Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

Purpose, The 12 Steps

I am no longer ashamed to admit my being depressed.

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Here is a thought for your day!

“Treating yourself kindly means looking after yourself and accepting  yourself in all your humanness. You are not the most perfect, wonderful person that has ever graced this earth. Neither are you the worst, most imperfect, wicked person that has ever dared to draw breath.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I am beginning to realize , thanks to my program of recovery and my Higher Power, that I am not as bad as I think I am. I am beginning to see that the more I tend to stick to the present and live my life in today, the more free I am becoming  myself and  with others.

My depressed way of looking  at my world prevented me from ever focusing on the fact that I have a lot of value as a human being and as a member of the human race. I know that I am no longer ashamed to admit my being depressed. I am able to free myself away from the bonds of my sadness. I am now able to walk with my head up and believe and trust that God has a special purpose for me here on this  earth.

To be kind means to treat another the way you would want to be treated. When I am depressed, I treat myself like I am a nothing. I try and find ways to help myself to a gentler way of thinking of myself. ”

MEDITATION

We know that the God of our lives has something good for us today.  This good  will help us grow and get through  this day. We will place our trust in God,  as weak as this trust might be at the moment. Our trust is found in our ever growing love for ourselves.  (Personal comments)

SOURCE:  Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. March 23. Page 60.

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

+ For information on online ordering of these books, please click onto VISIT OUR STORE  on website menu (depressedanon.com) and then click onto VISIT THE  DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS  BOOKSTORE and this will lead you to the ordering information. Thank you and have a better day!!!

Courage, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

I can visualize myself happy and serene.

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A HIGHER THOUGHT FOR YOU  TODAY

AFFIRMATION

I will trust myself to try thoughts other than  the ones that make me feel sad, small and guilty. I will imagine myself happy and serene.

“Any system approaching perfect self-control is also approaching perfect self frustration. The desire for perfect control of the environment and of myself, is based on a profound mistrust of the controller. Because you couldn’t trust yourself to become, to allow   yourself to grow as a plant grows. Rather you have to make yourself, like you make a box. In regarding yourself as a manufactured box, rather than a growing plant you see yourself as an object, not as a living being…” (3) Dorothy Rowe.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know now that I need to let go and to let God guide my life as I attempt to live today. Just one day at a time. I pray now that God, or my Higher Power, will not let me get down on myself. Instead the Higher Power will help me become conscious of the fact that the Twelve Steps are truly  my steps out of the cell of the prison of my depression.

Each and every living human organism on this earth has five major characteristics that link all life together. Each  life organism has an autonomy, a competency, an interconnectedness to others, a self-directedness and an ability to duplicate itself.

MEDITATION

We want to control our lives and we are discovering that the best way to guide our lives is to live in the principle  of this Higher  Consciousness or, the God of our understanding.”

SOURCES:  Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for  members of Twelve Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.  Page 59. March 22.

Copyright(c) I’ll do it when I feel better. 2nd Edition (2018) Hugh Smith, Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Affirmations, Fellowship, Purpose

“I have to put my oars in the water if I want to get to my destination.”

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MY AFFIRMATION

“The idea that we have to be responsible  for ourselves and that the ways of the world are neither good nor just is too terrifying for you to contemplate. You cannot tolerate such uncertainty. You do not trust yourself, so how can you take responsibility for yourself?”

CLARIFICATION  OF THOUGHT

I don’t like facing the fact that ultimately I am the one responsible for myself, no one else.It  appears to me that  I have to take care of myself, depend on my Higher Power for direction, and go from there. My Higher Power isn’t going to do it all. I know that I have to do all that I can to restore my life and my feelings. God is the rudder to my boat and I have to put my oars in the water if I am to get moving in the right direction.

I am attempting, day by day, to tolerate the unpredictableness  of my life and gradually learn new ways to cope with uncertainty. While I am depressing myself, I want everything to be perfect and under my control. I know now that I will be happier when I learn how to tolerate a pleasant mood without telling myself that it won’t last.

MEDITATION

We believe that the closer that we come to God, as we understand God, the closer our God draws to us. We believe that whatever we want changed in our life this can be best be accomplished by approaching the God of our Understanding and letting this Power greater  than  ourselves steer us across the stormy sea.

(Your own personal thoughts)

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SOURCE: Copyright (c)  Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of the 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymlus Publications. Louisville. Page 57. March 19.

NOTE:   This book and others can help you find the serenity and hope that you are looking for in your life today. You can order on line here at our website. Click onto VISIT THE STORE.

