Tools For Depression & Anxiety (Part 1)

A dharma lecture on depression and anxiety. This lecture includes some tools and ways to be mindful of your mindstates and unhook from negative thinking. Some of the tools are specifically for Buddhist meditators but most can apply to secular people as well.

Transcript

This first part today is going to be working with the mind,

And the second part is going to be with emptiness.

And both parts are going to identify the root cause of depression and anxiety.

What's the root cause?

It's believing a thought.

Believing any thought,

Says Byron Katie,

Would say,

All the stress in our life comes from believing a thought.

So we're looking at the root cause today of working with unblending from the mind,

And tomorrow we'll look at emptiness as a supreme practice for ending depression,

Anxiety,

Any tension in the body and mind.

So this is not a light practice,

This is big,

This is deep.

We're talking about ending the suffering,

Which is what the Buddha talked about.

So today we're going to look in this module at tools to unhook from thoughts,

Ways to go to the body,

And ways to return to our essence.

So a couple ways to unhook from mind.

First part is labeling thoughts.

I mean,

It's really great if a past and tradition stresses labeling.

Oh,

This is anxiety,

This is pain,

This is sleepiness,

Right?

We're labeling constantly,

And there's actually research that was done a number of years ago.

I think it was out of the UCLA.

I have this study somewhere if you want it showing that when they did MRIs with people that labeled thoughts,

It moved the anxiety,

Depression,

Fear from the brain stem,

Which is your fight or flight brain,

Your lizard,

Reptilian,

Trauma brain,

The labeling moved it to the prefrontal cortex.

So it moved it to a whole different part of the brain where you could work with it.

You weren't caught and lost in a trauma state.

So labeling is amazing in that it really moves it to a different part of the brain.

It really works.

So we're lucky that we're practicing in a tradition that encourages labeling.

And the minute you label it,

It shifts it.

And they showed in the study it couldn't just be any label.

You couldn't just say,

Like,

You know,

Cedar tree for anxiety.

You had to really kind of be close to what it was,

Like,

Oh,

This is fear.

Oh,

This is depression.

So labeling thoughts is super important for moving it to a different part of the brain.

When I was growing up,

My aunt,

My family has a lot of history of depression and anxiety.

My aunt was,

She'd walk around the house and she would go,

Nervous and depressed,

Nervous and depressed.

And she would say it,

Like,

A lot during the day.

We'd all make fun of her.

But it really helped her get out of that mind in what I call unblend,

Unblend.

Because,

You know,

One of the big things with our mind states and believing thoughts is we get really velcroed to them.

We get stuck like fly paper on them.

So labeling helps,

You know,

Like someone mentioned last night,

The inner critic,

And you can label that.

Oh,

There's that inner critic.

You're immediately out of it.

You're not lost in it the minute you label it.

John Somato used to say it's like getting out of turbulent water and getting up on the bridge and going,

Oh,

Inner critic,

Down there.

You're out of it for a second.

Even if you jump back in the water under the bridge the next minute,

You had a moment of being up on the bridge.

So labeling is really an important tool for starting that path of not believing any thoughts.

I think it's particularly important because our brains,

These entity minds we've been talking about are like a TV station,

Not with our favorite channels,

Going 24-7.

So it really helps you get away from the TV set,

Not take it personally.

A huge thing of believing thoughts is we start to take them personally,

To get away from the TV set,

To walk away.

And our devices are getting really smart.

They've developed these algorithms now to know when you're clicking on things and then they give you more of the same.

Well,

Your brain does that too.

And if you really start going to depressed or anxious thought,

Your brain gets smart and it starts to give you the algorithm more of depression and anxiety thoughts.

Maybe you guys have noticed that.

It does more of it and more of it.

So it's really important to do things to get out of the algorithm,

Which is labeling.

My teacher,

Ajay Shanti,

He was joking when he realized that there was this algorithm happening with his clicks on Facebook and stuff.

He just started clicking everything.

He's like,

Oh,

If they're tracking the news stories,

I'm going to click on every news story.

Play with it.

Have fun with messing up your brain's patterning and algorithm towards depression and anxiety.

Do other things.

