How Do I Feel Stronger Positive Emotions?

[Ether]

Hello. Im doing a depression recovery and its going quite smooth. Sometimes its slow but thats just how life is. I did a lot of progress such as standing up for myself, having friends, beating social anxiety but the one thing that seems to be lacking in my life is happiness or pleasure or joy.

Recently, after the reduction of the pills (anti depressants) i have felt more pleasant energies but it isnt quite an emotion. It is not strong enough to be an emotion. Do you have any advice on how to have strong pleasurable emotions?

 

 

[Ether]

@Shanmugam@Shin

[cetus]

35 minutes ago, Ether said:

Do you have any advice on how to have strong pleasurable emotions?

@Ether What does it for me is realizing what I really am is the universe experiencing itself. Not separate from it but as part of an undivided whole. Look at everything around you. Look at the stars in the night sky. That is you! 

[Faceless]

1 hour ago, Ether said:

Do you have any advice on how to have strong pleasurable emotions?

Your seeking pleasure. When one seeks pleasure they may not be aware of this but they are also seeking pain and suffering as a result. 

To seek in any way to attain a sense of psychological security only invites psychological insecurity. Can’t have one without the other. These are inseparable. Actually one and the same. First of all there’s the fear that one might not attain which casues prepetual conflict. Then there is the fear that once this pleasurable experience is captured we grasp on and cling to it. And when that pleasure experience fades we feel we are left with its opposite of pain, sorrow, and suffering. Then we chase that pleasure through the movement of thinking which creates an obsession that casues anxiety, depression, anger, and further pain and suffering. We are always fighting to keep pleasurable experiences going to self sooth the psyche which is impossible. We are always striving for pleasure and always fear the inevitable opposite side of the coin. 

To seek or to invite ‘psychological time’ as means to maintain psychological order only brings conflict, contradiction, and frustration. 

Seeing this fact can be an opening for intelligence to act as an insight that can pave the way for complete and total action away from the prepetual movement of seeking either or and just simply allowing what is to be. Not grasping, reaching, striving, but simply content that there is nothing wrong with feeling not so incontent, except letting the measure of these two determine your state of being. 

I know it sounds easyier said than done but it’s correct. Anyway you will get there buddy.

My advice of this is simply, just to live and stop trying to find a reason to. 

Don’t fight against the flow of the river go with it.?

Edited March 25, 2018 by Faceless

[Ether]

@Faceless Its fun to say that when you dont have depression but when you have it, every, fucking, day, you can also get tired of this shit.

[Nahm]

@Ether In hopes of reaching you where you’re at....what are you looking forward to? Make list. Simple things, maybe traveling, more personal growth, starting a new practice, cutting something out of the diet, adding something in, developing deeper relationships with new friends, getting in better shape, spending time on a hobby, etc. 

Congrats on where you’re at, and getting through where you were. I know that place and it’s not an easy thing. Looking forward to things give a feeling of hopefulness. Once you’re feeling better (hopeful), pursue some deeper spirituality. 

[Faceless]

4 minutes ago, Ether said:

@Faceless Its fun to say that when you dont have depression but when you have it, every, fucking, day, you can also get tired of this shit.

I feel ya. 

Ive been through it all. Psychological abuse/physical abuse. Depression/anxiety. Multiple compulsive selfs/thoughts in contradiction to one another. 

You be aight?

[Ether]

7 minutes ago, Faceless said:

I feel ya. 

Ive been through it all. Psychological abuse/physical abuse. Depression/anxiety. Multiple compulsive selfs/thoughts in contradiction to one another. 

You be aight?

wish i could trust that but i havent been hurt so many times, i dont even know anymore

9 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@Ether In hopes of reaching you where you’re at....what are you looking forward to? Make list. Simple things, maybe traveling, more personal growth, starting a new practice, cutting something out of the diet, adding something in, developing deeper relationships with new friends, getting in better shape, spending time on a hobby, etc. 

Congrats on where you’re at, and getting through where you were. I know that place and it’s not an easy thing. Looking forward to things give a feeling of hopefulness. Once you’re feeling better (hopeful), pursue some deeper spirituality. 

i realize that if i just did these things, just to do them without expecting happiness from it and i didnt get happiness, what would be the point?

So, i just do things for my pleasure but nothing, most the time works. Sometimes it does doe, sometimes it does...

[Faceless]

If you got a front row seat to this conflict/suffering. Don’t evade, learn about it. Don’t have the goal of escaping. Use it as a first person perspective to learn about the self/thought. This pain provides the energy to explore with passion. 

Much more efficient way to learn than the usual second hand learning through books and quotes. Use the experience of pain and suffering as an advantage. 

