Depression - deep rest

Jeff Foster: “Depression: an invitation to rest deeply in the truth of who you are

We can view depression not as a mental illness, but on a deeper level as a profound and very misunderstood state of deep rest, which we enter when we are completely exhausted by the weight of our own false story of ourselves.

I will talk about depression in the deeper sense, about the deeper meaning of depression.

Often people are asking: how does depression relate to awakening? Is it possible to discover who I am in the midst of depression or do I have to get rid of my depression? Or is awakening some kind of cure for depression?

In the video of a few years ago I was speaking from personal experience what depression feels like. What it can feel like in its extreme form. You wake up in the morning and life just feels so heavy and it feels like you have to hold up this burden; life becomes this burden and it becomes so difficult, almost impossible, exhausting, holding up this burden. So what is the burden? The burden is the burden of me. That is what becomes so exhausting. And this is true probably for everyone, not just for people who are diagnosed with depression.

Everyone in the world is on some level trying to hold up some kind of image, some kind of story of himself, the story of my life, the story of my past, the story of my imagined future, the story of my successes and my failures and my hopes and my dreams, my plans. What can happen is that this story can just become so heavy.

So the experience of depression, extreme depression, clinical depression is that you wake up in the morning and everything just feels so heavy and it becomes such a struggle to live. Just getting out of bed in the morning becomes virtually impossible because it takes so much effort to hold up this story: this story of me and my life, the story of me. It feels you are weighted down by your story. It feels like you are being crushed by your story. You are literally pressed down, you are literally de-pressed, pressed down by your story.

But the thing is, this is really a wonderful invitation, that's what I would say. The invitation is contained within this experience, the experience of being depressed down by your story, the experience of being depressed by life, the experience of being crushed by the weight of you. It's a wonderful invitation really to discover awakening.

There is a truth to depression and this truth we often miss in our urge to quickly cure depression. Quickly: you are sad and quickly you make yourself happy or get back to work. Actually we can so quickly end up missing the deeper truth of depression, which is: this isn't your life to hold up; this story of me and my life. This isn't who you really are. This person, that you are pretending to be, this character that you are pretending to be, this facade that you are living in the world, it's not really who you are.

You have been pretending to be something that you are not. So this is going to crush you. Pretending to be something that you are not. Pretending to be this image. Pretending to be the-story-of-me is eventually going to become exhausting for everyone. And in the case of clinical depression it can even become totally exhausting and crushing.

But the point is that it is not about holding up your life in the first place. This story is not who you are. It's not who you really are. So that's the deeper truth of depression. If we can really listen to depression. Because what life is really saying is: "wake up, this is not really your life, this isn't really who you are. The story of you is not who you really are." So we could view depression not as a mental illness or some kind of sickness. It's not that there is something deeply wrong with you.

And I want to say here, that lots of people have all kinds of theories about what depression is; it's a mental illness or it's a brain chemical disorder or it's genetic or it's in your DNA or whatever. And I don't want to say that anyone is wrong. I am just offering this perspective from my own experience, looking at depression in a deeper sense. So perhaps depression is not a sickness or an illness. Perhaps it's an invitation. I often speak of: life is a constant invitation to awaken or an invitation to discover who you really are. Which is not this separate, limited, constricted self. You are not the story of your life.

Who you are in this moment is not the image of you. Who you are in this moment is this wide open space. Some use the word awareness or consciousness. To me it doesn't really matter what words you use. I often speak about the ocean, the waves in the ocean. So who you really are is not the story of your life.

Who you are is this vast ocean, in which thoughts arise and dissolve, sensations arise and dissolve, feelings arise and dissolve. And who you are as the ocean doesn't come and go, doesn't arise and dissolve. Who you are as the ocean is always present. What you are is always present. So the waves may come and go, thoughts come and go, sensations come and go, feelings come and go, images, ideas, memories come and go. Even the most intimate ideas about yourself, judgements about yourself, come and go. None of these waves can truly define you, although they are deeply allowed in you. So who you are is vast and unlimited.

So really, depression is just an invitation. That's what I would say. Depression is this invitation to rediscover your unlimited, vast, boundless nature as awareness itself or as consciousness. Life is saying: "look, you are not who you think you are. This isn't your life. This life doen't fit you any more, if it ever did. You know, you are not this limited." In a way depression is a kind of loss of interest. Unconscious maybe at first. It's a loss of interest in being this story. It's a loss of interest in holding up the story of your life.

Viewing from one perspective that's a kind of pathological, because you are supposed to be interested in your life and you are supposed to want to be this person, you are supposed to know how your life is supposed to go and you are supposed to make your life work and you are supposed to be the one who is in charge of your life, you are supposed to be the one who is orchestrating your life.