Take the hat off.

So one way to work with unblending labeling is this handout,

Twisted thinking.

And I'm not going to go over everyone,

But it really helps us label the classic thought patterns.

And number one is all or nothing thinking,

Black and white thinking.

Like,

You know,

This it's either this way or that way.

This person is either good or they're bad.

The second one,

Over generalization.

I'm always failing.

I can never do it right.

Really great to watch when we're generalizing and almost always when we're in always and never.

We're in a really young part of ourselves.

And it's really good if you're in a relationship to realize that when your partner goes,

You always do.

They're generally like about five years old when they're saying that you never listen to me.

And it's just good when you hear that in your brain and someone else to realize they're in this thinking belief pattern,

Which often is a very young part of ourselves.

Number five,

Jumping to conclusions.

I like the mind reading.

We think that we can mind read for others.

And I really saw a funny example of this.

Like I swim with ocean creatures and dolphins,

And it's really fun to see what people say,

Like the dolphins love me and the dolphins don't like me.

And it's like,

No,

The dolphins really aren't thinking anything about you.

One day I was thinking that the dolphins were going in the opposite direction.

One took a big poop in front of me and I was like,

Oh,

They don't like me.

And I'm like,

No,

The dolphins don't judge you.

That's you.

Catastrophic thinking.

That's a really good one.

I often will make that mental label.

This is catastrophic.

Oh,

My God,

The worst case scenario is going to happen and this retreat is going to be a total bomb.

And you just watch and label catastrophic thinking.

Emotional reasoning.

I feel like a failure.

Therefore,

I am a failure.

You know that we make our feelings true.

And the other ones are kind of,

You know,

Other things,

Just more general ways of looking at mind,

The last one kind of way we link things together,

That depressed and anxious mind is always trying to link things together that really aren't linked.

And just to notice that.

So this handout is just if you want to remember to unhook from mind to use these some of these categories to be able to label your mind,

Which is unblending.

Unblending,

Unblending,

Unblending.

You know,

Most people don't even have the luxury if they're not meditators to even realize they're blended with emotions.

We're entering an era where people believe their emotions are facts.

Feelings are not facts.

And so we as meditators,

And especially those of us who have struggled with depression and anxiety,

Know we can't go to our thoughts as facts.

We don't have the luxury of believing our thoughts,

But a lot of people do and,

You know,

We're going to be the people that go,

No,

This is,

This is just believing a thought.

Okay,

Another way to unblend with mind is to look at whose business you're in when you're anxious,

Especially.

Byron Katie,

There's three kinds of business,

Yours,

Other people's and life's business or God's business.

When you're in a stressful thought,

Ask yourself whose business and I am I in two thirds of it is not yours.

Something you can do something about do it otherwise you're in somebody else's business so two thirds of probably what we think about is life's business or someone else's business that'll eliminate a lot of anxiety right there.

I talked about last night,

Getting our degree from making shit up University MSU.

Just notice when you're creating a story.

And again,

Byron Katie really says a wonderful phrase to ask yourself,

Can I absolutely know this is true.

And if you can't answer yes to this thought is absolutely true,

Then take the entity hat off,

Let it go.

It's not worth thinking.

It's not worth solving.

We solve a lot of things that we don't even need to solve or we need to just say I can't know that's true.

Take the head off.

Do I need to even look at this?

No.

Two areas in our day that it's really important to watch where MSU making shit up comes in is the middle of the night.

You don't ever want to believe anything that occurs at 3am.

I woke up at 3am.

I'm like,

Oh,

3am mind.

And I've got a moratorium on anything after dark.

And I'm like,

Look,

If this thought is still a problem in the light of day tomorrow,

Then we'll entertain it.

But that eliminates a lot.

A lot of our worst anxiety and depression really does come somewhere between like 11 o'clock at night and five in the morning.

Another area where a lot of making stuff up comes along is in 12 step they talk about we're really in danger of using our addiction when we're hungry,

Angry,

Lonely,

Tired,

HALT.

The acronym HALT.

So if you're hungry,

Angry,

Lonely,

Tired,

When you're really obsessing,

Anxious,

Depression,

You need to eat something.

