Sadness Versus Depression -- Relationship

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. I welcome you and I bless you. In this new working year, which promises to be as productive as each former year, you may surely expect further growth and liberation. This applies to all who truly desire to face themselves. There has been great progress among my friends, even among those who do not feel happy at the moment. For many of you the intermission during the summer was a time of fruition.

But among you there are also a few who feel discouraged and whose question is: "Where does this path get me when I am just as unhappy and just as confused now as I was before?" I want to remind them of two things. One is that those who feel their liberation and growth have also gone through phases on this path when they felt just as you feel now. Yet they persevered and now they begin to feel very definite results. The second point is that when one feels stagnation, then this is always due to an inner -- perhaps hidden -- unwillingness to face some area of one's being. This resistance always applies to the area that would be most important for you to tackle at that very moment. That is why you feel stagnation. Therefore, I say to those friends who feel discouraged and stagnating to ask themselves truthfully: "Is there not in me a wall that prevents insight?" Are you not -- in some manner and to some extent -- guarding against something, perhaps through justification, through self-pity, through hopelessness, or through a superficial rationalization of the outer circumstances? Test yourself carefully and you will see that this is the reason for such stagnation. Once you recognize it, then you are much farther towards your liberation and your growth.

It is easy to focus on the superficial actions. But you need to remember that one needs the complete inner will in order to face everything within. To stress the outer actions may easily lead to self-deception. Evasion can take on many forms. I repeat, where there is stagnation, where there is discouragement, or where there is depression about the validity of your work, then it means that in some corner of your being you evade yourself. All those who gradually overcome this resistance that is universal feel their own growth and they feel the liberation from their shackles.

Now I should like to discuss the difference between sadness and depression. At this time it is important to get a fuller comprehension about the decided difference between these two emotions.

If the case is crass, then the difference between sadness and depression is very distinct. I believe you can all remember instances when you experienced either the one or the other and you knew how different these two emotions are. However, there are many instances when the differentiation cannot be made easily because both exist simultaneously: they intermingle and overlap. Your experience of sadness may lead you to believe that depression is absent. In other words, you may believe that your feelings of sadness and pain are purely normal, healthy, and therefore that they do not contain any negative, destructive elements. You need more insight and more analysis in order to find in yourself the unproductive depression, with its underlying cause, in spite of the rational sadness.

Let us first define the difference. When you are sad, then you accept without self-pity a painful facet of life as being outside your power to change it. When you are truly sad -- without also being depressed -- then you not only feel the pain as a healthy, growing pain, knowing it is going to pass -- therefore being free of hopelessness -- but you are sad due to the outer circumstance. In other words, there is no superimposition, no hiding, no shifting of emotions. When you are depressed, then the outer circumstance may be the same, but your feelings of pain are due considerably to reasons other than the outer occurrence. Although you cannot change the outer circumstance, you can certainly change something within yourself, provided you see the real reasons for your suffering: certain emotions that you do not wish to face, such as hurts, resentments, envies, or wrongs committed either by you or by someone else.

You are powerless to make yourself feel differently, but only as long as you do not fully comprehend what is going on in you. That is why depression is always linked with frustration and with helplessness. For, strangely enough, one does not feel helpless towards an outer event that one cannot change if one has a healthy attitude toward it. One feels depressed only when unable to change it now, immediately. But you could change something in your life, in your own attitude, if only you took the trouble to look inside yourself. When you cannot accept something in sadness, then it is because either the outer circumstance is not the real reason or the entire reason that underlies your pain. This is very important, and I wish you would think about it.

Let us take the example of the loss of a beloved person through death. If you are really sad and nothing else, then your sorrow is due entirely to this loss. Here is something that you cannot change. You know it, and, in spite of your sorrow, you eventually accept it. You know that you will accept it even while you are still in the worst stage of your pain. Deep inside you know that your life will go on. In other words, that it does not even have to be the poorer for your bereavement, no matter how genuine your love and your affection for the departed are. This pain will not leave a scar, because any healthy, genuine, unshifted, direct emotion is an enriching experience for your whole being.

