Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Exercise, Fear, Fellowship, Journaling, Mindfulness, Negativity, Prayer, Serenity, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

How to live outside the box? The depression box!

January 17, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

If you really want to begin to “live outside the box“, a description of what the box feels like and looks like might be helpful to you. First of all, a box has an identifiable shape. It is a box mainly because it contains something–whatever that might be. And when we speak of the subject of depression, we talk about depression having us boxed in. The box as it is used here, in this context is a metaphor for feeling enclosed and which there is no exit. It is like being trapped or like in a prison.

Now, in order to live outside the box we want to live creatively, which means that we are having to learn how to live outside the box. Now, if you find this hard to believe -stick with me now as I will explain what I mean.

Just briefly, my own experience with depression can be used as an example. First of all, when I was depressed I thought that I was losing my mind. The box that I put myself in was getting more restricting by the day and making my life hell. I could see no way out. I was trapped. What could I do I asked myself? As hard as I tried, I couldn’t just will these feelings and scary thoughts away–like taking a broom and brushing them out of my life. No matter which way I turned I hit a wall. With no answers forthcoming on how to keep my head above water, my body slowly was being sucked down into the quicksand of despair. The thought came to me, much like that small glimmer, a tiny light so far away, but nevertheless a light. It was like the lighthouse which with its intense brightness warns seafarers that rocks were nearby and to be watchful before approaching. My mind began to race here and there for a way out of the box and then it hit me — get moving. Move the body. Get busy. The key out of this prison was already in my hand. And now, those of us here in the Depressed program of recovery,who have been putting “out of the box” ideas to work in our daily lives, we want to share what has worked for us and we know, if you actually use them for your own recovery, they are bound to ultimately free you. That is the promise I share with you today.

The following activities, listed below are some of the tools that will get you “out of the box” when you get serious about using them.

I think taking a close and personal look at the following tools will not only help you get “out of the box” but can be tools that you will be able to utilize, day after day as you continue your recovery.

Exercise is a great tool if you happen to be depressed.
Getting out into nature will also help put your mind on beauty and your surroundings.
Overcoming fear is also a great place to learn how to get out of the box. Learn about “first fear” and “second fear.” Fear doe seem to be at the center of our life when depressed.
Recite the “SERENITY PRAYER” as often as you need it.
The present. Staying in the now.
Making use of the God box. This is an exercise, a simple one at that, which helps us learn the discipline of “letting go.”
Feelings need to be examined and expressed. We will look at why expressing feeling is so important, instead of having them bottled up and causing all sorts of physical and emotional problems.
Disable negative thinking: learn how to short circuit negative thoughts when they pop into our minds.
Reading Depressed Anonymous literature and all material on the subject of depression.
Learn how we all have choices. We make those decisions that bring us closer to freedom–not those that continue to imprison and box us.
Journaling is a great tool for writing down what has been our experience for the day. It helps to clarify our thinking and puts things into perspective.

NOTE

In the next post, I will begin placing attention on each of the eleven ideas listed above. Gradually we can take time to evaluate our response to each individually and make our own notes as how to use these recommended ideas for our own recovery.

Hugh

DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Purpose, Step 04, The 12 Steps

Tom had a problem.

January 15, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

“Tom asked why we needed Step Four in our recovery which states that “we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” He said that he was depressed and didn’t need anything else to make him feel worse – like dredging up things that he might have done in the past. Why, Tom wondered, should he resurrect old ghosts? Anyway, when we spoke about a moral inventory it reminded him of religion with its “do’s and “don’ts ” with special emphasis on the “don’ts.” Tom said he came into Depressed Anonymous to learn about what was making him depressed and that he didn’t need anything else to make him feel guilty or sadder.

Some people think that for a person to dredge up old hurts and wrongs will make them that much more depressed. I guess it depends on what type of stuff we put on our inventory. The following list will help our sadness persist: our perfectionism, our need to control our fears, guilt, shame or resentments, dishonesty, selfishness, passivity, anger, indecisiveness, fear of change or finally the inability to live with uncertainty. When we begin to ask God for help in removing these areas from our live, this asking for help will not make us more depressed – it will in fact make us more hopeful. In Step Three we said we make a decision. This means just that and not just a promise as it says in the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book. When we begin to surrender our will and our life to the Higher Power and are willing to expose our effects to others in the group, it is then that our life may be able to take on a peace coupled with new purpose. This really is an essential and necessary step that has to be taken if we want to leave our prison of depression behind.” SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 53.