What depression is inviting you to see is actually: maybe that's not true, maybe that's not true for you. Maybe who you are is this vast ocean. You know, you are not limited to these waves. You are not limited to thoughts, sensations, feelings. Who you are is this vast ocean. So depression is really just inviting you to rest in who you really are.

Stop pretending to be what you are not. Stop pretending to be this story. Stop pretending to be this false image, this inauthentic false image and wake up to who you really are and rest deeply in that.

So many people that I meet are so exhausted from life, so exhausted from the struggles, the seeking, struggling to find what they are looking for, struggling to hold up the image of themselves, the image of the successful businessman or businesswoman, the image of the mother, the father, the image of the one who knows, even the image of the spiritually enlightened one, pretending to be enlightened, pretending to be awakened, pretending to be anything. Pretending to be anything is going to become exhausting. That exhaustion is wonderful, it's not the enemy.

You know, the exhaustion is an invitation to stop; to stop pretending to be someone that you are not. Stop pretending to be someone that you are not.

And rest deep. That's really what I think to be the very core of depression: this invitation, this call to rest deeply in the truth of who you are.

And I love the word depressed. It sounds so much identical to deep rest. So: deep rest. A deep rest. So actually the core of depression is this invitation that is so easily missed when we rush to treat depression or cure depression or fix depression or fight depression. We think: we are down and we want to get up again. We are a down person and we want to become an up person. We are a sad person and we want to become a happy person. We are a failed person and we want to become a successful person.

So the invitation is actually to go beyond this duality of the person, the successful person or the failed person, the rich person and the poor person, the person who knows and the person who doesn't know. The truth of yourself comes before all of that.

What you are is not this one or that one, the successful one or the failed one, the happy one or the sad one. What you are is this vast, open space in which all these movements of life are included: success and failure, happiness and sadness, joy and pain, certainty and doubt. They are all allowed deeply to move in your life; all of life's energies are allowed to move in you.

In constructing the false self we start pushing away life's energies. We fall into this idea of opposites: good and bad, success and failure, rich and poor, happy and sad, certainty and doubt. And we reject what we call the negative aspects or the dark aspects. So we reject the doubt, we reject the fear, we reject the pain, we reject the failure. We reject all these aspects of life which we call negative and we seek the positive. But really, that's what becomes so exhausting. It's being at war with half of life.

So life is constantly calling us back and saying; look, I am everything. Life is everything. Just in the same way that the ocean arises in all of its waves, not just half of its waves. All of its waves are included.

So this is the call of depression, I would say. And I am not an expert on anything. I don't claim to be the one who knows. I don't have that image of myself. I don't claim to be anything. I would say this is an invitation to look more deeply.

And maybe just for a moment let go of all our prior assumptions and ideas of what depression is. Maybe depression is not the enemy. You know, it's calling to us. It's actually calling us to heal in a way. It's calling us to a deeper healing. It's just an invitation, as the whole of life is really. It's all just an invitation to remember this moment.

Forget about remembering tomorrow or whether or not you remember yesterday; that becomes irrelevant now. In this moment remember who you are now, which is this vast, open, spacious capacity for every thought, every sensation, every feeling. All of these waves. They are all welcome in you as the ocean. They are all welcome.

What you are is just the home for all of life. All of life comes to rest in you. Life was never about you trying to rest. It was never about you as a separate person coming to rest. That was always the dream. What you are ìs the home. What you are ìs already at rest. And all of life comes to rest in you; every thought, every sensation, every feeling comes to rest in you. So that's the deeper meaning of depression.

It's very different to what we are told. Maybe it's not common sense. But this understanding really completely changed my life and the lives of lots of people that I know. Just discovering this deep rest at the core of everything. And it's always present. It never leaves. It can't be destroyed. It's home. You know, it's home. It's what we were always looking for but we could never find. Because we were always looking for it out there in the world.

And I see and realize now, that years ago when I was going through this depression, it was all just a signpost, it was one giant signpost, a very painful signpost at that time but it was a signpost, it was an invitation, it was a calling to rest, because I didn't know how to rest. I never rested in my life. I didn't know how to rest. And I think that is true for a lot of people; we just don't know how to rest. We have never been told how to rest.

So many people that I meet are exhausted. But they are fighting their exhaustion. So what I am saying is that we just stop and listen to the exhaustion and we listen to the depression, as it softly whispers in our ear: "just rest child, just rest, you are exhausted, rest." And that's the deeper truth of life. It's this rest. And in the end we are all invited back to it, in many different ways, not always depression. But we are all invited back to this rest.

Jeff Foster: Youtube - Depression: Deep Rest