Will Self Help Make You Depressed?

[Mary]

So why is it that people who are around me and don't have any clue what self help is, are doing fine in their lives? They are happy and they are having lots of fun and success.

But me, I'm studying all these books about self help and I even have started meditating, but I'm depressed, anxious and stressed. And I'm not making as much progress in my life.

Is there any reason?

[Elton]

@Mary read the book mastery, great self help book.... you might find the answer there, in short it says that people are always expecting quick fixes and magic pill solutions to a bigger problem and how the media is in some way responsible for this...

[Salaam]

There's a lot of reasons and possibilities. Here's just a couple of them.

The first is you're only focusing on one brief snap-shot of their life and then extending that out to be representative as a constant state. Plus, not accounting for what they might be keeping bottled up and distracting away from in that moment with extroversion. I know women for instance often talk about compartmentalizing their anguish when they have to be "social". Everyone has moments of both abundance and scarcity. You have to restrain yourself from losing sight of one or the other, balancing and keeping both in mind, so you become aware of the transitions, nuance, and inter-relations between them.

Second, we all have stuff to deal with and that stuff we work on can be a shitty environment, especially when we're not all that capable in the beginning. Some people get swallowed up by self-help and don't know how to space out their efforts of diving in and working on things. It becomes their whole life and their whole story and they forget to pull themselves back out from the depths and have fun. We have to balance our efforts towards working on ourselves, with also enjoying ourselves. Balancing that compulsion for solutions, so it doesn't overshadow the other facets of life. That's partly why so many "intelligent" people become depressed, they don't know how to balance that compulsion for answers and gain tensile resilience towards stress. It can all become too much for them and become all they think about, draining them, putting them out of balance.

Balance, balance, balance. You can still be flawed and have fun, but at the same time we can still work on those flaws and harmonize them, so we can have both fun and meaning/substance. 

Success is not one or the other, but the balancing and flourishing of both.

[Joyboy]

32 minutes ago, Mary said:

So why is it that people who are around me and don't have any clue what self help is, are doing fine in their lives? They are happy and they are having lots of fun and success.

But me, I'm studying all these books about self help and I even have started meditating, but I'm depressed, anxious and stressed. And I'm not making as much progress in my life.

Is there any reason?

Stop comparing yourself to others

Focus on what you really want

Apply things you learnt from books to real life

Meditate every single day

Progress is happiness

Then, enjoy your life  

(On the path of self-realization, one day you will ask why people around you don't know that they have greater joys and happiness inside them as you have, I guarantee you it's 1 milion times better than 'doing fine')

ps: nonsense from a random guy wanderer on the path

[Mary]

@7oo13ad you would says so even if all my friends know what they wanna do with their life and that they have all the things I wish I had?

[charlie2dogs]

2 hours ago, Mary said:

So why is it that people who are around me and don't have any clue what self help is, are doing fine in their lives? They are happy and they are having lots of fun and success.

But me, I'm studying all these books about self help and I even have started meditating, but I'm depressed, anxious and stressed. And I'm not making as much progress in my life.

Is there any reason?

Mary you say you are not making as much progress in your life, can you define that clearer, what do you consider progress, what gauge are you using to measure your progress by, is it other people?  Mary on this journey of self realization you cant judge yourself by others around you and what they are doing and accomplishing, because you are not traveling their path.  If you are meditating it should calm you give you peace, and you should feel no stress at all, i think your stress is coming from judging yourself by others and what they are doing.  If you are seeking self help your consciousness may have begun to awaken,  This is a difficult place for you right now i understand it,   Are you allowing the thoughts of these other things to disrupt your meditation, that is what is sounds like, because meditation should be relaxing, calming and peaceful to you, so something is going on in your mind while you are trying to meditate, examine this, understand what is happening to create this stress, and never gauge yourself by others, you are on your own path and if you have begun to seek self realization your life will be much different than theirs.  Be patient with yourself, trust what you are doing, give it some time, the path of the identity will always bring pain, suffering and consequences, it happens in its own good time,  the path you have started will bring you peace, joy, happiness and love, it is worth the journey.  Dont hold expectations of yourself, just do the work and be patient, the source of life within you will get you there. 
 

[Joyboy]

15 hours ago, Mary said:

@7oo13ad you would says so even if all my friends know what they wanna do with their life and that they have all the things I wish I had?

Yes I still. would say so. Instead of envying what others around you accomplish, you would say: good for them!

And there is a good news for you, you can have that too if you really desire.

[FindingPeace]

18 hours ago, Mary said:

They are happy and they are having lots of fun and success.

