Courage, Fellowship, Hope, Isolation, Mutual Aid, People Pleasing, Prayer, Step 04, Step 05

Are you driving with your brakes on?

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I have been known to drive with my brakes on at times. It sure slows things down. Anyway, here is a thought from Anthony De Mallo who shares some positive thoughts on how to navigate through the tough times in our lives.

When you get rid of your fear of failure, your tension about succeeding… you can be yourself. Relax. You’ll no longer be driving with your brakes on.
Anthony De Mallo

When we are depressed, we isolate, we abandon ourselves to what others think about us, who we should be, a life that is lived as someone that we are not. If you can’t be free of what others want you to be, you’ll spend time with the brakes on, afraid to make courageous choice to change!

Depressed Anonymous, is a 12 Step fellowship where we learn how to relax, see ourselves as we really are, restored, and ready for a new adventure, as we thrive and continually prize our newly restored self.

Hugh S., for the fellowship

12 Step Meeting, Attachment, Fellowship, Helpful Thinking, Higher Power, Spirituality, Step 03, The 12 Steps, The Promises

“…like all attempts t o do anything “absolutely” are ultimately doomed.”

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The Three Layers of Attachment

“…theologian Mary Reuther and the spiritual director Richard Rohr, echo Pascal’s triple abyss in their analysis of the attachments that undermine our “spirituality.” Both Rohr and Reuther emphasize the psychological and emotional attachments that can devestate our spiritual lives, making their point that “attachment” does not have to be to material things to be spiritually destuctive.

Reuther suggests three layers of attachment that need to be peeled back sequentially, like an onion. First, we need to become detached from material gain, second from self-importance, and third from the urge to dominate others. Only through this process of stripping away these attachments, she writes, can we lay claim to spiritual progress.

Rohr uses a language more familiar to those steeped in twelve Step spirituality. In an article on A.A.’s Third Step he counsels that spirituality involves the “letting go” of three needs, the need to be in control, the need to be effective, and the need to be right. For Alcoholics( as well as the depressed) in early sobriety, the last point may be the most important, for attachment from the need to be right, surrender of the “demand to have the last word.”

“…release flows from the understanding that all absolute attempts to control our own destiny–like all attempts to do anything “absolutely” are ultimately doomed, for inevitably we will come up against something we cannot control. The attempt to control the future and the demand to be in charge of everything in our lives, sentences us to a daily existence obsessed with life numbing worry.”

This article, excerpted from the “Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Journey to Wholemess”. Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham. Bantam Books.1994. NY. Page 172-173.

Published by THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET. Volume 10 Issues 3 & 4 SUMMER/FALL 1999.

12 Step Meeting, Hope

Extra DA Conference on Hope Recording

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Folks,

I thought that Zoom had lost the recording of Stacy who was our final speaker on 4 March 2023. Zoom didn’t show the recording initially because the chairperson forgot to stop the recording. Apparently on the back end Zoom did some housekeeping – they found the recording and placed it with the other recordings from that day.

Please listen to Stacy’s story – it is amazing and full of hope. You will not be disappointed.

Go to Depressed Anonymous Conference Recordings.

Yours in recovery, Bill R

Belief, Choice, Focus, Helpful Thinking

What you focus on grows

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What you focus on grows.
– Stephen Covey

Prior to recovery my focus was directed at what was wrong and why am I experiencing the difficulties in my life. I only dug the hole deeper making it that much harder to get out. If I look for problems I will find them. If I look for sadness and darkness I will find that as well.

The challenge that faces me is that I need to see things in a new way. I need to focus on love and healing. I need to seek out the good in the world because if I look for it I will find it. I strive to point my focus onto recovery and healing. I’m working the program and not working the problem. I’m not doing it in a Pollyanna way – I recognize that I have a disease and I’m not denying I have depression. I choose to focus on recovery and healing.

The true journey of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
– Marcel Proust

I challenge you to change your focus. What you focus on grows. Focus on recovery and healing. You are worth it.

Yours in recovery, Bill R

Faith, Helpful Thinking, Meditation, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Service, Step 11

A special vision

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We might …discover that depression has its own angel, a guiding spirit, whose job it is to carry the soul away to its remote places where it finds unique insight and enjoys a special vision.
– Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul

I can relate to “A special vision” as it fits so well into my experience with depression. I realized that I could only find that unique insight and special vision, which Moore spoke about, in the remote place where prayer and meditation became the front and center of my seeking.

