn’t sleeping either, somewhere in between! I had to travel to a town 40 miles away to order some new glasses and I told them to send them in the mail when they were ready. The lady (angel?) in the dream was wearing some golden-rimmed glasses which she gently tweaked and then asked me, “Do you like your new glasses, Mike? You will be getting them in tomorrow’s mail.” Behind the woman there were two rows of older men a row on each side of her going back further. They were also in robes of several colors, some had grey hair, not much hair, but all were clapping and shouting encouragement, “Way to go Mike!” and such things. The next day was a snow day, no school, no mail, not much moving, but the day after that the glasses were in the mail box. I had never felt such a “rush” of love; it was like a wave I could feel that penetrated me. I will have to say that since that time, I have never felt such deep depression again. There have been hard things to contend with but I have not and do not get depressed. All I have to do is remember that “experience” and I know I am not alone and things are not hopeless. That memory tends to trigger a feeling at least of calmness and a sense of peace in my mind and body. So it was a major gift, a spiritual experience, that has been very helpful in my life since.
I can’t explain the experience, but I think the experience explains itself!
Michael, thank you for sharing your deeply profound experience. Isn’t it wonderful how a single mystical or spiritual occurrence can reframe one’s entire experience of life? It seems you allowed yourself to feel their love for you, and so in feeling such love, depression found rest. What a gift to experience such a profound moment of love and then re-experience that moment over and over again to live calmly and peacefully. Even when we haven’t experienced a beautiful mystical experience like yours, I have discovered that remembering any moment in which I felt loved can also help lift depression. As you seem to have experienced, the challenge might remain, but at least I feel an inner tranquility and strength from which to address it. I also love that your visitor wore a pair of glasses, and that her companions cheered you on. I too have experienced beings from the other side of the veil offering encouragement, being playful, and reminding me to live in the delight of every little thing that is here to help us. We are definitely not alone. I am curious as to whether there was an element of surrender, acceptance, or commitment, perhaps, that you think might have elicited their visit. I’m wondering what they were applauding in you. 🙂
Hi Misa,
Good question about what may have triggered the spiritual response to that bout
of depression. Looking back over these many years since that experience, I would say that it was really a moment of grace, i.e. it was an experience that Spirit took to
correct a deep unconscious belief in my unworthiness which I didn’t even know I had.
I discussed the experience with a priest friend telling him that I thought perhaps the
female figure was my guardian angel. He suggested that it may have been the Holy
Spirit. I could never account for the older guys, but they were a very powerful part of the experience. Whatever! It certainly was an encounter with the heavenly realm. I
needed to know that we really are never alone. I have had another separate experience, which I can share later, when I was told, “What makes you think you are acting alone?” That, after I told the Lord in prayer, “Lord, I have been praying and
praying.” The thing I needed to learn is that we don’t earn grace or have to qualify for it. It is a gift of our very being which the churches have not been very good at emphasizing!
Hi Misa,
Good question about what may have triggered the spiritual response to that bout
of depression. Looking back over these many years since that experience, I would say that it was really a moment of grace, i.e. it was an experience that Spirit took to
correct a deep unconscious belief in my unworthiness which I didn’t even know I had.
I discussed the experience with a priest friend telling him that I thought perhaps the
female figure was my guardian angel. He suggested that it may have been the Holy
Spirit. I could never account for the older guys, but they were a very powerful part of the experience. Whatever! It certainly was an encounter with the heavenly realm. I
needed to know that we really are never alone. I have had another separate experience, which I can share later, when I was told, “What makes you think you are acting alone?” That, after I told the Lord in prayer, “Lord, I have been praying and
praying.” The thing I needed to learn is that we don’t earn grace or have to qualify for it. It is a gift of our very being which the churches have not been very good at emphasizing!
Michael, what beautiful experiences. I too have discovered that we are never alone and that grace is always here. In my experiences in helping people, I find deeply hidden feelings of unworthiness are common. My own releases have show me, unworthiness is one of the human interpretations of our initial separation from the Divine. More specifically, when Source began to separate itself into various sounds, light, and on and on until molecules were organized as what we call earth, animals, humans etc.—because humans are endowed with emotions, we interpret that separation as rejection and unworthiness. You were given a great gift when Spirit helped you shift that core belief. You must have been doing some lovely core work to have been ready for that! In my discoveries, our ability to feel grace is a function of whether we let down our resistances to actually feel and know it. The great journey here, it seems, is in letting go of our perceived limits, particularly unworthiness and rejection, to allow ourselves to open up to the limitless Divine love that is ever present.
Very interesting, thank you for this information
You're welcome.
Depression, Anger, Lack of Self-Esteem, Lack of Motivation, Listlessness, Fear, and Related Signs/Symptoms/Manifestations are Basically "Crying Out" …
In Essence, "Love In Search of A Home". Since an individual Cannot Cognitively Understand that he/she is The Cause and Effect of such Feelings, hence, Depression sets in accompanied with a Myriad of Underlying Tenets that point Directly to a Dysfunctional Individual. So, HOW can a Psychotherapist, Medical Doctor, Psychiatrist, Metaphysician, and/or other Mental Health Professional HELP?
Basically and Initially, ONLY by Helping that individual BeCome Aware, Cognizant and In Touch with his/her Emotions and Understanding the Dynamics that accompany such Dis-Ease. Hence, In Brief, Get the patient/client to Fully Understand the Basics of Why and How he/she Arrived at this point in his/her life … Re-Move the Underlying Cause and Obtain a NEW Effect/Paradigm/Behavior/Character … Much More could be written/explained here, however, I Do Believe it suffices for Now …
Please Note that a Therapist (regardless of his/her training/experience/Initials, etc. …
as well as, the patient/client Must Fully Understand that the Exploring, Explanations, Resolutions CANNOT be the SAME as Those that Got the patient/client Into such State.
In Closing: Of Utmost Importance is the Role, Place and Importance of the Individual in Relation to Infinite Love, God, SOURCE … whatever Anyone so wishes to Call him/her …
After All, Each One of Us HAS Divinity, SOURCE WITHIN! IF one Desires to have Without, he/she MUST First Have KNOWLEDGE/Awareness/Feeling ONE With ONE WITHIN. Then GO LIVE IT DAILY … Experience It, Live It, Love It, Feel It … SHARE It With Oneself and With Others …
Namaste
Multiple Blessings
In Love, Light, Peace, and Abundance … Good Health …
Rev. Dr. Garry
So beautifully said. Thank you Rev.Dr. Garry!