Tag: depression

Reblog: Grateful teens

Published on by lindseybiggs1 Comment

from CSMonitor.com

It’s not about the money.

A recent study focused on the effect of gratitude on teenagers. There are a lot of reasons teens are grateful. And being rich isn’t necessarily one of them. Similarly, there are plenty of reasons teens might act as if they had a gratitude deficit. Being poor doesn’t necessarily seem to be one of them.

The study suggests that regardless of a teenager’s socioeconomic background, he or she can experience the benefits of a grateful heart, including the benefit of better mental health. Through a few changes in outlook, attitude, and behavior, he or she can make big gains on the gratitude front. Teens who are the most grateful find a number of benefits multiplying. Such as? Things like improved academic performance, a sense of purpose, more hope, and more happiness. As these take root, they grow more common to a teen’s outlook and more natural to his or her life. On the flip side, things like hopelessness or depression – which are at times linked to suicide in teens – grow less prevalent. Read more

Independence

Published on by lindseybiggs1 Comment


This past week I was working on being more independent. No one wants to feel like they are dependent on anything. We all want to feel liberated, confident and free!

True independence actually comes from our total dependence on God, divine Love. Divine Love, God, is the source of all happiness, health, supply, purpose, vibrancy, companionship, order, creativity, etc.  And these come into our experience when we lean on Him/Her, when we go right to the Source.

If I want to feel happiness, I know that God, divine Love, is supplying me with infinite happiness this moment. God is providing me the opportunities to express this happiness and share it with others. Happiness is a quality of God so it is inherent in us! We were made to be happy 🙂

If I want to feel more health, activity or strength, I know that God is the source of all energy and is giving me boundless strength right now! God did not create or send sickness to any of us. It is our divine right to dispute  sickness at all times! And our thoughts (the ones that come from God) protect us. Good thoughts are the best immune system you have!

If we want to feel more fulfillment in our lives, we can rejoice that we are the satisfied ideas of God, divine Love. God saw all that She made and it was very good! That sounds pretty satisfied to me.
Be watchful of any unconscious pull towards materialism or thinking that matter can make us happy. Rejoice in the simplicity, beauty and childlikeness around you right now! Sometimes when I look around my house and feel that I want “more” I remember that a baby, child or pet doesn’t care what you have. They feel and value the love, joy and comfort that is around them. We can be that child, too, and feel so satisfied with the positive, abundant qualities that are with us all the time.

Go for a walk; look for something “new” that you’ve never noticed before. I did that on a walk home with my dogs when I was feeling kind of bored with our route. Every few steps I strived to notice something new that I hadn’t consciously appreciated before. And now I see light, joy and comfort expressed all around me on this route. You may even want to stop and explore a new area that looks appealing. It’s important to keep exploring new things – expand & grow. Don’t contract or confine your viewpoint and experience. Grow! 🙂

So as we think about Independence Day, here in America, we can rejoice in knowing our complete freedom, our independence, comes from all the good that God, divine Love, is supplying us each moment. And we can be so grateful that the Truth does indeed make us free!

 

 

Is there really a void?

Published on by lindseybiggsLeave a comment

Recently, I was feeling an inner void.

Or so I thought I was!

This feeling reminded me of a deep inner void that I used to feel when I was in my teens and early twenties. During this time, I would look to the world to fill this void, but to no avail. Because I’ve been studying Christian Science consistently for the past several years, I felt I could handle this feeling of “void” in a more productive way.

In my prayers, I find it’s important to ‘identity the problem’. If we think we are feeling lust, anger, addiction or depression instead of realizing we are really feeling a void then we will often be distracted by these ‘symptoms’ and not address the root of the problem.

In my prayers I could see that there really is no void since God/Spirit fills all space. God/Spirit is beautiful and perfect, and made man and woman in the image and likeness of the loveliness, wholeness and completeness of Spirit.  So, where is this void? Spiritual understanding told me that in reality there was no void.

Who or what feels this void? Mortal man. Mortal man is a term that is synonymous with mortal ego. Mary Baker Eddy, the discover of Christian Science wrote, “Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 86)  This YouTube video explains this ego and it’s self-deception:

So, I could see that only mortal man, or the mortal ego, was believing in a void. Was I going to let this mortal ego boss me around by telling me lies about myself and how I was feeling? No! I then felt completely free of the feeling of depression that had been lingering around me for a few days. I needed to see that this feeling or emotion was outside of me, meaning not a part of me, and this brought about freedom and healing.

I’m so grateful that God has given us spiritual understanding, so that we don’t have to believe the lies of the ego anymore.