You can't judge people's lives just on the outside appearance. You don't know what goes on inside their heads. You can't see the stress, the emotional turmoil, the depression. The chronic suffering that they think is 'normal' and so they tollerate it anyway, when they could actually be free from it if they did the inner work. And success is subjective. What is success? Material success, or financial success doesn't equal happy lives. They amount of suffering those successes are causing goes unnoticed to people on the outside. And how stable are these people and their 'success'? What would happen if something changed unexpectedly for them, if something was removed? Would their world collapse?

Happiness and success isn't directly related to achievement. It comes from peace of mind. Peace of mind comes from taking responsibility for your life and being able to handle whatever life throws at you, without judgement. And being ok with it. Peace of mind comes from knowing that nothing can perturb you because you have come to realise what is and what isn't really important in life. This is true personal development and comes from doing inner work, not outer work, which is what most other people are doing.

 

[Mary]

@7oo13ad @charlie2dogs

First of all thanks. I'm going through a critical time in my life right now. My story is very long and hard to explain, so I will not bore you with it. But, in short, I've pretty much lost everything and I have to start from ground zero. I have to discover what I want in my life and what I wanna do with it.

I am adamant on meditating and doing consciousness work. I'm also going to a therapist right now (Mostly because I had a really bad  childhood and I went through things I'm sure none of my friends did. also, I'm still having family problems which I intend to solve with the help of the therapist)

[charlie2dogs]

12 minutes ago, Mary said:

@7oo13ad @charlie2dogs

First of all thanks. I'm going through a critical time in my life right now. My story is very long and hard to explain, so I will not bore you with it. But, in short, I've pretty much lost everything and I have to start from ground zero. I have to discover what I want in my life and what I wanna do with it.

I am adamant on meditating and doing consciousness work. I'm also going to a therapist right now (Mostly because I had a really bad  childhood and I went through things I'm sure none of my friends did. also, I'm still having family problems which I intend to solve with the help of the therapist)

Mary look inside, your master is there, spend time with it,  it will guide you, it will teach you, then you wont see events as problems but rather an opportunity to grow and become stronger, trust it, it will give peace and joy.

 

[Mal]

@Mary Hi Mary,

I'm sorry to hear that you are finding this work difficult at the moment.  This is saddening and my heart goes out to you right now and I hope you find some peace soon. 

On the other hand, I'm very glad that you are continuing to see a therapist to help you resolve these past issues. You are not alone I can assure you, most people could do with working on themselves, but most people don't even entertain that there could be something wrong, never mind attmept to straighten out their past and put it behind them.

The advice I have for you at this point is keep at it, because the rewards really are worth the struggle! 

Also, this work you are doing is by its very nature difficult and is not designed to make us "happy" during the process.  In my case I had to regress and face some very difficult aspects of myself. It is indeed extremely hard work and I applaud you for getting into the nitty gritty where so many people fail to even approach there. 

One of the aspects of this work is understanding and coming to terms with how just unfair life seems.  That some people seem to just waltz around life without half the problems that we seem to have to deal with. Getting into this mindset and dealing with it head on is one of the hardest impasse to deal with. However, once this stage has been dealt with I assure you that things get a lot better, your perception of others, the world, yourself, everything will change if you continue on the path. It IS a path of suffering, but the suffering is not without a purpose. 

Stay strong. 

Warm regards

Mal 

[charlie2dogs]

On 5/4/2016 at 11:19 AM, Mary said:

So why is it that people who are around me and don't have any clue what self help is, are doing fine in their lives? They are happy and they are having lots of fun and success.

But me, I'm studying all these books about self help and I even have started meditating, but I'm depressed, anxious and stressed. And I'm not making as much progress in my life.

Is there any reason?

mary the identity and ego will resist change, it is normal, you cannot worry about what others are doing, you have not seen the consequences they may have created for them, you are depressed because you have your eyes on them instead of the real you.

[IronFox]

I've been described as a happy person lots of times. And I am, at social gatherings, and other stuff. My ex girlfriend always thought of me as an incredible person.

I feel like i've been becoming a better version of myself with time, yes. But deep inside still now I have social anxiety at lot of situations. I have lots of insecurities, while I know at a concious level they aren't true, my subconcious keeps letting me down. I have a lot of fears. I have been depressed, i have some days that when I go out, I can't wait to come back home, to escape, etc.

And you know, I know that 95% of the people that know me can't even imagine I go through all this. 

Maybe lots of them would picture me as happy. Confident. As you probably picture most of them. 

The only person you should compare to is the one you were yesterday. Everyone wants to show their best to others.



 

Edited May 15, 2016 by IronFox