Category Archives: Purpose

Belief, Depressed Anonymous, I'll Do It When I Feel Better, Purpose

“Please treat yourself kindly! Begin to plan pleasurable activities into your life today.”

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  Believing is Seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression.  #8 Please treat yourself kindly! Begin to plan pleasurable activities into your life today.

“One of the best ways to make sure you will have a pleasurable activity today is to plan for it the day before and then placing it on your calendar for the next day. Don’t say you will do it “when I feel better,” as you and I both know, we don’t usually do anything no matter what we tell ourselves. I think we have  all heard the saying “have a nice day unless you have made other plans.”  A lot depends on our attitude. If this isn’t  enough, just know that Abraham Lincoln said that we are about as happy as  we make up our minds to be.

What do you think?  Have you thought about  developing a “gratitude attitude?”

Note: Another resource for personal reflection is the work titled “I’ll do it when I feel better.” Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. (2014).

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SOURCES: Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2015) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 45-46.

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

Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Purpose, The 12 Steps

I Can Ttill Hope…

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AFFIRMATION

I am finding a way out of my sadness and just for today, I will remain hopeful!

“…We have come a long way on our journey,  for the road to coping and recovery is widening and has its obstacles, but we have all fared well, we have braved the storms and found a hope that extends beyond tomorrow.”

  CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Even though the journey out of this darkness might be longer  than I am wanting to admit, I can still hope that the end will be in sight at some time. There is going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. With time and with work, I will get better. I have already admitted, time after time, that I need help in learning how to free myself from my need to sad  myself, day after day.   This compulsion of mine has been with me for many years, but I have hope that it will not be long until my good days begin to outnumber my bad days with depression. I have the faith of a beginner, a novice if you will, in the ways of recovery. I can’t find a way out of this depression without hope. I know that there is going to have to be a change in the way I view life if I am to get better. I am going to take responsibility for my life and begin to change!

Troubles in one’s life may cause our persistence and endurance to grow and is the reason our faith is strengthened.

MEDITATION

God, help us realize that we are part of your plan and that we have a purpose here on this earth; if for no other reason than to let others like us know that we have a place where hope starts, namely, in you.

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Source: (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Belief, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Honesty, Purpose, The 12 Steps

The Vital Spiritual Experience

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The Twelve Steps are the essential beliefs and at the very core of Depressed Anonymous. The Depressed Anonymous recovery program, modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous which originally developed to help men and women to deal with their addiction to alcohol, one day at a time.  The Twelve Steps have been found to be a potent means of recovery for those who desire to free themselves from their compulsions. The Twelve Steps are basically a program of letting go of our compulsions and handing our will to the  care of God, as we understand God.  Essentially our program is a step-by-step way to change not only our addiction but also our way of life.  Change happens when we choose to change.  The fellowship of the group and our desiring to make change in our life is what provides our life-giving spiritual experience. Many people get organized religion and spirituality mixed up and Depressed Anonymous achieves strength from a spirituality without set creed, dogma or doctrine.  All the program asks of a person who come to the meetings is only to have a sincere desire to stop the compulsion of sadding themselves… “Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 94.

REVISED POST

Acceptance, Isolation, Purpose

SINGLE HOUSEHOLDS IN AMERICA INCREASED 10% BETWEEN 1970 AND 2012

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I sometimes believe that the rise in single person households in the USA might either be the cause of a rise in Depression or at least show a correlation between these two  variables. I  believe that our modern culture helps produce the human monad or let’s say, a human nomad,  rootless and alone. As the reality of a person isolated and alone can many times enkindle  a personal sadness and atrophied social skills, we might be able to deduce from this that an  individual could be setting themselves up for episodes of depression. Our modern mass culture, dedicated as it is to being a consumer of things and stuff (cf. George Carlin), and being part of a homogenized society with its focus on appearance, affluence and acceptance (cf. Mary Pifer’s work REVIVING OPHELIA: Teenage girls and depression), we find  the  isolated monad, in a society dominated by the pursuit of wealth, ( most of society struggling to make ends meet, working part time and low wage jobs) so why wouldn’t a person find themselves depressed.

