Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

Belief, Focus, Step 01, The 12 Steps

Sadness Can Be Overcome By Hope!

6 Comments

”  Remarkable things happen to us when we are willing to admit defeat and talk about our powerlessness over depression and how our lives had become un-manageable.  This first step is the beginning of the flight of steps that takes us up and into our new way of living.  At our fellowship of Depressed Anonymous we talk hope, we act hopeful, and we think hope. We learn that our thinking depressed and negative thoughts might have gotten us in the shape that we are in today. What you think is what you become.  For us who find sadness our second nature, we at times continue to revert to the comfort of old familiar negative thinking and are in actuality returning to self destructive behavior. Hope is overcome by sadness.”

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous. Depressed Anonymous Publications.Page 107.

We all have heard the saying, seeing is believing. I prefer the reverse, namely, that believing is seeing. Once the newcomer arrives through the door of a Depressed Anonymous meeting for the first time, they will hear and see recovery in action.

Possibly for the first time the newcomer  to the DA group  will hear their story voiced by the various  members of the group. They will see that they are not alone.  They discover how their own sadness gets a positive  jolt as they  hear hope expressed in the  recovery group. It is easier to believe someone when they share the same conditions of isolation, and feeling hopeless that you feel.   In fact, in a group of people much like oneself, you begin to see that maybe, just maybe, there is hope for you as well.

Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Higher Power, Prayer, Spirituality, The 12 Steps

THE MYSTIC EXPERIENCE OF BILL W., CO-FOUNDER OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS.

Leave a comment

Granted that this site is not about alcoholism but about depression. But let’s face it, many of those addicted to alcohol are also depressed. I think many depressed try and medicate the pain with alcohol and then end up with two conditions that they need help with. We call this a co-morbid addictive illness.
A few days ago I wrote about the “spiritual awakening” that gave Bill the jump start that he had to have in order to quit his drinking. For Bill it came down to either lose (surrender) his life to this mystic power or to the disease of alcoholism. After this special illumination of the hospital room and to his mind, he knew he could not continue his drinking.
Bill describes his thoughts about this epiphany in the following light:
I was the recipient of a tremendous mystic experience or “illumination” and at first it was very natural for me to feel that this experience staked me out as somebody very special.
But as I now look back upon this tremendous event, I can only feel very grateful. It now seems clear that the only special features of my experience were its suddenness and the overwhelming and immediate conviction that it carried.
In all other respects, however, I am sure that my own experience was essentially like that received by any A.A. member who has strenuously practiced our recovery program. Surely, the grace he received is also of God; the only difference is that he becomes aware of his gift more gradually. Source: AS Bill sees it.

Acceptance, Choice, Depressed Anonymous, Mutual Aid, Negativity, Purpose, Step 01, Step 02, The 12 Steps

Listen To How You Talk To Yourself – Do You Like What You Hear?

6 Comments

AFFIRMATION

I will let go of the negative thoughts about myself as soon as I am conscious that I am experiencing them.

“…try to live one day at a time.. We know from experience that our sobriety , our disappearance from sadness is due to letting go, admitting our powerlessness  (Step 1) and coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity (Step 2).

REFLECTION

I know that I have to continue to work on myself and the way that I speak to myself on an ongoing and daily basis. My letting go and letting  God take over my life doesn’t mean that  I’ll just sit back and let it do all the work, no, it means that I will work on myself and leave the outcome up to my Higher Power. I know that my life can be lived differently if I just make an effort to choose to be conscious of the thoughts  that I let myself ruminate and think  about during the day. The more I monitor my thoughts, the more I am able to filter out the negative thoughts and have them replaced with positive and constructive thoughts. We call them SUNSPOTS (Depressed Anonymous).

So often when I am depressed I continue a thinking style that was learned as a small child. I am not even conscious as to how I would  always select the negative attributes about myself to reflect upon instead of attempting to think positive and hopeful thoughts about myself and relationships. The more I believe that I have a choice as to how I am to feel, the more I become conscious of the thoughts that influence the way I feel.

Going to a mutual aid group, which focuses on depression, enables us to share with others how we talk to ourselves and what we tell ourselves, day after day. Do we like what we hear when we share with others our continued negative thinking? I would think not.

MEDITATION FOR TODAY

God, let us just for today, dwell on your mercy and kindness. Your are not the harsh judge of my childhood. You are the God who loves us just the way we are. God is like the Mother who continues to love the child of her womb.

SOURCE: HIGHER THOUGHTS FOR DOWN DAYS(C) December 14.

Higher Power, Mindfulness, Spiritual Heroes

BILL’S WAKE UP CALL! GOD TURNED ON THE LIGHT!