Do you need to sleep?

Do you need to reach out to someone?

Are you lonely?

Are you tired?

I've added another one called pain.

When we're in pain,

We get really distorted thinking.

So,

You know,

Even if there's something to do to ease the pain.

A really good example of this that a therapist gave me is,

You know,

Our mind lies all the time.

If you can realize your mind's always lying,

It says I can't stand another minute of it.

And then it does.

And even like right now,

Take your right hand and move your right hand back and forth.

OK,

Now say I cannot move my hand back and forth.

I cannot move my hand back and forth.

How much does the mind really control your body?

OK,

Right there.

You can move your hand back and forth while saying I cannot do it.

OK,

Another way to unhook from the mind.

Ditch perfectionism.

Get rid of it.

Really,

I think since,

You know,

With social media,

Perfectionism really has taken a whole notch up.

I mean,

You can't leave the house without worrying about who's going to take a picture and post it on Facebook.

And your hair is looking funny.

I think we have to be overly self-conscious because everything is out there.

So the perfectionism is on display.

We're addicted to perfectionism.

So a couple antidotes to that are really,

Especially if you tend towards anxiety,

To really just say,

Is anyone going to die from this?

I always I joke about this is not 911.

I mean,

I'm in the social work profession.

A lot of what I do is really intense stuff.

But I always have to say,

Is this is anyone going to die here?

No.

We treat our life like we're in the E.

R.

All the time.

We are not in the E.

R.

You also can ask yourself this perspective question.

How much is this going to matter five years from now?

How much is it going to matter a month from now?

It's a good way of going,

Oh,

Yeah,

Right.

I was joking with a friend the other day that really it all works out and all of us could have on our tombstone.

It all worked out.

It all worked out for Abby or Angela or Steve.

It all works out.

Kathy and I were discussing yesterday how one thing that really helped us with depression and healing it,

If you tend towards depression,

Is to realize that depression is reverse narcissism.

And both of us as therapists are like,

Oh,

Narcissism.

No.

So,

You know,

You would never think of wanting to say,

God,

I'm the best person in the world.

I'm so great.

You know,

Not like consistently.

Right.

And announcing it to everyone all day long.

Well,

The opposite.

Why say that you're bad?

Why say that you're a terrible person?

You just as you wouldn't want to be a narcissistic,

Arrogant person.

Don't do the opposite.

Take that credit card off that says you're terrible.

Still creating an illusion of self.

And lastly,

With working with ditching perfectionism.

It's just be good enough.

The family therapist Winnicott really came forward this wonderful concept of the good enough mother.

Your parents really try to be perfect and great parents,

Not like their parents.

Right.

You just need to be a good enough wife,

A good enough husband,

A good enough student,

A good enough mom.

You don't need to be perfect.

And I even say just be a good enough human.

We're all good enough humans.

None of us is in jail.

None of us is actively using in this minute.

So we're good enough.

We're not hurting anybody right now.

Can you be good enough?

And a nice exercise I like to do with this is just take a minute.

And if I told you this is it,

This is all you get of you.

There's not going to be a competition for a better you.

You know,

An Amida 2.

0.

This is 1.

0 Amida.

This is all you're going to get.

No 3.

0.

Could you live with that version of you Mark 1.

0?

There's not going to be any improvements.

And really if you drop down in the body,

You probably see it's okay.

It's not perfect,

But this is okay.

If this is all I got the rest of my life,

I could live with it.

Hopefully you can feel a little bit of that right now.

There's nothing so unacceptable about you that if this was it,

You couldn't go on.

So just mark this moment.

You're okay.

You don't need to do a lot more.

If you do,

Great.

It's extra credit.

You're a good enough human right here right now.

So any other stories,

Again,

Take the entity hat off.

Don't need to wear those stressful flocks.

Okay,

Another way of moving out of the mind.

It's the life,

Not your life.

And the more you can get that,

The more peace you'll get.

In Hawaii,

They actually have a word and they use it frequently.

They don't talk about my life.

They don't even talk about how am I doing.

It's how are we doing.

So there's a word in Hawaii,

It's called keola.

