12 Step Meeting, Belief, Believing Is Seeing, Hope, Mutual Aid, Purpose, Service, Step 12

Do not ask what the world needs

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“Do not ask for what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and do it. For what the world needs is people who are fully alive.”
Howard Thurman

This thought got me thinking. I have asked myself the very question many times over. I always had an answer to the question. For many years, the same answer continued to take me down the same path. It was a gentle path. It was like going to work in the morning. You know, getting on the bus, or driving the car to the same place every day. There it was the same faces, the same tasks. After a days work it was back home again. End of story.
It was a good life. I felt alive doing what needed to be done. And yes, I think I was fully alive. But then at a certain point(I can still feel it) life started to spin out of control. If you have had this experience you definitely know what I am talking about.

Long story short. My life was falling apart. I started isolating from friends and family. All I needed was to get away from the world and try figuring out what ws happening to me. I did not need a world that looked so gray, forbidding and threatening.
I only wanted to live in a world of which I could control. Now, I was moving slowly in a world that gave me no promise of direction. I was a walking zombie.

Then gradually, a light went on in my dull and darkened spirit. I discovered a new and exciting path. It was a new world for me. I was no longer alone. It was my gradual awakening to a new reality. I was no longer alone. I was part of others who are on the same journey. It was a journey of hope. I had a direction. It is called recovery.
My depression was gone. The fog had lifted. I came alive with the help of the group. It is better called a fellowship.I am needed. My experiences of recovering from depression is needed. I am called to give hope. My life’s ultimate concern, my purpose is to walk with others just like myself–once wounded –now wounded healers. I am fully alive.

I believe that the world truly needs me–needs you. What once made me think I was worthless and useless, now I am alive. Depressed Anonymous helped me come alive. Now I have no doubt what makes me fully alive. It’s those others, just like me at a time in my own life, who said, we need you. We need you to help others become fully alive. Now we know what the world needs.

With a gratitude that I am alive.

Hugh, for the fellowship

DA Literature

Soul, Spirit, Heart

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What do those words mean for you.
Holy Joe words I always thought
Not anymore, I believe
Through listening a lot

Years and years, it takes you to see
To put those words in order for me
Holy Joe words, they can indeed be
But today, mostly those words mean emotions for mE.

For years I saw weakness where emotions should be
Don’t show emotions they are not useful to me
I believed others tormented more when I let my guard down.
Emotions hide those it’s easier to frown
Much better be competent by the book whilst going around

I thought I was here only for tasks
Keep going on story stuck
So, on my life towards solitude went
Find another quest on which my life’s time to be spent.

Quest after quest, blow after blow
The emotions were there but now trodden below
My life revolved around rushing to go
Never ever learning how to really say no

I can’t trust my brain
When it comes to what’s best
Who would believe that that could be so?
Instead of my brain helping, it can stop me to grow.

Moore, M. Member of the International Online Skype Depressed Anonymous Fellowship.
With permission

Stinking Thinking

Depression, depression – what an oppression

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Depression, depression
What an oppression

And how can this be explained?

My pills are to my rescue
My basic needs are fully met
One is convinced that I am in paradise
A woman, married happily with wonderful parents,
children, lovely family, and all.

But what a waste of time!
I hear! Why aren’t you happy?
You are more fortunate than others!
What are you missing? I’m told!
What am I missing, really w=hat?
Since what I need is very little
Just love and peace for all of us.

It’s tortuous to witness pain
and around people’s suffering
It does not help me, knowing that
others are less fortunate than I’m.

One might think that I am just lazy.
And difficulty getting off my bed —
is simply crazy…

Why do I feel so miserable, helpless?
Depression, depression —
What my oppression?

I can’t bypass the homeless
and poor, like many others do
on streets each day.

I’m told to close my eyes and ignore.
I am scared by vehicles sirens,
by bitter odors, children screaming,
by peoples fighting, their rudeness.

How do I support that pain?
I want to help myself feel happiness again.

God knows, I ‘m desperately trying to play
the game of happiness, I can’t own.

A temporary relief is achieved
A sip of freedom so sweet, but
not for long, it quickly leaves.

The witch-depressions’s back again
to haunt me more, to torture me again.

“Be brave, collect yourself”
I hear others.
But that’s so hard for them to get.
That happiness cannot be forced.
That only unable to eat and
sleep when sadness suffocates one’s soul…

Depression, depression,
What an oppression.'”
—————————————-
Submitted by Irene S., a member of the Depressed Anonymous International Fellowship

With permission.

