This post is for people who’ve experienced or are experiencing mild depression, anxiety, or some other form of psycho-emotional suffering, and just can’t seem to make life “work” for them.

Sometimes it all seems pointless. Looking outside, you see lots of problems. Turning attention within, you find numbness, apathy, or acute pain. Nothing really grabs you, makes love to you, or intoxicates you with its presence.

Whether you are feeling a vague sense of numbness, or an acute psycho-emotional pain, I feel you and can relate.

In my darkest moments of mental and emotional anguish, I just couldn’t figure out how to solve the problem of my irreconcilable life. I couldn’t draw the map to happiness from where I was, and it felt unbearable to be so far away.

I’d constructed a cage around myself and then bashed my head against the bars, giving myself over to suffering and pain. These patterns need to be stopped in their tracks, and then turned around slowly.

Anyone asking, "Is life really worth living?" has become woefully detached from the truth that they are, simply, LIFE.

A suicidal person is grappling with this question in a very real way. One experienced suicide prevention therapist that I had the pleasure of knowing explained the mentality of a suicidal person this way: “I don’t necessarily want to die, but I can’t work out how to live. Its all about “I’m hurting and I don’t know how to work it out”.

Life always wants more life. Life strives to live, regardless of circumstances. Have you observed this truth in nature? So then, what has happened to the lives in question?

We are all the owners of a wonderful tool known as a mind. A lot of minds in our "age of information" have gathered so much of the stuff that they've become locked in "knowing", which is like an actual cage preventing life from touching them. Life can only be experienced, and never known. Much of human consumption is driven by this hunger for more life.

The human system is amazing and complex. It can be used to create almost any experience we desire. One key component in this creation is water, which holds memory. Human bodies are more than 50% water. This is wonderful, because it means we can program ourselves the way we want to a large degree. On the flip side though, it also means our bodies are all full of the trauma of being human, and most of that trauma has never received the loving attention it needs to be set free. That trauma then feeds our thoughts and emotional patterns, essentially recreating itself over and over until the sequence is somehow interrupted.

Truth: There isn’t any distance between you and your ultimate happiness. You can go from suicidal thoughts to ecstatic bliss in an instant. But the path may still feel long and arduous, because unwinding the habits that created your misery can take a lot of time and effort.

In my life, I’ve noticed there are 2 parts to this unwinding that feed and cycle into each other:

1. Attaining profoundness of experience

2. Regular, disciplined practice which creates a suitable environment for profoundness of experience to occur.

"The success of a human life is measured in the profoundness of its experience." -Sadhguru, Living Yogi and Mystic

When your experience becomes profound, even momentarily, all questions of life's worth are dropped. Even ONE profound moment can propel a person forward to seek another one for YEARS. Something is profound when it enlivens you, touches you deeply, bi-passes your mind, and imprints upon your being.

Consider the facts: Life on Earth is an absolute miracle, arising from the vastness of a mostly nothing universe. The fact that life has evolved into a species as complex and empowered as human beings, with the ability to consciously create whatever it wants, is striking beyond understanding. Life for a human being is a very fleeting experience, in the grand scheme of things. Given all this, you'd think we'd all be ecstatic, right? But we're not, because we're all living in self-constructed realities instead of in this miracle of life. If you don't feel anything at all when reading this, it's ok- it just means you're stuck in your mind.

What if life could be a playground of experiment, discovery, and celebration? If your feelings were overwhelmingly positive, would life be worth living then?

Conscious seeking requires a certain stability of life. If you've gone beyond basic survival, you have this stability. If you can function normally through most days, you have this stability.

So, "is your life really worth living?" The answer is yes, of course it is, because your life has the potential to become anything you want it to be. But is it worth living, the way it is right now? Maybe the answer is, "not really." It’s important to admit it if we've lost our vital connection to life, and to really feel the pain of that. The good news in this case, I think, is that the pain says “we are far off from the truth, the natural state of things.” And we desire to improve our condition. This desire draws us into new territories, expanding our awareness and reaching for something better. In cases of strong constitution, that existential pain drives the evolution of the individual.

If your relationship with life deepens, your heart softens and your mind expands into the greater mind of creation, if you connect to the place within you where all life arises, your life will become more profound. All of this can happen in infinitely many ways. All you need is one profound moment, and you can keep it in your heart and let its' frequency draw more of these experiences to you.

Luckily for us, in this "Age of Information", we have access to so much art, so many teachers, programs, group healing experiences. Maybe something has been calling to you and this is your prompt to go do it. If you have no idea where to go from here, my recommendation is to do the Inner Engineering program with Isha Center. It can all be done from your house, and is guaranteed to set you in the right direction. Definitely DO the Upa yoga practices they recommend. Though I've been having profound experiences for years, doing these practices recently gave me a much more stable platform to expand from. They are excellent, and work for everyone.

If you are suffering, I feel your struggle. I don't mind telling you that my life requires a focused effort to live well. Basically I am healing an addiction to feeling bad, and suffering negative thoughts. Like healing any addiction, it takes effort and it is not a linear process. However, every effort has been more than worth it.

Your life, no matter its condition, is definitely worth living. My wish for you if you're struggling, is that your heart opens and brings you some relief.

If you don't exercise at all, or not much, start with that. Get outside for a walk, move, stretch, get your blood flowing. Consume less media, especially the kind that leaves you feeling hopeless, numb, anxious, or depressed. Use this link and sign up for Inner Engineering.

Let's pursue more life together.

Chelsie