K-E-O-L-A.

It means the life.

When they talk about my life,

It's the life.

Anxiety is always trying to control life.

Every time we're anxious is because we're trying to control the life.

And as Byron Katie would say,

Hopeless.

Hopeless.

Won't control life.

Fear,

Fear needs a future.

Every time we're in fear,

Guaranteed you look,

You're in the future.

Trying to control life in the future.

Not even in the here and now.

Mark Twain says some of the worst things in my life never happen.

Really,

Not to berate yourself about this,

This is what the mind does.

It's trying to control life so it creates anxiety.

We really have to unhook,

Take the entity head off and remember your thoughts don't really do much to keep you safe.

One of my friends had a lot of anxiety about flying and as many people do,

He was on the plane once and just worry,

Worry,

Worry,

Worry.

And all of a sudden this little voice,

It was actually a deep voice,

Came to him and said,

You know,

Your worry thoughts are not keeping the plane aloft.

And he was like,

Oh,

My worry doesn't keep the plane in the air.

And when he really got it on a bodily level,

He's never been anxious on a plane again.

Your worry doesn't keep you safe.

It's all the ways we get involved in the life,

Thinking it's our life.

We're trying to manipulate my life situation.

So if you can unhook,

Trying to make your life situation perfect and controlled and just relax back into the life,

Huge amount of thoughts will disappear.

Again,

You're out of life's business,

Right?

One of those three kinds of business.

And then you can just relax and enjoy the ride.

My teacher,

John Martin,

Who I've been working with,

He has this thing called,

You know,

Passenger consciousness.

You're just a passenger in this bubble of you moving through space.

You can enjoy the ride of the life rather than trying to always have your control,

Your hands on the controls of this imaginary dashboard where nothing you do is happening.

Not much,

At least.

It's really the way we create stories about our life.

And there's this little teaching story about a meditation student who goes to his teacher and he says,

Gosh,

Life is so hard.

And the teacher looks at him and says,

Compared to what?

So we tell this story about what our life situation should be versus just living the whole life.

It's not hard.

It's not easy.

It's just the life.

And we talked about this,

The last piece in working with unwinding the mind is taking the entity hat off.

And this is deep practice and you can do this probably till the day you die.

But any thought,

Like I said,

Believing the thought is the source of all stress.

And not to make anything wrong with when you believe a thought,

But just notice,

My teacher says anything after I think,

No.

I believe,

No.

What the mind thinks it wants,

No.

Everything I think has to go.

Everything I think I think has to go.

It doesn't leave much.

Adyashanti says,

All thinking is trying to gain control over our world.

There is no such thing as a true thought.

And there is no truth to be found in the mind.

This is really important.

We get this when we really get that we won't be going over and over thoughts.

There is no truth to be found in the mind.

Keep going until all beliefs are gone.

That's what this practice is.

If you want a warrior path,

If you want warrior,

Okay,

Yes,

Somebody's nodding.

Keep going until all beliefs are gone.

Not just depression,

Anxiety,

All of them.

I'm taking that vow if you want to join me.

Let's do it together.

The world could use more people with all beliefs gone.

And we'll get into it in a minute.

Where does that leave you?

The mind is an addiction.

And like they say in 12-step with the guiding addictions,

One is too many and a thousand isn't enough.

One drink is too many and a thousand isn't enough.

For me,

It's like cookies.

One is too many and a thousand.

Because it leads to a thousand for me.

Same with belief of thought.

There's no truth to be found in mind,

So any belief.

One is too many.

Your mind is on crack cocaine.

Treat it like that.

Treat it like someone on crack cocaine.

And then you look,

What's beneath it all?

What's beneath it all?

Beneath it all is a life force.

A life force that's free of thought and belief.

And I'm not there yet,

But a lot of it's gone.

And as Kathy and I were talking the other day,

It's like it gets quieter and quieter because you're just in the life force.

It's not just free of depression and anxiety,

It's free of thought.

And our depression and anxiety have been perfect teachers to let go of all beliefs.

Your spirit,

Your body have been enslaved by this crack cocaine mind.

Over and over and over again.

This is what the true freedom on retreat is.

