All posts by Bill R

Choice, Courage, Focus, Suffering

Unhelpful Comparisons vs. Helpful Comparisons

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We’ve all fallen into the trap of comparing ourselves to others. This is a losing game if there ever was one. You don’t know the struggles that the other person has gone through to get where they are now. Comparing yourself to others in an attempt to boost your own self-esteem degrades the other person’s worth. These are unhelpful forms of comparison. These forms of comparison create suffering in yourself and others.

Don’t compare your insides to somebody else’s outsides.
Slogan heard at a recovery meeting

What then is a helpful comparison (lessen the suffering in yourself and others)? The best way is to compare your current self and situation to an earlier incarnation of yourself. Have you improved or have you gotten worse over time? This is a comparison that provides you valuable information about yourself. This type comparison can show you how you have improved over time, that you are not stuck and stagnated in your present state. You do change, even if that change is slight.

To overcome the challenge of managing your depression stop comparing yourself to others and begin comparing yourself to your past self.

For further information on this please watch Dean Furness’s TED Talk To overcome challenges, stop comparing yourself to others on YouTube. https://youtu.be/IOrmS8vJDQw

Yours in recovery, Bill R

Choice, Judgment

Letting go of good and bad

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Why would I want to let go of good and bad? Do these words help when you use them to describe yourself?

I know that for myself when I label myself bad I tend to classify myself as bad to the core, beyond any hope of redemption and healing! When I label myself as good I either think of myself as being beyond reproach, or I don’t believe the statement.

What about using them when to describe others? Well when you label someone as good aren’t you putting them on a pedestal? When you say someone is bad aren’t you reducing their worth so that they are beneath you?

Are these judgments worth making? Do they put us into a place of calm and serenity, or do they place us into a negative dark place? I say the latter.

OK so then how can I modify my language to not fall into that trap? If I must use those words I will say something along the lines of: ‘Their behavior was bad.’ Significantly less judgment and baggage with that statement!

What about when I want to apply those words against myself? I prefer the terms helpful and unhelpful. They carry far less judgment.

  • Helpful – those things that I think, say, or do that decrease suffering in myself or others
  • Unhelpful – those things that I think, say, or do that increase suffering in myself or others

A synonym for these would be skillful and unskillful.

Let go of judgment, that realm belongs to God. Humans can judge but it may not be the most helpful thing that we can do.

Bill

Prayer

What is God’s will anyway?

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Trying to discern what God’s will can be vexing. Where does my will end and God’s will begins?

Many people would say pray to determine what God’s will is. I firmly believe that God answers all prayers, the problem that we have is that the answer is sometimes No. God answers prayers with:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Wait

God will answer No to those requests that don’t conform to His will. By praying those prayers that are answered Yes you will be conforming to God’s will. What prayers are answered Yes to?

I read a book a while back that was very helpful: Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To, by Anthony DeStefano. He posits that God always answers Yes to the following prayers:

  1. God, show me that you exist
  2. God, put people in my path so I can be an instrument of your love and peace
  3. God, outdo me in generosity
  4. God, get me through this suffering
  5. God, forgive me
  6. God, give me peace
  7. God, give me courage
  8. God, give me wisdom
  9. God, bring good out of this bad situation
  10. God, lead me to my destiny

You don’t have to believe this completely. Believe it just enough to put this into practice. Prayer takes time and effort, but it is worthy of that time and effort. Good luck!

Yours in recovery, Bill R

Acceptance, Choice, Faith, Higher Power

Happy Independence Day

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I live in the United States and today we celebrate our freedom. We are all captives of something or someone. Some of us are captives to addiction: drugs, alcohol, or some behavior. Many of us here have been captives of anxiety and depression. Many people are trapped in consumerism.

There is however a way out. Apply spiritual disciplines to your life, you will be surprised by the results. We are all trying to find our way to the God of our understanding. Some of us go down the side roads of addiction and depression, but you don’t have to continue down that route. Get in communion with the God of your understanding.

If you’ve been burned by past interactions with religion – theory and doctrine, or by people who misinterpreted God’s message I have a suggestion for you. Explore the mystical sects of the religion of your youth. Islam has the Sufi’s, if you’re Christian read the works of Thomas Merton, or Saint John of the Cross. The mystics all talk about experiencing the presence of God in your life. Explore.

You have a choice: you can either be a host to God, or a hostage to self. Choose to be free!

12 Step Meeting, Community building, Mutual Aid

Journeys of Hope Depressed Anonymous meeting moving to Zoom

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The Journeys of Hope Depressed Anonymous meeting is moving to Zoom given some technical challenges we’ve been encountering. Effective Monday 5 July 2021 both the daily meeting and the evening meetings are moving to Zoom. For more information please see the page: Online Depressed Anonymous Meetings for further information.

NOTICE: Whenever a blog post mentions an online meeting be sure to consult the page Online Depressed Anonymous Meetings for the most up to date and correct information. If the blog post is more than a few days old there is a chance it could be incorrect.

12 Step Meeting, Community building, Fellowship, Mutual Aid

DA Virtual Conference 2021 recordings available

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The conference ran successfully! The five sessions were recorded, but I have not yet received one of the recordings. I have posted the ones I have available and I will post the missing one when I receive it.

There is a link found under the Tools for Recovery menu item that reads Depressed Anonymous Conference Recordings.

Enjoy.

Yours in recovery, Bill R.

Hope

Pick up the bow

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We are all flawed. That’s not an indictment, merely a fact.

Food for thought: the word sin is not about eternal damnation. The origin of the word is either Hebrew or Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke) and it comes from archery meaning ‘to miss the mark’ – to not hit the bullseye.

We all fall short of God’s ideal. Pick up the bow and shoot another arrow. Try to get closer to the mark. We don’t need to be perfect, we merely need to strive to do better.

12 Step Meeting, Mutual Aid

New additional meeting – Wednesday 7:30pm ET

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NOTICE: Whenever a blog post mentions an online meeting be sure to consult the page Online Depressed Anonymous Meetings for the most up to date and correct information. If the blog post is more than a few days old there is a chance it could be incorrect.

Same link as the daily 12:30pm ET and Tuesday 7:30pm ET meeting – https://join.skype.com/pKMshxPoV9nb

NOTICE: Whenever a blog post mentions an online meeting be sure to consult the page Online Depressed Anonymous Meetings for the most up to date and correct information. If the blog post is more than a few days old there is a chance it could be incorrect.

Hope

YouTube Playlist on Depression

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Given the deadly nature of depression and how some people can’t or won’t participate in recovery here is a link to a playlist on YouTube. The playlist includes: short films, TED Talks, documentaries, college lecture, out there alternative treatment options. No endorsement real or implied.

Depressed Anonymous believes that the 12 Steps are the most effective way of managing your disease of depression. As a fellowship we don’t believe and agree on any single cause of depression. Also as a fellowship we have no opinions on other treatment options: it is up to the individual, with input from their doctor, to come up with a plan for managing their depression. Depressed Anonymous does believe that a portion of our depression is self-created, and by following the 12 Steps you can stop doing those things that add to your depression.

For whatever reason recovery and the 12 Steps rub some people the wrong way. Perhaps it’s because we use the word God – we do not require a belief in any religious theology or doctrine. We merely believe there exists a Higher Power (and it could be the group) that can help us manage the disease of depression.

Here is the link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-6rJNUx6cXCxacWbyHOcQLJCmW55U0gd