Seems pretty useless to meditate much (aiming for real results) if one is very anxious or depressed. Sort of like running with mononucleosis.
I've spent months in a rut, and now that I'm slowly just feeling better in general, my baseline keeps improving with minimal effort.
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For me it helps when anxious (“slow down, deep breaths, you’re okay”) but I can’t imagine it helping when depressed. In my (narrow, limited, personal) experience depression is a lockdown that needs to be broken with screaming and crying, triggered by appropriate stimuli
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I’ve found it enormously helpful personally.
Maybe simply by giving me the patience to wait it out.
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Glad if it's been helpful for you. The (aiming for real results) was really the key bit, and "much".
Meditating a bit was good. I found that trying to meditate more just made me frustrated. But, YMMV.
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Fair.
I think for me, another issue is that my depressive episodes have seemingly been prompted by unprocessed emotions.
Coldly digging into that tends to destabilize my mood. I assume for people with less identifiable causes of depression, this will not hold up the same way.
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I feel you re: unprocessed emotions and needing to be able to have space and time to process it properly (not always an option in everyday life)
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Replying to @visakanv @Tipsycaek and @sonyaellenmann
Did that sadness "enrich my life"? No, not really. It kept me from functioning. could I have "done without it"? I'm not sure if that's an option. it's clearer now that the misery was a manifestation of who I was, where I was, how I was. I don't see how it could've been different