Feeling the Low Mood Blues
I used to think the understanding of the Principles was supposed to stop me from being in a low mood. I thought that if I could just get enough understanding low moods would never strike again. And when I experienced a low mood, I thought this meant I didn’t know enough, and I felt pressure to see more so that I could end my suffering.
It didn’t occur to me that wanting to see more actually causes suffering.
Now I am feeling low. Life feels hard. My usual zest is not there. There isn’t anything difficult going on. There is no reason for life to feel difficult. That is the randomness of a low mood. It comes. It sets in. And before you know it you are singing the blues.
But now even in my low mood state, I can see the wisdom in not trying to change anything. I do feel the tugs to follow certain thoughts. The ones about me not being good enough and less than. The ones that tell me I am a failure and hopeless. The ones that tell me I am a fraud and worthless. These thoughts are like small bells tinkling in the background ringing for my attention.
I notice them. I even feel the effect of them in a mild way. But that is it. No drama. No ramping up and escalation. I am not working at not being dramatic. That is the gift of the understanding. At least at this moment, I see it doesn’t make sense to do anything with those bells. It doesn’t occur to me to try and change my feelings. It makes more sense to watch another episode of Call the Midwife and let my heart crack open seeing those beautiful babies.
As I slow down and rest, I am aware of a feeling of pressure to be further ahead than I am. And behind that pressure is a feeling of fear that if I don’t listen to those promptings I won’t do anything. I will stop working and my life will just fall apart. That fear has been with me a long time, and I fought it off in the past with hard work. Doing was my solution.
I decided if I was going to work hard then I may as well do what I love. I am very grateful to have created a life and business doing what I love in a sustainable way, but there is something new occurring to me. A glimmer of insight is emerging through the fog of my thoughts. Recognizing that working hard isn’t a given. In my slowed down state, the fear looks more ludicrous and also more visible. I see where it is still at play. There is definitely more inspiration in my life now, and I do create from that place, but there is also still a certain amount of drivenness at play. This is not a new insight, but one that is going deeper. Invisible thoughts are being revealed to me.
I know I have pushed myself too hard when I get sick, and I know I’ve been doing too much when I want to run away from my life and be on a desert island. Both of those happened recently. I am still on the learning curve of not overdoing it. I definitely course correct sooner, and there is something more for me to see around letting myself relax and doing nothing. I am good at doing what I love now I can get better at loving doing nothing.
I see how I still don’t trust that I don’t have to work hard to be able to survive.
Letting that go feels quite emotional. I see my hesitance to trust the deeper intelligence behind life. To surrender to a higher power. To let go of the fight. Thy will rather than my will. I am used to the struggle. Comfortable with working hard. Can I really let go even more?
Even if life is delicious, I don’t have to gobble it up so fast.
What do you see and experience when you don’t listen to the bells of your insecurity? What opens up for you when you look to the deeper intelligence behind life and see how it is unfolding in your life? Does something fresh and new occur to you? Does pressure lift when you see it is not on you?
What is new for me is seeing more clearly how I have linked my survival to working hard. There is something that rings less true to me about this. There is another layer of letting go that is now visible and possible to me. I respect even more the peacefulness of life and can see to not fill my calendar so full, even with the good things. I am feeling more drawn to simplicity and spaciousness.
There is no rush to get things done. There is just now. This is it. Nothing more is needed. Everything is in this moment. It is complete. No seeking. No searching. No striving. There is no arriving. There is only being and that is infinite — Infinite being. The vastness and incomprehensibility of infinity that had me twist up into knots rather than experience it, looks more like an invitation to relax into the mystery now. It is less of a terrifying chasm of the unknown. I see it was my fear of my infinite nature that had me reaching for the illusion of control through hard work. Nothing like a low mood to have me slow me down, let go, relax and become more appreciative of the experience of life as it is.
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential. She is a transformative coach, leadership consultant, a regular blogger for Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1) available on Amazon. You can get her free ebook Relationships here. Rohini currently has an international coaching and consulting practice based in Los Angeles helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. She is also the founder of The Soul-Centered Series: Psychology, Spirituality, and the Teachings of Sydney Banks. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and watch her Vlogs with her husband. To learn more about her work go to her website, rohiniross.com.
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Christine Heath & Judy Sedgeman – Spirituality and Resilience
Rohini Ross
Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
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Lisa Silvester
19.02.2019 at 20:03What you say here really rings true for me, Rohini 🙂 I have been told recently that my success at University does not influence my wellbeing. I’m struggling a bit with this comment as I feel my ‘worth’ is dependent on my ability to work hard and achieve – I am trying to make peace with the fact I am complete with just me without any add-ons! Thanks again. Lisa
Rohini
25.02.2019 at 17:17Hi Lisa, Thanks for sharing! Yes, you are complete exactly as you are. Love that you are open to experiencing that!
Titia
19.02.2019 at 23:18Thank you for sharing, Rohini. This to me is also (one of) the most important understandings to grasp and the most difficult, I guess. To let go of the control we never actually had. That would be wonderful, but seems so far from daily life experience.
I just read Michael Neill’s Supercoach. What I took from there is to use the feeling of URGENCY as a signal not to do more / faster, but to slow down, however contra-intuitive that may seem. I’ll try to remember and who knows… And if I forget, that’s ok too, isn’t it? Because in a way, everything is always right the way it is. Love to all the hard workers out there, Titia
Rohini
25.02.2019 at 17:21Hi Titia, Appreciate what you are seeing about recognizing feelings of urgency as an indicator about your state of mind. So helpful to see this so as not to be reactive to the experience of urgency. Sounds like you are letting go of the illusion of control and finding peace with what is.