All my life, I have struggled with depression. (Maybe you think that Buddhists aren’t supposed to get depressed, but oh well.) Ever since I was a child, I’ve had to meet and figure out how to work with the heaviness and darkness of depression. Perhaps you can relate.
One thing that makes depression so difficult is that you feel trapped by it. Everything is colored by this dark lens and you feel that you have no options. The world becomes very, very small and dank. It is truly awful.
What to do? Well, of course if you’re clinically depressed you should continue with your medications, therapy and, if you’re able, some exercise. Meditation is not necessarily a replacement for those things. OK?
Although sometimes we really need to kick our own asses, is also not always useful to try to talk yourself out of your difficult feelings or attempt to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Of course we should work directly with our situation and attempt to create an inner attitude of positivity, but when we use such skills as a weapon against ourselves or from a sense of self-dissatisfaction, they tend to backfire.
What is helpful is to relax. Although it sounds counter intuitive, when we open to and lean into our experience, a kind of shift seems to take place on its own. First, simply acknowledging what we feel is relaxing in itself. You are human. It is okay. Second, when you look just below the surface of depression (which seems stiff and impenetrable), what you will find is sadness, which is raw and tender and completely workable.
What is the difference between depression and sadness? Feminist icon Gloria Steinem gave the pith transmission during an interview about the death of her husband. The interviewer asked if she was depressed. “No,” she answered. “I’m sad.” The interviewer wondered wondered what the difference was. “When you’re depressed, nothing has any meaning. When you’re sad, everything does.”
In depression, you can hardly feel anything. Your heart is closed. Your emotional range is very narrow. But when you’re sad, everything touches you. You cry so easily. You feel things intensely, and not just your own struggles, but everyone else’s. There is no barrier. Your heart is so open.
Though it may feel quite disorienting, this rawness is actually a very important threshold. When we’re open, we can be touched. When we’re touched, we can respond genuinely. When we’re genuine, we can love and be loved and our real life can actually begin.
That is how important sadness is.
We live in a world that rejects sadness as an indication of failure or a problem to be got rid of. But when we relax with our own sadness, in a sense, we come home to ourselves. So the next time you begin to feel depressed (or if you’re depressed right now), try to investigate what is just underneath your depression. As mentioned, it helps very much to relax.
Your meditation practice teaches you exactly how to relax in this way. By sitting with your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without trying to hold on or reject but simply to be with them, you cultivate the experience of just being yourself. No more, no less. This turns out to be the most relaxing thing of all.
So please know that in addition to all the other great things meditation can do for the health of your body and mind, it also teaches you how to be fully and properly and awesomely sad.
For instruction and support, please join the Open Heart Project, a free meditation newsletter.
Susan, this is so amazing. I have just this week forwarded a link to the Open Heart Project to my therapist, so that she could add it to her list of resources. I have clinical depression as well as generalized anxiety disorder, finally after so many years, diagnosed and addressed with enough gravity to set me on the right track. Many things combined have worked, including very well-monitored meds and weekly individual therapy including meditation and EMDR techniques. My progress is v-e-r-y-b-a-b-y stepping as we realized quite quickly that sitting still can be a little dangerous for me as my buried treasure is terrifying. And very well buried. But, I had to let you know how much I love your e-mails, and that just last week in therapy we decided it was time to work with my goal of meditating at the Shambala Center here, which is how your name came up, and how she ended up with your link, and how this whole circle is working. Amazing, no?
Thank you so much for all that you do, and especially for this message. It was perfect for me, and I’m sure for many others.
Take care,
Kathryn
Kathryn, So glad you are making progress and it sounds like you are working very hard. And deeeelighted to hear you’ve thinking of going to the Shambhala Center! Wishing you all the best and please keep me posted. Warmly, Susan
This is a lovely piece. Thank you.
You are so welcome.
Susan, this came at just the right moment for me! Thank you so much.
So glad.
