Category Archives: Focus

Belief, DA Literature, Fellowship, Focus, Higher Power, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Isolation

DEPRESSION ALMOST COST ME MY LIFE

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A HIGHER THOUGHT  FOR TODAY

I am able to beat loneliness by repeatedly being with other people in recovery.

“I’m sure many sufferer’s could find a lot of comfort and support by coming into a group as I have done, to help beat the terrible loneliness which is felt by many of us and who find lasting friendship with lovely people.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

In the group, I established myself and I got some positive feedback from others who watched me grow and who have seen the genuine changes I make personally. I am gradually throwing off my personal war with sadness. The real support comes when I begin to learn that members of the group have the same problems that I have.  That helps me trust others with the story of my life.  These people are the ones who want to hear my story of how depression almost cost me my life. Now, my life is freeing me from my need to sad myself.

I feel I am  able to attach myself to the group now that I know that they are struggling with the same depression that I struggle with.  I no longer have to fight this battle on my own.

MEDITATION

God, you are our rock and our refuge, on you I place all my trust. We know and believe, easier now than before, that God has something good in store for us today.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 Daily Thoughts and Meditations for 12 Step Fellowship Groups. (1993, 1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville  Pages 84-85.

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Acceptance, DA Literature, Focus, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Mindfulness, The 12 Steps

Getting A Grip!

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AN AFFIRMATION FOR TODAY

Just for today, I intend to believe and hope that my relaxing my hold on life will give me, paradoxically, a better grasp (grip) on where I need to be in life.

“I still get scared, I don’t know where I am going or what I want anymore, or what life will throw up at me next, but, for the first time in my life, there is no rigid life-plan, and I have been forced to take, and enjoy, one day at a time.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

After admitting that I am depressed I can very truthfully say that I now need to get on with my life and work.  I want to admit as well that the Higher Power will not let me travel down any roads that I need not travel.  Even though there are always a few bends in the road along the way, I will still trust in my God to get me where I need to get. I also know that by attaching myself to my God’s leading I cannot go wrong.

By the time I was almost a year old, I already knew who I wanted to attach myself to as well as I knew who I wanted to withdraw from.  Is it possible that early on childhood frights are still unconsciously scaring the wits out of me today.  I need to live in the solution and attach myself to what has worked for me in the past when I got myself out of depression.

MEDITATION

Just our surrendering our will to you, our God, gives us the liberty to attach ourselves to new and hopeful ways of reflecting about our lives.

SOURCE: (c) Higher Thoughts for Down days: 365 Daily Thoughts and Meditations for 12 Step fellowship groups. (1993, 1999)   Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY 40217. Pages 83-84. April 25.

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Choice, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Focus, Purpose

PROMISE #11 OF DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS: INTUITIVELY KNOW HOW TO HANDLE SITUATIONS WHICH USED TO BAFFLE US

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“As my mind began to heal and my thoughts became more lucid it became apparent that something inside me is changing. Depression, when you begin to examine the various symptoms up close, and deal with them, the experience becomes less threatening. Some say that depression is a collection of behaviors that are brought into play to defend us against things that are too  painful  to to face.  Also, depression results when a love object is lost through death or that one feels abandoned. We have become so at one with our lost love, that we mourn the death of part of us. The love object  and ourselves has become one. I believe we use the word codependence today.

At first I was frightened by my various symptoms of depression.  The symptoms proved to be baffling.  I was not able to get out of bed as well as being unable to concentrate or manage a complex thought. I began to worry that I was losing my mind and I often asked myself if I was going to survive.  But now my ability to handle situations in a meaningful way is due to my frequent attendance at meetings, and by making a daily time of prayer and meditation and a feeling that my life has purpose and meaning. The more I am physically active, that is,  going to meetings even when I don’t feel like it. Working in my Depressed Anonymous Workbook, reading my 12 Step literature.

This behavior is where my freedom begins. And yes, I do feel lousy at times but I know that nothing can stand in my way to make choices in my own behalf. Previous  to my involvement with the group I had no idea that my depression was not so powerful as to prevent me from even thinking that I could choose to feel differently.”

SOURCE: (C) I’LL DO IT WHEN I FEEL BETTER. (1986, 2013) 2nd Edition  DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS LOUISVILLE,  KENTUCKY   Pages 50-51.

This Promise really does work. I know from my own personal experience that once I had begun my recovery and began to deal with those things I refused to face that things lightened up. When I was in the pit of my own melancholia I couldn’t even begin to think that there was a way out — I just didn’t consider  that as a possibility. But the more I read–the more I listened to others who had or were presently climbing out of their own pit of melancholia I felt hopeful  that I too could choose to think differently and so feel different.  With time, work and prayer plus having a sponsor I intuitively knew how to handle situations that at one time confused me. Things in my life became clearer and I began to examine those past patterns of behavior and thinking that put me in the pit.  It was by living out the Twelve Steps and practicing these principles in all of my affairs that eventually gave me the freedom of making the choice to either choose to stay depressed or to choose to live life  and find the path to free me from the bonds of my own depression.

