“We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men/women of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead we let him demonstrate through us , what He can do. We ask him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At. once, we commence to outgrow fear.”
Alcoholics Anonymous, page 68.
How often do we hear about “coming attractions” when we go to our local theater? There are always movies that are advertised to be shown in the future. They usually depict short clips from some of the movies that will be coming soon.
Now, today, as we go about our day, our mind reviews some of the coming attractions that we will bump into this day. Have you ever noticed that the human mind, with its fears and apprehensions, usually attracts all those things that we fear might actually happen to us. Let me give an example of how “coming attractions” works in the brain. It’s very much like Murphy’s law which tells us that if you think something bad is going to happen–it usually does. It is a strange phenomenon but it actually works out that what we fear many times actually occurs. It’s almost like the negative fear attracts the very thing that we fear. Let’s say we are thinking about a person who is a big pain and suddenly there they are -right in front of us. How does this happen? Is there some mysterious magnetic force in the universe that makes this fear become a reality? Or another example: I go to a room filled with strangers and I think, “nobody will want to talk with me.” And almost magically we find ourselves standing in a corner watching everyone else interacting with others. We just knew that this would happen. This is one of those “coming attractions” to which our mind alerted us. And then again, how about this situation. You are at the grocery or market and you see someone you’d just as well not want to see . So you go down another aisle in the store and head for the check out lane. Lo and behold, guess who pulls up their cart right behind you. Yep, you guessed it. It’s one of those “coming attractions” that our mind makes happen. Negativity attracts negative events. Negativity thoughts attracts more negative thinking.
Can there be a reverse side of this “coming attractions” business of the mind? I believe so. It is just as true that our mind attracts whatever we put into it. If we fear this or that, make a mountain out of a molehill, but then reflect and see it for what it is, and reduce it to its appropriate size, we will not get stuck in the cycling negative thinking of how bad it is or might appear to us at the time.
In Step Three of Depressed Anonymous we read that “we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” This is one of my favorite “coming attractions” that has proved time and time again to be so true. Over time and with practice, I no longer waste my time thinking about what is going to happen to me in the future with its promised catastrophic end. So now my positive thinking abounds in a positive outlook for my life. I just know that whatever comes to me today I can handle. I just know that the Promises of Depressed Anonymous are as true today as when they wewre first written back in 1935. I also believe that all I have is today–just this 24 hour period. That is all God gives me. One day at a time. And whatever the “coming attractions” are for me today–God and myself can handle them. I am going to have a great day today! How about your day?
For more about the “coming attractions ” for your life, read what will happen for those of us who choose the way that leads out of depression. In the program of recovery we call them the “PROMISES.”
“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development , we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word “serenity” and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can help others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. The fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. ”
SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 109.
The Promises (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications .Louisville.
Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.
VISIT THE BOOKSTORE FOR MORE INFO.
Sue, tells us how working at a local Zoo got her out of the house and focused on a new volunteer position at the zoo. She found that she loved it. It gave her a purpose and a self dignity that her depressed lifestyle had taken from her. The following is her own account of what this volunteer position brought into her life.
“Action does precede motivation and I began working at a local zoo. It is a beautiful place (and safe from muggers too). I began talking with people and learned about classed there to become a docent (a volunteer teacher). I enrolled and graduated. This gave me a new purpose in life. I get great joy from working there doing outreaches to schools, nursing homes and hospitals. I have made friends with both animals and humans. There isn’t a day that I go there to talk that I don’t get thanked by someone, a visitor, or employee (or sometimes an animal).
My family hasn’t changed ( although my mother commented on the change in my face), but I have. In this the Serenity Prayer really helps. I know that I can’t change them but I have new friends and a real support system so this doesn’t matter so much now.
Whoever you are, you who are reading this. Believe! The first Three Steps are the most important. Walking or other exercise is important. Staying with it is also important. Going to the meetings and participating is important, but above all else, faith is important. Faith will truly move mountains.”
SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 142-145. Personal Stories: Sues story: Faith does move mountains.
“Depressed Anonymous provides a secure base (love and acceptance) for those who never experienced love or support while growing up.”
After ten years of repeated meetings with the depressed of Depressed Anonymous meetings, it’s clear that the meetings create a secure base for those who in their childhood had neither kindness nor the life giving warmth and affection of family life.
People who keep coming back to Depressed Anonynmous continue to grow and become aware of the inner change taking place week after week as they find not only attention to their story, but find that they are loved and cared for at the same time. Possibly for the first time, they find that they look forward to each weekly meeting and become attached to the positive feelings that emerge inside themselves as they continue to share the story of their pain . In time, they share how their week is suddenly being filled with more good days than bad. It also becomes obvious to the participant that childhood behavior and experiences are carried right on into adult life. Trusting is such a hazard for the depressed because every person is different. You can’t trust your environment because it could suddenly shift and you would be without a certainty that you were bad and worthless. The meetings gradually present to you an opportunity to be someone worthwhile and valued. Your sharing and risking information about yourself begins the construction of a new and secure you. The Depressed Anonymous group becomes for possibly the first time in your life, a very secure and stable enviornmment where you can share, trust and grow.“
RESOURCE: Depressed Anonynmous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Personal Stories. Pages 139-140.
I made a decision years ago, albeit an unconscious one, that the horrible negative thoughts and painful feelings which afflicted me on an ongoing basis would never change. I am referring to my inability to climb out of bed a morning, the jittery deadly hollowness that filled my stomach, plus the anxiety of waiting for the “other shoe to drop” which I believed would bring on some catastrophic event to make matters worse in my life.
But, here is the kicker, I discovered Depressed Anonymous, at the point of personal despair, and found hope in a fellowship of men and women who likewise had made a decision to give up–some even attempting suicide. But by the grace of God, my surrender to this power greater than myself, brought me into a way out of depression and one that has lasted these many years. I now follow the program of the Twelve Steps where I believe their Promises that if I am serious about following this path, my life will gradually get better and peace will be restored to one’s life. And guess what, that is exactly what happened to me. The same can happen to you as well.
“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.” Step Three of Depressed Anonymous.
Source: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.
This is one of those major statements from the 12 Step program of recovery. ” I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.” In our own lives we sometimes came to believe in other matters which didn’t do much for our self respect or our dignity. In other words it didn’t touch us at the core of our own humanity. Our beliefs determine our future and how we respond to what continually impacts upon our daily lives.
Now let’s talk about the experience we may be having or have had with depression. What did that do to our self-respect and identity as a human being? Did I it loosen our bonds with persons with whom we once shared our lives and dreams? Did it cause us to throw in the towel of living, because we had no peace and a total loss of a sense of regularity about our lives. Could it possibly be all of the above?
And this is where the “I came to believe ” comes into my life. I first admitted that my life was out of control, and that I was powerless over my depression, that I had to surrender myself to something bigger than me, so I drug myself into the Fellowship of Depressed Anonymous and have been in this haven of sanity for the last 30 years. I am still there after all these years, not because I am still depressed. No, it’s because of my desire to share what I know about depression and how to help those still suffering from this illness of mind, body and spirit.
Read more personal stories by those of us who have recovered, thanks to the Fellowship of Depressed Anonymous.
Read : Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.
In the last Step (Twelve) of our recovery program we read the following:
“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.”
In the Twelve and Twelve, a work which speaks directly to each Step and Tradition of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And now, these same Steps have been used by millions of people around the world for their recovery from whatever addiction/behavior which might be keeping them from living a life of peace and hope. In the case of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship, we too found that it was in our own personal “spiritual awakening” that brought us more deeply into that life of peace and hope as promised.
But first, let’s read what the author of this work spells out for us, defining for us what a “spiritual awakening” is.
“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 has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. He has been set on a path which tells him 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 had 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.”
For each of us I believe this is a good starting point for understanding what the recovery program understands by a “spiritual awakening.”