When you are depressed -- whether or not in addition to being sad -- due to the loss of a beloved person, then it means that within you there are also a number of other confused, ambiguous, and ambivalent emotions that you are unaware of. They disturb you. But this disturbance is attributed by you to the legitimate pain of your loss. Thus you have shifted emotions and you have used an actual, valid occurrence in order to cover up something that you are unwilling first to face and then to come to terms with. It does not matter whether that something is directly connected with the departed one -- guilt, resentment, or what have you -- or whether this loss has merely triggered some unresolved, festering inner conflict in you. It may be both. It may be your identification with that person. You may experience your own fear of death, your own fear of the passing of life -- a fear which you do not permit yourself to become aware of. Since you are not aware of it, then you cannot cope with it. This is what causes your depression. And depression, as opposed to sadness, is a very stifling, frustrating, and unhealthy feeling.

Let us see what is unhealthy about depression. Let us take self-pity, which is always a byproduct of depression. It is unhealthy because it is unfounded. There is always a way out, provided you are willing to see it. In self-pity, you are unwilling to see the way out. Instead, you prefer the world around you to change, to sympathize with you, and to make allowences for you. Moreover, in depression you deceive yourself about the real reason for your unhappiness and you talk yourself into the legitimate one. You use the latter as a shield to continue to run away from yourself and to strengthen your self-pity. Thus you subtly exert a forcing current upon the world. Moreover, it is unhealthy because you remain passively in the status quo, thereby falsely accepting what need not be accepted -- because you could change if only you faced yourself. At the same time, you battle against that which truly cannot be changed. All that together causes the unhealthy character of depression.

The example of loss through death is purposely a crass one. There are many incidents when man is depressed with less valid outer reasons, and sometimes with none. He simply does not know why. He may try to find legitimate excuses and reasons, but in his heart of hearts he knows that the explanation for his feelings is other than those he arduously tries to convince himself of.

When you are depressed, then it is of great importance to meet yourself with this understanding. When you believe that you are sad due to a good outer reason, then test yourself as to the emotion in the sense in which I have discussed it. Is it really just sadness? Do you not also feel hopeless and believe that you are sad due to a good outer reason? Test yourself when you are frustrated: Are you free of self-pity? Do you feel strong and secure enough to know that your life cannot be harmed by circumstances outside yourself, no matter how painful a situation might be? If you cannot answer these questions in the affirmative, then you need healthy introspection so as to find the gnawing undercurrents that cause your depression. Only then can you free yourself forever of the cause, a cause that will come up again and again in your life until you bring about its dissolution. You do this not by forcing away what you feel, but by calmly looking at it with the aim to understand it.

The dissolution of the cause of depression not only serves the purpose of freeing you of very unpleasant feelings, but it liberates faculties which now will work for you, rather than against you. In depression life cannot be the dynamic experience it would be otherwise. Depression makes you feel as though your life slid by without having having utilized it fully. Thus depression is self-generating. Since depression is the effect, then its cause prevents you from living and from fulfilling yourself. That is why you feel depressed. And because you are depressed, you do not live fully. It is forgotten that depression needs to be considered a problem. In other words, rather than something that happens and that will eventually go away by itself. This particular depression may indeed do just that after a while. But you have not protected yourself against the outer re-occurrence when life provokes you again. Nor have you protected yourself against the destructive effects of the inner cause of depression. Hence, please take up depression as a problem in your work.

Every affliction of the psyche hinders living. It does so because it prevents you from relating. We began discussing, working on, and understanding the importance of relationships. You have learned that fruitful relationships can exist only to the degree that your soul is healthy and free. But we have to understand more profoundly what relationship and relating are.

Life is relationship. "What is life?" is a question asked by many. Many answers can be given, and they may all be truthful. But, above all else, life is relationship! If you do not relate at all, then you do not live. Life, or relationship, is relative. It is relative to your attitude. You may relate positively or you may relate negatively. But the moment you do relate, then you live. That is why a person who relates negatively lives more than the person who relates little (I cannot say "not at all," for then he would not live). Destructive relationships lead to a climax that is ultimately bound to dissolve the destructiveness, while non-relating, even under the guise of false serenity, is further down the scale.

