I'm throwing this in because its a psychological application that I started experimenting with and I've come to some really breath-taking realizations.
The starting block of this; I think I can assume that people who are here have been through a thing or two. Having been through things, especially if consistent, has an effect on our affect, how we handle ourselves, how we send energy (nonverbally) to others, and in general it seems like the more we've endured in life the more we not only limit ourselves but the world limits us back. The bigger challenge there - even if the world all of a sudden turned around, coddled us, and gave us what we wanted it would still take quite a while to pull us out of that ditch if we're relying on the outside world to elevate us back out. At the same time even if we were to try and use positive thinking there's the whole problem of emotional memory - it's pretty resilient.
Also, most of us have an ideal self, lots of depression seems to come from the gap between our ideal selves and what we actually have to work - ie. our lack of luck both with ourselves and the outside world. We also may have people in our lives as we've grown up who either didn't go through what we went through or, even having gone through some hard things had the ability to come out beautiful and valiant on the other side (which leaves us wondering whether we lacked the resources they had or if something simply went wrong in how we handled it all).
Regardless I have noticed this - imagination is an incredibly powerful tool. The revelation itself even that you can have a crap day and taking a half hour to day dream or fantasize can completely turn your mood around and even the rest of the day and how you relate to people - its quite profound, ie. a non-material activity essentially broke your bonds of slavery in terms of being forced to react to the world as such. It even seems more critical in a society where happiness is seen as strength, sadness as weakness, and where the greater the distance you go from the center in either positive or negative directions the faster the world sort of shunts you along to where you're going.
My idea was this: play with the external loop idea (ie. imaginary friend) as it truly is a part of your mind wishing to be expressed but not having the physical means, and allowing yourself essentially a reality hack or reality cheat. What this does in turn is it can give you the love, support, edification, even unconditionally, in ways that can largely make up for what the world can't give you. If you really want to think of real-world give and take, if you have such an alter-ego sort of being your unconditional emotional support champion and you wonder how that could even remotely resemble reality (ie. the stress that everyone else is under) just remember that such an imaginary entity is in fact you, that your gain is its gain, your sorrow is its sorrow, and all of that can synergistically work together to lift you up.
Add this as well: to be able to self-edify in such a powerful manner, at a minimum to heal old emotional scars and then even going further to be so filled with love that you can actively dispense it to others - that puts you in a completely different situation doesn't it? Instead of feeling like you would in depression where its like syphoning off of others you feel like you're actively giving back just by being you in the state your in and you'll realize, just beaming with energy and positivity, how much more needed you've become just because of that new state you've acquired. Truly life-changing stuff.
One of the caveats here - I wouldn't recommend this to someone who's having grave difficulties with sorting out reality, its likely perfect for those who if anything tend so materialistic that their rationality is hammering their world flat and who don't know how to sort of cut enough airholes in that rationality to let themselves emotionally breath. Even for a lot of non-materialists depression can similarly come from not being able to make ends meet on goals, or we'll see the grass of where we want to go as ultragreen but even then feel like we're chasing fantasies and superimposing them on the real-world (ie. realizing that your 'dream job' is nothing like the commercials even as you work toward it and wondering what on earth you've been doing to yourself). Just that realization alone though - ie. how much we try to seek outwardly and have to realize that the outside world can't provide being that its just as filled with stressed out, tired, and worn paper-thin people, that the only way we'd be able to provide of such things is of ourselves.
This approach takes a bit of discipline to keep it trued up with reinforcing reality and if anything accelerating your own growth and healing. Regardless though, let me know what you guys think. My honest opinion - sometimes we throw the baby out with the bathwater in trying to grow up. At least with 'toys' adults are realizing these days that it never really goes away, ie. the matchbox cars, puzzles, and boardgames of youth became the golf clubs, sports coupe, and big screen tv of adulthood. Similarly I think we're incredibly wise to try and keep in mind just what our own imaginations can do for us in being able to abate the hard stuff and, energy being contagious, how much we can even help to abate the hard stuff other people have to deal with by abating it within ourselves.
15 Jan 2013, 12:06 pm
