Lots and lots of people are depressed or anxious. I used to be one of them. Maybe to some degree or another, you too?

Depression and anxiety are the go-to feelings of our time. Huge swaths of the population are on medication, meditation or in therapy. If there was an award for most pervasive feelings, depression and anxiety would be collecting their statuettes.

So it’s not just you. You’re in good company.

In fact so much company that, just going by sheer numbers, depression and anxiety might be considered… normal.

Yet somehow it feels like you are alone, weird, and the primary damaged one in the world. Thought says, “Yeah well they’re not hurting as much as I am. They’re not as messed up as I.”

You’re the one who hurts more than others, who hurts more than can be borne.

And maybe millions of others think the exact same thing, but who can care about that when one’s own misery is so big?

You see how the focus is all about you, right? What’s wrong with you, why this is happening to you, how to fix you so it stops in the future and you get yourself right.

Which is why depression and anxiety seem like they can’t be ignored. Because they clearly mean there’s something very wrong. With you.

All attention points to broken, messed up you.

Hmmm, what might benefit from all that thinking about the Me-me-me, I wonder?

And then, in that laser-focus on suffering and how awful it is and trying to solve it with helpful ideas like maybe, “I know! I’ll just off myself,” what’s not being noticed?

Okness is not being noticed. The Okness you have right in this very moment. Already.

You know, Okness-  air to breathe, gravity to hold you, space to move in, elbows, heart, lungs, internet, phone, someone to talk to on that phone, computer, skin to hold the insides in, pets, something to sit on, clothes, shoes, a functioning brain (to whatever extent), water, thumbs, knees, ears, sight, hair not on fire, laughter and a mind capable of getting the joke, a neck to hold up your head, cool breezes, shade, sun, sky, colors, eyelids, children, music, chocolate, taste buds, language… (feel free to continue adding your own).

And thought says, “Oh please. Who cares about air and gravity when I feel so baaadddd?”

Even though without them, you’d have much bigger problems than depression.

Thought says, “Well never mind all that okness stuff. I’ve got real problems.”

Yes, let’s disregard the vast, far more comprehensive amount of absolute perfection present at all times and instead focus on a small percentage of body sensation that is supposedly not ok.

We say, “I’m depressed,” when actually there’s only a drop of depression or fear in a giant sea of otherwise pretty darn good.

Now I realize at this point that there may be much annoyance with The Mind-Tickler for not getting how great your suffering is.

You want your misery validated. I do understand this.

But… can you see how strong the desire is to keep the focus on the suffering?

Suffering- the thing you don’t want-  is supposed to be paid attention to, instead of paying attention to peace or not-pain, the thing you do want.

Can you see how that focus actually perpetuates suffering and makes things seem worse and feel worse than they are?

It is not possible to feel better that way.

Because insistent attention to pain basically ignores the okness that is already here and present and says… it’s not good enough.

Thereby changing ok to not ok.

That's quite a magic trick.

Thought does not want you to feel better.

Thought wants a problem to think about, to ruminate on, to solve. It wants to get to the “root” of things, wants to know why, wants to figure out how to prevent trouble in the future. It wants to describe where in the body feeling happens and analyze what the feeling is “like.”

Thought wants your attention on solutions. Drugs! Enlightenment! Therapy! Om!

Depression and anxiety are job security for the mind.

So of course it’s not that pain doesn’t hurt. And of course you’d rather be without it. But focusing on depression or anxiety, “sitting with” either, describing, “listening” to, or trying to make them go away, may make it impossible to see that there’s not nearly as much there as you… think.

Focus on suffering makes pain seem to be more than it actually is, and creates a sense of lack of okness.

When actually we’re all quite rich in okness. Overflowing, in fact.

And that shift in focus, even every once in a while, from what's supposedly lacking to what’s plentiful, might just change your experience of... everything.

It might be, surprisingly… enough.

You might be enough. (gasp)

And because I know how much you want it, this I wish for you.

And I can be generous in that wish, because no matter what hocus pocus is focused on, I know you’ve already won the magic you’re looking for.