Stillness and Depression

Q. I am so happy that we talked on Sunday.

Lately I have been going in and out of these waves of stillness and depression. There is a deep recognition that I am not in control and I do not exist. Yet there continues to be this residual "I" that arises...and puts me into states of deep depression for several minutes... I almost see it as the I is not ready to let go so it comes back in and tries to rain on the parade... I don't know what to do...I do feel a deep stillness, even right now, actually in most moments, but still this layer of confusion and heaviness emerges...hope it doesn't last too long lol.

this little "I" haha

G. you are correct, the best thing "you" can "do" to cope with the situation is to continue to watch it with detachment, welcoming and acceptance. Resistance is typically not helpful. As far as your idea that "I almost see it as the I is not ready to let go so it comes back in and tries to rain on the parade", that is likely a large component of it. It may also be partly neurochemical and partly a response to a need to resolve some problem and to give you some time/space to work on it, as discussed below.

There are some excellent books and works on dealing with depression with meditation and yoga...a useful book for folk i have worked with has been "The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness - by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

One of the yoga teachers who wrote an endorsement for my book, Amy Weintraub, is THE yoga expert in the U.S. on yoga for depression. Her book is "Yoga for Depression: A Compassionate Guide to Relieve Suffering Through Yoga by Amy Weintraub". Her website is @ www.yogafordepression.com/.

May be useful to realize that approximately 50% of folk are depressed at some point in their lives, some deeply clinically depressed, others just briefly or intermittently...article in Jan/Feb Scientific American Mind by Andrews and Thompson titled "Depression's Evolutionary Routes", investigates why depression is so prevalent and why it wasn't evolutionally/Darwinially selected "out" as it appears to have such a "negative" impact on functioning.

Their conclusion was that it is useful for some/most folk as it makes it possible for the "mind" to focus on some difficult problem that is as yet unresolved and needs a lot of focus. By taking away interest in any thing else, it allows a complete focus on the problem.