Yesterday I was fretting about the end of the world. Today I pretty much gave up on that. In a sense I abandoned hope for it. Now I feel pretty good. Less worried. So here's my question:
Is abandoning for something better a good idea when you really have no power over it? I'm not talking about improving one's lot in life but of the greater world like the world is dying. That sort of thing. Is giving up hope for the world to not die a good thing? Because that's what I did today and I feel much better.
I have been working with the idea of acceptance (I originally used the word surrender or as you say abandoning). It started when I had been feeling good for a while and I wanted to experience pain again least I forget what it is and could not help people on SF. So I had a painful memory of my ex-gf and I thought great, bring it on and tried to make it as bad as can be, but I accidentally accepted the pain and it vanished. So I practiced acceptance for a few months. And now to keep myself sad anymore I have to ignore the pain because as soon as I start to think about it, I accept it and it is gone.
Marsha Linehan had an experience of acceptance that cured her depression, ideation and self harm. She went on to incorporate it in her therapy and DBT has been show in clinical trials to be effective treatment for BPD, although she developed it for severe suicidals and it works for them also.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html?pagewanted=all
Eckhart Tolle was severely depressed and suicidal, one day he wakes at 2am in the morning and hears "resist nothing" which is just another way to say accept everything. He is cured and wrote "The Power of Now" Which reiterates, what eastern and western mystics have been saying for centuries. The power of now is accepting the past can not be changed, the future is to uncertain to worry about and just living in the now.
I was severely depressed and suicidal. I decided I could not kill myself because of my daughters. I had stopped drinking so the next few days were horrible, I spent one day in the ER and enrolled in a partial hospitalization program. I basically said ok this is my life now, I will be severely depressed for the rest of my life how to I go about living like this. These thoughts were acceptance. In an instance my heart rate dropped from 82 to 72, the lowest it had been my entire adult life. My fibromyalgia pain vanished, my racing and obsessive thoughts vanished, things I had for decades. No more phobias, no more agoraphobia. And the acute depression, suicidal ideation and severe loneliness gone all because of acceptance. Here are the caveats, 1. My severe depression was break up pain which takes 2 years to get over but pain from trauma, or not having a proper environment to develop in during childhood can naturally take longer. Second, after 17 months of being good my heart rate went up this week. Pain is starting to return. My mood is still good. My mind is good. It will be interesting to see if my mental issues return and how all my new found philosophies, which have already been tested by me and found to work, even in difficult situations (so I do not need any further testing, hint to God), will fair as my health starts to decline. But I had 17 of the best months of my life. If that is all I get, I am still truly blessed.