Shedding Excess Emotional Baggage
These days, I approach all life, including my own, entirely from its spiritual aspect. By this I mean from the knowledge that the spirit behind all earthly manifestations is by far its most important part. I do so not because someone says I have to but because nothing else makes any real sense to me. Depression is something I have been struggling with for at least thirty years, though probably more likely for the whole of this lifetime. I am well aware that many of the things I have to deal with, to this day, are part of the unresolved issues I have brought with me from previous lives, in the hope of attending to them this time round. I am a very private person and not given to public confessions. Yet, this is such a vital issue that I am willing to make an exception, in the hope of being able to bring new hope and understanding to those who to this day have been unable to make any progress in their fight against the miseries of depression.
My plea with anyone feeling suicidal is: Don’t! There is no point, because once you are safely back in the world of spirit – our true home – you will be able to see for yourself that because the core of our being is eternal and immortal and life is a flow that will forever continue, it is impossible to snuff ourselves out like candles. In the fullness of time you too will realise that if you wish to make any progress on your evolutionary pathway, it will be necessary for you to return to the Earth plane by your own volition, so that you can repeat the lessons you, struck with the visionary blindness of that level of life, tried to avoid during your most recent lifetime.
As your feelings by then will have been buried under yet another layer of the fear of facing yourself and your issues, resolving them will be even more difficult. Therefore, regardless of what kind of situation you have to deal with, make it clear to yourself that there is always a way forward. You cannot see it? All you have to do is ask and it will be shown to you. ‘Seek and ye shall find,’ is true here, possibly more than in any other aspect of life. Knock at the inner gate of your Highest or God Self and ask for Its help, and rest assured that the door will be opened unto you and that help will come!
In fact, the direct inner connection with our Highest Self that we once had – or rather the loss and the lack of it – is what all depression is about. In the course of many lifetimes it has been buried under layer upon layer of the rubble of all manner of feelings that once accompanied the soul memories of past traumas. Each new lifetime has piled yet another layer on top, causing the bottom layers to become ever more compacted. All these feelings by now have become excess baggage that has no value other than waiting to be worked through and discharged. That’s the only purpose they now serve. Shedding yet another layer of mine always feels like the peeling of an onion. As skin after skin falls away and dissolves, my inner connection with God grows clearer and stronger. Once you get to work on yours, yours is sure to do the same.
To paraphrase ‘Desiderata’: You are a beloved child of the Universe, the same as the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. You are a precious and unique being of light. Whether you are as yet aware of this or not, we are all on a spiritual pathway. Don’t shy away from this expression. All it means is the rediscovery of the fact that we are a spirit and soul who is only temporarily encased in matter. Before God you are responsible for yourself and for the life you have been given. You are here to become aware that all life is subject to Universal laws and to learn to conduct your life responsibly and in accordance with any spiritual knowledge you may find.
Try not to miss any of the opportunities the Universe is presently offering you. If you open your inner eyes, you cannot fail to recognise that your depression is in truth a gift of major significance that wishes to come into your conscious awareness. Any kind of deep suffering is invariably an Angel in disguise who is reaching out for us. Don’t refuse its invitation, but courageously reach out for its hand and walk with it to find out what it may wish to bring you. The very first thing is the knowledge of your true nature and that is your passport to immortality! To find it, that’s what you came into this lifetime for. Don’t throw this chance away or you could be very sorry when you return to your true home.
No-one on the Earth plane has any way of knowing someone else’s Karma and what life lessons anyone has come to integrate during their present lifetime. That’s why it would be unwise to state categorically that suicide is wrong in all circumstances; for some it is not. If your soul does not yet know from first hand experience that there is no point in suicide, then you may have to go ahead and find out. But, before you walk into the unknown, stop and take a little time out. Try to feel inside and ask your inner guide: ‘Is this what I really want; is this what I need? After all, I could be wasting a whole lifetime!’ Listen carefully to its reply; it will come to you in the shape of a feeling that either says: ‘Yes, do it!’ or ‘No, don’t!’
Whatever you decide to do, know that you have a right to be here; that you are entitled to find happiness and healing; and that – if you but stay – you have a good chance of finding all of these things. Try to look at what you are going through at present as an opportunity that will, if you seize it and work with it, in due course lead you into becoming a healer in your own right. Your present experiences are meant to help you become a kinder, more loving and compassionate person, towards others and also yourself. Going in search of one’s own light at the end of one’s personal tunnel of suffering, in your case the one of depression, gradually develops the ability to show others that their lives and their experiences are valid and worth living through, the same as yours have been and always will be. However, this inner knowing must grow organically from within you, through your very own experiences. Only when this growth has taken place, will you be able to convincingly teach others how to do for themselves what you did in the past.
So long as this you fail to see:
That death precedes re-birth!
A gloomy guest you’ll always be,
Upon this darkling Earth.
From: ‘Seliges Verlangen’
‘The Soul’s Yearning’
Goethe
Recommended Reading:
• ‘Depression – the Way out of your Prison’ by Dr. Dorothy Rowe
• ‘Beyond Fear’ by Dr. Dorothy Rowe
• ‘The Courage to Live’ by Dr. Dorothy Rowe
• ‘The Art of Effortless Living – Simple Techniques for healing, mind, body and spirit’ by Dr. Ingrid Bacci, mentioned earlier.
‘The Way Out Of Your Prison’ is my favourite book of all times. Finding it many years ago truly changed my life, in spite of the fact that this took place without bright flashes of enlightening. It was more a gradually awakening understanding within me that we always have choices in life and that no-one has to put up with circumstances in their lives that are no longer right and possibly never were. Over some time, this led me into the realisation that this freedom of choice brings with it the responsibility of acting on our knowledge and learning to choose wisely.
To me, the greatest beauty and attraction of both Dr. Rowe’s and Dr. Bacci’s writings always has been that neither comes across as one of those ‘oh, so spiritual’ writers. If anything, they are the opposite. Their writings are in a class of their own; although they are of a deeply spiritual nature, both authors insist on telling their readers that this is not so. And they are right; on the surface of things all the above mentioned books are not spiritual ones. It’s hard to explain, but if you have never read any of them, you really have missed out on something.
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The above is a chapter from ‘The Spiritual Aspects Of Depression And Suicide’
.If it has whetted your appetite to read more, please follow the link below:
‘The Spiritual Aspects Of Depression And Suicide’
