Category Archives: Belief

Acceptance, Belief, Choice, Faith, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03

The Recovery Waltz

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When I find myself drifting back into the pit (which is where I am at the moment) I need to go back to the beginning of recovery. Steps 1, 2, 3 and repeat. One, two, three like the waltz. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The first 3 steps can be summed up as follows:

  1. I can’t.
  2. He can.
  3. Trust Him.

A great many things, including my depression, are beyond my direct control. I don’t control the outcome – that is in God’s hands. I am responsible for the legwork. I need to do the work of recovery. I want to do the work of recovery. I don’t want to drift closer to the pit because if I don’t stop the backslide it will be that much harder to get out of it.

  1. I admit that I am powerless over depression. When I am on autopilot my life becomes unmanageable.
  2. I believe that a Higher Power exists and they can restore me to sanity. I have to work on my feelings of being unworthy of being saved.
  3. I turn my life over to the care of my Higher Power. This is not one and done. I’m human and I will take my will back. That is only a problem if I don’t surrender once again. To surrender is to win.

Practice the recovery waltz. Become so accustomed to it that it becomes a good habit. You are worthy of love and healing, but you must do the work of the steps to feel that love and healing. I wish you well.

Yours in recovery, Bill R

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Belief, Choice, Hope, Meditation, Prayer, Step 02

Foundation For Life: Self-Examination, Prayer, Meditation

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“We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God,to give to us on order, and on our terms.

In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day, that God place in us the best understanding of His will that we be given for that day, and that we be given the grace which to carry it out.

There is a direct linkage among self-evaluation, meditation and prayer. Taken separately these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven they result in an unshakable foundation in life.”

(c) As Bill sees it, page 33. Hope, service, fellowship March 1, 2014.

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Belief, Choice, Helpful, Hope, Pain, Purpose, Step 03

How to find hope and let it blossom

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“Hope can only exist in a state of uncertainty.
That certainty means total certainty. That certainty means to be without hope.
The prison of depression is built with the bricks of total certainty.

Certainty. Security. No Hope.
To hope means to run the risk of disappointment.
Avoid disappointment. Stay depressed.
To be insecure means not to be in control.
Stay in control. Be depressed.
To be uncertain means to be unsure of the future.
Predict the future with certainty. Stay depressed.

Hope can exist only when there is uncertainty. Absolute certainty means complete hopelessness. If we want to live fully we must have freedom, love and hope. So life must be an uncertain business. This is what makes it worthwhile.”

Copyright(c) Dorothy Rowe. Depression: The way out of your prison. NY. Kegan Paul. 1996.

“Hope is to seek things and have the expectation that what we desire will come true. In the matter of depression, Dr. Rowe warns us that when we predict that we will always bw the way we are, is to predict a life of certainty, but one without hope. In the way that we construct our world we begin to live with some uncertainty and with this uncertainty we are going to little bit by little bit, accept some pain, hurt and disappointment in our life. This is not bad, but it is not always pleasant.

When we are depressed, it is not so important as to how we got depressed, but what is important, is how we see ourselves. Do we believe. like Dorothy Rowe, that we will always see ourselves as bad, worthless, unacceptable to ourselves and to others when we are depressed? If this is the way that we want to look at ourselves, then we are sure to believe that we will never change. We hold these beliefs about ourselves as immutable truths, and ever binding. This is the thing about depression – we believe that it will always be this way – namely, being possessed by this painful hollow feeling and deadly emptiness, which we carry around in our bodies, day after day, year after year.”

Copyright(c) Hugh Smith. How to hope and let it blossom. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pages 1-2. 2004.

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Acceptance, Affirmations, Belief, Believing Is Seeing, Courage, Ego Deflation, Fellowship, Helpful, Hope, Kindness, Love, Meditation, Pain, Prayer, Purpose, Serenity, Service, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, Step 11, Suffering, The Promises

“…letting go of all illusion…”

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I am writing this prayer I wrote some five years back now for deeper peace and acceptance, during this challenging time I’m experiencing. Sharing this Hope in case I too can 0ffer Strength for others.
Affectionately, Janet M.

Thank you dear Creator of love and joy in action for the fellowship of your presence. Move me, I pray, for the Stillness of this Love. Why I abide there always gathering in your Strength, Peace and Wellbeing as kindling to feel the fire of your Spirit within. As I walk this path today, should I become disturbed return my heart to you. Purify my motives and direct my attention back into Awareness and Unity with your Spirit, which is the hand of Peace. Help me to offer kindness for the many Seeds of Blessings which feed my growing into Trueness of Being. Help me to understand your Passion in laughter, tears, joy and pain, knowing all of your Provision and how Precious that gift is that lies within the Earth of us all. Thank you for my children, family and friends. Bless ua your light, nurturing our hearts and strengthen our vision and relationships. May a seeming separateness burn up into the flames of letting go of all illusions while Liberating the Soul and setting Freedoms flight to soar and all resistance fall away. Gather us together, this day in Body, Mind and Spirit manifesting your Love. Amen.