So the last thing,

I'm very passionate about this,

You can tell.

The last thing I'll say is,

What's really beautiful is,

You know that sword you've been using to cut yourself?

We do emotional cutting with ourselves.

Their anxiety or depression,

It doesn't matter,

We use the sword against ourselves,

Haven't we?

Well,

Take that sword now and turn it outward.

You're a warrior,

Be willing to cut away all illusion.

Anything that's not true.

Which isn't anything that's a thought,

Not true.

Be someone who cuts away all delusion.

Take that sword you were using on you and wield it out there.

Someone who's just life force.

And wield it out there and tell,

Like I said,

Everything is gone.

So it's beautiful,

We've been holding the sword,

Don't use it on you.

I mean,

You know,

Take the entity hat off,

Use it towards the freeing of the world and yourself.

Any belief,

Any delusion.

Until it's gone.

It's a big undertaking.

Are you willing?

You got the sword.

And you know,

Whatever you do is fine.

I love all you guys no matter what.

Not everyone's called towards freedom.

And if you're not,

That's fine.

So backing up,

We've got these tools to work with the mind.

I'm blending with mine.

Labeling thoughts,

Whose business am I in,

Making shtuk university,

Ditching perfectionism,

The life versus my life.

Taking the entity hat off,

Using your sword to cut away all beliefs.

Okay,

Last two parts.

So what's left?

The body is left.

Our loyal bodies,

We have such loyal bodies that are always here.

So the reason why we do that meditation in the beginning where the breathing,

You know,

The body anchor.

Bodies are so reliable.

The Buddha called them slow moving.

Although they're not actually when they make a decision,

They're quicker than mind.

But really,

The key is to get and anchor yourself in the body below the neck.

That's why we watch the breathing in the belly if possible.

Neck down,

Our heads are like machines running 24 seven,

Get below the neck,

Drop down.

If you can go to your gut,

I had one person that was working with,

They talked about it,

Actually a native First Nations person.

He said to zero out in the belly.

And we'll talk more about that in day two,

That emptiness principle.

But no matter how much anxiety or depression you have going on,

You can zero out.

If you drop into your gut,

You can,

It's zero there.

Like I said,

We'll talk more about that.

The other piece with the body is go to a neutral object in the body.

Your hair on your head is not depressed or anxious.

Your fingernails.

There's no anxiety in those,

The bottoms of your feet.

There's lots of neutral objects you can go to even when you're overwhelmed that do not have an anxiety or depression in them.

Palms of your hands.

So when you get caught up in a thought,

When you got the entity hat on,

Come back to,

Come to your senses,

They call it,

Come to your senses,

Come to a body sensation.

Wake up,

Come to your senses,

Go to the body.

Body doesn't lie.

Part of coming to the body that trauma therapists have discovered is to stretch and breathe and touch.

So we're going to talk a bit about that and it relates to the second handout that you have,

This profile map,

Which actually it should say polyvagal ladder at the top.

But polyvagal is basically our parasympathetic nervous system has what's called a polyvagal ladder.

So this ladder on the left side of your handout,

It's really important.

Our nervous systems work this way.

So when we're triggered,

We're at the bottom of the ladder,

It says immobilized,

Collapsed,

And you can see the lovely statements here,

I'm unlovable,

I'm invisible,

I'm lost and alone,

The world is cold,

Empty,

Uninhabitable.

The bottom of the polyvagal ladder is not a good place to be,

But we get there.

It's really when we're most collapsed,

We're most in a really young part that's often a trauma part.

Then the middle of the ladder,

It's not collapsed,

It's not frozen,

But it's in a fight or flight,

Which is still a trauma state that's in your brain stem.

So it's mobilized,

But it's fight or flight,

I'm crazy,

Toxic,

The world's unfriendly,

Scary,

Exploding.

So things are not safe,

Even at that realm of the ladder,

It's got a little more movement.

But then we go up to the top of the ladder,

Where it's called safe and social,

We've got mobility,

We've got regulation,

I am okay,

The world's welcoming,

Filled with opportunity.

And of course,

Being a ladder,

You're going to be in different places on this,

But I like this ladder to just go,

Oh God,

Where am I?

