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.

12 Step Meeting

PHYSIOLOGICAL PORTAL GIVES US AN ENTRY POINT INTO THE CLOSED SYSTEM OF DEPRESSION.

2 Comments

Again, today we want to show how by entering any one of the six portals into the closed system of depression and connecting with the other five entry points, can gradually produce positive results.

The physiological  symptoms of depression are  insomnia, decrease in sexual drive, low or non existent  energy level, hard time concentrating, memory problems, tired all the time, weight loss, gain, continually irritable. By trying to understand and employ  other portals of entry, such as getting ourselves motivated, we know that daily exercise of some sort, can in time  help reduce one or the other of the physiological depression symptoms. This portal is connected powerfully with the behavior, thinking, feeling, motivation and spirituality portals.  Starting  to focus on just one of the closed system’s symptoms, will have a positive effect on all the rest of the system. We might even get motivated to go to a 12 Step meeting of persons like ourselves.  For me personally, it was the behavior portal (going to meetings/ refusing to stay isolated ) plus motivating myself to believe In a God of my understanding (spirituality) that began the process of getting a ‘leg up’ on my sadness.  My thinking was also changing. I began to feel and think that there was hope for me too.

As we continue to chip away at each area of depression symptoms, and clarify our thinking,  we  see that an improvement of mood in one area can  effect all the others as well! Til next time, reflect on the physiological symptoms mentioned above and pick one or two symptoms and then choose a positive alternative to replace them. Tomorrow we will want to discuss some of the characteristics of the behavior portal. Hope to see you tomorrow. “God give me ‘the courage to change the things I can…’ “

The 12 Steps

HOW TO OPEN UP THE CLOSED SYSTEM OF DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS: SIX DIFFERENT PORTALS TO CHOOSE FROM.

Leave a comment

Just what does it mean to “open up the closed system of depression symptoms? ”  Basically, it means that we have determined that there are 6 major  portals, with their own unique and negative characteristics. The strategy is to develop a number of positive  and opposing  procedures for the characteristics of each portal, which can  in turn do just the opposite of those which continue to keep us in the pit of desolation and helplessness. In a sense we will be opening up that closed system, which like the bars of a prison cell, keep us locked down and isolated. By learning something about each of the six gateways to our personal lives, we will possess the tools that can open up and break down the walls of each of these portals.

Let’s talk a bit of what these portals look like.  Together we are aware how they form a massive obstacle to our moving out of the closed and deadly system. But taken each alone, we have a chance to break down their individual  negative components and replace them with small positive steps of motivating ourselves toward change.

  QUESTION: How do you eat an elephant? ANSWER: One bit at a time. And the same holds true for what we are proposing to you today.  Let’s consider  the following categories which make up the essential attributes  of the human person. By entering any one of them and making changes in their unique characteristics we are indirectly affecting for good all the other five categories. These portals with their unique  identities are all inter related and what affects one affects all. By the same token, the symptoms of depression affect all the other portals and together promote a tightly closed system which is highly impregnable.

The six portals that open us to   the closed system of depression are the following: (1)THINKING (2) FEELING (3) BEHAVIOR (4) MOTIVATIONAL (5) PHYSIOLOGICAL (6) SPIRITUALITY.

For today, let’s take a look at the first portal: the thinking gateway. Here are the characteristics of this portal: mistaken beliefs, worthless, guilt, self-accusations, self-dislike, failures, self -hatred, suicidal thinking, hopeless and helpless thinking. Now, with these characteristics staring us in the face, we can choose to look at each of the above and decide which one or ones can I muster up the energy to defeat and turn around? For starters, how can I change any beliefs about myself? I can give you one solution   and that  is to get into a fellowship of folks like yourself who will mirror to you the strengths that you really possess.   In other words, by  taking  a more solution focused approach  to oneself rather than concentrating on the negative,  this continues that gradual diminution of all that keeps us imprisoned. And just to show connections between portals, the Behavior portal discusses social withdrawal. If I think that I am worthless and inferior I surely won’t want to move around in social environments. We gradually with time and work  open the tight grip of the closed system of depression on our lives. We now have the toolkit whereby we can dismantle those old beliefs that undermined our best selves. We now are at the beginning of  a new system filled with hope and the courage to let go of the past!      More tomorrow.

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!

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

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT AND HOW TO GET STARTED!

3 Comments

We all enjoy taking part in quizzes and surveys. At least I do. It’s pretty much a challenge to see how much we know or don’t know.  By doing the quiz we possibly learn just a little bit more about whatever the subject may be, even though we might not answer all the  questions correctly. In a certain fashion we have clarified a bit of  our thinking about a certain subject.

Clarification of thought is a most difficult process when It comes to a mind swallowed up by depression, is  confused, darkened with fog and just extremely exhausted. Many of us wanted to think our way out of depression, as if our will power could push open that prison door which continued to keep us locked up. Will power is useless initially. What we do need is a fairly straight forward and simple approach to getting at the genesis  of our sadness. Along the way of the clarification process we  find out and discover more of who we are, how we got to be where we are and what to do now that we know what we got and how we got here. For one, I don’t believe that that paralyzing feeling of melancholia just drops out of the sky and hits me on the head and knocks me down. So, I start with where I believe it all gets started.  The pain  is inside of me so I have to start there!

After getting some physical stamina back into my life I began to ask myself some questions–each as it pertains to the 12 Steps of Depressed Anonymous.  I used a process which I called the clarification of thought process. How I was thinking about myself and speaking  to myself needed to be examined to see how much of my thinking got me to where I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.