I also think that most of us desire a life with meaning. A life that has purpose bigger than ourselves. But the more walls we butt our heads against, trying to find meaningful work, or any work and just wages, the deeper the pit of our frustration grows

Today in this age of an ever changing technology,  more of us might find ourselves  like the wandering nomad in a desert, no longer provided with guideposts directing us on a way out of our isolation and alienation from ourselves and our society. There is always another NEW and IMPROVED gizmo, for consumers to salivate over, marketed 24/7 on all our electronic devices.  And, not surprisingly, the message is to always have the right appearance so to  fit into all the right social groups; accepted by the all the right cliques  of people;  to live in the right affluent neighborhood (usually always more than our income allows).

Finally, when the bubble of our chase leads to a loss of self, and our bubble of isolation bursts, we either admit we are on the wrong path or we continue to deepen the pit of our own isolation and sadness.  To this end, speaking for myself, we begin the search for the real deal, where people are really themselves, warts and all. We want to  become part of that society (fellowship) larger than ourselves, where we now have a purpose motivated life. We now are neither monad or nomad but part of a group of men and women who live a life filled with hope and serenity. The chase has ended. What do you think?

Hugh

12 Step Meeting, Exercise, Purpose

TO FAIL TO PLAN IS TO PLAN TO FAIL. THINK OUTSIDE OF YOUR BOX!

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THINK OUTSIDE YOUR BOX!

When I sat at home depressing myself weekend after weekend and making myself feel worse by isolating myself from my environment, I decided to make a change. I decided to move off of square one and do something — plan an activity. Plan an activity for those two days ahead ( the weekend) when I could already pretty much predict my activities for that time period. I just knew I would end up staring at the wall or counting the holes in the ceiling tile above my head. So what could I do? I did remember that someone at a Depressed Anonymous meeting told us what she did to overcome this deadening and unhealthy isolation. On Friday evening (hey today is Friday –wow! What coincidence) she started to fill in the hourly time slots for Saturday with an activity or activities that she committed herself to for that day. For example, on the 7AM hourly slot she wrote in that she would have her coffee and read a portion of her DA Literature–Higher Thoughts for Down days was a good place to start (as it offers a daily meditation for each day of the year). At 8AM she commits to taking a walk outside for 1/2 hour. At 8:30 AM she commits to go to the grocery shopping an then  to the mall to window shop and then sit and enjoy of coffee at the food court.  At 11AM she will come home and call a member of her depression mutual aid group  or a friend. By this time it’s 12 Noon, and she and her significant other will share a lunch together, and If one lives alone then a meal will be prepared at this time.

I think you see the importance of planning something for every hour increment during your day. By the time Saturday evening approaches you will have done a great number of activities, fulfilled your scheduled activities for that day and  you will feel that you were too busy to spend time isolating and  thinking  negative and unproductive  thoughts.

Plan the next day as well as  for Sunday. Do the same planning procedure for each hour of Sunday and commit yourself to the plan. STICK TO THE PLAN! How about writing in going to a movie, even if you go by yourself. But go! Maybe visit a friend in the Nursing home –or a resident whom the staff  knows  could use a friendly visitor for what may be a very lonesome day.

Don’t allow yourself to say “We’ll not this weekend but maybe next weekend I’ll try this planning thing.” Nope, that won’t get it. It’s a trap. You and I know we have to MAKE A DECISION. With pencil in hand (tonight) we have to sit down and write down  an hourly plan for our weekend.

Have a great and productive weekend! I know you can if you plan it!

Belief, Choice, Focus, Purpose

MOTIVATION FOLLOWS ACTION! MOVE THE BODY AND THE MIND WILL FOLLOW!

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One of the great lessons of life, at least for myself, was the fact that the more I got up out of bed, put on my walking shoes.  ignored the mental dialogue of how it was impossible to move,  that I began to move physically through a fog that seemed impenetrable. It only  seemed impenetrable  as long as I stayed  in the comfortable cocoon of my bed.  Once I forced myself out of bed, got walking, it was five or ten minutes  later that my mind message center informed my body,   “wow, so glad I am doing this.” Surprise? Initially, yes,  I was surprised.   I wondered why was it so hard to do this simple thing like getting up and taking a walk. Well, because once I had slid, spiraled down into the dark abyss of my melancholia, I found that my will power no longer had the authority, force to make my body do what I wanted it to do.  I was in a sense immobilized totally by the continued rumination of my mind that continued to produce powerful feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. I felt there was no escape from my thoughts of futility no matter what avenues of escape my mind  offered to me.

