Definition of Depression

Understanding the definition of depression will help us to meet our healthy need for emotionality. We need emotional interaction much as our bodies need vitamins and rest to remain strong and robust. Our emotional life is much like driving a car, and getting our emotional needs met is much like understanding the driving process.

Welcome to our website, and thank your for visiting. We will look at ourselves as vehicles, and our world around us as the highway. This will help you to understand yourself much better, and your right to get your emotional needs met.

Driving a car example

When you drive a car to get somewhere, you will need to see outside. You will need to see the road, other vehicles, and children walking near the road. If you live in a good neighborhood, with good kids, then you will want to avoid hitting the little angels. If you live in a neighborhood with rotten kids like those in my neighborhood, then you will want to get a good aim at one of the snot nosed little brats from hell to take one out occasionally.

In addition, you will need to see things like buildings, train tracks, drop offs in the mountains, and other nasty situations. All that external information you will need to navigate on our highways with your car. That is not all the information that you will need. You will also need internal information, such as how much fuel you have, how hot the engine is, and where you want to go. Remember the ‘where you want to go’ part, for that is critical in this discussion!

As we grow up, we learn from two sources of knowledge, not one as you may think. We learn about our world with our mind, and we use our intellect to teach us how to navigate through the various environments as we age. We learn about the playground, we learn about the classroom, and our home setting as well. All the while we are also learning about our inner feelings about what we like to do, what we want to be, and who we are as persons. This second source of knowledge is what we came into this world with, already fully equipped. This source of knowledge comes from God, The Loving Mother Universe, The Universal Mind, The Great Spirit, or whatever else you want to call our creator. You came here knowing all of that stuff from the day you were born!

It may take years later for this inner knowledge to emerge in your life, but when you see something that you love to do, you will have an ‘aha’ moment and you will recognize your passion very quickly. Unlike the first source of knowledge, which is our environment, which we learn with our mind and our intellect, we learn our second source of knowledge with our emotions and our heart. Now remember this difference. Intellect teaches us about our outer world, and our opinions, dreams, and feelings teach us whom we are, and where we are to go, which is our inner world.

The first source is the world around us, and we learn about it with our what? If you said ‘Intellect,’ you are right! Now what is the second source of knowledge? If you said ‘it is what we already know about ourselves before we are born,’ you would be right again. Now, how do we find out about who and what we are? If you said ‘it is with our emotions and our heart,’ you are right still again. Do you see how smart you are? This inner life plan is our inner values, dreams and talents, and is our statement within us all to say something or be something. This is the ‘where we want to go’ knowledge we need, as we drive our car. Have you ever met a car that did not know which lane it wanted to be in or where its destination was? Well, we can be like that with our lives, like a lost soul, adrift in a sea of other people who have a purpose and the drifters are just getting in the way of the travelers with a purpose.

Criminals, bums, losers, abusers and parasites are like that. They just float through life and prey on who ever they can get to support them.

What is the first stage in the definition of Depression?

There are certain things that can happen to alter how we interact with the world. If we experience imbalances in brain chemistry, that can affect or emotions. If that happens, we will feel sad, and will make decisions to withdraw, based on our sad perception of the world. If we feel vulnerable, and threatened, we will make decisions to protect us from the danger we imagine out there, which we call anxiety. Both depression and anxiety are possible responses to our environment. Depression is from unmet need of comfort from our environment. Anxiety is from lack of trust from our environment. Therefore, we know so far that the definition of depression is from unmet emotional need. Whether the cause is a medical one, or a negative emotional experience, the result is still unmet emotional need. However, unmet emotional need is not by itself part of the true definition of depression, for it is how we respond to the unmet emotional need that causes and is the true definition of depression.

People with healthy emotions will feel their emotional need, be aware of it, experience it without shame, and share their need with others and seek help in getting their need met. The need may be for companionship, comfort, assistance with achieving a career or social goal, or meeting financial needs for a home or family. People, who trust their environment and have strong relationships, will reach out to others for help. That is positive, natural, and the correct response.

People with unhealthy emotions will associate every emotional need, bad emotion, and bad current experience with Shame and Guilt; because they believe, they caused it to themselves. In short, they assume they deserve all the bad that happens to them, and none of the good they want to have happen to them. Moreover, they actually believe that wanting anything good for them is wrong, and they feel guilty for seeking it. In addition, they feel powerless to achieve their goals. Part of the definition of Depression is misperception of self-value, or self-esteem, as we call it. People with unhealthy self-esteem remain passive to meeting their emotional need, and may in fact create it with hateful shaming relationships, both with their personal lives and with abusive employers. This brings us to the next part in definition of depression.

