Depression

One of the curses of humanity, especially civilized humanity, is depression – low spirits. This is the real enemy: negativity, despondency, dejection, sadness, hopelessness, depression. Warriorship is all about fighting – in particular fighting the negativity attacking from without and from within. The warrior trains so that negative events, thoughts, situations – the things that get the average person down – stimulate his spirit to rise and fight. Fighting is all about engagement and letting your energy out, and in a sense depression is an extreme case of not being able to do either of these – an extreme case of self-obsession. There are many ways of averting depression (bringing the spirits up) that don't involve fighting – phone a friend, go into therapy, open a bottle, pop pills whether prescribed or not. However they are all really cases of avoidance – putting the fight off until another day when you may have more energy or be in a better mood, or hoping it'll go away for good. Of course it never does and the next time it rears its ugly head it'll be just that little bit more difficult to cope with if you have this history/habit of avoidance. There is no time like the present, and your daily practice is the realization of this fact. Your daily practice is the courageous confrontation – the battleground - of your negative and positive aspects. Your negative aspects of course are your ego, your conditioning, your reluctance, etc. and your positive aspects are your spirit, your heart, your essence and your destiny, all calling out to you to drop your negativity and start living a meaningful life. The skilled fighter is the one who quickly gains control of the fight by unbalancing the enemy – either pressing them onto the back foot or luring them too much into the front foot or just cramping their style and forcing them to fight a fight they can't win. Negativity does this all the time and if you do your practice in its arena then it'll feel heavy and a bit of a grind and the doing of it will gradually get you down. This sort of practice really achieves very little. Instead try to turn the fight around and operate from your positive side within the arena of positivity – the negative will come to meet you, no fear of that. This is achieved by dwelling and reveling in the present. Depression (and really any negativity) is all about dwelling elsewhere, either the past or the future – for the depressed person there is no present, or not the beautiful unfolding miracle that is the present anyway, there is only their depression. The positive person, when they practice, forget the past, have no concern for the future, and just do the work for the works sake, without the heaviness of expectation or reluctance or over-exertion. So when you practice see it as a celebration and a realization of the unique occasion - what John calls "becoming's bleeding edge." Don't struggle to retrieve good feelings you've had before, or try too hard to look like your teacher, just drop your expectations and do the work and let it strip you naked so that the movements can start teaching you to tremble with the Natural Process. At least when you're like this you'll be inclined to yield to the negative – turn your waist and shrug it off with an understanding smile. Humour is the warrior's greatest weapon. If you are constantly mindful (heartful) of this then you'll avoid hours and hours of practising dullness.