Question: “How Do I Motivate Myself When In Depression?”
By Sanjib Mukherjee
Everything in life is constantly changing, your mood, thoughts, emotions, attitudes and so on. Nothing ever stays the same. The ancient Rishis were well aware of this phenomenon, and thus prescribed a series of practices and philosophies to help people come to terms with their feelings.
A little known yogic secret is that no mood or emotion can stay at its current intensity for more than two and a half days. In practical terms, this means no matter how angry, depressed or frustrated any of us may feel at any given moment in time, theses feelings will automatically subside in just over a couple of days. Knowledge of this sutra alone can relieve us of so many stresses and anxieties. Often, our sense of helplessness arrives when we feel stuck in a situation and are unable to see a way forward. If ever you felt this way, its fine…relax, these feelings will not stay.
No one can ever be depressed 100% of the time; it is a psychological impossibility. Your mind can only relate to being depressed when it compares itself to previous times, when indeed, you were happy. Life is an intricate balance between opposing forces of nature (referred to as the yin and the yang in eastern texts). Where there is dark, there is light; where there is warmth, there is cold; where there is black, there is white and where there is misery, there is happiness. You can only be miserable if you were happy in the first place. Memory of this happiness is enough for your mind to change its state and pull you out of any negative feelings.
You don’t need motivation to become happy, your consciousness is naturally balanced and connected to a higher source. It is only our mind that takes us away from our true higher selves. Thus, the question becomes, “How can I change my mind to get back to being happy?” Yoga tells us, the single most important factor for any human being to lose their centredness and natural happy state is when we lose our levels of prana (natural life force or energy). Our prana is reduced when we feel tired, overworked, over stressed or over burdened with worries in our everyday lives. There are various sources of energy to help increase our prana levels.
The first is simply to get enough sleep. Sleep has many therapeutic benefits to our system and allows our mind and body to naturally flow back into its rhythmic balance. The second source would be your food. Vegetables, fresh fruits, high fibre diets have an abundance of prana within them, and we absorb these nutritious qualities when consuming such foods. In fact, the study of ayurveda is a whole science of healthy living and a great deal of emphasis is placed upon which foods we should eat and why.
The next yogic source of energy is meditation. Thinking too much is one of the quickest ways to lose our internal energies as each thought is nothing more than a vibration of energy. By increasing the speed of our thoughts, we deplete our internal reserves, and thus, become drained very quickly. Meditation allows your mind to repose in its inner sanctum and replenish its natural resources by connecting itself with the higher levels of consciousness. Another source of energy is your mind set. As mentioned earlier, all miseries are caused by the sensations of the mind, and by refocusing on where our minds place its awareness, we can refocus the experiences we feel at any given moment.
Swami Vivekananda once stated, “We are the cause of all the problems in our lives”. Though this may be an unsettling statement to comprehend, it actually becomes very powerful when we analyse it a little closer. If we are the problem for all of our anxieties, then surely we are the cure as well. If our mind causes us so many problems, the very same mind can also give us so much joy.
Yoga teaches us how to utilise our minds in a strong productive manner, and make the mind a servant of our thoughts, rather than our thoughts being at the mercy of our minds. There are many articles in this blog which go much deeper into some of the philosophies raised above. The point I want you to realise more than anything else is that depression is not your natural state of being, it has been caused by your mind reacting in a certain manner to certain situations. Yoga fully understands how this can happen, and thus, gives us many tools to overcome our own thoughts. Try implementing the ideas in this post and I guarantee you will see a marked improvement in your emotional well-being.
Happiness is your divine right; when walking this earth, never forget that, and continue moving forward with a smile. I am not saying it’s easy by any means, but with a little bit of courage and belief in these ancient yogic wisdoms, you will sail through any problems you face. I hope this post has been of some help.
Om Shanti.
Sanjib
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Hey Sanjib,
Great Article,
About getting out of depression, you are right, it got to do with your prana level.
I just think that you missed out one of the energysources..Our Breath!
If we stop breathing the prana also doesnt come in…cause we will be gone…
I think thats why in Yoga we have different kind of Pranayams.