The next part of our definition of Depression has to do with how we separate from our powers to build our life, which puts our prosperity into a nosedive.

If you have shame at having a need, would you hide it for fear of embarrassment? Yes, you would, because you know that having need of comfort or any emotional need for that matter is wrong. It makes you vulnerable for ridicule. If we have a bad time, and we have many things to feel sad about, is it not a good thing to hide those feelings, until we can figure out a way to solve our problems? That is what composes the next step in the definition of depression. Those who feel emotional needs, and shame for having those needs, get away from their feelings entirely. They choose to face life with their intellect, and try to figure out life’s problems mentally. They replace their emotional side with an impressive arsenal of logic and reasoning. The next part of our definition of Depression is to expand our intellect and knowledge base, and apply it to solve all of our life’s problems. This is of course, the exact wrong thing to do. Those with depression often believe they can figure our life and reason their way to happiness. They oftentimes turn to religion as a way to feel ‘okay,’ but usually for the wrong reasons, and with the worst results.

In our definition of Depression, let us get back to our driving our car example. Remember we said that we need two sources of knowledge when we are driving on the road. The first is we need to see the outside, so we can see the dangers, and the road signs and signals. The second is we need to see inside and to know where we are going once we are driving, for it does us no good to drive aimlessly. If we have apprehension at facing our feelings and emotional needs due to guilt or inability to address our extensive emotional need, then we lose all contact with our internal directions as a person as to who we are and what we want to become. We lose our sense of direction and destination entirely! In other words, we give up hope on God’s life plan for us to carry out. We seek happiness and prosperity not based on our talents and dreams, but on what we see out there currently available for friendship and employment. Again, this is exactly the wrong thing to do!

This characteristic in our definition of Depression is that we cannot figure out our life, and we keep making life-destroying mistakes. We cannot figure out what the right decision is even in major areas regarding employment, marriage, or finances. This lack of vision causes us to make blind guesses on everything, and often we end up divorced, unemployed, no matter how hard we work and try to make it right. We will frequently make excuses that we are trying as hard as we can, and doing our best. Since that is the case, our failures are okay since we truly tried. The fact is we work hard on the front end, and make bad self-destructive decisions on the back end to destroy all of our good work.

The best definition of depression is the propensity to see life as a mental arena, and to abandon all guidance from our inner feelings and desires. Since we are driving our car with only the information we get from our intellect which is looking out the windshield, we have no guidance whatsoever. We become scavengers as we wander through life, often making a meager existence in jobs and relationships of convenience, instead of those God had ready for us to find if we followed our feelings.

The good part of the true definition of depression is that it is curable! Medical applications can assist symptoms temporarily with chemical deficiencies until the sufferer can learn the proper mindset. Moreover, reconnecting to the emotional energies within will heal the unhealthy as well. We will tell you how the reconnecting to your emotions will clear everything up in just a few moments. Right now, let us summarize the definition of depression in a few statements. We hope that you can recognize some of these definitions of depression in these following characteristics for yourself or your loved one.

Definition of depression, when one remains morose for long periods; the brain can develop imbalances, which become medical needs, along with the unmet emotional needs also causing the depression feelings.

Definition of Depression, when the sufferer may have experienced abuse and neglect as a child, and for that reason does not trust in human nature to be able to comfort or love him or her enough, or to want to do so.

Definition of Depression, when the sufferer feels he or she is not desirable enough to deserve to get their needs met, emotionally or financially. They feel the things they desire such as good employment, and the love of a loyal spouse are beyond their ability to attain.

Definition of Depression, when the sufferer chooses to ignore the emotional side of their person and grow their intellect only, and settle for second best, which is to survive, instead of thrive. They choose a passive survival posture instead of an aggressive seek-to-achieve posture of their life’s goals.

Definition of depression, when the sufferer projects their perceived value observed from their abusive parents, or traumatic experiences, as being God’s will for them because they failed to please their parents, life, or God in some way.

In our talk on what is the definition of depression, we will now get to the great part of how it is curable, which we promised earlier. Put simply, the tendency and unhealthy choice to stay away from our feelings is the cause of depression. This simple fact is what therapists want to take years and years of your time to effect in you. They want to heal you without telling you how to do it yourself, since they seek long-term patients, at great expense to you. We wish to sell you a self-help book if you need it, which is far more cost effective than two years of therapy. What is more we teach you how to heal yourself, at this site and in more detail in the book, so you can address future emotional obstacles with the life skills you have learned.

There is an old saying, ‘if you give a person a fish, you feed them for a day, if you teach them how to fish; you feed them for a lifetime.’ Such is our approach here at this site, for we wish to teach you the life-skills to find your emotional fulfillment, and further explain why God gave this need to you in the first place, for it was all part of your loving God’s plan for you.

