SGM April 2017 Weekly Message Three: “Frustrated, Sad, Angry, or Depressed About What’s Happening?”
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Welcome to this week’s edition of Spiritual Growth Monthly. I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s great to have you with us here at SGM!
Are you frustrated, sad, angry, or depressed by what’s happening in the world? Does life feel more crazy, chaotic, and on-edge than it used to? Does that make you focus more on just surviving instead of thinking it’s possible to thrive?
Does all the craziness make you think you’ll never have what you really want? Never be who you want to be? That you just aren’t meant to be happy? That life on Earth is just a challenging and frustrating place to be?
One of our members, Reuben, wrote this to me:
“How do you handle sadness and depression??? I’ve been very deeply troubled and sad for a few years and honestly don’t recall the last time I truly felt joyful! My life seems like a constant struggle, and it’s like I am merely existing instead of fully living.”
First, let me say, that I can sympathize with those feelings. For a period of my adult life, I felt that life was a constant struggle and I would frequently have bouts of sadness and depression. Research shows that this is an increasingly common experience. In the past ten years, depression is on the rise.
In this week’s message, I’ll share what I’ve learned that lifted my depression and allowed me to wake up looking forward to the opportunities in the day ahead instead of dreading what I have to do and wondering if I can get through it. It’s all about making Conscious Turnarounds.
You can practice Conscious Turnarounds in moments of anxiety, anger, depression, doubt, and fear. They empower you to transform your anxiety into excitement, anger and judgment into loving acceptance, depression into inspiration, doubt into confidence, and fear into faith in the guidance you can receive about your next steps forward.
Yet shoving your feelings down into your subconscious, creates an underlying uneasiness, tension, and malaise that affects all aspects of your life. The next thing you know you’re sad, depressed, angry, anxious, and have chronic indigestion, migraines, fatigue, or something even more serious like cancer.
Recognizing your feelings might feel like stepping deeper into discomfort, but it is actually the first step toward feeling something new and better. Feelings arise to let you know when something is going on that you need to attend to. Hard feelings might seem like something to get away from, but the way beyond them is through them. Otherwise, you’re going to constantly re-visit the same feelings over and over again.
So, if you’re feeling frustrated, sad, angry, afraid, or depressed about the state of your life or the state of our world, instead of eating more, lashing out and blaming someone, distracting yourself with entertainment, or numbing out with alcohol or Advil, acknowledge what you are feeling. It may seem scary to do that (especially if you haven’t practiced sitting with your feelings much), but when you do, you’ll discover that it’s o.k. to feel anything and everything you’re feeling. Feelings won’t kill you. You’ll survive, no matter what you’re feeling.
Feeling is the first step to healing.
Once you recognize what you’re feeling, you can make several conscious connections that begin to transform how your feelings affect you.
First, see if you can locate the feeling in your body. If your emotion was a physical sensation where would it be and what qualities would it have?
Is it a tightening in your stomach, back, or neck? Does it feel like a punch in your gut or a black emptiness in your heart? Is it a chill up your spine? How does the feeling present itself in your body?
It’s o.k. to notice any sensations, no matter how weird or uncomfortable they might seem. Sensations won’t kill you, either. Not even the painful ones.
When you observe your feeling as a physical sensation, it takes on a more objective quality. You can step back from it as a “witness” rather than being consumed by it. You can take a few deep breaths to take the edge off. You realize that as you observe a sensation, you can handle it—and you notice that it begins to change.
A second connection you can make is with your thoughts.
Feelings reveal you how you are looking at life. You can follow them back to the mindset that set your feeling in motion. Feelings can lead you to notice your habitual thoughts and beliefs.
You can discover this connection very simply by asking yourself, “What thoughts go with the feelings and sensations I am having right now? When I am feeling this way, what words are going through my head?”
For example, do you think that you’ll never get out of this situation? Do you think you’re doomed to failure? Do you think you’re going to die alone? Or get into debt that you’ll never get out of?
What thoughts go with the feelings you’re having? It’s o.k. to acknowledge any thoughts you’re having. Thoughts won’t kill you. Like feelings and sensations, they are just information—and you can change them at any time. But, for now, just be aware of them.
Next, make the connection between these feelings, sensations, and thoughts and the actions that you feel compelled to take. Ask yourself, what do I do when I am thinking and feeling this way?
Do you give up and stop taking action? Do you eat more? Do you drink more? Do you call in sick?
What are the results of those actions? Are those the results you want?
Well, no, of course not. That’s why you’re sad, depressed, angry, and frustrated in the first place. That’s o.k. It’s alright to become aware of all of this. Recognition is just the first step of your turnaround.
Once you have recognized what you’re feeling, observed it as a sensation in your body, witnessed the thoughts associated with that feeling, the actions inspired by those thoughts and feelings, and the results of those actions, you can make another connection that will help you see this situation as temporary, transient, and changeable.