Leave a comment

It was 80 years yesterday (12/11), an alcoholic named Bill Wilson was admitted to a New York hospital.

He had just celebrated his 39th birthday.

Alone in his room he cried out, “I’ll do anything, anything at all!” He described what happened next:

Suddenly, my room blazed with an indescribably white light …Then, seen in my minds eye, there was a mountain. I stood upon its summit, where a great wind blew. A wind, not of air, but of spirit. In great clean strength, it blew right through . Then came the blazing thought, “You are a free man.”

   I became acutely conscious of a presence which seemed like a sea of living spirit.  I lay on the shore  of a new world.

Wilson said that after this experience, he never again doubted the existence of God. And he never  took another drink.

Bill Wilson is the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. (C) Diocese of Saginaw Advent Book for 2014

Purpose

TAKING THE BULL BY THE HORNS!

4 Comments

“Absolute certainty may appear to you to be a wonderful thing, giving complete security, but have you ever considered that if you want absolute certainty you must give up freedom, love and hope.” (8)

REFLECTION

In my efforts to find a cure for my depression, I have instead dug a deeper hole than what I was in. I see that my depression is an addiction. The more I ran from whatever was making me sad and feeling alone, the more alone and sad I had become, thus the cure became worse than what I depressed myself about in the first place.  When and if I decide to really get cured of my depression, then I must take the bull by the horns and face whatever I was running from at the very beginning of my depression.

To live with any amount of freedom, one has to live in a certain amount of uncertainty. Our lives are filled with the uncertainty of how things will work out in the short and long run. If I want certainty, then I will have to become God as only God knows for certain what is to happen in the future.  Maybe that’s what I need to look at in myself, how much am I trying to play God?

MEDITATION

God, be present with us today!  You are God and I am not!

SOURCE: Higher Thoughts for Down days. December 11.

Addiction, Depressed Anonymous, Prayer, Purpose, Spiritual Heroes, The 12 Steps

IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE!

3 Comments

It takes one to know one is  true. Following my own depression experience and the setting up of Depressed Anonymous groups did I realize that I had an experience which could be used to help others. I knew what it felt like to suffer  the physical symptoms of depression.  Following the attainment of my Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, I discovered many in my practice  came  seeking help to overcome their  depression. Gradually it dawned on me that I could  be a source of support  to others — just by sharing my own struggle with depression.  Once I shared with my clients my own battles with the dark monster, it became clear by sharing my own  story that they began to open up about their own battle with the dark monster. My clients found someone who could not only relate to their own story about isolation, shame and the continual physical pain caused by depression–but they heard how helplessness and despair had given way to hope! My own story validated their story.  That it takes one to know one is so true.

This is where Bill W., (co-founder of AA) learned the greatest lesson, namely that an addict will be more open to listen to some one who has or is fighting the  same battles that you are fighting. And the best is that by using the program of recovery that we have used and still use  today, might find  life starting to be lived with serenity and hope.

It is not complicated. Here it is, laid out simply and to the point. I was once severely depressed and now I am not. How did this happen one will ask? It happened by believing that by being part of a fellowship of people just like myself  and following a way of life, marked out step by step, that I, like Bill W., and all other addicts will see how with  our belief that I  can get better,  get better. It does take work and time. We learn to not live in our past -it’s gone forever- and not to live in the future–but to live in the now, today. All we have is this 24 hour period.  As the Yiddish saying goes, “to share my story is to save my life.” It’s so true. When I discovered the 12 Steps, shared my story and made prayer and meditation a  part of  my daily routine,  I began to taste the freedom  that comes with that ‘spiritual awakening’ which occurs when we are able to share our story with those still suffering. The depressed newcomer will know that you are the “real deal.”  And if you are fortunate enough to find a group in your locale you then will find out what we all have all discovered–it takes one to know one.

Serenity, Step 02, The 12 Steps

Came To Believe That A Power Greater Than Ourselves Could Restore Us To Sanity – Step 2

Leave a comment

What do you give your power to in your own  life today? What can help you to greater sanity?

Various powers  have played a critical role in our lives in the past. If you wish, please name and list the people, places, situations, and  things  that have exerted the greatest power over you and your life in the past. These places, persons, situations and things can have a positive or negative power over you and your life. Please list below.

Persons

Places

Situations

Things

Depressed anonymous Workbook/ Depressed Anonymous Publications/Page 11/ Step Two.

In tomorrow’s post we will list some of the thoughts about Step 2 and how our beliefs can produce sanity in our lives.

Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Focus, Hope, Purpose, The 12 Steps

WHAT WILL MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO FIND HOPE? READ ON!

1 Comment

“Once we  admit that our depressed thinking is what conditions us to see our world as a hopeless place to live, the more we will try to change the way we think.”

REFLECTION

When I am able to admit that I have need of improvement for some area of my life, things can begin to happen.  I believe that now that I have a program in front of me that can help me to feel better, the more I will use it on a daily basis. As one member of the 12 Step group, DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS, points out, “I had to go to open that 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.”  Now that we admit we need help, help is on the way.

It is always difficult to change. Millions of others are leading lives of peace, sobriety and hope as they place their trust in their Higher Power and commit themselves  to learning how to feel differently.  They are learning that by having faith in God, themselves, and the fellowship of the group, life does indeed get better. I am going to get better, the more I work and live the 12 Steps.

MEDITATION

O God, we know that our hope in you is what will make it possible for us to find hope in our lives each and every day.

SOURCE: Higher Thoughts for December 4th, 2014.

Fellowship, Mutual Aid, Negativity, Powerlessness, Purpose

THE GOOD AND BAD IMPLICATIONS OF DEPRESSION

Leave a comment

If you believe that you had nothing to do with your depression,  then the good implication is that you didn’t cause it.  The bad implication is if you didn’t cause it then you could get it again, like the flu or the cold.  But since depression isn’t a cold or a flu virus or germ we will try taking responsibility for our depression and its symptoms and go from there.  The quickest answer to that is that it may lead me to take full responsibility for anyway that I can to overcome depression –this may mean taking the medication to reduce the negative symptoms, seek talk therapy, and then be part of a beloved community –a self help group where they know us by name. It is here that people like us will take the time to guide us toward the light where we can find safety, security and people like ourselves who will not tell us to “snap out of it.”

It is now the time to ask yourselves how you can best take responsibility for yourself.  Formulating a daily plan, an activity, a pleasant activity, a feeling of finally getting control over your life which you felt that you never had. Also, planning one or more pleasant activities everyday into your life is a good way to plan your day instead of your day planning you.

To examine the good and the bad implications of depression as outlined briefly above is just another way to continue clarifying our thoughts on how well we  are taking responsibility for our lives.

———————————————————————————————————————————-

Copyright(c) Shining a light on the dark night of the soul. DAP  Pages 16=-17(  Excerpts)

Acceptance, Depressed Anonymous, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Focus, The 12 Steps

BUILDING A FUTURE ONE DAY AT A TIME!

Leave a comment

“We admitted that we were powerless over depression and that our life was unmanageable.”

Granted this is not the most happiest of thoughts to read as we get going this day.  But you know what?  It’s at this point in your life that something, some attitude change is going to give you courage to take back control over your life. Years ago when I was doing a project for my degree work I discovered, (like I didn’t know it by my own life experiences) that when a person feels they have control over their life and life’s circumstances that their symptoms of depression start to disappear. So, is this a fact or is it something somebody just told me, without any foundation in fact. The truth of the matter is, that when I felt most helpless and hopeless and my life was falling apart, I had no control. It was literally the feeling of sliding  down that slippery slope. I actually felt at that moment like my life was truly spinning out of control. I can even remember the place, the time of day when it happened. That was in 1985. I was completely powerless. Helpless. All alone in my pit of isolation. Alone with my secret. I looked the same. No one knew the disabling effect this paralyzing  had in my life. But  I knew. That  was the important issue here. I knew. I felt the total pain of the isolation.

And now these many years latter, I still  use the Steps for CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT.  Back to Step One where we say we “admitted…” In our Workbook it states that  “But what good is it to admit that our depression has made us feel powerless? I already know what you might say?  That is why I have spent thousands of dollars on hospitals, doctors, counselors and drugs!” But really for a person to admit that they are powerless is what gives us new power –paradoxically. It’s like in the letting go of a death grip on our continued sadness that makes the sadness  gradually wither and die.. But somehow  – again I don’t know how it all works  –when I say I am depressed, deflated, and down and have the 12 Steps and the fellowship at my side there is a small ray of lite starting to shine in my mind and heart. It’s like saying I’ve had it this way all my life —depressed and isolated- now  I’ll try it your way.”

Here is the next question that can help clarify some of your thinking today.

One of the major ways people help build the walls of depression is to believe the following statement: “Since bad things happened to me in  the past, bad thing are bound to happen to me in the future. ” Today, reflect, be aware of your own feelings, write  down on paper your response, then get motivated to do something now, today. Do something which will  motivate you to move and perform an activity that you can achieve just today. You are building a future one day at a time.  Keep it simple!