Definition of Depression as curable; Remember we said that the tendency and unhealthy choice to stay away from our feelings is the cause of depression. The cure is to expand our emotional side again to its fullest capacity. We must restore our childhood desires and selfish dreams back into our world as much as possible. Our painful past may have so emotionally burdened us that we feel like a deep ocean of sadness over impossible to meet desires. That is what it appears like to you on the front side of your sadness. However, there is a reason why we must do this. We see your deep sadness and emotional pain from the back side where God sees it.

You see, the more you embrace all your feelings, and the more you feel your guilt and shame, the more a magic thing will start to happen, and that is your life will start to become clear! What is more, your life will start to organize itself, and to self-resource! The secret is that you cannot simply figure out your life mentally, with positive, constructive decisions, you must also emotionally feel your life from an ‘I am important’ and ‘I matter most’ perspective. You must ‘feel’ your wants and dreams, and the pain of stuff getting in the way of that, with all your feelings so that God can lead you to your destiny. This magic happens very quickly as you choose to start feeling your feelings. The more you start feeling your healthy selfishness, and give yourself full permission to make decisions in your best interest, without apologies to anyone else, then inspiration will start coming to you. In understanding our definition of depression, we must use an example here.

Let us say your or a loved one are in deep depression and are in denial of your emotionality, and you are lonely and out of work. This depressing setting is reasonable and it happens, and you or your loved one’s back is to the wall. Let us say you may apply for a job you read about in the paper. As you go in to apply, if you are in hiding from your feelings, you will go through the steps of talking to the interviewer as they review your application. You will write down all that they ask for, and will submit an average application. The interviewer will conclude the interview and nothing will happen.

Now let us redo the same scenario with you having made the choice to reconnect with your feelings days or weeks earlier. As you fill out the application, you capriciously remember to write down in the special interests section of the application that you have interest in medieval ages and the lifestyle of peasants in the villages in Europe. While that by itself will not land the job, the feel that the interviewer receives from you that you are seeking healing for your emotions causes them to consider your application further. Since they happen to have an interest in the same subject, they will choose in the end to hire you above other applicants, some with even more qualifications.

As you choose to feel your emotionality, define it, and quantify it, this activity will send out signals to all others in God’s Plan for your life that you are doing the right thing. By recognizing that in your world, you should come first, and begin respecting yourself; this will encourage others to help you to better yourself also. Remember that in our definition of depression, we said that as we feel our feelings, our vision would become clear, our life would organize itself, and would self-resource. This is exactly what will happen in a dynamic called ‘Synchronicity.’ We will feel our sadness at first, but we will also get inspirations to do something or go somewhere, or speak to someone about a certain subject, and that will start the ball rolling on God’s Plan for our life to unfold. These cues and opportunities are in our feelings!

The last part of our definition of depression is that the sufferer does not trust life to unfold automatically on their behalf. As they fear life, and hide from the feelings and preferences God gave them to help unfold it, they will overlook all the cues God is sending them, which they should respond. These things may be choices such as asking the right girl for a date, under the mis perception that she will reject them, or the choice to overlook trying to get the employment doing their dream job in Hawaii, because it is ‘too good to be true,’ when in fact God sent that opportunity specifically for them to find. With depression, low self-esteem and separation from their feelings block all inspiration to respond to God’s offerings.

So much of the definition of depression has its roots in the deep spiritual levels of life; it is hard to separate it from such causes as purely medical and psychological causes. Oftentimes the experience of emotional pain is an intentional lesson from God to teach us of our own beauty, and of the ability, we have to meet our own needs. Attendant with that is our responsibility to take care of ourselves and create our own future. As we choose to start feeling all of our past pain, and current inspirations, we will begin to see our own significance and importance in the community in which we live. We will release God’s Plan for our lives, regardless of our religion or creed.

Please know that God loves you and has a successful conclusion for you or your loved one’s story.

To learn more about depression, and our rights to a full and happy life,please consider our first in series book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind. In this book, we talk about the whole overview of our soul’s journey as we follow our heart’s dreams to our ultimate destiny. We answer many questions about selfishness, prosperity, psychotherapy, and finding our dreams and happiness. We talk much about our boundaries. We also talk about the spiritual controls we have within to bring our good to us. Those controls are our Sincerity Switch, Spontaneity Switch, and lastly our Feelings and Dreams Switch.

Thank you for visiting us today and please keep in touch, sharing your trials and your victories with us. We promise to answer personally every Email that we receive.

Shayne and Lori North in Aurora, Colorado

Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind The Book

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