You are used to associating the word relationship to human beings around you. But, in truth, this word applies to everything. It applies even to inanimate objects. It applies to concepts; it applies to ideas; it applies to the circumstances of living; it applies to the world; it applies to yourself; it applies to your thoughts; it applies to your attitudes. To the degree that you relate, to that degree you will be unfrustrated and therefore will have a sense of fulfillment.

The scale of the possibilities of relationship is enormous. Let us begin with the lowest form on earth, which is a mineral. Since a mineral is without consciousness, then you may believe that it does not relate. That is untrue. Since it lives, then it relates. But its degree of relating is limited to its degree of life. To put it more correctly put: it is a mineral because it is incapable of relating more. The mineral relates by the fact that it lets itself be perceived and used. Thus it relates in a completely passive way. The relating capacity of an animal is already more dynamic. It actively responds to other animals, to nature, to human beings. The scale or the difference of the capacity to relate among human beings is much wider than you remotely realize at the moment. Let us begin with the lowest scale among human beings. That would be the completely insane person, the one who has to be put into solitary confinement, or the criminal -- and one is not so different from the other. They are both completely withdrawn. They both live in outer isolation and in inner isolation. They can hardly relate to other human beings. But since they are still alive, then they must continue to relate somehow. They relate to other aspects of life: to things; to their needed environment, be it in the most negative way; to food; to certain bodily functions; perhaps even to some ideas; to art; to nature. It will be useful to begin to think about your life and about other people from this point of view. If you meditate on this subject, then it will help you greatly and it will increase your understanding about many things, not the least about your own life.

By contrast, let me immediately go to the highest form of human beings. These are people who relate beautifully; who are deeply involved with others; who are unafraid of involvement; who have no protective covering against experience and feeling. Therefore they love. They permit themselves to. In the last analysis, the ability to love is always the inner willingness and the readiness to do so. People belonging in this category not only love abstractly and generally, but they do so personally and concretely, regardless of personal risk. Such people are not necessarily saints, or holy, or anywhere near perfect. They may have their faults. They may be wrong at times and have negative emotions too. But, on the whole, they love, they relate, and they do not fear involvement. They have freed themselves from the defenses. Such people, in spite of occasional disappointments or setbacks, have a life full of fruitful, meaningful relationships.

What is this life for the so-called average person? Here it is a combination of the two extremes, the highest and the lowest on this scale. The possibilities are manifold. A person may be relatively free -- and therefore relate well -- in certain areas of life, and yet be very much obstructed in others. Only deep personal insight will enable you to find the truth about yourself in this respect. Most deceptive, however, are the cases where apparently good relationships exist on the surface, but they are devoid of depth and inner meaning. Then it is easy to deceive oneself and to say: "Look how many good friends I have. There is nothing wrong with my relationships. And yet I am unhappy, lonely, and unfulfilled." If this is the case, then it cannot be true that your relationships are good or that your willingness to relate truly exists. For you cannot be lonely and unhappy if your relationships are meaningful. The way you relate may fulfill a superficial function, it may be pleasant and distracting, but it is shallow. Your true self is never revealed, and therefore you are unfulfilled. Thus you also prevent others from relating to you and you do not give them what they search for, whether or not they know it. This is due to your unconscious fear of exposure and to your various inner conflicts. As long as you are not willing to resolve them, you cannot have meaningful relationships. Therefore, you must be unfulfilled.

The average person has some capacity and willingness for involvement and relating, but not deeply enough. The drama of mutual exchange and communication takes place on a superficial level. Hence unconscious tendencies and currents affect the parties involved. Sooner or later, they are bound to cause a disturbance if the shallow relationship is a close one. If the shallow relationship never becomes close, then nothing will happen. But neither can one deceive oneself in that case that it is a real tie. Unconscious destructive tendencies can be dissolved only if one first faces them and then understand them. Then they will not harm the relationship, because the mutual exchange and the communication automatically occur on a more profound level.