Then, I had a choice. Fight or flight. Face my present  deteriorating situation or just continue to pull the sheet over my head and continue to run from what was chasing me. The “what” of what was chasing me was guilt, shame, and fear. The fear of “what if” this were to happen or   “what if” that were to happen. I then made a decision a night before I went to bed. That decision was to fight whatever it was that had me by the throat.  I was scared. I chose to act in my own behalf and do something physical–anything to get my body moving. To do anything to get myself to roll out of bed. And then I discovered an important truth: Motivation follows action. Move the body and the mind will follow.

Here is a portion of my testimony in Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2015). DAP. Louisville.

“When I was going through my depression I forced myself every morning to go to a shopping mall and walk miles every morning. The jittery feeling was still there, but I kept at it and gradually I began to feel less jittery and less hopeless about my life ever being like it was. Another benefit – a big one- is that I didn’t lose my job.

The personal belief of  mine that MOTIVATION FOLLOWS ACTION is especially designed for those persons who are  depressed and who feel they don’t have any mastery over their lives. They also have no interest in former pleasant activities.

It is only when we get physically active and move out of our sad ruminations, which like a closed loop, keep circling painfully through our minds. The thoughts  cause us to spiral down and continue our lifeless plummeting out of control into the frozen immobility which engulfs us….and so I learned the important lesson: Move the body and the mind will follow.” Page 35. Believing is Seeing (2015).

Belief, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Hope, I'll Do It When I Feel Better, Isolation, Purpose, Suffering, The Promises

NO MATTER HOW FAR DOWN THE SCALE WE HAVE GONE, WE SEE HOW OUR EXPERIENCE CAN BENEFIT OTHERS

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This is another one of the Promises that helps promote our purpose in life as well as gives our life  meaning.

“Some of us have attempted suicide. A few of us more than a few times. We had despaired of ever finding peace or hope.  We believe that we had no future and that our yesterdays were as hopeless as our today’s.  It was hard to attend our first Depressed Anonymous meeting. We felt horribly alone. We just know that no one in the group has been through what we have been through. But as we listened and watched the older members of the group speak we saw ourselves in their stories.

Personally, I believe that whatever you give out to others is the amount that comes back to you. Our experience can usually help someone else. As the  experience of depression is so isolating, so predictable in its misery that it is bound to have made such impression upon us  that it changed our life and the way we think about our life. And then when our life is changed for the better –thanks to the fellowship of DA, this precious gift of hope needs to be with those still suffering. Ironically, it appears that the farther we have gone down in mood and up again in our recovery,  the more powerful can this experience be.

New members of our fellowship see the “after” of our lives lived in recovery and so they themselves get involved in the fellowship. The fact that we have recovered so completely is in itself a message of tremendous hope for those who are newcomers to the group. Isn’t it amazing that those who can do the most for those still suffering are those who have worked themselves out of the pit of isolation and began sharing their story of hope and personal empowerment.”

Copyright(c) I’ll do it when I feel better. (2013) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 39-40. PROMISE # 5.

Acceptance, Belief, Choice, Fellowship, Focus, Purpose, The 12 Steps

THE SIMPLE ABC’s of DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS: THE 12 STEP PROGRAM OF RECOVERY

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Yes, learn your ABC’s of Depressed Anonymous and you are on your way to discovering how to live with freedom and with purpose. I learned my ABC’s back in 1982 in another  12 step fellowship. It did take me a little while to get used to them but in due time everything all came together. Once  I got serious about learning my ABC’s things started to happen. I not only found the key that opened a new world of serenity and a fellowship to me,  I also have a daily plan for my life that gives me purpose and serenity to this very day. Just as day follows night I am helping others learn their ABC’s.

First of all, you might be wondering what are the ABC’s of Depressed Anonymous? And how can I learn them? Well, let me tell you about them.

Simply put, the ABC’s stand for three realities which anyone can learn. The first reality is to 1) admit that I have a problem. That is fairly easy to understand. Having a problem is what usually brings a person into our 12 Step fellowship in the first place.  We know something is happening and we know we can’t go on feeling as bad as we do. “We admitted that we were powerless over depression and that our lives had become unmanageable.” There you got it.  You just learned a bit about the A of the ABC’s — to admit. OK, I know that to admit something is out of kilter in our lives is not easy but to also know that the pain  is so great we have to take the bull by the horn and find help. We also know how scary life becomes when we feel we have no control over the way we feel and think. I know. When I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning and had this awful feeling of hollowness in my body which was unbearable I knew then that something serious, possibly deadly serious was going on. Yes,deadly serious.

