Mindfulness and Depression:
A Mindfulness Exercise You Can Try Today

“The important thing is not the neurosis, but the man who has the neurosis. We have to set to work on the human being, and we must be able to do him justice as a human being”- Carl G. Jung¹.

Jung is correct. The most important thing is not the depression, but the person who has depression. Among all the clients I work with, what I can say for certain is that the quality of each person’s inner experience and their life situation is very unique.

Yet…

While treating depression is unique for each person, there are great general practices that can be helpful.

This is where mindfulness and depression practices have their relevance. They address the collective aspects of the human psyche and simultaneously help you uncover and realize your unique, individual potential.

Applying mindfulness to depression isn't simply a technique. Its clinical value is a consequence of the context in which it is presented.

Before applying a mindfulness exercise for depression, guilt, worry, shame or any other depleting emotional state it is critical to acknowledge two central elements of a successful mindfulness practice:

1. A contextualization of the nature of consciousness is essential - presented in a way that works with your personal spiritual orientation.

2. Activating your core values and love for life (however obscured this may seem) is critical. One thing all the psychotherapy clients I work with who are overcoming depression agree about is this:

This article addresses the first central element...

A Key Contextualization
Of The Nature of Consciousness

You'll see how very practical and relevant this is to overcoming depression.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and other psychological applications of mindfulness share two things in common. Each has roots in various wisdom traditions, and each asserts there is a difference between you and your thoughts.

A core aspect of mindfulness is becoming aware of one's sense of self, and our misleading tendency to identify ourselves as our body and/or mind. Numerous spiritual traditions make an essential distinction - we have a body and mind, but we are not the body and mind.

Body

As children we recall poking our arms that fell asleep, perhaps surprised that we didn’t register any sensations. Yet our sense of “me” didn’t change.

A common question highlighting this point is this…

If both legs were amputated, would your awareness of yourself - your inner sense of presence - be disturbed?

While a significant portion of the body may be missing entirely, or may not be registered in the mind, the core sense of ‘I,’ or ‘me’, does not change in the slightest. As Hawkins notes, the sensations of the body are registered and experienced in a larger field of awareness commonly referred to as Mind².

Mind

Any luck?

If you tried this you noticed right away that the mind went on chattering of its own. If you were the mind, you could cease thinking at will.

What's more…

In the context of mindfulness and depression, if you were the mind you could stop all negative, ruminating thinking at any moment.

Like the body, the mind is actually experienced in a still larger field of awareness². And this is where the value of mindfulness practices comes in.

The Witness

Just as the sensations of the body are registered in the mind, the content of the mind is recognized in a larger field of awareness. This greater field is consciousness. As Hawkins notes, the song of a songbird would go unnoticed if not for the silent back drop of the forest³. Similarly, our thoughts would go unnoticed if not for the silent field of human consciousness.

This is point is essential.

Why? Because one of the greatest obstacles to overcoming depression is identifying your sense of self with your thoughts and feelings.

That which we are is far greater than our mind would tell us. If you're constantly swept up in your thoughts and negative feelings, and believe them to be true reflections of what you are, you naturally feel trapped and hopeless.

The common inclination is to attempt to stop, shut down, control, deny and change all these thoughts, assuming this is the way to go about lifting yourself out of depression.

Tenet # 1 of a mindfulness approach to depression is to stop trying to do anything with your thoughts.

More accurately, this voice on the other line is the mind, and the "real you" is that which is aware of its chatter.

Mindfulness practices invite us to make friends with this worried, desperate person on the phone. We need not heed their advice or take what they have to say literally. Instead, we are to compassionately allow this person to be as they are.

As we allow the difficult sensations accompanying negative thoughts to come up and be experienced within, this voice on the other line gradually becomes more sane and reasonable.

In the modern spiritual classic, I Am That, one of the most celebrated sages of India, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, continuously invited visitors to simply watch their minds. As Maharaj suggests, simply watching the mind begins a process in which the nature of the mind and the corresponding emotional states change for the better⁴.

In other words, your task isn't to convince the upset person on the other end of the telephone line to change his ways. Instead, you are to watch and listen to him with as much compassion as you can muster.

The first step in a mindfulness exercise is to have the willingness to allow yourself to feel and experience what comes up once you cease attempting to change or control your thoughts.