Susan, how exceptionally brave of you to declare this, in the name of helping others. I discovered TOHP via Seth Godin’s mention awhile back—I’m now meditating every day and deriving (together with a regular running sked) real benefit in my inner life. Thank you so much—and the very best in your work for yourself. I find the most singular help for my dark moments is to name those people, memories, hopes and accomplishments for which I’m truly grateful. It’s never let me down….but then nor has yelling affectionately at my late dad in the shower for not pulling his weight in the afterlife helping his wayward eldest son
be well
Hi Brendan. Thank you so much for this kind message. And I love your “naming” technique. That is lovely. And here’s to yelling affectionately anyway.
S.
Kay Jamison on Charlie Rose said, when I am sad, people want to draw near and help, when I am depressed, people generally want to leave me alone. When her husband died, people moved in to help her; when she experiences the depressed side of her bipolar disorder, people move away from her. Meditation is a solution to not abandoning oneself when the herd leaves you alone. I can’t abandon myself when I meditate. I am here. It is and, like you, I can relax into being here as I am. Huge relief. Thanks for your honesty again and again.
Jackie, this is just beautiful. I love Kay’s distinction and your observation of how meditation invites you home to yourself. xo s
This was timely for me too, as during the past two weeks I’ve been feeling a sadness due to some things happening within my creative business that I need to change and have been experiencing “negative” emotions about. This meditation practice helped me open the door to loving with is, right now and turning our my mindset about the fear bubbling up. Little steps, but steps.
) Thank you!
Hi Tracy. Wishing you well with your work and that all of it–the positivity, the negativity, the unknown-ativity–will bring you benefit! Susan
Susan, this is a wonderful, vulnerable blog. Thank you for all your insights – which I read faithfully and share often. Meeting you/team in Portland a few years ago at the Writers’ Conference ultimately helped me publish my book (on 11/1/11) which was the first of several. Thank you for your contribution to the world and your wise perspectives.
Kristin, congratulations! How wonderful that you published y our book–that is a big deal. And I’m so glad you are enjoying the blog– Warmly, S
Thank you for your courage Susan, in sharing your feelings and knowledge on depression. This is exceptional — your expression is so heart felt and extremely useful and moving. The difference between sadness and depression is such a vital question. It is something I meet often as a Professional Life Coach; assisting people to know and understand their feelings and emotions and not just sticking a label on themselves. We have thousands of emotions all day long and sometimes we are aware and then again not aware. I’ve experienced people change in a moment when they see and know that they are sad and not necessarily depressed. This is a very simple insight but to know what you feel is life empowering. It takes work and can be frightening but we are all looking to know who we truly are. With gratitude and happiness — Michael
Hi Michael. “Useful and moving” are my very favorite combo. That is a wonderful compliment, thank you. And, yes, it IS empowering to know your own heart. Best of luck with your work. Warmly, S
Susan, I had a bout with what I thought was depression, but later decided–just like you’re saying–that it was sadness. And sadness really is that “everything touches you”. I am so glad you are making the distinction between the two because this is exactly how I felt, and when I realized it, I felt much better, knowing I wasn’t really clinically depressed. Then I could feel the sadness and work with it–relax into it, as you say–and it wasn’t long before I felt much better. Your meditation sessions have helped me feel more calm and centered and relaxed! Thanks so very much.
And I am so glad you realized the distinction within yourself. That is wonderful. Wishing you all the best with your practice!
Susan, Thank you. I’ve discovered this distinction in my own practice, but the way you write about it here brings it more fully into view. I’ve felt like times when I felt depressed, it was a resistance to feeling the sadness and grief that have been present so much of my life. I’ve wondered why I feel things so deeply and why the pain of the world and the earth are so present in my heart. I wonder if this is our natural state, to be so very open to the fullness of the world? A natural state this is necessary to rediscover the sacredness in all of life.
Thank you.
Julie
Yes, I think that openness and our natural state must be the same.
