Hi Exoid, Life is extremely turbulent or harsh for most of us. First of all, I would like to know whether you are seeking spiritual advice or just want to get rid of your present problems. If you are seeking spiritual advice, I am there to share whatever is known to me. I think medication is one of the best remedies that need to be continued till we get over our problems. You cannot quit medication without proper guidance. Well, coming to the point of other aids to help you out of your present condition, spirituality is certainly a good option. Spirituality is self disciplining and gaining awareness of the truth and Realities of life. It is simply making use of the right techniques based on well proven laws of causation, to change our life from misery to supreme undivided bliss. Service orientation, sacrifice, non egoism, non possessiveness, self control or control of the senses, self sufficiency or self reliance, forgiveness, humility, Non hatred towards all the beings, being undisturbed by the world and remaining without disturbing the world, etc. are all some of the spiritual virtues one needs to consciously cultivate or inculcate in one’s own personality to lead a dynamic and peaceful life combined with dexterity. The choice in life is either live a life of ignorance with misery and destruction of the personality as the result or living a virtuous life of self discipline where in you work your way towards your ultimate self development or self realization by gaining the wisdom of life. One is the path of the pleasant, where you ignorantly chase illusory and unrealistic instant pleasures of life, get enslaved by selfish egoism and desire ridden Mind and end up in unrecoverable troubles and problems in life. The latter is the recommended one called

, wherein the individual leads a self disciplined life of purpose and meaning by living in harmony with the designs and laws of Mother Nature. the first step in life to take up the truly evolutionary

is to set a higher selfless ideal like Self realization and pursue it with dedication, sincerity, devotion, perseverance, consistency of purpose till the ideal is achieved. The general caution is to avoid developing result orientation and complacency in the chosen path.

Dear Josh:

I am taking what I learned through over five years, daily, and putting it in the following, explaining what I believe is making you unhappy and what you can do about it. This is a scientific explanation and i believe it is the objective truth:

When you were neglected, unloved and mistreated as a child by your mother, throughout all those incidents, days, months years, thousands of connections between neurons in your brain were made. These connections are referred to as neuropathways. These connections include logic and emotions. These connections do not dissolve just because time passes. The hurt, the fear, the anger of Josh the child are stored in those pathways and you experience them still, as an adult.

It is possible to undo these connections. And it is possible to make new connections that will last. This is done by healing. It is a long process. As you read this sentence right now, connections are made in your brain, making it possible for you to read and understand what I am typing.

When you lie in bed at night, after a good day, let’s say, and you feel anxious. You wonder why, perhaps: what is wrong with me? Why can’t I be happy?

The answer is something like that (I don’t know the specifics, so this is an example of what it can be): when you were a child you went to bed each night wishing your mother was there with you talking to you gently, kindly, putting your mind at ease. But instead as you went to bed, you could hear her arguing with the man in her life, maybe you could hear them being loving and intimate. You felt distress then. Your distress in that experience was a result of multiple connections between neurons in your brain, making that experience as it was.

As you lie in bed now (still the same example), those same pathways are activated, triggered by the very fact it is night time and you are lying down.

What do you think so far?

anita

I had a pretty bad life too. Neglect, abuse, etc. I had a child as a teenager, went through abusive relationships. Even some points in time when I felt that I was dying inside. There was nothing left of me but a kernel under a pile of ash and rubble. I was constantly ill.
And then I got divorced. I found out that I could support myself, with my own money (in fact, I had more to spend on myself). I could do whatever I wanted to, like walk along the river,or just chill on my balcony with some hot chocolate.
Do I need to get away from my thoughts and my memories? No.
I have learned that depression is not an illness, but a way that your body is trying to help you figure out complex social issues. I didn’t have depression, I just had some issues. I also wasn’t getting enough calories sometimes, and other times I was severely dehydrated. There are also many other things that make you down too, like drugs, alcohol, and junk food. Monks don’t abstain from unhealthy eating for moral purposes alone. It really does a lot of good to drink more water, eat more plants (fruits, veggies, grains, nuts), do less drugs, and move around more often. That’s why a lot of athletes or military or people who run a lot aren’t as sick.
Also, yes, the past can suck. Yes, we can develop bad habits because of it, but we can also let go of it and be a better person. I’m okay with my past, and I am that much more grateful for the awesome present I have now, because I know for a fact it’s been worse.
So advice about dwelling on the past: a trick some cognitive behavioral people suggest is that you can dissociate your emotions from traumatic memories. You’ll always have the memories, but you can lessen the emotional response. You play the memory in your head, but backwards like you’re rewinding. It slows down, and loses its color, and gets smaller and smaller like you’re walking away from a black and white tv until it diminishes into a speck. Then you replay the memory with full color, but make up a better ending. This can help you with the emotional side.
Also with dreams, you can make them better when you are just waking up, by making up stuff to finish the dream. And as weird as it sounds, a sleepy brain accepts more unrealistic stuff than realistic. For example, I have many bad dreams about abuse and cheating. But anymore, if I wake up from one of those, I make up that it was an alien body snatcher that’s purple and has six eyes and has to wear an atmospheric suit, but has to feed off of anxieties, so I tell it to go to Wall Street and make numbers go down (way easier than what it was doing impersonating one person). Then I just have to find my boyfriend who is in cryogenic stasis somewhere. It works.

But I guarantee that if you continue to feel sorry for yourself because of bad decisions someone else made, you won’t change anything.

* Dear catinvegas: glad you are asking about my post. Because this is the original poster’s thread, will you start a new thread with your question? It can be a very short thread. I will be glad to elaborate there on what I wrote on this thread.
anita