Do you ever feel like life is not worth living?

[Jodistrict]

I good practice is surrender.  Many of the great saints had serious physical illnesses.  Everything that happens is a gift to help you grow.  

[UnbornTao]

On 7/19/2025 at 1:09 AM, Joshe said:

Yes, without the prospect of progress, depression is likely. But the main trap is in the present moment when the negative energy seems inescapable because the mind can’t envision or see a path to a good future. A sense of doom washes over and haunts them.

If the mind can envision a negative scenario, it can just as easily envision a positive one. In either case, it's imagined - so there's no real reason to favor one over the other. You might as well choose the positive future - or stop mentally producing a future altogether. It takes finding that - and where - you are generating it in your experience. May be difficult, especially at first, but it is doable.

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This is why strong self-efficacy is important and why it’s dangerous for people who lack self-efficacy to deal in ideas such as “life is ultimately meaningless”.

That's true - but it has to be heard for what it actually is. Properly understood, it's freeing.

Edited Sunday at 04:47 PM by UnbornTao

[Vercingetorix]

@Never_give_up Maybe the way you feel is not connected to what you have, but to your identity. Maybe you have unhealed trauma, which is shame, guilt, and regrets that you feel, and corresponding beliefs about yourself - I am not worthy, I am not capable, I don't deserve...This creates the Identity of a person who believes "I am not ok as I am".

So I believe the first step would be to work on that, to get to the point where you can say: I AM OK AS I AM. I accept myself, regardless of what I have and what I am capable of. 

What do you think about that?

[Joshe]

13 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

If the mind can envision a negative scenario, it can envision a positive one. Notice that in either case, it's imagined, hence there's no real reason to choose one over the other. So you might as well choose the positive future.

I agree, but this logical approach to emotion is easier said than done. Thoughts don’t arise in a vacuum or on their own. They’re attached to one another and many are attached to formed conclusions (beliefs). But it’s not only a problem of preexisting thoughts and conclusions, but also inertia. 

So rather than try to fight such complexity or consciously construct a new positive reality every moment a contributor to the negative arises, one can simply stop actively creating the negative one. Simply stopping the negative is much more doable than switching from negative to positive. 

But IME, most people don’t want to stop. Why? Because they are biased towards their conclusions and seeing what they want to see. If you’ve ever tried to talk a depressed person out of it, you’ll notice the vast majority will say they want out but when you attempt to remove what got them there, they resist.

As such, my approach is to first make them realize their thoughts and beliefs have energetic implications, and the implications of their currently held thoughts and beliefs have wound them up in depression. Hence, one must choose to stop the negative mentation. If they reject this, they are at the mercy of circumstance, as they’re essentially tying their hands behind their backs and refusing to self-direct. 

Thoughts and collections of thoughts (stories) are energetic inputs. The mind can only process so much at once. You cannot process sadness or depression on a roller coaster because the mind can only be in one domain at a time. So what’s happening there on a roller coaster?

The negative mentation is being ceased by you being put in a situation that makes it impossible for you to cling to sad stories. The slate of consciousness is being wiped clean of all your negative mentations. Your mind is being forced onto something else. This “bypassing” can be learned. It’s just a matter of identifying the types of thoughts and beliefs that contribute to depression, and bypass them, although not as effectively as a roller coaster. 

Essentially, depression should be starved out via actions or thoughts that feed it nothing. Keeping the negative stories off the slate of consciousness. The solution isn’t to choose new mentations, it’s to cease existing ones. Because depression is a habit. Habits break when you stop tending to them. 

40 hours of roller coasters, 8 hours a day for 5 days sounds like a good start. Bungee jump, scuba dive, etc. but the depression will return once you get back home and start engaging those negative mentations again. 

Edited Saturday at 04:02 PM by Joshe

[theleelajoker]

@Joshe

Lots of agreement from me re your post. Logic and thoughts (alone) don't really help because thoughts are not the cause, but part of a system with many other parts connected. 

 If you’ve ever tried to talk a depressed person out of it, you’ll notice the vast majority will say they want out but when you attempt to remove what got them there, they resist.

That goes for basically everything, doesn't it? Eating healthy, being more social, trying new stuff, advancing in career, creating good relationships, living more happy etc etc. Nobody wants to be stuck, everybody likes the things above, everybody wants to change but there's is resistance when facing change. Because of fear.

I see your points with stoping negative thoughts, and the value of story - creating and story - changing. But IMO you have to go further: the energetic structure is stored in your body, it can actually be felt during deep meditation or high states of awareness. Somatic work is key, it has to align with work on thoughts and believes. 

If you want to test my hypothesis, you can easily do it with fasting. When I fasten, my whole psychological and emotional structure changes. Thoughts and emotions change because my body state changes, while external stuff (work, relationships, living conditions etc) stay the same. 

And finally, what helps me is not so much the bypassing of emotions but really really feeling sadness etc and expressing it fully. Sharing it, talking about it. 

Edited Sunday at 11:21 AM by theleelajoker

[UnbornTao]

On 7/19/2025 at 4:36 PM, Joshe said:

I agree, but this logical approach to emotion is easier said than done. Thoughts don’t arise in a vacuum or on their own. They’re attached to one another and many are attached to formed conclusions (beliefs). But it’s not only a problem of preexisting thoughts and conclusions, but also inertia. 

Sensible excuse. Now, what is it accomplishing?

On 7/19/2025 at 4:36 PM, Joshe said:

So rather than try to fight such complexity or consciously construct a new positive reality every moment a contributor to the negative arises, one can simply stop actively creating the negative one. Simply stopping the negative is much more doable than switching from negative to positive. 

I agree - the key is to stop imagining a negative future scenario. You could also conjure up a positive one and feel hopeful as a result. Also, it is useful to recognize that you can't possibly be depressed in relation to the now.

You mentioned the lack of 'the prospect for progress' as a likely cause of depression in your previous reply. But that, too, is something you're making up in your mind; it's not a function of circumstances.

On 7/19/2025 at 4:36 PM, Joshe said:

But IME, most people don’t want to stop. Why? Because they are biased towards their conclusions and seeing what they want to see. If you’ve ever tried to talk a depressed person out of it, you’ll notice the vast majority will say they want out but when you attempt to remove what got them there, they resist.

As such, my approach is to first make them realize their thoughts and beliefs have energetic implications, and the implications of their currently held thoughts and beliefs have wound them up in depression. Hence, one must choose to stop the negative mentation. If they reject this, they are at the mercy of circumstance, as they’re essentially tying their hands behind their backs and refusing to self-direct. 

If you believe depression is caused by circumstances, then the only option becomes manipulating circumstances in an attempt to manage the emotion, without addressing its root.

Notice the "resisted" aspect - you might be engaging in some of that, especially in your dissection of the roller coaster example.

Stories and justifications aside, all it takes is recognizing, in your experience, that and where the negative future ideation is being generated - by you - for you to be able to drop it. We usually aren't aware of this fact, even though we understand it intellectually. But we can recognize it by paying close attention to what we're doing and 'thinking.'

Edited Sunday at 04:29 PM by UnbornTao