Making Friends With Depression
How to Use Our 'Faults' to Better Ourselves
We all have faults. But can we tap into them to better understand ourselves and use them as a motivator to become a better person.
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Episode Transcript
Hello Friends. If you could use your faults to change your life, would you do it? On today's episode, I want to share a teaching that has really changed my life. It's actually something I taught last weekend during a meditation course. I think you will enjoy it. Welcome to another edition of Making Friends With Depression.
Hello friends, and welcome back to another edition of Making Friends with Depression. I am your host, Charles Minguez.
Quickly at the top of the show, I’d like to take care of some housekeeping. Hey, listen. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review it on whatever podcast platform you listen on. It really helps drive the show up the charts.
You can also support the show by picking up some Making Friends With Depression merch. There are some really cool hoodies, t-shirts, and coffee mugs. Or become a patron for $1 a month. All proceeds go directly to supporting the show and cover the cost of web and podcast hosting.
You can find links for the merch store and Patreon in the show notes and over at Making Friends With Depression dot com.
Before we dive into the show, I want to share some background information so you know why I’m doing this podcast and where I’m coming from.
My History With Depression and Mindfulness
My history with depression and mindfulness goes something like this. I’ve lived most of my life with major depression and schizoaffective disorder. I was first diagnosed at 13, and I’m now in my 40’s. So, mental illness and wellness have been a big part of my life.
I have spent over twenty years studying mindfulness. I started with yogic philosophy at the Yoga Life Institute. But over time, I found my way to Buddhism. I’m a practicing Buddhist and sometimes teach beginner meditation classes.
As my healing progressed, I volunteered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, also known as NAMI, and facilitated meetings for adults experiencing poor mental wellness.
My story, plus my lived experience, is something that I hope others find inspirational. My motivation, however, is to give back and help others. This podcast is one way that I can do that.
I Am Not a Therapist
But listen, I’m not a therapist or a counselor. The content on this show is not meant to be taken as medical advice. I’m only trying to inspire hope by sharing my story and the techniques that helped me during my healing process because I think you’ll find them helpful too.
How to Use Our 'Faults' to Better Ourselves
Last week, I taught a meditation class. The topic I chose to talk about was this idea of how can we learn from our "faults" and use those faults to help us grow and also to help us really just love other people - like our friends and family, ourselves, and the people that we just see on a day-to-day basis.
The topic was really important to me. It's a teaching that comes from Buddhism and has helped me so much in my life dealing with anxiety and depression.
The idea behind learning from our faults is to help us get a better understanding of the way that we perceive ourselves. In Buddhism, we talk about the self that we normally see does not exist the way we think that it does.
It's said like this because often, we identify with a sense of self that is so inflated and exaggerated. I guess in Western psychology, another term for this could be the ego. We get so invested in this idea of the exaggerated self that we cannot even consider; we don't have the bandwidth to consider the fact that we might have some faults.
And if we do get a little bit of a glimpse into our mind and maybe see that there are some faults, it's hard for us to really accept that. And so, instead of diving deeper into self-investigation, we point the finger at others. Or other things and objects, believing our sense of happiness is coming from outside of ourself. And not only is our sense of happiness coming from outside of ourself, but that any types of negative feelings or experiences are happening to us because of others.
When we get really interested in understanding the self and the way the self actually exists, it changes our entire world; it changes our entire view of the world.
I’ve lived with depression and anxiety for most of my life. I was diagnosed at 13 with major depression and then, around 17, schizoaffective disorder. And so, being in my 40s now and hearing this teaching, it has changed my life. It got me interested in diving deep into my own mind to understand why these feelings of anger, and jealousy, sometimes hatred, and judgment, why were these types of minds arising, and what could I do about.
When you look and see your faults from the point of view of almost like an outsider, this is where meditation and mindfulness comes in. We think about a time where we really experienced that exaggerated sense of self. Maybe when we were angry, or really upset, or embarrassed. Being able to reflect on that experience allows us to create some space between that emotion or pain and the self that we identify with. And it’s within that space where we can really dive in deep.
We begin to understand the faults are actually not really faults at all. And this is, this was, the game changer for me from this particular teaching. When I was younger, I was buying into the idea that I am a depressed person, I am an angry person, I am a jealous person. I was really invested in those types of mind connected with the self I was identifying with. Using this practice, we put a bit of space between ourselves and that mind or that emotion or that pain to understand that the sense of self, the real sense of self, is peace and inner peace and calm.
So, I would encourage you all to get really excited and interested in diving deep into the nature of your mind and see what you can find and what you can discover.
Support The Show
That’s it for today’s show. If you enjoyed the content, please leave a review, like and subscribe, and share with your friends. And make sure to check out the website Making Friends With Depression dot com. You’ll find merchandise, Patreon page, and other ways to support the show.
Thank you so much and many blessings.