From Ecstasy To Depression: Ways Of Life

by Arleen Lorrance

There are many ways to function as we live our lives. Picture a straight line divided in the middle. The left side of the line represents our minus functioning, the right side, our plus functioning. On the minus side, we sleepwalk through our days, relatively unconscious, doing what we do by rote or habit. When we are tired, overextended, or just plain unaware of ourselves, we go on automatic and let life “do” us.

When we function on the plus side, we live with deliberateness and purpose. We make choices. We are focused during tasks, aware that we are thinking thoughts and feeling feelings. We are present and conscious. The left side of the line can easily lead to depression; the right side to ecstasy.

 Fear Vs. Awe

Beyond this straight line there are extremes to which we journey. When we are drifting and “being had by life” we can, without awareness, slip into discomfort with Self, and then into fear. Fear takes us to anxiety; anxiety to depression. Because we don’t know how we got there, we don’t know how to come back. If we fight against the condition we sink further, as if battling quicksand and speeding the descent.

Fear, like suffering, is the great illusion because fear is all about what hasn’t yet happened. It is a non-reality. Fear is of the unknown. Fear flings us from the now moment into the chaos of what-ifs and leaves us spinning out of control. To escape the emotional turmoil we need to find our way back to the present and to who we are in this present moment. We must fight off all the monsters who have filled the gap between where we belong and where we flung ourselves. We must suffer the despair we set in motion when we leapt into a worst case scenario.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is awe, fear’s other meaning. Awe is ultra presence to all that is transpiring, presence to the energy world itself. Awe is an open invitation to all things and everyone to show their beauty and it is the welcoming in of what is shown. Awe is filling self with the magnificence, the wonder, the joy, the glory, the divinity of all that is.

When we open to awe, we do not leave the present moment, we expand out from it into the more that awaits us in consciousness. We breathe deeply and receive the never ending blessing that is our birthright because each and every one of us was born in holiness. Each and every one of us is the result of the miracle of creation. Each and every one of us is the God Force made manifest.

Perhaps we do not expand to touch bliss more often because don’t trust that we can handle being inundated with Light. Perhaps we grasp at glimpses lest we be blinded or because we don’t know our capacity. Perhaps it is that we are too familiar with fear and unconsciousness and think of it as a home base to which to return, not realizing that all of us really live in finer frequencies, in constant touch with the Angelic Kingdom.

 

Practice, Practice, Practice!

What can we do to live more in awe than in fear? The same thing we do when we want to play the piano at Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice. That practice must be done in the midst of our living. We need to grab ourselves by the scruff of our drifting and ask, what is your purpose (for self-expansion) in this moment and how are you fulfilling it?

We need to shake ourselves in the middle of conversation so that we stop talking, stop thinking of our next response, and begin deep listening and undistracted looking into the other’s eyes. 

We need to stop ourselves in the middle of tasks and remind ourselves, I am doing this, I am.

We need to break free of contained responses and laugh out loud and long. Be conscious of Self rather than self conscious.

 We need to love each other and children and animals and enemies with passion. If we are embarrassed we have inched our way toward fear and stepped outside ourselves. When we do that no one is home and we are ready to be had.

Scientists tell us we use very little of our brain capacity. It’s more than that. We use very little of our ecstasy capacity. We are rarely bold, rarely unconventional. We are all too normal – a watered down version of who we are meant to be. Ducks in a row, birds flocking together, sheep with our noses in the lead sheep’s wool. It’s comfortable there. We can sleepwalk as needed. But as long as the human race hangs out there on Main Street, we will continue to be pulled into the shadows and attacked by fear.

I make it a practice to dare myself to sing out loud while walking in the street, to never pass a flower without smelling and praising it, to ask a stranger “What’s the most meaningful thing in your life?”

I dare to ask myself “What would I do right now if I could do anything/” and then do it.

 I dare myself never to eat anything without savoring it and expressing gratitude.

I dare myself to listen to the breeze, to the rustle of leaves, to rushing water and to hear the Music of the Spheres everywhere.

I dare myself to focus on becoming the more of who I am in every moment.

To do all this, I have to give up distress, fear, anxiety, disgruntled attitudes, weariness, self-consciousness, complaints, imagined weaknesses, cherished history of a deprived or abused life and of past hurts, and all manner of things negative. I must not look to the past nor leap to the future but hold the whole of my attention on this present moment and this present moment alone. I must register energy frequencies and consciously direct energy through chosen chakras.

 And when I do all this I touch joy with greater frequency and I can feel the strength and good health flowing through my body and my being. And when that is occurring, I can go beyond the two sides of the line of functioning and live in ecstasy more of the time because I have expanded my capacity to become one with it.

 

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