Discovering the gifts of depression Situational depression arises when some aspect of your life is already unworkable or dysfunctional; depression stops you for a vital reason. When we looked at the gifts of sadness, I talked about what I call the fundamental correlation error that I see with many emotions — which is that people blame emotions for making them feel bad, rather than understanding that all emotions arise in response to very specific stimuli. Emotions are action-requiring neurological programs like that. For instance, sadness arises in response to the fact that you’re holding on to something that doesn’t work anyway. Sadness doesn’t come to steal your stuff! And sadness is different from grief, which arises when a death occurs, or when you experience an irretrievable loss. Grief doesn’t create those deaths or losses — it arises to help you mourn them. All emotions arise in response to specific stimuli. (Read more...)
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