My guiding spirit, my angel, accompanied me as I journeyed in and out of the pit of depression. And, as my times of prayer and meditation lengthened, these provided me with a holy energy to serve others, who like myself, are seeking that remote place, where God’s vision for their lives will begin to be lived out, one day at a time.

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step Three of Depressed Anonymous

Hugh S

Anger, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Fear, Pain, Prayer, Spirituality, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03

Sweeping away prejudice

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“”There is a well known saying, Contempt prior to investigation will leave one in everlasting ignorance.”

Strong words, everlasting ignorance. Everlasting meaning never ending ignorance. Ignorance meaning not more of and nothing to do with intelligence here. One is left everlastingly in the dark. Contempt has prejudiced the light of awareness. I believe our true Being ness is this light of awareness. Twelve Step recovery suggests a sweeping away of prejudice along with honest thinking and diligently looking within, in order to join the Broad Highway of Belief. I is called the Cornerstone.
Let’s say we use a a spiritual broom as a tool for this sweeping away. N0w let use this broom to clean up and clear away old ideas and beliefs that have been darkening our Source or Higher Power. The Depressed Anonymous Workbook does such a thorough job of uncovering these. Deeply embedded fears/hurts/ anger etc., can be swept into ( or surrendered into) the heart or the light within or the seed planted within each of us. This seed idea of God, when these ideas, beliefs and motives are swept away, then the light can be nurtured to grow and shine so brilliantly in our lives. We are life and no longer dwelling in darkness! However it is suggested in Scripture from Christ Consciousness, that when a house swept clean, it must not allow itself to become “vacant”after this spiritual House is in order. Now in Presence. No past or future occupancy in the mind, saddening oneself again. Find the Miracle of Abiding Presence. We are Life and Life is Now eternally. A quote from Misread Maharaji, “Wisdom is knowing I am nothing. Love is knowing I am everything.
Affectionately
Janet M

Acceptance, Choice, Mutual Aid, Service, Stress, The 12 Steps

Mental Health Strategies for Coping With Anxiety and Panic

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The following are some of the ways that we can cope and deal positively with panic and anxiety.

  1. Remember that although your feelings and symptoms are very frightening, they are not dangerous or harmful.
  2. Understand that what you are experiencing is just an exaggeration of your normal bodily reaction to stress.
  3. Do not fight your feelings or wish them away.The more that you are willing to face them, the less intense they will become.
  4. Do not add to your panic by thinking about what “might” happen. If you find yourself asking “what if?” Tell yourself “So what.”
  5. Stay in the present. Notice what is really happening to you as opposed to what you think might happen.
  6. Label your fear level from zero to ten and watch it go up and down. Notice that it that it does not stay at a very high level for more than a few seconds.
  7. When you find yourself thinking about the fear, change your “what if” thinking. Focus on and carry out a simple and manageable task, such as counting backward by 3’s or snapping a rubber band on your wrist.
  8. Notice when you stop adding fearful thoughts to your fear, it begins to face.
  9. When th fear comes, expect and accept it . Wait and give it time to pass, without running away from it.
  10. Be proud of yourself for your progress thus far, and think about how good you will feel when you succeed this time.

Reprinted courtesy of the Mental Health Association. Understanding panic disorder.

12 Step Meeting, Anxiety, Despair, Fear, Fellowship, Grief, Pain, Powerlessness, Stress, Suffering, Supportive Actions, The 12 Steps

Proneness to depression

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“It must be repeated again that I consider, injustice, discrimination, material deprivation and painful disappointments as such and as causes of depression and depression-pro ness. What causes depression is the discrepancy between what children–and adults have learned to believe and expect, and the reality they meet. This discrepancy, when uncomprehended, causes chronic lack of self-esteem, or the loss of self-esteem that, writes Birling, has been associated with severe depression. Men and women can bear a remarkable amount of misfortune and grief, as long as they need not see them as a result and proof of their own inferiority.”

Excerpt from Emmy Gut, Productive and Unproductive Depression. Harper, SanFransisco. 1990. p.195. as quoted in THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET (1991) SUMMER VOLUME 2:4. p.3

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!