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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

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Avoidance, Belief, Denial, Depressed Anonymous, Fear, Isolation, Pain, People Pleasing, Stress, The 12 Steps

Depression and Security

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“Being depressed is a state of great security.Jackie said (client of D.Rowe) , ‘I get very quiet. I don’t want to know anyone. Very angry. I get very hurtful, not intentional hurt, but that’s the only way I can get through to people, so they don’t get any closer. If I hurt them, they’ll stay away and therefore I can be on my own in this depression, and hide behind the mask and just solely by hurting people, being quiet, feeling angry inside and putting the barrier up, that’s how I can keep people away, which I feel helps me in the state of depression.I need to feel safe within the blackness. A fear of being with people. Being really frightened of everything and anybody around you. It’s just so painful. You feel drained of everything. Hiding behind the mask is putting yourself away from the outside world. The world you were frightened of stepping into, but people still seeing you with that smile, the joking, the laughing, and that is where the mask comes on. Behind the mask, I am suffering hurt and pain, rejection, helplessness, but behind the mask and shutting myself within four walls, I feel secure, because none of the outside world can come in unless I let them hurt me.
Because depression gives a feeling of security, the depressed person can feel very much in control. (We are always capable of being two contrary things at once. Depression is always a state of complete helplessness and complete control,) A depressed person can take great pride in being in control.”

SOURCE: BEYOND FEAR. Dr. Dorothy Rowe, Fontana, London, 1987, pp. 307-308.

Published in The Antidepressant Tablet(c) Issue: Volume 4, Number 3 SPRING 1993. Louisville, Ky.

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Affirmations, Belief, Choice, Community building, DA Literature, Fellowship, Gratitude, Helpful, Hope, I'll Do It When I Feel Better, Mutual Aid, The 12 Steps

One of the great paradoxes of human life…

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DECISION 12 : “I will learn to share my sadness with others and to share their sadness.” Dorothy Rowe. Breaking the Bonds. Understanding depression, Finding Freedom. Fontana. London. 1991. Page 271.

“One of the great paradoxes of human life is that, in the way that we are born and die and in between create our own unique world of meaning, we are always atone, yet the only way that we can live with the essential aloneness is to share our life with other people.” Page 271.

Dear Reader, this concludes our journey of how to Leave Loneliness Behind. By making the 12 Decisions our own, and living out these truths as presented to us by Dorothy Rowe, we can leave loneliness behind.
I give total credit to Dr. Rowe, psychologist, for her wisdom, that she shares with us here in BREAKING THE BONDS.
Jill Tweedie. a reviewer, tells us that the writer Dorothy Rowe, is the “light at the end of the tunnel.” If you make that decision to read this work, I know you will agree.

Hugh S.

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12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, Belief, Choice, Courage, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Focus, Helpful, Hope, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, The Promises

I will try to improve my understanding of my behavior

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LEAVING LONELINESS BEHIND: 12 DECSIONS

“DECISION 7: I WILL TRY TO IMPROVE MY UNDERSTANDING OF MY BEHAVIOR.”

All actions have consequences. and they are usually different from what we expect.

In a situation where we want our cake and eat it too, we always try to have both, but we learn that in trying to get both, we lose both.

If you are to improve your skills in understanding people, in order to rid your loneliness, working out the consequences OF what you and others do, is extremely important.

You really have to develop more flexible ways in dealing with the consequences when the consequence is anger.”

TOMORROW DECISION 8: I WILL BE MORE ACCEPTING OF OTHER PEOPLES ANGER AND NOT TAKE It PERSONALLY.”

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Acceptance, Avoidance, Belief, Believing Is Seeing, DA Literature, Helpful, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, The 12 Steps, Victim Thinking

Seeing another person’s point of view: How important is it?

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DECISION 6: SEEING ANOTHER’S POINT OF VIEW.HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR LEAVING MY LONELINESS BEHIND?

By seeing things from another’s point of view has a lot to do with forming healthy relationships and coming closer to feeling part of another’s world. Dorothy Rowe asks “what does it feel like to be a mother. You are surrounded all day long by people only two feet high.” Any Mother can tell you that it is much different than being with a group of adults. Both of these worlds have their own uniqueness, by their very nature, possessing beauty and a diversity of their own. And one way to know someone, is to see life from their perspective. I call it one’s “lived reality.”