Go into the fact that You suffer and watch it. To escape the suffering is procrastination of facing it. Learn now by facing it without a goal to resolve it. Let it flower by letting it take its course. Let If go in what ever direction it wants to. But be aware of the directions and understand those very movements. 

Like a scientist observing wild life. Don’t interfere but observe without imposition of will. 

Might seem difficult now. But keep this in mind and when you are tired of being influenced by thought give it a try. 

If I can do it anyone can. I’m not special by any means. This forums ability to help you is very limited. This is a solo type of exploration?

Edited March 25, 2018 by Faceless

[Faceless]

And remeber pursuing has its own opposite of not arriving. That alone causes anxiety and depression. 

[Nahm]

@Ether What @Faceless said is solid advice.  Awareness is curative. 

What are your practices like, if any? (Meditation, healthy eating, yoga, exercise, nature walks, reading, learning, etc)

[Viking]

exercise
deeper relationships

gratitude practice - that is so fucking easy, yet because its so easy people dont do it. daily gratitude routine will elevate your life to extraordinary levels. when you focus on negative, you think your life is bad, while its not true at all. if you focus on positive just by allocating a few minutes in the morning you will notice your life is actually extremely good. thats the number one thing that gives happiness besides enlightenment i guess. read the book https://www.amazon.com/Gratitude-Revolution-Inspired-World-Around-ebook/dp/B0716BRYT1 it's 3$ for the kindle version. a short book that makes you realize how important gratitude is and how to implement it.

[SgtPepper]

Faceless is right.

as other as mentioned, practices such as gratitude, exercise, building deeper relationships with oneself and others will help you recognize things about yourself.

Take this as you will, but I think the reason you're not feeling emotions strongly is because your blocking yourself from feeling them. In my experience, people with depression have one thing in the common and that is that they live strongly in the past. Their whole sense of self is strongly rooted from the past and especially in those painful memories. These painful moments teach us to not be vulnerable, resistant, and build walls. These mental walls are what directly able attribute to not being able to feel. In addition to thinking too much or retrieving one sense of self from the past which means one is not living in the body and is instead of head

The path to feeling is through the present moment and body with no walls; however this means being vulnerable, but thats what living life is about.

Maybe I'm generalizing my experience, so take my comment as a suggestion, I am not fully aware of your situation. I am more experienced with anxiety than depression in my life, but I have experienced symptoms of depression and suicidal thoughts before. When I am living in a state of peace it is because I Am present and not holding on to any sense of self. 

[Guest Quanty]

Cacao seeds is the fastest answer. Start with 12 pieces. 

 

Namaste, Mfks!

[Joseph Maynor]

Enlightenment is not about experiencing stronger positive emotions.  Enlightenment is about accepting reality no matter what form it takes.  When you become Enlightened you’re not going to be worried about manipulating emotions so much.  You’re gonna be at peace with whatever reality projects on the screen.  Don’t focus so much on chasing positive emotions, that’s Egoic.  Just focus on resting as Awareness.  Stop identifying with the changing Dream.  You are the unchanging Awareness of the changing Dream.  It’s your identification with Ego that is your deeper problem.  Chasing positive emotions is like trying to self medicate with drugs.  You’re gonna set yourself up to do some nasty tail-chasing.  And you’re never gonna succeed because you can’t control reality.  Control is an Egoic illusion.  Acceptance and detachment is what you want.   Those negative emotions are not ‘yours’.  See?  Your problem is deeper than you think.  It’s a belief problem not a psychological problem.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Prabhaker]

19 hours ago, Ether said:

Do you have any advice on how to have strong pleasurable emotions?

First thing in the morning, imagine yourself tremendously happy. Get out of bed in a very happy mood – radiant, bubbling, expectant – as if something perfect, of infinite value, is going to happen today. Get out of the bed in a very positive and hopeful mood, with the feeling that this day is not going to be an ordinary day – that something exceptional, extraordinary, is waiting for you; something is very close by. Try and remember it again and again for the whole day. Within seven days you will see that your whole pattern, your whole style, your whole vibration, has changed.

When you go to sleep in the night, just imagine that you are falling into divine hands...as if existence is supporting you, that you are in its lap, falling asleep. Just visualize it and fall asleep. The one thing to carry is that you should go on imagining and let sleep come, so that the imagination enters into sleep; they are overlapping.

Don’t imagine any negative thing, because if people who have an imaginative capacity imagine negative things, they start happening. If you think that you are going to get ill, you will get ill. If you think that somebody is going to be rude to you, he will be. Your very imagination will create the situation.

So if a negative idea comes, immediately change it to a positive thought. Say no to it. Drop it immediately; throw it away.

Within a week you will start feeling that you are becoming very happy – for no reason at all. 

Osho, The Passion for the Impossible, Talk #3