Depression Is A Catalyst For Spiritual Growth

Don’t underestimate people’s pain

Pink Lotus FlowerPhoto by Ylanite Koppens:

I’ve lived light-heartedly most of my life. I never took things too seriously. And while I’ve gone through darker periods like we all do — I’ve rarely had the privilege to meet “depression.”

Thankfully, it happened. Shankaran Pillai… Wait, what? I’m getting ahead of myself, sorry…

From an outside perspective, depression looks like we’re just not faithful enough, or that we’re too negative, that we’re pessimistic, ungrateful and just another “whiner.”

While all these factors could provoke depression, the fact that we’re naturally inclined to be negative, ungrateful and whine about everything denotes unresolved issues in the backend of our being.

I recently went through an evaluation, and the results that came out of it were good, but being a perfectionist — I felt immensely bad about myself. Yesterday life was perfect, and in an instant — my life looked as dark as a soul’s game.

The obvious reaction to depression was to rationalize my way out of it.

Maybe it was just the transit of planets. Perhaps the Moon was in conjunction with a malefic. Maybe it was the numerology of the day. Perhaps it was that I was too sensitive to energies and that I felt the collective’s current chaotic feelings.

If you’re into spirituality, this is a classic.

While those explanations helped me escape the pain temporarily, and therefore delegate my responsibility about the situation to some external factors like I did in the past — I was done with all this nonsense.

That’s what turns our lives into nightmares. We keep finding reasons outside ourselves for our problems. It makes us powerless, hopeless, and dependent.

The next reaction was to move towards comfort, whether it was food or parties. What would happen next? I’d feel relieved for the time being but again, like my own shadow — this pain would be right behind me the next day.

I discarded this option too.

And that’s when I decided I’d live with the pain, no matter how terrifying it felt, and that I’d solve the problem once and for all.

The interesting thing with a negative outlook on life is that, everything is completely fine outside yourself — the Sun still rises and sets, fruits still come out of Mother Earth’s fertile soil, life goes on in the galaxy — yet, in our darkest moments, it feels like doomsday.

Obviously, we don’t like pain. We’re wired for survival and that’s why we spend our entire lives running away from painful experiences. While I lived with the pain as intended, I noticed how, unconsciously, all I wanted to do was to get done with it and do something else.

But that’s not how it works. Learning our life lessons involves a tremendous lot of patience and acceptance of whatever situation we’re going through. So I had to discard that impulse to rush through it..

As I kept removing all the blocks to the pain, I eventually got closer to it. My whole being was filled with suffering, tears begged to come out but I was as cold as ice.

A week had passed. Some day I felt like myself, others, I was moody and irritated. But whatever the feel of the day was, I could always sense my stubborn shadow. The pain hid, but it never left.

I tried using the information I knew to deal with it. It helped, but it didn’t solve the problem. I tried talking myself out of it. Meh. I tried distracting myself with work. The focus wasn’t there.

My trying so hard eventually led me to a feeling of giving up. I’ve tried and tried again, I used everything I knew, I kept myself busy. Nothing worked. Why bother?

It’s at that moment that I started staring at trees, in awe of their serenity and majesty. A bird I often gave peanuts to came by, and stayed close to me. In that moment of despair and loneliness, I still had enough strength to be grateful to Mother Earth for letting me know that I wasn’t alone in this.

And then, out of nowhere, in a state of contemplation that had relaxed me — I heard a voice which said “I don’t deserve to be loved.” Hearing this kicked me out of my meditative state and almost instantaneously, without my being able to follow the train of thoughts — I understood.

Because I didn’t get the results I was expecting from the evaluation, I became extremely critical about myself. And blaming myself for it made me feel like the worst possible being in the universe.

While it wasn’t a fact, it was one to me — and that projection onto reality made me feel isolated from others, unloved, lonely and punished. Because I believed in it, my body responded adequately. I lost my appetite, libido dropped, I was tired most of the time and I had poor self-esteem.

I won’t go into much details regarding this pattern but I’ll leave this note to those who need it. As souls, we blame ourselves for having been “kicked out of the garden of Eden” because we experienced physicality. And blaming ourselves makes us feel lonely, isolated and undeserving of love. But here’s the thing — we’re blaming ourselves, no one else is.

At that moment of “instantaneous understanding, the pain was dissolved. The body returned to its normal state the next day. And we’re back to learning other lessons.

Whatever difficult experiences you’re going through right now, hang in there. If you feel the need for comfort, take a break. And once you feel better, face the challenge because it’s one of the greatest opportunity for spiritual growth.

Everything comes to an end, except the wisdom we’ve learned with our soul. Much strength and love on the path.

As a final note.

If you’ve been meditating, using affirmations and thinking positively for a while now, without necessarily integrating spiritual truths at a soul level even though you understand them intellectually — I’ve written a book to help you understand the main blocks to true spiritual growth, and how to overcome them. Check Spiritual Transition here.