Jan 26
Today the Universe Delivers a Warning – You are depressed or at risk of depression. Even in your dreams you hurt. You feel such shuddering emptiness and loss it’s a physical relief to wake up and find your dream wasn’t real. Lots of people fear such sadness as some kind of prophecy. It’s enough to make a person fear going to sleep.
The Depression Archetype – warns you are too “involved.” Check out life’s professional Purrsons – such as cops, firemen, paramedics – who all will tell you to “forget” the personal just to get the job done. They recommend you focus on the “healable” crisis– even though all that suffering reminds you of your Special People and the dangers they face unwittingly, every day.
People Die. Even Worse – People Can Lose Their Purrsonhood BEFORE They Die – Better think your worldview through BEFORE the crisis happens. If death ends everything, surely you will fear it. But remember, what a caterpillar calls “the end”, Nature calls a “butterfly.”
Don’t Postpone Grief – Even we lucky Purrsons will have reason to mourn. The same powerful forward drive we so admire in cats sometimes fools Purrsons into thinking that moving backward in the dance is a sign of weakness, when ebb and flow are laws of life for every creature, sacred cats included.
Low Mood is Stigmatized in a society where perfect strangers feel comfortable demanding that you “smile.” Look at all these Instagram feeds with everybody showing their back teeth, grinning away because they’re having so much FUN and their lives are so PERFECT. They never wake up shuddering with existential sadness. Cats don’t smile – they purr – but Purrsons are they are human too. We know risk our exalted sensory advantages by trying to pretend ”everything’s fine” when all the red lights are flashing wildly.
Mourning Postponed grinds you to a halt. Just because those
who are better at covering up their true feelings are socially valorized we see no need to join their lonely ranks. They are lessening themselves. Admittedly some people are just shallow, and that is a misfortune we cannot envy.
They’ve worked hard to feel less deeply! Narcissists may convince themselves that they can transfer their pain to others and “free” themselves by enjoying the suffering they’ve created but Purrsons recognize that trap is a Zero Sum Game. This gamble to stunt our own growth is a threat. It inevitably means we all have lots of work to do.
First, We Sort Out “Real” from “Transferred” Suffering. Whose misery has been foisted upon you? If you’re in that position you are literally a “scapegoat” and will need all your Purrson skills to get out of it.
DO NOT ACCEPT TRANSFERRED SUFFERING! – Even the collective suffering of history must be examined objectively.
Pain is inevitable but suffering is voluntary. We feel compassion for some, we pity others their willful darkness but we do not accept their world scheme of eternal punishment and torment. Every cat who finds a patch of sun to groom in turns their back on mandated self-hatred.
We’ve Got Plenty of Legitimate, Necessary Mourning to catch up on. If you skate over “bargaining” and “acceptance” all that’s left to you is denial and depression. Sometimes, the “causes” of your lost mourning seem inconsequential to our “adult” selves. “So your pet died when you were five,” everybody says. “Your parents got a divorce. You moved five times. Get over it, already!” But we say, Now is always the perfect time to accept the power and significance of your own feelings.
Purrsons Feel Compassion for Everyone – Themselves Included. Begin with yourself. Why feel these things now, right before you set off on your next great, consequential adventure? Sometimes it is joy that brings to the surface those past unhealed hurts. That’s necessary, part of the ebb and flow. Because we are strong enough to feel it now.
Purrsons Are the Heroes of the Collective Unconscious – Purrsons do battle for and honor centuries of collective suffering. (Inter-generational trauma.) It’s OK to think about that sadness, especially if it makes us feel closer to other Purrsons and their less lucky people. Everyone has these lost, wrecked treasures submerged in their lives.
Purrsons Feel Deeply – Your power is to free the greatness of your emotion even as it protects your feelings and other people’s. Celebrate the fact that you are able to feel so deeply in a world where others feel forced to abuse themselves, numbing out, then taking risks and drugs in order to “feel something.”
The Art of Detachment allows Purrsons to rise above the fray, strategize, and plan. Even on the eve of battle they enjoy their lives. Let go – finally – of the toxic elements in your life. Time to go “no-contact” on the emotional vampires who waste, drain and suck your energy. Read up on sadism, the better to understand the people out there who revel in your suffering. Buddhists recommend surveying your thoughts and feelings from a distance, as in hypnotherapy, then setting them free.
Detachment is Not Dissociation – Dissociation is more like floating through life with all our systems repressed, feeling numb. Dissociation is not good. You can use your quivering pool of tears to respond more intensely to life, to art, to music, and to each other.
Resilience is the Cat’s Most Powerful Survival Trait and so it is ours. This means that even after blight, we can flourish more strongly, just the way pruned plants will. It’s not necessary to explore all the caverns of your being, but it will make you stronger.
Meditation Teaches Mindfulness, and Mindfulness Teaches Detachment. Once again, choose a buddy and a guide. Think about the “hero’s journey” story you respond to most deeply. How would you explain your hero’s journey to someone else? Feel free to use metaphors, after all, when we were children we did feel our world to be populated by monsters and the supernatural.
Models & Mentors – “Detachment is power. Release all things that no longer work for you” – Shane Steele
“To be detached means to dive so fully into the experience you dropout the other side… with full understanding you can say, “Now that I know, I can let go”
– Teal Swan
“In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty…freedom from our prison of past conditioning…willingness to step into the unknown surrenders us to the Purrson mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe…” – Deepak Chopra
“I release the subjective thoughts, energy and emotions I am holding about people, places and things that kept me trapped in dis-ease…I can step back and allow the feelings & thoughts & energy to dissipate…I am then free to act with compassion, love & acceptance” – Angela James
“Attachment is the fabricator of illusions – reality can be attained only by one who is detached” – Simone Weil
“Detachment is having your life be about you, not about other people”
– Karen Casey
Alysse Aallyn 
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