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, DA Literature, Fellowship, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

“I can make the hard changes.”

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Your HIGHER THOUGHT  for today

Affirmation

I am gaining, day by day, a new and hopeful attitude about my life and my relationship with others.

“Strangely, I feel as if I’ve been incredibly lucky. Logically, I don’t believe in  luck. I believe the people make their own lives when they are what they  are, but still I feel so lucky to have been involved in a group which gave me the opportunity, and incentive, to start to make changes in my life: to understand why I am sometimes so angry, why I have been so  self-critical and self-destructing. Understanding why you feel as you do opens the gates for the even harder struggle of changing what you do.”

Making changes is part of making a life.  If I choose to stay mired in the deep pit of depression, I can choose that. I have that as an option. But, if I want to choose and risk changing  myself, I have the option of working to construct a different way of looking at my world. Just by changing my attitude about my life in the direction where I want it to go, I can make the hard changes. I want to change my attitude. I will now want  to listen to those who have been in recovery for months and/or years and listen to their hopeful attitude and how they are feeling better now that they are living one day at a time. They are no longer fearful that the old nemesis, the sadness, will sneak up and change everything back to the way it was.

I can only change myself. I will always try and keep the focus on how I need to change, not how others around me  need to change.

Meditation

God, we are always heartened  and  healed by the group. Please guide us and let us be led  to that healing community of persons who are  struggling to find the serenity that you promised to those who do you will. “Fear not, for I am always with you.”

SOURCE:   Copyright(c)  Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Page 43. (2/27/18.)

In order to get started on your own recovery, at your pace, and in the amount of time that you feel you need, we offer a HOME STUDY KIT. Please click onto the Depressed Anonymous Bookstore menu for information on ordering these materials of recovery.

Choice, Egoism, Stress

Higher Thoughts (positive)are like vitamins! Have you taken yours today?

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Affirmation

I am able right now to read and discover how I can undepress my self.

“… It seems that the physiological changes which accompany fear can have profound effects on the body which lead to a breakdown of the immune system, the system which enables us to throw off  obnoxious substances and viruses. Once this  this system ceases to function efficiently we are laid open to the ravages of all kinds of diseases.”

Reflection

It happens frequently that those who come to the office and say that they have had a cold which they haven’t been able to shake off,   are oftentimes under an undue amount of stress and pressure. The effects of continued worry and tension accumulate over time and should bring with it the effects of an impaired autoimmune system.

My body is made up of various systems all intended to work in conjunction and in harmony with each other. One of the many ways I could work against my stress   and overcome depression is to understand how I set myself up for depression. Sadness and depression aren’t caused just by a few irrational thoughts held over time – – if that was the case, then all of us would be depressed all the time. Depression, to be overcome, has to be understood and the best way to understand it is to begin to see that no matter how unclear is its origins, I’m still unable to do something so that I can undepressed myself.

Meditation

“God, put your hand in our hand and give us the gift of understanding those  areas, past and present in our lives which continue to produce those  thoughts  of self-hate and fear.”

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Personal comments

Source: Copyright ( c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve-Step support groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 41. February 24.

Spirituality

What do you mean when you talk about a spiritual awakening?

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STEP TWELVE OF THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PROGRAM OF RECOVERY

“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to the depressed, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.”

“Maybe there are as many definitions of spiritual awakening as there are people who have had them. But certainly each genuine  one has something in common with all the others. And these things which they have in common are not too hard to understand. When  a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that  he or she has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he or she could not do before on their unaided strength and resources alone.  He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of conscious and being.  He has been set on a path which tells him that he is really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered.  In a very real sense he has been transformed, because he has laid hold of a source of strength which, in one way or another, he has hitherto denied himself. He finds himself in possession of a degree of honesty, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind, and love of which he had thought himself quite incapable. What he has received is a free gift, and yet usually, at least in some small part, he has made himself ready to receive it.

A.A.,s (D.A’s)   manner of making ready to receive this gift lies in the practice of the Twelve Steps in our program.”

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Copyright (c) Twelve and Twelve. Pages 106-107. Alcoholics Anonymous World Service, New York. 29th printing.  1998. (Quoted in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.)