When we feel depressed, it means our prana is getting down…. the fastest way to get it up, is by breathing and meditating. Not eating junks and old food.. And also by sleeping not too much or too less.
As promised…to u… my feedback.
Love U,
With Love,
Anjana
excellent
GOOD!
SEE LORD NATRAJAS 108 POSE OF DANCE . BASED ON YOGA
so true.
change is the only thing which is constant!!!
but sometimes nothing changes life become static,how to overcome in this type of situation
Yoga is the ULTIMATE answer..:)
change is no thing but understand others.
Leena you are spot on:)…Rita, I remember Sri Sri answering this question once when he said a combination of seva, satsang and sadhana will always keep you happy and totally aware in life….doing the 3 in tandem means life can never get dull:)
that is true but i tried many times but unable to continue. maybe i lack discipline. sometimes i feel guilty also but still ….
don’t be hard on yourself Rita, take small steps..don’t try and do too much all at once…do what comes naturally to you…remember happiness is the journey, not where you end up:)
thanx sanjib i ‘ll try it again.
lack of discipline ,moral our old teachings lot we forgot now , now we discover them inside us!
Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
yes, like and love our duty will not give stress.
a little tip for sadhana which helped me Rita, when you start of, every time you finish a meditation, write “M” on a calender for that day. After a few days it feels nice to see a row of “M’s”…it will motivate you to carry on when you feel slack. This will really work, trust me:)
The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.So just stay connected with urself within and everything falls in place!!!
say , i am good more then 100 times in morning – you feel all thing good that day
Hi Sanjib…Well written whats really effective is its simple flow…Loved it..
thanx a lot sanjib,shrishti and rahgavas. i needed some kind of push and guidance now if try it i ‘ll surely succeed.
good
Superb Sanjib. You truly write and explain very well for the rest of us. Can you explain how one can get belief?
Rita pls use ur creativity to bring a change in ur life.I m sure god would have gifted u with some creativity like singing,dancing,cooking,painting,writing etc.Divine never sends us empty hand to this earth and just live ur creativity wenever u feel life has stopped or is same and has nothing new to offer u and i assure u,u will feel the sudden change or shift in ur life.i am saying this based on my exp as somewhere we all go thru this phase.
thanx a lot shrishti, i m already getting inner push from ur messages.now the only thing is will i be able to consolidate my creativity and skills together and do something in life? i think i need a guide or master who can show me the way.
Dear Rita
You have hit the nail on the head. Your statement ” I think I need a guide or master who can show me the way.” speak profound truth. You can be inspired, helped and motivated by a lot of people but ultimately a personal guide or a master can work and bring about magical transformation like you would have never dreamt of.
I say this with conviction because I have read spiritual, pshycological, and philosophical material for over twenty five years and had made fairly good progress. But after I met my spiritual guru I made a massive leap in my progress. What I could not achieve in the 25 years of reading I got in just a few years with my Guru. What a true spiritual Guru can impart can not be found from all the books in the world. You can read about the taste of a fruit in a thousand books but you will never know the taste. In the same way unless you experience the divinity in another human you can not see a possiblility of that divinity in you. A guru becomes like a mirror who shows you your clear self. I feel blessed that I have had tailor made training. I wish the same for you.
Good luck with everything.
Vijyalaxmi
Yoga is a complete stress buster…
As depressive state of mind has to do with the level of neurotransmitters in the brain,nutritional therapy has a positive role.In ayurveda some herbs have been studied to have a positive adaptogenic effect,like ashwagandha.It helps one to adapt oneself to the changed environment which induces stress and cold in many cases induce a depressive state of mind.
But as Sanjib mentions it is all about mind control which one can achieve through meditation and having a positive state of mind.
Pradeep Chatterjee
Nice article Sanjib!
Oh loved alot …. this is really very helpful n yaa that law of vibration it really works…
But plz can u help to tell how to reduce these n number of thoughts .
Coz sometimes its out of our control.
Even I do sahej samadhi meditation.