Often it is not clear what constitutes a profound and meaningful relationship. At times it is thought that the mutual exchange of ideas is the criterion, at other times the mutual exchange of sexual pleasures. All this may indeed be present. Yet the communication is still not very deep. The only criterion is how genuine you are; how uncovered you are; how undefensive you are; how willing you are to feel; how willing you are to involve yourself; how willing you are to expose yourself; how willing you are to expose all that which really matters to you. How many people do you know to whom you can express your real sorrows, your real needs, your real worries, your real longings, your real wishes? Very few, if any. To the degree that you permit yourself to become aware of these feelings, to that degree you will find a few others with whom you can share and whose life you are capable of truly understanding. If you shy away from yourself, then how can you be willing to relate to others that which you do not dare to acknowledge to yourself? Thus you live in isolation, and therefore in a state of unfulfillment. As a result, you fear death because you let life pass by in the false safety of your solitary confinement.

This is why in this work we are so concerned with your admitting the truth to yourself, for only then can you begin to have real relationships instead of false relationships, and thereby lead a meaningful life. Even your relationship to other aspects of life, such as the arts, nature and ideas, will take on a new form that is very alive, instead of perhaps being a substitute. Art, nature and ideas, too, will become more real.

Often real relating and communication is confused with the childish compulsion to tell everyone everything. Thus, you may share your feelings indiscriminately and therefore jeopardize yourself, in the misunderstood idea that foolish candor, or unwise exposure, or cruel honesty, are proof of your openness and of your willingness to relate. In reality this merely covers up your withdrawal, that exists on a much more hidden level, and therefore that manifests very subtly. Thus you provoke the proof, the confirmation of your false belief that it does not pay to involve yourself.

With real self-understanding -- and the subsequent liberation from your self-inflicted prison -- there will be nothing strained in your self-revelation and in your relationships. You will intuitively choose the right people, the right opportunities, and the right manner. Occasional misjudgments will never crush you or put put you back into hiding. But this freedom -- which is the natural result of an organic growing process -- happens only gradually and only after you have pursued this path of self-knowledge for some time.

Psychiatrists often diagnose people according to their ability to relate and to the depth of the relationship, and thus their meaningfulness. It is often said, and it is so true, that some of the more severely disturbed people can receive help more easily than those whose disturbance is less obvious. This is due to the fact that the latter can more easily deceive themselves and pretend that things are not so bad. Thus, they continue to hide from the truth within. This subterfuge is unavailable to the former. He therefore comes to a point where he has to make a choice: he can either look at his inner life squarely, without self-deception, or he may come to a severe breakdown, which will postpone his self-confrontation. In any case, he is nearer that point of decision, perhaps only in the following life, than the milder neurotic person who evades and evades.

As long as you cannot admit that you are human and that you need help by exposing your vulnerabilities, you cannot be helped in your problems, nor can you form real relationships. Thus your life will always remain empty, at least in some important parts.

Most of you do not even have a clear concept of what it means to relate or to love. Your concern is still centered mainly around yourselves. And if you are outgoing to others, then it is not a natural, spontaneous process, but an artificial, compulsive one. But if you persevere on this road that we are taking together, then this natural concern for others and this warmth for others will come. I can promise you that.

In the past we have discussed the wall that you keep around your heart. But we need to investigate it further, so as to gain more comprehension about it. This is not only important but necessary. Without having first an awareness and then a comprehension of this wall in you, then you cannot understand your loneliness; you cannot understand how you affect others; and often you cannot even understand how others affect you -- because you do not permit yourself to feel the real effect due to a number of reasons we have discussed in the past. Thus you color both your real impressions and your real experiences. Hence, you are no longer in truth. Therefore, you have to become more acutely aware of what you experience and of how others truly affect you. Your continuous work along this path in private sessions and in group work is most important. This will help you greatly toward self-awareness in understanding your relationships.

And now to your questions.

QUESTION: What about a relationship that changes? Also, what about seeking variety and flow? Is it a manifestation of healthy relating if a relationship changes and if a person wishes many relationships?