Glad to know we are practicing together, and in the same spirit.
I am glad to know this, too. I very much value your work and what you share.
Thank you, Julie.
This is such an honest and kind post, thank you. I think my fear is that it is not sadness that is below depression but emptiness, nothingness. But I am willing to (learn to) let that also be a thought, moving through my mind.
Thank you also for the video invitations to 10 minutes practice – I have just started, and it is a lovely peaceful practice and invitation.
Hi Joanna. I totally understand the fear that beneath depression is a kind of void. It is brave of you to be willing to work with that thought!
So glad to hear that you are making a connection to meditation practice.
Hi Susan, great talk, and so comforting for so many people, including myself. My issue is anxiety and I’ve turned to mindfulness to help me through the more challenging moments. Unfortunately, I’m not a regular meditator, but I can change that, since I do have the bases established from more regular practise in the past. The biggest discovery for me has been hearing from meditators how emotions are not the solid behemoths we sometimes take them to be; and the idea of working with difficult emotions, that we can actually do that, has been enormously comforting as well. But I have to actually do the work! I am enormously grateful for the legacy of Buddhism in our culture, and for people like you who embody it, or body forth its principles. I have also found meditating on gratitude absolutely helpful. Again, thank you.
Don, I’m so glad this post resonated with you. It is good to know that our emotions aren’t completely solid! Although sometimes they really seem that way.
I too am deeply grateful that the Buddhadharma has made its way West and that we are able to hear the teachings.
Wishing you all the blessings of practice! Susan
Susan,
Thank you for affirming sadness. I’m first to shame myself when honoring and allowing the sadness to come and go would be more loving. Thank you for this post
You are so welcome, Pam.
Hello Susan,
I often realize throughout the day that I am telling myself “stories” about painful events that have happened in the past. Reliving these events often changes my mood into sadness. Through meditation I have come to realize that painful thoughts and memories can come and go and I have the choice to attach to them or not. I am not not always successful at letting these thoughts “go”, but recognizing them when they arise is definitely helpful. Thank you for your wise words on this subject.
It sounds like your practice is really taking root.
Love this… I always find support in your writing and encouragement in your honesty! One thing I have found is that when I let go of the stigma I attach to certain emotions and just allow myself to honestly experience and honor what I am feeling that I naturally move into a place where I am at peace with those emotions that I don’t necessarily like to feel. Thank you for writing this!
So glad to hear it and you re so welcome!
Hi Susan
I was very touched by this article and have taken the liberty of reposting it on my website with the appropriate credits and links back to you and your site.
http://www.embracemindfulness.co.uk/meditation-depression-sadness/
Hope that ‘s OK with you
With metta from london and the Olympics.
All best
James
I’m so glad it was meaningful and thanks for sharing it–and for letting me know!
Dear Susan,
Thank you so much for your tweet on Depression. (Notice the capital “D”.) I, too, have struggled with depression over the years.
My husband and I lost a lot of the worth of his IRA in the crash. We are having to sell our home, where we have lived for 19+ years. This is very hard, as I love it here so much. We need to downsize and live on the difference of the proceeds from the sale and the new place.
My point is that I go back in and out of feeling depressed. When I sit with it or just let it be and feel the feelings, great sadness comes. It is the sadness of a death of sorts. Very deep. The sadness goes back and forth from deep grief to deep love to deep grief. The depression is a doorway to the Love.
Thank you for reminding me, as it has been a really hard day. What you wrote was great validation that the only way is through.
With gratitude and love,
Barbara
Barbara, thanks so much for taking the time to write this comment. It is brave, clear, and inspiring. I wish you well as you navigate this time and support you and you go through it (rather than around). With love, S
Susan … every day, every practice within the open heart project bearings me closer to the light that is me … the ‘something’ that I am … and this talk & meditation shifted a perception & judgement I have carried for a long time . I can not thank you enough for showing up when you did
!!!
Susie, so glad this is useful! xo S