By Wes Annac

You might not know it, but I usually get ideas for things to write about when I’m in a low space. This is when I tend to think the most, and when I meditate or I’m in a higher space, the mind is somewhat silent and instead of thinking about life, I’m submerged in another reality.

When I’m in a low space, I tend to think about what I want out of life. I think a lot about the things I’ve done so far, bad and good, and the things I’d like to do from here on out. While some of these thoughts are negative because I’m feeling low, I sometimes stumble upon a gem that helps me get back up.

I stumbled upon one such gem today, because I hit another short depressive period where I wasn’t inspired to do anything but sit on the couch (which is usually uncharacteristic of me but has been surprisingly more common lately) and think about everything. And I mean everything.

I think about the past; the present; the future; spirituality; creative work like writing and music; the direction the conscious community is going in; the direction I’m going in as a ‘conscious’ individual; and so much more.

I think about everything that seems relevant to my life, and it can be hard to get out of this mind-centered space and back into a clear, heart-centered understanding that motivates me to start working again.

That is, until I remember something that, for me, is crucial. I’ve already said what I’m about to say in the past, and I even said it in a piece I posted just a couple days ago, but I realized during my musings today that what I want out of life is to be active with my creative and spiritual side.

I want to spend my time writing articles, playing music, and using meditation to explore the unseen realms, where all of the insight and understanding we could ever hope for will flow to us as if by magic. I want to learn as much as I can from the unseen, and then bring all of it back to the surface to help all of you.

I want to do things that uplift me and take me away from those lower, depressing feelings, however mentally stimulating they are, and I want to uplift all of you who struggle with lowness or a lack of faith in yourselves.

This revelation helped me climb out of my low place today, and I’m realizing that creativity, spirituality and other healthy, uplifting things can actually save us from these parts of ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong – these lower parts are crucial aspects of our Being and we aren’t supposed to avoid them or hide away from them in favor of art of meditation.

We have to explore them and get to the root of the issue – the thing that drives them – without fear or reservation before we can come to a place of healing. When it comes to feeling low on a daily basis as we try to deal with them, however, our creative and spiritual work can come to the rescue.

The problem is that creative dedication sounds better on paper than in real life. It’s easy to say ‘we have to be dedicated to our creative/spiritual work if we want it to liberate us’, but it can be a lot harder than it initially seems – especially if we still give in to naysaying thoughts.

You’d think that pouring all of ourselves into our work and our meditation would be easy given that it can liberate us from negativity by connecting us with our higher consciousness, but flowing once we’ve started isn’t always the hard part. The hard part is to start in the first place.

When we wake up every morning, we have the choice as to what we want to do with our day.

We can dedicatedly pursue any responsibilities we have planned, some of which will help us feel liberated and some of which won’t, or we can choose to feel overwhelmed by it all and embrace lowness and inactivity.

There are obviously a lot of other things we can do with our day, but these two are the most noteworthy because they both have a powerful effect, for better or worse, on our day and the days to come.

Our choices each day determine what we do with this life we’ve been given, and every choice, in every moment, is crucial. This is why choosing our creativity and our higher consciousness over the woes and perils of the depressed mind, however hard it is for a lot of us, is helpful.

One route will keep us trapped in the confines of a closed mind, while the other will encourage us to stay active, expand our horizons and keep our higher energy flowing. I might take some flak from proponents of a non-dualistic outlook for what I’m about to say, but I think happiness is essential to living a good life.

We need to be happy to thrive in life, and if seeking happiness is dualistic, then I guess I’m one dualistic individual.

Like we’ve heard from countless spiritual teachers, what’s important is how we seek happiness. If we seek happiness in a video game or that extra meaty pizza we get to have on a Friday night, we might end up empty and disappointed because we’ll have placed our happiness in material things.

If we can learn to seek happiness in ourselves – in our own higher consciousness and the creative work that results from our connection with this deeper awareness – we’ll begin to grasp true, authentic happiness and life will finally start to make sense.

External things might give us a glimpse of the happiness that lives within, but the best way to find our inner wellspring of joy, inspiration and wholeness is to journey deep within.

Until we can realize this and passionately yet patiently pursue the things that help us stay connected, most of which will have us rely on our higher consciousness, we’ll continue to miss out on the happiness we seek.

We might continue to have low or depressed times when we can’t climb out of our own self-created negativity, and we’ll continue to wonder what we’re doing wrong or why we can’t find what we seek. We can, because it’s been here all along.

Now, all we have to do is stop searching for it and let it come to the surface so it can show us what it can do, and by association, what we can do. We’ll find everything we seek within, to repeat the same basic spiritual information people have repeated for centuries, and this isn’t just an airy phrase that sounds good.

It’s one of the most important and obvious facts a spiritual seeker could know, and whether or not we know it on a mental level, we have to realize it on a deeper level and do something with it.

I don’t think I’ll continue to be inspired by something I realize in a low mood, and I’d rather have the inspiring insights come from the higher intuitive mind than a mind that’s rooted in a ‘less-than’ perspective.

I know I have some work ahead of me to achieve this goal, and I have a lot of limiting thoughts and emotions to source and work through. It’ll all happen in time, and one of the best ways to make it happen now is to refuse to give in to negative thoughts and choose to meditate, be creative or help others instead.

This is the spiritual seeker’s calling, and you can feel free to come aboard. You might have to stay strong and persevere when you could easily throw in the towel, and it might be the hardest thing you ever do.

It’ll also be the most rewarding, though, so keep that in mind when your journey gets rough and you’d rather walk away. The world needs us now more than ever, and if we permit ourselves, we can step up and selflessly address everything about this planet that’s in need of changing and fixing.

But first, we have to get to a place of selflessness by healing our wounds and bidding depression adieu.

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