In our Depressed Anonymous Workbook, which coordinates each of the Twelve Steps, with its questions and answers coordinated with the individual Twelve Step commentaries in the Depressed Anonymous big book, we can discover who we are and how we became the way we are.

Here we can deepen our awareness of what makes us who we are by continuing our search by means of those questions put forward in our Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Because of the essential nature of the inventory procedure as outlined in our personal recovery program, an individual will see that their own openness to the process will provide them with a wealth of hope and serenity.

“Working the 4th Step is like coming home a different route. It is a path that is filled with signposts that point us in a different direction than where we are used to going. And for many of us this is in a different direction than where we are used to going. And for many of us this is the first time that we are really intent upon taking a good hard look at who we are. This taking inventory of ourselves has much to do with our loving ourselves and making ourselves open to a new path and feeling different.” The Depressed Anonymous Workbook, (2002). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. The 4th Step, Page 24.

–For more information on this Group/Home Study Kit and how to order it, please VISIT THE STORE. Both Workbook and the Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition, comprise our Study Kit. One can order all literature online.

MORE TOMORROW ABOUT THE 4TH STEP.

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Decision time!

January 14, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

” In Depressed Anonymous we are exposed constantly to the tough message that we have to give up our self-pity and sadness if we are to be happy. We have to think in terms of what is possible with God in our lives. Sometimes people come to Depressed Anonymous and can’t understand what this has to do with how bad they feel. If after a number of meetings they still don’t want to work the Twelve Steps, we recommend other groups for them. Depressed Anonymous is a spiritual program and it is allowing the Higher Power into our lives that eventually delivers us from the habit of feeling sad and depressed. We in Depressed Anonymous are committed to working the Twelve Steps and listening to each other share how God , as we understand God, have worked in our lives.

Daily we pray that God will release us from our depression and will show us God’s will and way to peace. Don’t give up on yourself but come back to meetings week after week. In time, the truth about yourself as revealed to you by the group and the Higher Power will set you free. That is a promise.

One of the major areas of our lives that we have a difficult time with, is getting in touch with our feelings. Many of us who are presently depressed know that one of our greatest defenses is the denial of our feelings — our ability to feel is diminished as we continually choose numbness over vitality and spontaneity.”

In Step Three we have to make a decision. We don’t have to feel holy or extra nice but that we only have to make a decision — that is hard for someone who is depressed but it can be done. There is an old saying that goes like this : “Have a nice day unless you made other plans.” SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 50.

_______________________________

And in section #3.15 of our Depressed Anonymous Workbook we are asked to write out our feelings about the issue of needing to be in control and how that applies to our selves? How has this need to be in control kept you isolated and withdrawn from others and your own understanding of God? Do you have difficulty in trusting others. Even God? Write out your answers.

” I want to start to really begin to turn things order to the God of my understanding. In Depressed Anonymous we call this God our Higher Power.

AS Bill W., said

“We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask God in your morning meditations what you can do each day for the man/woman who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order.

But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with God is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is a great fact for us.”

SOURCE: The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 17.

_____________________________________________________________

NOTE: YOU Can order the GROUP/HOME STUDY KIT (Includes both The WORKBOOK and the DEPRESSED ANONMOUS MANUAL) at VISIT THE STORE here online. Other Depressed Anonymous literature is also available. Check it out.

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Came to believe…

January 13, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

“What do we consider to be the Higher Power or the God that is larger and more powerful than our personal depression? In our prayers we believe that God or the Higher Power can free us from the burden of our joylessness, and that the why of our depression is not as important as the fact that we are depressed. What is it about our complete dependence on this obsession with sadness, our chronic fatigue and feelings of worthlessness that won’t let go of us? Granted, sometimes we feel depression is a comfort, and we’re afraid to let go of it because we don’t as yet know what will replace it. Hope tends to be unpredictable whereas the pain of depression is constant and predictable. We can depend on it.

We have given ourselves over to the belief that this growing feeling of helplessness is what must govern our lives, moods and behavior. We have given it license to run roughshod over every part of our life and over our relationships. Most people can’t see inside us and discover the pain that makes up our every waking moment. For the most part, we are able to hide how miserable we feel.”

Comment

In Step Two of our Twelve Step recovery program, we begin to see the light and walk into the arena of freedom, and can now profess that we “came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, and that this simple belief gets us closer to the promise of serenity and hopefulness.