It was then that I  believed that I had to take action. I had to seek help and find out what was causing my life to take a nose dive or extreme proportions.  For me to feel that I had no control over the way I felt and even to the point that I  could not get myself out of bed in the morning with will power alone, it was then that I knew what I had was serious.  I ” came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” I didn’t know what this Power was that was going to restore me but I had to find out. I sought help and finally got the help I needed. I moved the body and my mind followed. I was forcing myself out of bed a morning and started walking. For awhile I felt I was an incarnation of the movie hero, Forrest Gump. But over time I found the key to my recovery and learned how to use the C of my ABC’s. I learned how to commit myself to this Power that was greater than myself. Actually, it was my decision to commit myself to going to as many 12 Step meetings as  I possibly could. It was there that I learned to live my life. I now had a plan. I had a purpose and I made sure I was about doing the next right thing for my recovery. It has been 30 years since that day when I had to admit that I had  serious problem on my hands. I am still doing my ABC’s every day and helping others learn their ABC’s of recovery. I know the program of recovery takes time and work–but it is worth a life. Your life!

If you want to learn the ABC’s of Depressed Anonymous, it would do you well to get  to a meeting or get the  BIg  Book, DEPRESED ANONYMOUS, 3rd Edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications.  ( By the way, this book was written by a group of depressed persons who learned their ABC.s and wanted to show others a plan that worked for them.  They found HOPE. Their Personal Stories are in the book).

Belief, Grief, Purpose, The 12 Steps

SHINING A LIGHT ON THE DARK NIGHT…

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Today we have made a big step in that we admitted that you, me,  all of us are here to learn how to brighten up our life and begin to take greater responsibility for the way we feel, think and act. We all know that if we want to have the light and warmth of life then  we will have to risk the unpredictable. We have to face the uncertain future. And as we all know, this is the nature of depression in that it predicts sameness and the unending hell that we have experienced, day after day for months and for many years. And as strange as it may sound –for some, the sameness and the predictability of depression is sort of a comfort.  At least we know what we got.

Today, we will take every advantage for discovering how to begin to take full responsibility for our own lives  and how to become hopeful, and help ourselves out of the prison that we have constructed for ourselves over the years.”

“…By diagnosing the problem, and providing a solution and providing a practical plan for getting out of our depression we now can be free of the depression that has imprisoned us for so long.

As we go about attempting to shed some light on our own personal darkness –on our own symptoms of depression –we will gradually begin  to see that we must now hold some different beliefs about ourselves  – -some immutable beliefs which have hindered our development as hope filled happy people. Now,  once we learn what these are and how they defined us these many years we can become free.

We will learn to take responsibility for our lives and our behavior. ”

Source: Shining a light on the dark night of the soul. (1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pages 2-3.

Tomorrow 5/25/15 we will list the six immutable beliefs which may have held  us behind the bars of depression.

Choice, Fellowship, Focus, Purpose

I CHOOSE TO THINK ABOUT THOSE GOOD THINGS THAT I SEE IN MYSELF.

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AFFIRMATION

I am making a choice now to like myself and focus in  on only the good things that I see in myself. I am imagining happy situations from my past and putting myself in the happy picture so that now I can feel happy.

“Proving yourself to be a man or woman can be a positive activity of learning, exploring and discovering who you are, or it can be the meager, self-destroying activity of trying to hide what is experienced  as essential worthlessness.” (4)

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

When I attempt to avoid my feelings and to dig in deeper to what I am experiencing in the here and now, I pass up a golden opportunity for growing and for being more human.  It is only in the here and now that I live and breathe. When I try to avoid what I am feeling and continue my frenzied feeding on all the bad things that I accuse myself of, I find that my feelings of sadness get even worse.

Now, today, I am taking the risk of being responsible for my own recovery. I know that it is difficult to change my way of thinking negative thoughts. If I change it often, in time I will cling not to the awful things I say about myself but I will hang onto the positive statements I am now making about myself.

I need today to engage in activity of the positive type. I want to start a daily exercise program.  I want to write down a list of five positive qualities that I would like to have and then imagine myself possessing these qualities. (By this same time tomorrow on May 20,  we will have our five positive qualities written down and we will reflect on what we have written down. We will have more discussion on choices and feelings tomorrow here at this BLOG).

MEDITATION

God, come to our assistance and help us discover your way out of this darkness. We trust that you will there  for sure  right at this moment. We will have courage!

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Higher thoughts for down days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. May 19. Page 102.  (See website VISIT THE STORE  for more DA literature.)