When we tell ourselves that we know what others are thinking, feeling, we are only confirming our own point of view. To find out if we are right, is to ask the question, “How are you?”

If we say that others think about us in a certain way, and if we do not check out their thoughts, we can claim that other people see things about ourselves, which will suit our purpose.

If we tell ourselves that we are boring and dull, we can refuse to talk with anyone. By being ruled by these negative thoughts, we don’t have to make the effort to talk to people. We continue to remain lonely. We build our own prisons, ultimately deepening our own lockdown. We create our own isolation. We cause our own loneliness.

TOMORROW’S DECISION 7: “i WILL TRY TO IMPROVE MY UNDERSTANDING OF MY BEHAVIOR.” LEAVING LONELINESS BEHIND. THE 12 DECISIONS.

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Belief, Choice, Courage, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Focus, Higher Power, Hope, Positivity, Purpose, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, Step 04

Detour – Taking a different way home

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Step Four

“MADE A SEARCHING AND FEARLESS MORAL INVENTORY OF OURSELVES.”

“Let’s Just say that you always took path A home from work everyday. You passed the same old signs, the same old buildings, the same old malls–you feel you could almost drive home with your eyes closed. This is of course boring, and also deadening to our thinking processes as we do everything out of habit. The saying is true that we are creatures of habit. But let’s just say, for example, that a detour sign pops up along our old familiar path -we become disoriented – we become confused. We say to ourselves-Where am I? Now where do I go? Good questions.” The inventory will ask questions of you which you may never have asked of yourself.

“But we have figured out that even though my path home is very predicable, it is still a path that is gradually incapacitating my ability to keep a focus on hopeful outcomes.” We need to be awakened out of our routine. The daily grind is putting our mind to sleep.

Let’s take an example taken from the Depressed Anonymous Workbook, which presents us with a metaphor, on how an inventory will become a critical part of our personal recovery. The 4th and 5th Steps in the Depressed Anonymous Workbook, includes questions dealing with our lives, while detailing areas which have been influenced by our everyday feelings of sadness, hopelessness and despair.The inventory questions, prepared in the 4th and 4th Step chapters of the Workbook, (all 12 chapters are in a question and answer format) will provide for us some surprising pieces of positive information about ourselves that will be recovered from examining some of our past life issues. (Don’t forget to share all the good things that you like about yourself.)

We have mentioned how working the 4th Step Recovery Program is like coming home a different route. We will take the detour (inventory) which will help us get back on the right path. That is why, our inventory work, puts us on a different path for living. We are fitted with a new hope. We will quickly learn how doing or not doing what we always used to do, is NOT working.

By using the Depressed Anonymous Workbook, with its 12 Step questions, accompanied with our personal answers, can provide us, with a gradual process of self-understanding, self-awareness, and emotional healing. These positive thoughts and feelings about ourselves, continue to manifest as a direct result from our personal answers to Workbook questions and our hard work on ourselves. We find that we are able to live with hope the more we commit ourselves to our recovery work. Our mind continues to put a “spotlight” on these negative concerns which keep us from a life lived with hope and peace. In time, the fog in our brain will gradually be lifted. We will begin to see ourselves and future in a positive light.

Path B, points us in a different direction from where we were used to going. And for many of us, this is the first time that we are intent upon taking a good and hard look at who we are. Taking an inventory, looking at the negatives as well as all the strengths that are ours, helps us to give a gratitude for all the good areas of our life that are beginning to awaken in us and continue to take root. These awakenings are the new and fresh beliefs about ourselves and our inner world that is gradually being created.

In the 4th Step of recovery, we are ready to “make a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves.” The inventory method will help us, as we take take a little time each day, reflecting on how we think about ourselves, while discovering reasons why our “mistaken beliefs” about ourselves, has gotten us to the place where we are today. This motivates us to get into action. We make a decision to change the way we live out our daily lives. We want to be fearless in uncovering any and all rocks, that have blocked our path in the past. We will begin to take action and we will possess a new courage, taking care of business.

We must look the beast in the face. I pray that the “God of your understanding” will lead you to where the light of love shines bright and where the darkness is swallowed by hope and love of self.

Hugh S., for the fellowship

For more information on the Workbook, and other literature which can be helpful, please check out the Webpage (Depressedanon.com) at the DA Literature Store

Copyright(c) Depressed Annoynous Workbook Depressed Anonymous Publications. (2002) Louisvllle, KY. Pages 22-24.

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