“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” ~ Matthew 11:28-30
Happy Sunday!
A new idea has been with me for a few days now so I am using it this morning to build on to see if I find something new to understand.
I was listening to Oprah interview Esther Hicks and Abraham on Oprah’s XFM channel.  (This was a recording so I don’t know how old it is.)  Oprah asked a tough question about why innocent children suffer violence if Law of Attraction says we create our experiences.  Instead of answering the question from the child’s side Esther conveyed a lesson from Abraham that related to each individual seeking what brings pleasure or happiness.  Ester said that to the depressed person anger feels good.  I understood what she was saying was related to Abraham constantly telling us that we are vibrational entities and that we control our own frequency.  Love and joy come when we raise our frequency; that is how we bring good things to ourselves, as we elevate to have our frequency match that which is good in the Universe.
So, when a person is in a depression they have a very low frequency.  I have been there 3 times in my life and there is such a burden on you that you don’t feel you can take any action to lift yourself up.  I can see where anger would feel good because it is a choice to act out after feeling unable to do anything at all. If Esther is saying that some people choose violent acts as a means to lift themselves up out of depression I can understand that it is a raising of frequency, they find it is a tool to feel better for a short period similar to the drug addict.  Unfortunately, the violence takes the form of hurting others where the addict is mostly harming themselves.
Another form of depression that caught my attention this week came from watching an old episode of Oprah interviewing Sarah Ban Breathnach.  They were talking to women who, in their lives as wives and mothers, knew they wanted more but could not understand that it was their soul seeking to express its authenticity.  They spoke of the worst thing in a marriage was for the partners to become indifferent.  Oprah and Sarah didn’t say indifference is depression but that is what I feel as I have been there as well.  You are not happy because you are not getting what you want.  You fight in anger to try to get what you want (whether you get your way or not doesn’t matter because the problem is not about things) and the fighting makes things worse with more unhappiness so you just move down into indifference, not caring whether things are good or bad, or whether the relationship will last or not.  Sarah made the statement that if you feel that you want your relationship to work out then know that you are no longer indifferent.  That felt good to hear, these days my thoughts are very positive.
When I woke this morning I wondered if my usual forms of inspiration would have anything to add to these ideas that my mind has held onto this week.  I wasn’t disappointed.
My daily email of “A Course in Miracles” lessons caught my attention.  The emails are on lesson 16 (I have just let the emails continue even though I got through my going through them already; this is the third time through for the emails).  Usually these emails don’t get much of my attention as my ego says “I know that already”.  This morning the lesson stated “I have no neutral thoughts” and my mind said to go read that lesson again.  The lesson says that our thoughts reflect our beliefs so none are neutral.
“The idea for today is a beginning step in dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect.  Everything you see is the result of your thoughts.  There is no exception to this fact. Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak.  They are merely true or false.  Those that are true create their own likeness.  Those that are false make theirs.” ~ ACIM Lesson 16
Here is a tool to avoid depression, stay aware of your thoughts to not let your frequency drop.  Awareness of our thoughts as having impact on what our experiences are is very important.
More insights came as my morning moved forward.
Joel Osteen spoke this morning on the same idea, recognizing that labels such as ‘damaged goods’ do not change the contents of the package.  We are always, on the inside, the perfect being God made us to be when he created us; we should not let our thoughts of ourselves or what others might say or think change the Truth of who we are.
I had an email from Neale Donald Walsch, he also added to my lesson.  He reminded me that we are here to experience who we are.  That we came to this world as infants; perfect, all that we ever need is within.  He said we don’t need to grow and evolve.  I like to think about it these days with the phrase “we fell to earth”.  We get lost amongst the earthly material stuff and we just have to find our way back to who we are and what we have always known.  It is through these experiences of struggle that we can recognize the gifts that are within us.
I felt like there was another piece of the puzzle to explore.
This week I began reading the book “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck.  I found it wasn’t holding my attention; I was falling asleep after a few pages of reading each night.  This morning I knew I had to review the section I was reading on discipline.  I discovered in my re-reading that here was another teacher giving tools for working our way through the struggles of life, he calls the tools a “means of experiencing the pain of problems constructively” using the term discipline to describe the tools.  There are four tools to discipline:  delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing.
I feel good that today I have brought together many pieces of lessons that have come before me to find joy in the learning and understanding about the struggles of this life.  When we are blind it is easy to curse God or man because of our individual suffering.
If we were only taught, and were able to understand, that we are here to experience the good and the bad.
If we could always remember that we have free will to choose Love or fear, positivity or negativity, high frequency or low frequency, inclusion or separation.
And, that we are not left alone in this; we have support and the tools within to bear the burden.
I was blind but now I see. Hallelujah!
Lord, make me a channel of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow Love.
“It is a patient pursuit to bring water from the depth of the ground; one has to deal with much mud in digging before one reaches the water of life.” ~ Bowl of Saki, November 2, by Hazrat Inayat Khan