Step 01

Need a friend? Feel isolated? Need to talk?

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If you answered “yes” to any or all of the questions above, then we have help for you. Many times your answer could also indicate that you may br feeling “blue” or even depressed. Please read on.

“I am affirmed to know that I can always find a group of people who know how I am feeling anytime I want to get in contact with them.” Higher Thoughts

We also learn that the “isolation of depression begins as a place of safety and goes on to become a place of torture.” D. Rowe, Breaking the Bonds. Fontana. 1991.

I hear it often in meetings and I see it in the faces of the new members in the group. There is the fear of the new and the different. One has to give credit to those people when they come to their first Depressed Anonymous meeting. They are admitting first of all that they are having a problem. Admitting that their lives are out of control takes courage. They are coming out of their isolation and looking for help with their problem. They are willing to give up the safety of their isolation for the pain of telling others that they are miserable and have no hope of ever feeling differently.

Every move that I make toward other depressed when I am depressed takes me closer to another human being and help. My torture is so great that I am willing to come and meet with a group of total strangers and tell them my story. The amazing thing is that they listen. No one else wants to or has time to hear me tell my story. I have the key to gain an escape from my misery if I just use it. One of the telltale signs that I am depressed is when I begin to isolate and withdraw from others. When I find myself not wanting to be bothered by anybody, I just get myself to talk with another person who is like me, understands and can predict the painful path of depression.

MEDITATION

Our powerlessness lies in not being able to snap out of our depression. We know now that God as we understand him, or our Higher Power is going to get us through this period of our lives. We are on no time table with God, but we know his power is inside of us and we want to be conscious of this power in our lives now and everyday.”

RESOURCES

Copyright(c) Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for twelve step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.PAges 17-18. January 28.

Community building, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous

Do you have a daily strategy for living? Kobe Bryant used the Chess board for his basketball prowess.

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I was surprised to learn that the former LA Laker’s (NBA) great was a chess player. I wondered why that would be and then, being a chess player myself, I figured it out. Chess players become strategists by learning the best moves with their chess pieces to “check mate” and close down their opponent. Think about it. If you happen to be a chess player, you know all about strategy, or how a lack of strategy can give the game to your adversary. In chess, our pieces move according to moves predicated on the moves of one’s opponent. Sometimes one has to plan moves ahead to see what measures have to be taken to out maneuver the other player. Chess players have to have a strategy.

Two weeks ago, my grandson and I had a game, we had not played in a few years, and he always beat me in a few moves. (I always opened my game with wrong pieces). This time I opened with a new move and he was surprised. He had thought that he could beat his Papa in a few moves. Problem here is that I learned a new strategy and he was not prepared for my new strategy. Even so he won the game. I was still happy with myself that I put up some good moves myself and lasted longer in the competition.

In my duel with depression I gradually learned a strategy for my own life. I learned to to DO something. My first strategic move was to move my body and found that my mind would follow. Once I moved my body my motivation was strengthened and my thinking became more focused.

My own strategy was strengthened by using the 12 spiritual principles of our Depressed Anonymous program. At the core was my ultimate belief that I was going to recover, come hell or high water. An essential part of my strategy for regaining my life was to get out of bed in the morning and force myself. Move, call a friend. Go to a DA meeting.

For me, my best strategic move that check-mated my opponent, that is the isolation of depression, with its mistaken belief that there was no hope, was to join our fellowship, Depressed Anonymous. Because of the pandemic we have a daily SKYPE program online: Depressed Anonymous, a journey of hope. We are a group of people, who have found a strategy that works in so many great ways. It is to be with good people who are depressed and who now are able to work their way out of depression. We are not alone. We have a program of hope and we have each other. We remain anonymous (only first names are used if desired) and everyone has a chance to speak their mind. No one will tell you to “snap out of it” or “it’s just in your head.”

Another strategy is to read our literature – filled with strategies for any of us, on how to gain freedom from our isolating symptoms of depression –

Here is our strategy. Please click onto the website here at www.depresedanon.com. Go to Depressed Anonymous Homepage. There on the menu – last line, you will find menu references to our BLOGS, HOME and a MEETINGS MENU item that tells you where to find our meetings and how to get there. Please click onto the link at this pace and that will take you to our daily Depressed Anonymous meeting: A journey of hope. Here you can join our Online SKYPE group. Join.Skype.COM. Meetings are daily at 11:30 AM CST and 12:30PM EST. Please know that 10 minutes before the meeting starts you will get a green message button on your screen indicating “Join call.”
Click onto that and you are into the meeting.

