Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions

The first are called intrinsic motives7—they are the things you do purely because you value them in and of themselves, not because of anything you get out of them.

But what both deep meditation and psychedelic experiences teach us is the ability to see how much of that self—that ego—is constructed.

He feels, he told me, that the experience made clear to him that people need a sense “of being accepted, to have some sense of importance, and to be loved. And I can give that to anyone at any time, and it’s that simple. It’s just paying attention. It’s just being with people. It’s loving.”

Now that each person had figured out his or her own intrinsic goals, they would report back at the next series of meetings about what they’d done to start moving toward them. They held each other accountable.

Even if you are in pain, you can almost always make someone else feel a little bit better. Or I would try to channel it into more overt political actions, to make the society better.

Our ego, our sense of self, always has both these qualities—protective, and imprisoning.

There’s a wider picture here, and I need to be part of that again. That’s how I felt sitting on the paving in this garden with my hands in the flowerbed.”

you are at a fork in the road now. You can try to muffle the signal. That will lead you to many wasted years when the pain will persist. Or you can listen to the signal and let it guide you—away from the things that are hurting and draining you, and toward the things that will meet your true needs.

Depression and anxiety might, in one way, be the sanest reaction you have.6 It’s a signal, saying—you shouldn’t have to live this way, and if you aren’t helped to find a better path, you will be missing out on so much that is best about being human.