And do I need to climb up some rungs here?

And my friend who's a therapist,

She's really cute,

Sometimes she'll come into my office and she'll sit down in a chair in my office and go,

I'm at the bottom of my polyvagal ladder.

And we'll just joke like,

Oh,

Yeah,

That's a hard place to be.

How can we get you up a couple rungs?

So the way to move up,

First,

The ladder allows you to label again,

Just go,

Oh,

I'm at the bottom.

Now I'm in the middle,

Now I'm at the top.

And again,

We're in this labeling,

So we're not blending with these states and believing them.

So the first is labeling,

Using this ladder to label when we're shut down or triggered.

So ways to get out of your polyvagal ladder state is to breathe,

Stretch,

Touch.

The woman who crited this ladder,

Those are the three things to do.

We hold our breath.

So it's great.

Again,

In this tradition,

We've got labeling,

We've got breathing.

It's really great.

Breathe.

Most of our childhood,

We hold our breath.

I held my breath my whole childhood,

I think.

I don't think I hardly ever breathed.

When I first saw a bodyworker,

She's like,

Amita,

You don't breathe.

I'm like,

How is that possible?

But you know,

We're just bracing,

You know,

Especially in cold climates,

There's a tension with the cold,

You really need to work on making sure you breathe.

Stretch.

When animals stretch,

You notice how relaxed it is when they stretch.

So make sure you stretch.

That's why yoga is such a good tool.

Stretching.

The last is touching.

We're mammals,

So we co-regulate,

We develop what's called coherency.

That's part of the vagal ladder at the top.

We're coherent at the top.

It's touching,

And we're not going to be touching animals or humans here,

Which is really great to do when you're in the world.

But we can touch the earth,

And the earth is a huge regulating factor.

In fact,

They've shown if you can walk on the earth in your bare feet,

It totally reregulates your system.

It develops coherency.

So use nature here as our regulating force for yourself.

And it's great when you look at nature and how nice we've got the sun coming out.

There's no depression or anxiety in nature.

You know,

One tree doesn't look at another and go,

Why are you so tall and I'm not?

At least you don't think so.

A cat doesn't,

You know,

Shame itself from not being more like a dog.

So nature really is clean.

It's clean of the entity mind.

So it's really great to go out in nature,

Touch nature,

Look at it,

Feel it.

It's clean of this entity mind.

One thing about being in nature,

When you do go out and there's something that's yummy like the sun or feeling of the trees,

Spread it around your brain.

This is what these people that work with trauma,

They say you can spread it around your brain.

You're eating something yummy at lunch.

Spread it around your brain.

It really helps.

Let's come back to our natural state,

Which is regulated.

Okay,

Last thing and then we'll be done.

If you're not believing your thoughts and you're coming to your body and you're also coming to your essence,

Your essence,

Your face before you were born,

The you that's never been anxious or depressed,

The you that's never been touched by trauma,

The you that is just you,

It's below all the thoughts,

Valuations.

There's a you that's always fine even when other parts of you are not.

And like I said in the meditation this morning,

There's a still quiet presence that's always here.

It's life force energy here now.

It's not complicated.

You don't need to believe it.

Life force energy here now.

Your primordial stillness.

Your naturalness.

Sound of the bell.

The breath.

The body.

That's it.

There's nothing to solve here.

You don't need to fix anything when you go to your essence.

You don't need a figured out part.

This is just you.

Just you.

And this is a shortcut.

There's no beliefs here.

Nothing to fix.

Just you.

Your naturalness.

Your primordial nature.

Reviews

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻♾️♾️♾️

Absolutely 💯 wonderful. Thank you.Gbless your heart. 🙏👑👼🏻💖

Thank you so much for these helpful actionable tools and techniques!

Saved me from looping on into negative thought chaos today. Feels like I was lifted up to reality from spinning spirals of fear. Grateful. Thank you.

Holy shit, now this is insight!

Incredible!

This really helped me get a foothold into
Understanding depressive thinking and given me some tools to work with to decrease them . I really needed this today .
Thank you 🙏

Wonderful! Thank you!