ANSWER: This is one of those questions that cannot be answered with a yes or no. Both a changing relationship and the desire for variety may indicate either healthy motives or unhealthy motives. Often it is a combination of both, though one side may be predominant. However, one must beware of oversimplification. The fact that a relationship changes for the worse does not necessarily indicate either a relapse or stagnation. It may be a necessary temporary reaction to an unhealthy submissiveness, to the craving for affection, or to any other one-sided neurotic bondage. Before a healthy relationship can come into being between two people who have been tied together by a variety of mutual distortions, such a temporary outer or inner storm may fulfill the same balancing function that an electric storm or an earthquake fulfills in nature. Whether or not this relationship can become predominantly free and healthy depends on both parties involved. By the same token, a smooth outer relationship -- in other words, one that is apparently devoid of friction -- is not necessarily an indication of its health and of its meaningfulness. The only answer is a close examination of the tie and of its significance. One can never generalize. If two people grow together in any kind of relationship -- be it a partnership, love, friendship, or whatever -- then they have to go through various phases. If they muster sufficient insight about themselves -- not only about the other -- then such a relationship will become more securely rooted and ever more fruitful.

As far as seeking variety is concerned, that too depends on the real motivation. If variety is sought hastily, compulsively, due to predominant reasons of fear, of greed and of grasping; or perhaps due to being unable to really relate to any one person, and therefore supplementing this lack with a lot of superficial ties; if others are constantly sought as a safeguard against not being dependent on and deserted by the few, then it indicates unhealthy trends. But if variety is sought because of the richness of different human beings and one's relationship to them, but in a free spirit, not in order to use one against the other, then it is healthy. Often both motivations exist. But even in the former case, this may indicate a temporary necessity: a counter-reaction to the previous withdrawal. In this case, it may be a step towards health. It is often true that a negative manifestation is a transitory positive indication.

QUESTION: How does that tie in with a person manipulating his reactions to other people?

ANSWER: Actually, this question is already answered. Manipulation happens out of defensiveness and out of false needs. The one who is manipulated -- regardless of whether or not he is aware of it -- will react either by giving in due to his fears, to his needs, and to his dependency, thus losing his integrity; or he will rebel because he wants affection without being a slave. But does not know that he does not need to rebel if he can relinquish. If a person is free enough not to need another in a spirit of life or death, then he does not have to resent the unconscious condition of domination of the other. He will let go quietly and preserve his integrity. Only by fighting as to who is the stronger one -- and this fight usually happens in a hidden way -- does the relationship fluctuate between domination, rebellion and submission, appeasement, resentment, etc. Both want something from each other that neither one is willing to give. Both claims are distorted and therefore unrealistic. Thus a battle evolves that overshadows the potential for a real relationship, which is always free.

QUESTION: Between two human beings who want to relate, but both, for various reasons, manipulate, or one manipulates, where does the element of real love come in? Does this not dissolve or alleviate the manipulation?

ANSWER: To the degree a person feels the need for manipulation -- which is an unconscious protective measure -- to that degree real love cannot exist. For these two elements are mutually exclusive. If you examine it, then you will see that the false need for manipulation stems from egocentric fear and an over-cautiousness towards letting go, towards feeling, and towards being. Therefore it prohibits love, even though some measure of real love may also exist, but it is hindered by the aspect in question. If real love is greater than the distortion, it will not dissolve the distortion, but the weight will be greater -- and thus the relationship less problematic. The dissolution of problematic areas can happen only through understanding. Then love can blossom. But where darkness, confusion and the non-facing of what is exists, love cannot come into being. The fact that you do love does not automatically dissolve all the negative currents, the distortions, the conflicts, the fears, the unconscious defensive measures, and the manipulations.

It is usually simple to measure. Your outer life furnishes you with many clues, provided you understand them. To the degree that a relationship has problems, to that degree unconscious distortions exist in both parties. Man is tempted to be exclusively in the direction either of only blaming the other, or of only assuming self-blame. It takes some time, some understanding, and some experience on this path to be able to recognize the fact that one wrong does not eliminate another. In other words, that in all relationship problems all who are involved are equally responsible. Such insight always has a liberating effect, simply because it is the truth. This truth will make you free of guilt, and therefore of the necessity to accuse, to blame, and to judge.