As we look at our Depressed Anonymous Workbook and those questions dealing with the Second Step we are asked to comment on this question:

#2.15 Describe how your Higher Power might be your depression or your attachment to a person, substance, place, thing or behavior? The Workbook commentary continues on with the following thought: For the depressed person giving up old ways of thinking and acting is much like giving up any other addiction -at first letting go of the old behavior makes us feel uncomfortable. The old behavior wants to cling to our spirit like swamp mud hangs onto knee-high boots. Before you participate in DA you would go home from work, get by yourself and ruminate on how bad you felt. This new behavior will help you think differently about yourself. You will find that this Higher Power, or God as you understand it, is not the same God that you might have met when you were young. When you were a child you came to believe that God was watching you, ready to punish you if you were not perfect. You will begin to develop an adult and new way of being related to God as you understand God. With time, persistence and patience, you will gradually trust your life to this Higher Power.” ( See Page 48 in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition, page 48., for a full description of these thoughts.)

SOURCES: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. (Home study kit-Book One)

The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. (Home study kit -Book Two)

Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

NOTE VISIT THE STORE at this site for more information on using the Twelve Steps of Recovery for overcoming one’s depression.

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“We admitted that we were powerless over depression and that our lives had become unmanageable.”

January 12, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

Step One of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship puts it out there straight and to the point. If we want to recover from our experience of sadness and isolation we have to get the ball moving. We will admit that something is out of whack in our lives. This First Step is where we start our healing process.

In the Depressed Anonymous Workbook (See Home Study Kit) we can find answers to our questions about depression as they unfold from reflections about our life today. We will take the time and make the effort to unravel from our lives where we find our selves powerless and our lives out of control.

For example in Question #1.11 in the Workbook it asks the reader: When have you most felt powerless over anything in your life? How did you handle your feelings of powerlessness then?

I believe that by looking over our past difficult life events and circumstances which you have faced and overcome, this in itself suggests that you can do it again.

By reading the personal stories in our Depressed Anonymous book, you have definite proof that those persons who follow the 12 Step program of recovery no longer feel powerless. Now with the help of the Steps, the Fellowship of Depressed Anonymous and the tools provided for recovery, life becomes manageable. That’s a Promise!

SOURCES: HOME STUDY KIT (Visit the store)

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition and The Depressed Anonymous Workbook together, include the Home Study Kit. Each group benefits by utilizing both at every meeting.

Choice, Hope, Negativity, Step 01, Step 04, The 12 Steps

I’ve had it living with feeling out of control

January 12, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

If you really want to leave behind your painful sadness, the daily fears, and the feelings of worthlessness, then begin now to admit the unmanageability of your depression. You have had it with feeling out of control.

That’s the way it is with depression –over the years you get comfortable with feeling miserable which doesn’t mean that you like it, but that you’re just too afraid to risk something different. When you want to change and leave your depression behind, the choice that you want to make is immediately dashed to the ground because you just feel that there is no hope for you. “I can’t pull myself up by my bootstraps and start to feel better,” you tell yourself. Most of the time, we tell ourselves that we’ll do it when we feel better. Folks, let me tell you something – you’ll never feel better until you begin by physically get moving. We all know that we feel better only when we get in gear and get busy – distracting ourselves from those ever present miserable thoughts whispering how bad we are and how hopeless life seems to be.”

____________________HELP IS ON THE WAY! ___________________________

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 32.

12 Step Meeting, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Meditation

Frozen feelings

January 11, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

My feelings get frozen for me when I am depressed. My face sometimes masks the feelings of despair that lurks in my whole being. I feel only the pain and hurt of yesterday. I say “I’ll do it when I feel better.” I never do it because that day never comes. I need to have a list of feeling words that will help me best get in touch with what I feel and desire. The words that describe the feelings are just that – words- but the words that I describe myself with are the same words that I have allowed to imprison me throughout my life.

The major feelings are mad, sad, glad and fearful. It is when I can name my feelings, feel them, that I can make some headway accepting that they are there and then deal with them. In the past, I fled from what was new and uncomfortable.

Meditation

In the spiritual life, I find that God is there whether I feel its presence or not. What I know is that there is some grand design for this universe and for myself. I am in debt to its plan and to its process. Right now, as I yield to its desire for my life (it’s desire is my desire). I will and I can find a way out of my depression. Even though I fear that I might lose something of myself, my very self, if I trust, just the opposite can happen. I will gain a new life filled with hope and a new way of feeling alive.”

SOURCES: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. January 11.