You can ask yourself “When did I start thinking and feeling this way? What event set these thoughts and feelings in motion?”
For example, have you thought this way your whole life? Or did it happen at a certain moment? Most recently, what prompted you to think, feel, and act this way? Was it what your boss, client, friend, or spouse said to you yesterday? Was it something you heard on the news?
One thing that keeps a feeling state in place is the thought that “This is how things are for me. This feeling and these results are just the way I am. It’s never going to change.”
When you make the connection to the specific events that prompted those thoughts, feelings, actions, and results, it reveals the transient nature of all things. Actually this feeling is not “the way you are.” It is just a reaction associated with a specific event or series of similar events. Things happened and you reacted in a certain way. That’s all there is to it. That doesn’t mean you have to be this way forever. That’s just what happened then and how you reacted then.
Now is a new moment.
When you recognize the transient nature of all thoughts, feelings, actions, and results, it opens the possibility that, maybe, things can change. Maybe there are other ways of thinking, which would feel different, lead you to act differently, and create different results?
Things are always changing. The question is how will they change?
How they changes depends on you. Which brings us to the next step in our Conscious Turnaround.
2. If anything were possible, what would you like to see happen? If other options were available, what might they be?
The great thing about this step is that you don’t have to believe things are possible to make a conscious turnaround. You just need to allow for the possibility that things could be different. Even if you’re not convinced that you can think, feel, and act differently, “what if” you could? Even if you’re not convinced you can have different results in your life, “what if” it were possible? What might happen if you acted “as if” things could change?
Once you crack open that door of “what if,” to allow even a sliver of light or a wisp of fresh air, that sets the stage for the next step.
3. What is one, small, very doable action you could take to move in that direction, to have a taste of that experience you desire? It doesn’t matter how significant the action feels or how well you do it. What’s important is simply taking conscious intentional action.
Once you take that action, you discover a new relationship with the events happening around you. You are a proactive, intentional actor in your life, rather than a victim of circumstances. Being a victim of circumstances is at the heart of depression, anxiety, anger, doubt, and frustration.
The transformation from “victim to actor” is the key to making conscious turnarounds. Like an actor on stage or screen, you don’t have to believe you are the person you are acting like, you just act “as if” it were true—and this creates a new experience for you and for those around you.
Stepping into conscious intentional action is the key to transforming your anxiety into excitement, anger and judgment into loving acceptance of yourself and others, depression into inspiration, doubt into confidence, and fear into faith in the guidance you can receive about your next steps forward.
From that proactive perspective, you can see everything that happens in life in a whole new light.
What if everything that happens inside and around you is to help you, and all of us, to make more conscious choices? What if everything that happens is to help us live as conscious intentional actors? What if obstacles we encounter are a necessary part of getting where we are going? What if handling, managing, and learning from our setbacks are actually the next steps on our path? What if they are providing the impetus we need to learn, grow, and experience more?
In other words, what if everything that happens is a part of our path? What if everything arises to help us on our way?
I believe what we are experiencing right now on the planet is exactly that.
The terrorism, environmental hazards, protests, bold threats, highly-contrasting opinions, and dramatic events are calling us to become more conscious and intentional in our life here on Earth. These events are asking us to rise up and become more of who we are here to be. They are drawing us out of our comfort zones and demanding that we raise our vibration.
It’s natural to feel overwhelmed. It’s natural to feel like a victim of circumstances beyond our control.
Yet, what if these moments of challenge are exactly what we need to move forward to fulfill our destiny? What if, in the face of these challenges, we learn to ask more empowering questions, such as:
What is this experience trying to tell me? If life were set up to always guide me forward, what would this experience be here to show me? What is it calling forth from me?
What do I want to see more of in the world? How can I participate in that? How can I make a positive difference in my own life—and share that with others?
Is it organic gardening, volunteering at the community food share, playing music, learning to cook healthy food, taking singing lessons, joining a choir, being a big brother/sister, learning to meditate, sharing my meditation practice with others, teaching English to immigrants, growing a socially conscious business?. . .
How can I take action on that today?
What obstacles might get in my way? How can I use them to move forward even more strongly? Are there any techniques or skills these obstacles prompt me to learn? How can I game plan for frustrations and personal objections that have gotten in my way in the past?
What if you used Conscious Turnarounds in those moments of adversity? What if you acknowledged how you feel and connected your feelings with your sensations, thoughts, actions, and results? What if you allowed that there might be other alternatives? And what if you took one action, no matter how small, to engage in a better possibility that you desire?
When you engage in intentional positive action, even a little every day, it changes how you feel about life. When you make action a practice, you no longer feel like a victim of circumstances. You realize you are a conscious creator who can make a difference. You are here to play your part, to take on your unique role. Your actions take on a life of their own and they carry you, and all of us, to places we’ve never imagined!
Enjoy your practice!
Kevin