Santa Clara Meditation Personal Growth – My Depression Was Just A Movie
Ji-Eun Kook / College Student
“Wow, I’m FREE!” I thought when I received my college acceptance letter. I couldn’t have been happier. After enduring three years of high school life that was filled with depression and discomfort, I was finally going to college. I thought college would be the first step in my new adult life and all of my problems would be solved…
College didn’t help my depression or my closed mind.
I’ve always felt lonely since childhood. I thought studying Taekwondo might help me feel better but it didn’t. In elementary school, I was easily hurt by the things my peers did and said to me. If I had to fight with a friend, I would dwell on every single thing I said at the time and kept pushing all of my emotions down in my heart, making me even more lonely. As those memories piled up one by one, I became afraid to spend any time with my friends.
Even though my friends weren’t that close with me, I always wanted to know what I was doing wrong and what people disliked about me. As a result, my relationships were strained. And when I entered my new life as a college student, nothing changed.
Since the first grade, I was always worried about the future and had a strong drive to get a good job. I found that my competitive nature to get recognition was fierce and it was difficult for me to continue on living this way. I had only survived by pretending to be be okay with everything and act happy. But my loneliness only made me suffer more.
I was even depressed living out my big dream of attending college and my mind was becoming closed off to everything and everyone. One semester I had a particularly tough time and I started to wonder why I was even going to college. This was the time when my mother told me about this meditation method. One of my friends told me to trust my mother and just try meditating one time. I was really busy preparing for a new job at the time, but something told me that there was a reason why my mom and friend were recommending this meditation to me.
I had locked myself in a movie titled ‘Loneliness’
During the first class, I looked back at my life. At first it was very difficult to recall the painful moments. But the more I practiced, the more I learned that my life was a movie titled ‘Loneliness.’
I realized that as a child I was left alone with my younger brother a lot because my father was a professional soldier and my mother worked full-time for an insurance company. My brother returned home from school late in the day. No one was there to comfort me in our family’s dark, unwelcoming house. I remember I used to feel so scared – especially when the weather was cold or if it rained a lot. All I could do was sit alone in that dark place with only the TV to keep me company until my family came home.
When I got rid of my Depression, the world became bright
As I meditated, I could see that I was not living in the real world or in the moment. I was living in a gloomy movie that my past memories had made. Soon a new scene started to come into my mind. This was the scene of a happy family on a weekend trip or a fun scene with friends.
I’d forgotten all about the days before my depression when my parents, my brother, and my friends were always with me. Somehow, I’d locked myself in my depression movie and I continued to live alone in resentment without truly knowing the existence the Universe.
For the first time, I thanked my parents and friends with all my heart. When I became dedicated to staying in the present without living in the memories of the past, the school that I didn’t want to go to became a pleasant place with purpose and goals. I even received a scholarship for the first time! Who could have known that you can live happily just by getting out of the self-centered mind movie! By meditating and discarding the movie film I’d made called “Depression,” I realized how grateful I really can be in the world. This Meditation helped me to truly know that when my mind changes, the world changes.
