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This 'HACK' can cure DEPRESSION and leave you EMPOWERED

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Rabbi Josh Zebberman avatar
Rabbi Josh Zebberman

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when somebody's going through depression and they take the liberty of sharing that with you you are now in a very sensitive position because if you say let's talk about it let's explore it I want to be a listening ear for you I want to be here for you you run the risk in danger of exacerbating their issue of having them ruminate on it and conversely if you try to be too supportive too encouraging too positive you know there's toxic positivity as well and could come off as insensitive you know look at the bright side I had a friend who for any of you who are watching this and appreciates dark humor whenever something negative would happen he'd say Josh look at the bright side though and I'm like anticipating what he's going to say next Dead Silence so there is the risk of toxic positivity as well and that puts you in a very challenging or sensitive position but I want to share with you a letter from the laav debbit that he had penned to somebody in response to to a depression that they were going through and the rabbit did a something very interesting in this letter and how he empowered this person to help themselves I'm going to read to you the letter in the Hebrew and I'll translate it it's been a long time since I've received your letters test T especially your most recent letter from the ninth of you had written to me in the past that the state of your spirit is less than Des desirable um I used the word depression before but the re uses is addressing a more broad issue which he calls where your spirit overall spirit is just not where you want it to be you're not yourself that might be depression it might might be something else so forget the the technical clinical term the point is this person is going through a very difficult time and he's compelled to write this and share this with re and permit me to say not only is your spirit not where you want it to be it's not very it's not a very thing if somebody internalizes the ideals ofis there really is no space for sadness because the mind does not have space for that now that's obviously very idealistic but nonetheless the re had this expectation that you're obviously going through a difficult time elaborates that depressive feelings feelings that are totally unacceptable are they don't deserve ve to be occupied within ourselves and evenus even bitterness bitterness and and depression are not the same thing bitterness is intentional sometimes you need to intentionally develop negative emotions ruminate whether it's like thinking about Tashua or things that we've done wrong but that's intentional and that's specific times depressive feelings are not something that you do intentionally there something that happens to you and that's not a good thing psychologically it's not a good thing spiritually and here's the Reb's reply to this person the rebit again doesn't encourage the person to tell him what to do he literally empowers the person with just a couple of words you'll soon see what I mean my strong hopes are I hope that from now on your situation gets better I hope your situation gets better your spirit gets better and whatever is causing you to feel negative to ruin your spirit also gets better and then here's here's what the rabbit tells him he doesn't tell him what to do to get it better he just says I'd be happy if you were to inform me about this that's it you see that the Reb is not telling him do this so you can be happy think this way so you can be happy the Reb is telling him I hope you do get happier I hope things get better and I would be delighted were you to tell me about it now what does that do now this person if he respects Reb and fulfills that request is kind of in this position where he's forced to notice things getting better see what the reev just did he Empower this person sometimes when we're going through a difficult time what we need to do is to open our eyes a little bit and notice the things that are going well in life or are getting better in life even if they're small but the more we notice that the more we wire our brain to start seeing things that way we start looking for that we look for problems we see more of them we notice good things we see more of them and when somebody comes to us and confides in US literally just by changing the way we ask questions we can in Empower somebody to start noticing the good so if somebody says you know I'm really going through a difficult time I'm really not happy in my life well you can ask questions like why not and that will get the person to talk more about the unhappiness which will create rumination and more dissatisfaction and more negative depressive feelings or you can ask questions like I really I know you're not happy I know you're going through a difficult time and I know things are not easy what does make you most happy I know things are not happening I know things are not good but what makes you most happy at this moment you just ask the question in a place where you in a way where you've wired the person's brain to start noticing the positivity I had a ment that whenever he had uh councel couples instead of saying to the couple hey what is the problem what brings you here which is essentially inviting their their lowest point into the room what he would say is what do you appreciate most about your spouse now if he would say do you like your spouse the answer is no they were going through a difficult time and they came into counseling if he were to say what do you like about your spouse the answer still might be nothing but if but over here he said what do you like most about your spouse in other words yes you might not like things about your spouse or things might be difficult in your life but all things considered what do you like most the question there has a presupposition that empowers somebody to start noticing the good and I believe this is what the rebba had done in this letter I'd be happy if you were to inform me what gets better with this presupposition that things are going to get better and you're going to have the ability to notice it and when this person I I I'm very very curious if we were able to like follow up on this letter it would be very interesting if we could like follow up and see what happened when this person started noticing the better things when he took the time to even write down what was better and he shared that with the re how that could literally change somebody's life okay that's my story and I'm sticking to it