Jung's famous quote, "What you resist persists" could not be more apt.

Paradoxically, trying to overly analyze your negative thoughts or change your thinking may be a form of resistance. A mindfulness practice invites you to take your attention away from the specific content of thoughts and ruminations.

Instead you are to bring your awareness to the sensations within your body. As you do this you stop resisting the unconscious pain and fear that may need to be released and undone by experiencing it out.

A very useful metaphor commonly applied to a mindfulness psychotherapy process is to picture your repressed feelings and thoughts as residing in a compressed tank of propane gas. As you allow yourself to feel the sensations in your body that accompany sadness, worry and self-contempt you gradually open the valve of the tank. With time the intensity of difficult inner states diminishes and you no longer feel dominated by the next wave of painful thoughts and feelings.

I like this metaphor, because it is up to you to determine how much to open the valve at any time, and how long to leave it open. The good news is that there is only so much the tank can hold, and with time, it empties.

A final, classic analogy is useful to set the stage for a step-by-step mindfulness and depression practice...

The feelings and sensations in your body, like the thoughts in your mind, are all like the tumultuous waves on the surface of a vastly deep and calm ocean. Our tendency is to personally identify with the tumult of thoughts, feelings and sensations that collectively make up the waves on top of the ocean, forgetting that one mile below is an infinitely peaceful stillness, completely unaffected by the activity on the surface ³.

The bottom of the sea is like the witness, that sane person on the telephone line listening to the desperate beliefs and thoughts of the mind. Naturally, if you identify with this irrational 'person' on the other line as you, you will feel scared. Yet, dis-identifying with the mind and simultaneously allowing it to rant, creates an empowering space to dwell in.

We know that in reality there is no way this desperate person on the other line can actually harm us - much like the bottom of the sea remains absolutely still and calm despite the waves above.

Now that we’ve set the stage, here is a great practice you can try on your own…

Mindfulness Practice:
Moving Through the Waves

The following mindfulness practice helps diminish the intensity of difficult feelings, not by running from them, but by going into them and allowing them to run through you. For less intense emotions, you can apply this practice in ordinary daily activities.

1. When a wave of difficult emotions and thoughts hit you, close your eyes and sit down in a comfortable position where you can be by yourself, undisturbed.

2. Picture yourself as being like the peaceful stillness at the bottom of the ocean, completely unaffected by the storms on the surface.

3. Ignore your thoughts and inner commentary about the emotions, and instead, focus on the feeling in your body.

4. Refrain from labeling this feeling anger, depression, anxiety, sadness, guilt or any other such description, and instead, bring your attention to physical sensations you experience.

5. Because that which you are is safe and still, like the bottom of the sea, silently allow this difficult feeling in your body to come up within. Have the courage to allow the sensations to move through you. Your job is to simply witness the phenomena.

6. You may cry. You may feel a tightness and pain in your chest, or perhaps queasy twists and turns in your stomach. Whatever the sensation, know that it is just that – only a sensation. Stay with it for as long as you feel comfortable. You can handle it.

7. After the storm has passed - and it will - you may feel a little drained. Most likely, you will feel lighter and uplifted. When you’re finished, quietly bring to mind and heart your core value in life and make an inner commitment to seek to fulfill that value.

This practice can seem somewhat difficult to do. This is actually quite impersonal. A natural characteristic of the human ego is to resist all attempts to feel or work through unconscious pain within. That is why willingness and courage are prerequisites to this process. Even engaging in this practice a few moments in a day is very beneficial.

Coming soon - an article on the second central element of a mindfulness and depression practice: how to reactivate your love for life and discover your most meaningful core values.

NEW! Learn how being of service to others lifts you out of depression

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Matt Laughlin, MA

Psychotherapist

303-929-3353

References

1. Jung Carl G. 1966. The Practice of Psychotherapy: Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life. (Collected Works Vol. 16). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

2. Hawkins, David R. 1987. DVD Lecture: Archival Office Series, A-10 Depression. Sedona, AZ: Veritas Publishing.

3. _______. 2002. "Realizing the Root of Consciousness: Meditative and Contemplative Techniques." Lecture 6, June. Sedona, AZ: Veritas Publishing.

4. Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta. 1973. I Am That. Trans. By Maurice Frydman. Durham, NC: The Acorn Press.

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