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Tomorrow we will continue our discussion about a “spiritual awakening” and take a deeper look at how Depressed Anonymous and those of us who are part of it, are experiencing this ongoing “spiritual awakening” in our individual lives. And because of this spiritual awakening we have this passion to try and “carry this message” to all those many others who are depressed and looking for help.
RESOURCES: (c) Twelve Steps and Twelve traditions. Alcoholics Anonymous’ World Services. Twenty-Ninth printing. NY. Pages 106-107..
(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 104-109;161-163.
Antidote: “A remedy to counteract a poison.” This is the definition as given by Webster’s dictionary. Fear is truly a poison in some ways and in others it is a gift. We need to fear only that which will keep us locked in the prison of depression. Sometimes our fears are of what tomorrow might bring or might be the fears from the past. One of the better antidotes to fear is trying to live, just for today. Today is all I have.
So often I hear others say that they have been depressed all their lives until – let me repeat- until they hear other stories as to how with work, time and belief in a power greater than themselves that they did and are feeling better now. I need to trust that once I have made my conscious decision to turn my life and will over to the care of God as I understand him, that my life will indeed begin to change.
“I am no longer alone in my suffering depression. I believe that by getting more active in my recovery that my life will begin to brighten up.”
“We of (AA) and Depressed Anonymous find that our basic antidote for fear is a spiritual awakening.” Bill W.
SOURCES:
Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. May 10. Page 95.
Copyright (c) Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2015 ) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.
Copyright (c) I’ll do it when I feel better. (2013) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.
In the 12 Step program of Depressed Anonymous I am learning to march to a different drummer and whistle a different tune. In fact, the road that I am now traveling down is a road that will gradually lead me out of the dead ends of depression, guilt, listlessness and the old familiar atrophy of my spirit to a new vision of who I am to be and to become.
WRITE: What is it that you want to begin to believe different from your self when depressed? Please list the four ways that you are gradually going to change the negative and hopeless way you believe about yourself. Print this exercise out and write out your responses if you would like.
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
Now name and list the people, places, situations, and things that have exerted the greatest power over you and your life now and in the past? These places, persons, and situations can have a positive or negative POWER OVER YOU AND YOUR LIFE?
2.6 Persons
2.7 Places
2.8 Situations
2.9 Things
CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT
Now stop and think upon the persons, places, situations that you either gave power over you or who had power over you. These four categories are power full influences in the past which even today may still exert their influence over you. Try and write down how this is perceived by you today. In other words, are these persons, situations, places still causing your life to feel out of control and unmanageable today? If so why? And if not, why not?
NOTE The above exercise is taken directly from The Depressed Anonymous Workbook.(2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 11.
Each of the 12 Steps has their own series of questions for the participant to answer. We continue to clarify for ourselves the avenues which we can take, one step at a time, overcoming our experience with sadness.
” Losses may produce a variety of very intense and painful feelings. Fear can cripple the best of us. Why fear people and economic insecurity? In Steps 4,5,6,7,8, 9 we have examined our lives, piece by piece, ending up with a good conscience, while fearing neither guilt nor shame for things of our past. We have thrown off the shackles of the past.”
SOURCE: I’ll do it when I feel better. (2014) Smith, Hugh. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. #10 of the 13 Promises of the Depressed Anonymous Recovery Program. FEAR OF PEOPLE AND ECONOMIC INSECURITY WILL LEAVE US.
” Bill, in his personal testimony in the DA book (Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition) relates that you don’t get better overnight, but you do get much better. I was down in the muck as far as I could go. I had to go and open the door for the first time because there was no other place to go. I had already used up all the hiding places in my life. I still have many problems like anyone else, but when I need sleep very badly, I turn this problem over to the Higher Power and go to sleep. I can always pick life up the next morning. Somehow it all gets done. Every few days the world dumps on you and beats you down. That’s just life.”
SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.
NOTE: For more information regarding these two publications, please VISIT THE STORE to discover more literature which is especially suited to persons depressed.