and to have my senses put in order.
~ John Burroughs
Several individuals expressed feeling depressed with all that is going on right now. I mentioned how the uncertainty shifts us into the sympathetic nervous system – fight, flight, or freeze.
Some people are said to look for love in all the wrong places. Trying to find peace or trust or love or joy while the sympathetic nervous system is active is like setting a lobster trap in the Sahara dessert.
The sympathetic nervous system simply can never find peace!
Later that day, another group gathered and the same topic came up! The teacher, Barbara Brodsky, invited us to think about the experience itself.
Can we acknowledge that mental and emotional and energetic experience called depression, without trying to get rid of depression? Who is the one that is watching this experience of depression? And what is the energy field and mind like for the one who is watching depression?
When something is unpleasant, what happens in my mind?
Being truly present you can see depression as an object arising out of conditions — impermanent, not “self.” Without trying to fix it, just really look at what it is. Here’s this strange object called depression. But what is it, and from what does it arise? Where will it go?
~ Barbara Brodsky
The parasympathetic nervous system handles uncertainty very differently. Recognizing the only constant is change, and like a young child, you see everything as an adventure. Each step is an amazing part of the journey.
Watching a panel discussion on Infinite Potential sponsored by the Fetzer Foundation, I was in awe of how much is known about science and spirituality. Everything science can prove, mysticism has always known.
One of the closing comments, this one by Bob Roth, CEO of David Lynch Foundation, is worth holding onto with your head and your heart:
Water puts out fire, if the fire is too large, you need more water. Its not the fault of the water, its how large the fire has grown.
Yes, there is a lot going on right now, and yes, the sympathetic nervous system misses the truth, but each step is an amazing part of the journey of our Infinite Potential…..