Today, if you would like to join with me, I will, pose a few questions about your own experience with depression and then you can evaluate how that affects your life today.

1.  When you feel depressed what do you say to yourself?

2. What action or behavior do you do when you feel this way?

3. Does it promote more isolation or being more connected?

We are using the Depressed Anonymous Workbook to help us work through the questions that will help us all clarify our thinking and thus gradually free us from the mystery of what keeps us in bondage. Continue your program of recovery using the Clarification of thought process and you will find a key that will present to you the ” courage to change what you can.”

Uncategorized

Surrender and win: a paradox of the spiritual principles of all 12 Step programs of recovery.

Leave a comment

SURRENDER AND WIN!

How can this make sense. Surrender and win? Well, in my life and probably in the lives of most of us who live with an addiction(s) we finally discovered this statement to true. Painfully true. I remember repeating to myself that “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” It became like a mantra until one day I was forced to do something about my addiction.  It was like my hands went up in the air and the white flag I was carrying  declared  that the enemy finally had won the battle. I had no place to go. I could only admit that, yes, I was beat. Pushed down and stomped on.  By admitting my defeat  and surrendering to a belief that it was my last hope of survival. If I was to win it had to be on it’s terms. The ” IT ” here was the First Step of AA which stated that “We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Wow! I knew deep down that it was my only chance to survive and leave behind me that awful bondage of my addiction for alcohol. The day that I entered that AA meeting for the first time was the day that I began to wrest free from the scourge of my being imprisoned by alcohol.  I learned a lot at that meeting: I learned how it was just in the admission that I had a problem that freedom finally became a reality

Whether addicted to sadness, food, booze, drugs, pain pills, or pornography, sex, _____________(name your own)  there is hope for you too. Wherever there exists an addiction, more than not, there exists a mutual aid group of like minded people who were there but now they are here (free).

The paradox of course  is when you finally give up and say “I’ve had it ” that there is a group of persons just like you who will say, “Welcome, to the fellowship.”

By surrendering and admitting I was living with a cancer that would eventually kill me, I made a decision to get help–surrender–and win back my life. That day, on  December 8th, 1982 I became a winner. I thank God, my Higher Power that I had enough hope left to surrender and find help! I won by surrendering!

Focus, Prayer, The 12 Steps

Reading, writing and clarification of thought

Leave a comment

Clarification of thought

One of the areas of  my life affected by my experience with melancholia was my thinking, or rather lack of ability to think. I remember vividly how I was no longer able to concentrate or focus on any material that I tried to read.  When I did try and focus on a more complex thought such as a couple of paragraphs, it seemed fruitless. The thought was like a vapor, in that it disappeared as rapidly as it came. I was only aware that the fog was beginning to lift when my mood gradually lifted.  It was like the sun coming up in the East, burning off the fog, layer by layer. And that leads me to the next point in my recovery.  With the fog disappearing, and my concentration slowly reappearing, I was able to have a thought and hold on to it.  I noticed that when I read something it managed to stay in my memory.

One of the laws of recovery, which works for me, is the saying, “Move the body and the mind will follow.” I found this to be true. It also confirmed for me  how the mind will work more efficiently when the body is moving. That is why I personally put so much stock in walking or any other physical exercise which has a direct effect on the brain.

I also have learned how reading and writing down one’s reflections helps to clarify one’s thinking. You see in black and white your thoughts–now before you on paper or on the computer screen. In other words they are not flowing out there unattended in cyber space but instead are sitting right there in front of you. That is why in our recovery program of the 12 Steps it is recommended that one begin writing down various issues that have surrounded you in your life. By doing so you can determine how these items have influenced you positively or negatively. And since we are speaking of depression here, this is a process   in which writing down gives us a degree of clarification  as we examine one issue after another. Many times the issues or events are interlinked and hold the key to understanding our thinking and behavior. Reflection or as it says in the Steps that through prayer and meditation (clarification of thought)  we sought to improve our contact with God.

Hopefully, soon, I will post some questions about one’s own recovery and you can answer them at home, in your own time and space. You too can make time, by reading, writing and find for yourself a greater purpose in life  through a continued  clarification of thought.

Fellowship, Spiritual Heroes

God grant us the serenity—

1 Comment

“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

” We treasure the Serenity Prayer because it brings a new light to us that can dissipate our oldtime and nearly fatal habit of fooling ourselves.

In the radiance of this prayer we see that defeat, rightly accepted, need not be a disaster. We now know that we do not have to run away, nor ought we again try to overcome adversity by still another bulldozing power drive that can only push up obstacles  before us faster than they can be taken down.”

I think that Bill W., sure got it right on this one.  He tells us that defeat, rightly accepted, need not be a disaster. Well, initially when I felt totally defeated, I did not accept it. How could I? My life was falling apart and the pain so great that I did  want to  run away. Hide. Disappear. Anything but face what I knew I had to face.  But eventually when I did face up to my defeat,  my defeat didn’t turn out to be a disaster. Bill got it  right.  With time, work,and the 12 step fellowship my life started to straighten out.  Now, these many years later, I see how God made it possible to use my own defeat to help others overcome theirs. In other words, my Higher Power  gave me the necessary courage to change the things I could. One day at a time.

We believe that what we think, what we say, and what we do impact our depression. We believe that depression can be managed by applying the principles of the 12 Steps. All are welcome!