QUESTION: Isn't it sometimes easier to relate to somebody one is not too close to? One is less critical...

ANSWER: Why, of course. This is proof of the fact that it is not a real relationship, but a superficial one. A real relationship means involvement. That does not merely mean the negative aspects and currents. Involvement means the staking of one's whole being. That is why such a relationship is bound to suffer friction because there are so many unresolved and unrecognized problem areas within both parties. Each friction can become such a stepping stone if it is approached with a constructive attitude. Having said that, I do not mean to imply that you should have only such deep relationships. This would be impossible and unrealistic. But there must be quite a few, all different, if the person is to feel that his life is a dynamic, fruitful experience.

To be more specific, I may add that unconscious expectations, unconscious claims, and hidden demands cause such havoc in relationships. Not because all expectations are necessarily wrong, but because they smolder underground and cause a mutual strain as they clash with the demands of the other person. Apart from the fact that some demands are really unjustified and unreasonable -- and can be recognized as such only if they come to your surface awareness -- even justified expectations will turn against you because, in your unawareness of them, you are unconsciously unsure of their rightful existence.

QUESTION: In the same connection, when a person thinks that he relates instantaneously to other people is that a projection of a kind of "black magic," to the childish belief in one's omnipotence?

ANSWER: Yes, of course. In every human being there exists the child. This inner child wants to be infallible. A person may have an intuitive understanding of others. The danger then is that he develops the tendency to believe that he is always right. It takes a bit of growing, of maturity, and of wisdom to realize that one may be right at times, but certainly not always. Once this is recognized and one's limitation is accepted, then it is no longer a crushing shame to be wrong.

In this respect growing proceeds in stages. At first a person may be completely unsure of himself. As a result, he may not put any value on himself and on his perceptions. He may feel so inferior that he does not trust his intuition at all -- not even his reason. He believes that only others are right, whether or not this be true; whether or not he is aware of this hidden conviction against which he may erroneously battle by an over-assertiveness. This is the wrong way to remedy the situation, because no ill can disappear before its existence is acknowledged. Then he goes through a certain process of growing. As a result, he experiences that his perceptions are often valid. This is a great relief and joy. Self-confidence begins to blossom. But this is only one step on the ladder and he is not yet quite sure of the reality of this phenomenon. Since he is unsure, he is frightened to find out that he has only imagined it all. So he guards against the dreaded disappointment by summoning his inherent childish claim for omnipotence as a counter-measure. If he remains at that stage without recognizing this factor, then he will never grow out of his inferiority feelings completely. But by recognizing this, he will learn that he is not without worth or value just because he is not always right. He will no longer fear it, and therefore he will enter into a more realistic relationship with himself.

All growing and all learning is determined by curves and by cycles. If the cycle is stopped, then growth is stopped, and the person eventually reverts to his old state, where he had begun to take his first tentative steps. The temporary improvement is not followed through. The person was blinded by the actual success, but he was not yet secure enough not to fear the illusion of the experience. Therefore nothing is really resolved yet.

The immature psyche always fluctuates between under-estimation and over-estimation. Neither is a reality. Only by continuing on this curve can one attain the true perspective. Thus self-assurance will come in a genuine way.

If the common wrong conclusion that says "If I admit that I am not always right, then I fall back into my inferior state," * * *

I close with special blessing for every one of you; for every one who reads these words; for every one who is entering this work now; for eevryone who is in it already; for everyone who will enter it in the future. I bless this entire working year and I leave you with my love and my warmth for all of you, and with the promise of active help that can come to you to the degree that you recognize and humor your own resistance against self-facing. Find your unwillingness to recognize your rationalizations that keep you from truth and reality within yourself, and that keep you from growing into a meaningful, full life. May this blessing, that is going into you and enveloping you, help everyone, regardless of where you stand now. And may you come to know that life is benign and that your depressions are unreal. The flow of living is continuous, and only in your limited view need you fear. The more you remove the shackles of your unconscious, involuntary blindness, the more you will experience the truth of these words. Be blessed in God.

September 14, 1962