arthur saftlas
4 min readSep 17, 2015

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Depression is a timeline train wreck
This writing is from my insight into depression; what causes depression and how it is healed.

We are conditioned to perceive life moving along a timeline from the past through the present into the future. In this writing, metaphorically, we are a train running on the rails of our timeline.

Our past is at the rear of the train, as are the baggage cars. We have lots of baggage which hold our repressed emotions tied together with decisions we made up, when we suffered traumas. These energetically influence how we behave today. We have hurt baggage repressed inside us, anger baggage from being hurt, and fear baggage of being hurt again.

In front of the train is the engine and the future cars where we spend most of our time. In between the past train cars and future cars is the present moment of time, now car. We don’t usually focus much attention on what is now, unless we are lost in a creative endeavor or are sensually tempted.

The engine is the energy of the train. When our life energy is balanced, when mind, body, and spirit are one, we are balanced, healthy, and whole. This timeline train, however, is programmed and conditioned to be ego mind-centered. We believe who we are is our ego mind; our body and spirit both missed the train.

The future cars hold our hopes, dreams, and desires. This is where we strategize, scheme, and endeavor to get what we want. We feel the time between desiring and getting what we want as tension; the greater our desire, the more tension we feel. Cumulative tension is stress.

Life on the train goes along, according to our mindset, until a crisis, an unexpected turn of events, challenges our complacency. We may suddenly find ourselves suffering; people we care about get sick and die, or we get sick or seriously injured, or we get depressed over a failed love relationship, a divorce, a lost friend, or a bankrupt business, etcetera.

Or, perhaps, we succeed beyond our wildest dreams, then realize we are not happy and content. We get more and more of everything, but strangely more things and more success does not fill an increasing crisis of emptiness.

A life crisis is an opportunity to awaken and learn. Resistance to resolving a crisis, however, adds to our pain and suffering. When resisting persists we can cycle down into a state of depression. We try to feel better, but we fail again and again, feeling only more depressed and hopeless. We can’t think clearly. Our repressed baggage of hurt, anger, and fear, is surfacing causing strong inappropriate reactions. We feel exhausted, and sleepy. Nothing is as it should be. We don’t even like what we used to enjoy. We can’t feel much, we are alive but not alive, we move in a fog of unawareness.

We feel like the train wreck that just happened. The front future cars derailed, because suffering has crashed our conditioned mindset program. Hope has failed to deliver its promise of happiness. Now only negative, hopeless, depressive thoughts go round in our head. The rear baggage cars crashed into the present moment car that wrecked any consciousness we had. Emotional baggage we hate feeling is strewed everywhere.

We attempt to clear the wreckage, but we are too beat up. We cannot make out any sense of what happened. Time is passing and nothing has helped. We believe a diagnosis we were given, but the medication only worked for a awhile and we hated the side effects. We tried breathing and exercise, but that was very hard to do. We sometimes think about ending it all.

Help has finally arrived to clear the train wreck. Feeling desperate, realizing we have nothing to lose, we decided to try alternative holistic healings we heard about. The active meditations we have tried are helping us feel alive again. There seems to be very much to learn. We are starting to understand that the present moment of now is the only reality. We are releasing our old repressed emotional baggage and learning to take responsibility for how we feel. We again feel happy. Healing is finally happening! Yay!!!

I teach awakening. I awoke from a deep depression on the verge of suicide, 43 years ago, when I was 30. I know that depression can be a transition period; a time of transformation from a programmed conditioned life to an evolved, awakened consciousness.

Healing depression requires becoming open to awakening. Awakening is the process of witnessing inside us, realizing we have been hypnotized to believe myriads of lies. The work of transformation can be confusing and sometimes disorienting at first, but after suffering the deadness of depression, discomforts of a rebirth are welcomed. Specially designed meditations do healing wonders, but beware that medications inhibit change.

I teach awakening. Awakening is becoming aware of who you really are, by letting go of who you are not; it is about bringing to light, presence, joy, love, and creativity. Awakening usually begins with a crisis, when our conditioned program crashes. Otherwise we rarely change. Crisis is an opportunity to open our mind, because it is as shocking as realizing any truth. Visit my web site at 2b-One.com

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arthur saftlas

I am counselor, more a Zen master than a psychotherapist. I can assist you in awakening. Visit my web site 2b-One.com Thx, I know it is ancient.