Depression plays tricks on you. It tells you things are hopeless, when there's hope. It tells you life is only suffering, when there is joy and love to be discovered. It tells you that you can't do this or that, when you can take action in spite of your feelings It tells you there's no way out, when there is a way out. Our natural response to feeling depressed is to try to find a way to feel better. This sounds reasonable but it sets us off on an endless loop of focusing on our feelings and trying to fix them directly with our mind. Generally, this doesn't work - what you pay attention to grows. Our feelings fluctuate -- all feelings, including depression. We notice this process. We accept whatever feelings arise. We stop fighting with the feelings we don't like and take them with us as we go about our work in the world. As we learn to coexist with our depression, the depression loses its power over us. We conquer depression through acceptance, activity and purpose.
“A man's concern, even his despair over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress, but by no means a mental disease. It may well be interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient's existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather, to pilot the patient through his existential crisis of growth and development.” -- Viktor Frankl, M.D. (psychiatrist and survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp)
“From the experience with the fickleness of feelings and the unpredictability of their onset and departure, I was able to say to myself, 'This will pass'. It is knowing that the feelings of depression will pass, and will probably visit me again, that makes living with very uncomfortable feelings a very doable thing.” -- Julie Phillips
Tips for Dealing with Depression
By Gregg Krech (from The Downs and Outs of Depression)
1. Get your body moving - exercise - even though you don't feel like it
2. Change your diet - among other things, eliminate sugar and caffeine
3. Take steps to resolve or change your life situation (address your problems constructively)
4. Learn the skill of "coexisting with unpleasant feelings" (accept what cannot be controlled)
5. Learn to work skillfully with your attention
6. Practice self-reflection to get a more accurate picture of your reality (see maxim below)
7. Find a purpose that is worth living and striving for
Maxim
“Examine Life Outside the Boundaries of Your Difficulties” -- Gregg Krech
Periodically we found ourselves in challenging situations - we lose our jobs, get sick, experience the death of a loved one or end a long term relationship. In these moments we can become immersed in our own pain. Our attention becomes trapped within limited boundaries of our suffering. But there is more to life than we are seeing. As we expand our view of life we may find that even within the context of our suffering, compassion, care and support are our close companions. Often, as a result of the support of others, we are able to recover from our problems. But how often do we make room for gratitude in the midst of suffering.
When we expand the boundaries of our attention we see a life in which we are continuously supported through our most difficult moments. A life which is actually helping us to deal with our difficulties.
From Naikan: Gratitude, Grace and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection by Gregg Krech. Stone Bridge Press, 2002.
<Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection
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“The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else.” -- Arnold Bennett“In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” -- Albert Camus
“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.” -- Kahlil Gibran
Learn what is next for you--Get a free Destiny Card Report
From: http://www.todoinstitute.org/depression.html
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