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Missing my sad thoughts

January 10, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

“Some days I miss my sad thoughts. They are addictive. They fill a space and meet a requirement of comfort and familiarity. And because humans require and seek a level of comfort and familiarity, the depressed human is no different. Sadly (pardon the pun) it’s the sad thoughts that provide the deep level of comfort is the exact reason that these thoughts are so familiar. When I remove the sadness … I have to work to replace that big open field of nothingness left…It feels hard. It feels like work. Pressure and effort…I want to fall back into the sad thinking because I know very well how to form these thoughts and how even to feel them. Strangely, how to make use of then. They serve a strong purpose. They validate my depression and vice versa. They have lived in me for so long that to have to fill the void of their once lived life in space, feels so hard. Uncomfortable. My mind is having to accept this new training which I’m putting it through. It doesn’t want to change. At first, it is not giving a welcome to these new positive thoughts. It is a struggle. My mind, lurching restlessly back and forth, I hear the great struggle.: ” I just want to go home to my bed. No, no, you want to go to the grocery shopping! No, no, please I need to just lay down . No, I’m leaving the store!! I am so depressed. No, no, you are going to do your task today because it makes you feel better.” And then I tell myself, ” I refuse to be held captive and a victim to this negative dark thinking that is killing me.”

The whole day continues on like this. It takes time to truly train the mind to accept these incoming positive thoughts…affirmations are a needed daily medicine for the sad mind, and it takes consistency. I ask myself, how bad do I want to feel better? This is the process of healing for my depressed mind and my feelings. Now, slowly I miss my sad thoughts less and less. Now, I continue to feel the need for positive affirmations.

_______________________________________

I want to thank Debra S, a member of the Edenton/Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Depressed Anonymous Group, for sharing an excerpt chapter, Missing my sad thoughts from her new book : Depression rides in the hearse. (This work is available this year).

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Thinking unpleasant thoughts wear me out–until I did this.

January 8, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

Hello friends

Just a note today to share with you something that you already know, namely, how the continuous thinking of unpleasant thoughts wears us out.

One day, quite by accident I discovered a secret. I discovered how my mind was trying to fool me, by making me believe that I was tired, worn out and needed to lie down and just sleep.

So, again, I was wearing myself out with my gloom and doom thoughts when I believed I was too tired to do anything. I suddenly thought, “Hey, wait a minute, I don’t have to keep running from myself and let this fatigue force me down on my back. ” So, what did I do? I went to my computer desk, and began to write. It was like driving through a blasting blizzard with nothing to be seen ahead of more except the hood of my car. I continued to write. The fatigue persisted. And then gradually with about ten minutes under my belt, my negative thoughts slowly replaced with thoughts focused on what I was banging out on my keyboard, I felt a resurgence of energy. Now, I wanted to continue to write. Gradually, I began to feel the lightness of hope coursing through my arteries. It was like someone had turned on the light and gave me the secret to keep on my feet, so to speak, and regain the energy that I wanted to sleep away.

I distracted myself, pulled away from the gloomy thoughts and focused all my attention on creating something brand new. The pulling away and knowing now that I can walk away from the temptation to surrender myself to that which would have continued to put me down.

Try it. It works for me. It can work for you as well.

Hugh

Acceptance, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Hope

I am choosing to live now-today!

January 7, 2016 hopeservicefellowship Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

I am choosing to ask the God of my understanding to help me be open to all the persons like myself who are getting free of their hopelessness.

“Being constantly on guard against the future is exhausting, but it does have the advantage of directing your attention away from the present. Since the past and the future are ideas in our minds we can insist that the past and the future are exactly as we see them. The trouble with the present is that it has the habit of suggesting that my ideas may not be entirely right.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

To live now takes more courage, on some days more than on others. What I need to do is to attempt to live right now. The living in the present will make it possible for me to gradually learn some new truths about life and myself. This opening myself up to the present moment will give me the opportunity to hear how I can live with hope and serenity.

No longer do I have to choose to live in the encapsulated and isolated prison of my own fears and prejudice about the past and the future. The past is always full of hurt and unexpected anger. The future never seems to be without its colossal fears and “what if’s.” Now is the time to accept the fact that I want to change the way I think, act and believe. Right now I am wanting a change and am willing to face the challenges that making changes bring. To do this is called living.

The Third Step tells me that I have made a decision to turn my mind and my will over to the care of God as I understand him. This is the freedom that I am looking for. This is the source of my strength today, namely, these healing Twelve Steps. Granted that I have to clean house and admit that I have unknowingly constructed my own depression (See Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition)

MEDITATION

I will make a decision. This is the first step in getting free. I make a decision to choose freedom over the security of isolation and a life that is lived in the past.

SOURCE: (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. January 7. Pages 4-5.

Hope is just a few steps away!