Focus, The 12 Steps

I will live in the solution – not the problem

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“Truly, I know this is where the great security lies, being responsible for myself. If all I did was to sit around and say poor me, and woe is me, I am not only making life tough on myself but I am also making life miserable for those around me. This is why I,   as a writer and therapist, and one who has been depressed, know that it is only when I get moving, even though I felt like death,  that I will began to feel  better. I will now make myself feel better. I want to enjoy this world. I am tired of the pain of blaming anyone for my problems because no one is making me live in  the problem. No one is making me feel worthless. I will live in the solution from now on. The solution for me is working my Twelve Step program of recovery and  I am now willing to face the enemy and start the changing process.

Meditation

Faith can move mountains. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door shall be opened  unto you. I believe this.

SOURCE:  HIGHER  TOUGHTS FOR DOWN DAYS.  365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve Step groups. DAP. Louisville. (February 3rd. )

For more information on Depression and the 12 Steps click onto the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at our website www.depressedanon.com.

 

 

 

 

Fellowship, Love

I am learning how to reinforce my own worth!

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AFFIRMATION

I am getting healthier the more I realize that I don’t have to feel the way I feel and I have the option to feel content and even smile today if I so desire. I will act like I want.  I will  smile 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 find that they cannot rely on you to meet ther demands, they will appreciate what you do for them.” (7)

RELECTION/CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know that so often those who are codependent and live all the time in everyone else’s feelings need remember that the real maturity and happiness lies in being there for me not for  everyone else. I think that this reflection points out the fact that I need to reinforce my own worth by going to meetings, actively getting involved with my own recovery and putting this recovery over anything or anyone else. If 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 want to detach from other people’s opinions of myself and start to reflect on my own opinions about myself.  When I am depressed, I know that I haven’t been able to get angry, nor able to forgive anyone, much less to forgive myself. I feel totally 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 positive concepts that I am forming about myself. I need to get prepared for a new day today.

“We are now on a different basis: the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust God rather than on our finite selves, just to the extent that we do as we think God would have us do., and humbly rely on him, does he enable us to match calamity with serenity.” (As Bill sees it, p.265).

MEDIATION

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

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of the 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed  Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 14, 15.

 

Fellowship, Purpose, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

You see yourself as a healer instead of victim!

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“The Twelve Steps work for those who work the program and who try to live one day at a time. Many times we have been so scared of being  rejected that we have withdrawn deeper into the anguish of our shame and hurt.   We need to air our hurts, our shame, and let others hear our story. There is something healing about hearing ourselves speak to others about our own journey in life and the many emotional potholes that we have fallen into from time to time. We have felt our lives were jinxed. But now we can begin to feel hopeful when other members of the group shake their heads in knowing approval of what we are saying when we tell our story. Most have been where we have been where  and we are now. And the more we make an effort to come to meetings  regularly, the more we will find members of the group telling us how they are seeing a change in the way we act, talk, and look. We will accept the group’s comments as being true and honestly expressed. These people speak our language and they all have been wher e we are now. You gradually begin to see yourself as healer instead of victim the more you work this program and get excited about the possibility of helping others. When you start reaching out  to others in the group, it is at this point that you are carrying the message of hope to others. You have a future with Depressed  Anonymous. ”

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 105.

Belief, Fellowship, Isolation, Mutual Aid, Victim Thinking

I will face my fears!

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I will take another small step in my own recovery  and face any uncomfortable  fears that arises. I will face it and let go.

“I had to surrender to God, quit controlling everything and everyone, including God.  Let go and let God.” (8 )

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

To think of letting go of my depression is like telling a drowning man to let go of his life jacket. When we have been depressed for so many years and this is all we know, we don’t know what to make of someone telling us to let go and surrender this experience to God.

I also know that for me to be in control, either by my sadness at home or my attempts to control every member of the family, I know that this keeps me from having to face all the pain in my own life. My thoughts don’t flow the way other peoples’ thoughts flow. My thoughts continually flow in a stream of heavy blackness. The blackness has always been part of my life and I feel that there is no way to escape it.  The only way out for me now is to “admit that I am powerless over my depression and that my life is unmanageable.”

I know that in the program there is much talk about giving over one’s life to a Higher Power and letting it guide us.  It’s somewhat like we are going down the road of life and we see a large narrow bridge which is spanning a river before us. We see the bridge and  can even see the other side but instead of crossing over we get out of our car, go down the embankment and begin to swim across to the other side. Depression and our own feelings of unworthiness won’t allow us to risk a way out of our sadness. Like so many life situations, the answers are hidden there in plain sight.

 

MEDITATION

We used to believe that our God was a God of wrath. We needed to believe that,  because we were feeling so bad, evil, worthless and unacceptable about ourselves. Now we believe God’s supply of love is endless. (See Step #3).