Welcome. You will have used a strategy that will give you hope and a host of friends. Don’t let depression “check-mate” you.

Hugh, for the for the fellowship

Acceptance, Act As If, Depressed Anonymous, Isolation, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Serenity, Service, Step 01, The Promises

I need to get prepared for a new me today!

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I am getting healthier the more I realize that I don’t have to feel the way that I feel. I have the option to feel content and even smile today if I so desire. I will act like I want to smile again even though I don’t feel like smiling.

“If you have made yourself a martyr to your unappreciative family, remember the principle of partial reinforcement and apply it to your family. If you are always at their beck and call trying to meet their every demand, they will not appreciate you, but once they see that they cannot rely on you to to meet their demands, they will appreciate what you do for them.” (Breaking the Bonds, D. Rowe.Fontana, 1991).

REFLECTION
i Know that so often those who are codependent and live all the time in everyone else’s feelings need to remember that the real maturity and happiness lies in being there for me — not for everyone else. I think that reflection points out the fact that I need to reinforce my own worth by going to DA meetings, actively getting involved with my own recovery over anything and everyone else. I am going to begin to be a pleasant person. I will want to learn how to be pleasant to myself.
Now is the time and this is the program where I start to detach from other people’s opinion of myself and start to reflect where I start to detach from those people’s opinions of myself and start to reflect on my own opinion of myself. When I am depressed, I know that I haven’t been able to get angry, not to forgive anyone, much less forgive myself. I feel cheerless. I meet my own demands and continue to work the steps so as to get in touch with what I need to do to reinforce those positive concepts that I am forming about myself. I need to get prepared for a new me today.
“We are now on a different basis: the basis of trusting and relying upon God, our Higher Power. We trust an infinite God rather than our finite selves. Just to the extent that we do as we think he would have us do, and humbly rely on him, does he enable us to match calamity with serenity.” (As Bill sees it.p.265).

MEDITATION
When we gradually work our way to the real self we get closer to the God who made us.

RESOURCE
Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Hugh Smith. Pages 14-15.

Purpose

Your ‘ultimate concern’ in life gives your life meaning and a purpose

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I think the idea of an “ultimate concern” for one’s life is critical and can gives a laser-like focus to one’s choices. I believe that it is in our relationships and diverse human encounters along the trajectory of our lives that can either produce meaning to our decision making or cause us to make unwise choices. My life had only one concern, and that concern was in making sure that I had the next “fix” assuring me that each day I would stumble onto that elixir, that potion, which took away my ability to say “no” to those areas of my life which not only kept me paralyzed but powerless.

All this came about while I was in my mid-forties, and my life took on a sudden and radical change, a result of a lack of having any ultimate concern in my life. It was like my life was without a “mission statement” so to speak, no ultimate goal or objective etched in my thinking, to guide me in my life and decision making. There was no one at the tiller; I was adrift in a turbulent sea. I had lost sight of my North Star. All the while, darkness enveloped me and the storms of life threw me overboard. I was like Jonah swallowed up in the belly of the whale.

Seeking help and finding the help of a group of men and women (Depressed Anonymous) all focused on their own “ultimate concern” of helping others, they continue to find their own way out of the their own prison of helplessness.

Like all members of the fellowship, using the 12 spiritual principles of the twelve steps, we found our way out of hopelessness. We finally found hope and a purpose for living. Our 12 step spirituality keeps me undepressed today and I am thriving one day at a time. That’s all I am given. Today. I have a gift to share with others and that gift keeps on giving through others like me whose life today has a new meaning and purpose.

You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful garden, but you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if your experience loss, and if you do not put your head in the sand, but take the pain as a gift to you with a very, very specific purpose.
Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross, On Death And Dying: Stages of dying discussed, 1960

I grant that my own depression experience was the worst pain in my life. I have taken that pain from my own life, I have accepted it and now I can see that for these past thirty years, and from my own experience and recovery, continues every day to be my gift to others. For that reason it has provided me with a very specific purpose, namely, to tell my story how there is hope and that you do recover!

Resource
Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, THIRD EDITION. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville KY.

Hope is just a few steps away!