Hugh

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Choice, Focus, Higher Power, Journaling

WRITING IN MY JOURNAL OR DA WORKBOOK HELPS CLARIFY MY THINKING, FEELINGS, AND BEHAVIORS ONE DAY AT A TIME!

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AFFIRMATION

I  see myself better when I write down who I feel I am today.

“The simple act of writing something down is tremendously helpful because to do so we have to bring something clearly to mind. Instead of  having half-formed thoughts and confused emotions crashing and fumbling around inside of us, we crystalize these thoughts and feelings into sentences. Once we put these sentences down on paper we have taken something from inside and put it outside. Now we can look at it, judge it, and master it.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I am making every effort to get in touch with who I am and I am taking the opportunity now to focus on what gets me down and what keeps me up. I am seeing too, that the more I associate with people like myself who are following and working their program, the better I feel.  I intend to journal and keep a diary of my good progress.

I know that the more I stay in my head the greater the confusion. It is only when I begin to see on paper my expressions of hope and confusion that I can begin to change some of my thoughts which I find I am compulsively repeating to myself, day after day.  I now can write down a new positive thought about myself.  I can choose to feel  whatever I choose.”

MEDITATION

Our guiding love, our God as we understand God, is dong for us all that it desires to lavish on us today.  I am hopeful that I can find my new path and grow stronger in learning the various ways to hear our Higher Power’s promptings.

SOURCE: (c) HIGHER THOUGHTS FOR DOWN DAYS: 365 DAILY THOUGHTS AND MEDITATIONS FOR 12 STEP FELLOWSHIP GROUPS. (1993, 1999) DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS, LOUISVILLE. Pages 78-79.

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Focus, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Hope, Positivity

I WILL LIGHTEN UP TODAY!

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AFFIRMATION

When I take myself less seriously, I find myself less hard on my self, and this in itself, is an expression of my hope..

“Giving up taking things personally makes life much more pleasant. But to give it up can be as hard as giving up certain hopes.” (7)

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

To hope means to expect something to happen that we are wishing for. I know that when I hope, I am going to be in a better state of mind and have a more positive attitude about myself, my future and my world.  I find that most of my hope comes after I throw off my fear of change and take on the ability to risk living, without having to know exactly how the day will finish. I want  to laugh and have humor in my life. Maybe in seeing that my life isn’t  so deadly serious, I can afford to lighten up a bit.

This is  a word that I have placed on a shelf for most of my life as nothing ever seems to work out for me. But I have found this to be true –whenever I find my attitudes changing and starting to shift in positive directions, the more I find that good things begin to happen to me in small ways.”

MEDITATION

We  want to know it is God’s will for us to have hope and see the inconsistencies in life. Nothing is ever meant to be perfect. We are more concerned that we stay and live in God’s will –that’s the place where we want to live today.”

SOURCE: (c)Higher Thoughts for Down Days. Pg. 77

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DA Literature, Focus, Higher Power, Journaling, Spirituality, Step 02, The 12 Steps

God Is The Rudder Of My Boat. I Am Going To Put My Oars In The Water!

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 AFFIRMATION

I will have the peace I desire as I continue to pray to do God’s will.

“Being in God’s will is the beginning of peace and the beginning of the end of your depression with its hollowness and jitters.” (8)

 CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Most people don’t understand this who have not been in the program very long. What it means is that I must attempt to work and live this spiritual program. I need to let myself be guided by God’s hand in my life and so become open and ready to fiollow his guidance.

The beginning of wisdom is to hear the voice of God. It is imperative that I take an active role in getting better. I often say that God is the rudder of my boat and I have to put my oars in the water if I am going to get to the shore. I believe that one of the best ways for me to start to feel better is to take each step (Depressed Anonymous, Third Edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications) and try to do what it suggests.  Keeping a journal lets me know what I am feeling for each day. I have come to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.   I wonder sometimes if this hollow feeling inside myself isn’t more of a longing and hunger for a spiritual food that nothing in my life now can and ever will provide.

MEDITATION

We pray that God will show us the way out of our depression by living and following the program that  has healed other people who have been addicted to a behavior or a substance and which  continued to bring them down instead of up.

SOUIRCE: Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for Twelve Step Fellowship Groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 71.

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Belief, Courage, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Focus, Purpose, Spiritual Heroes, The 12 Steps

I Don’t Have To Feel This Way!

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As one person told Dorothy Rowe: “When I think of all those years I wasted being depressed, I wish  I would have listened. I’d wish I’d realized that all I had to do was say that I had enough of being put upon and put down,  feeling that there was something wrong with me. I’d like to go up to the hospital and tell everybody: ‘You don’t have to be like this.’ Up there nobody ever told me that.  I’d see those people going on and on being miserable. If I’d have seen someone like me now, it would have given me hope.”

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous. 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications,. Louisville. P.72.

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How often do we present this message to those who enter into our world.  Our world is one of hope, possessed with the awesome reality that I am different. I have changed.  I can use my tool kit of the 12 steps to gradually dismantle and replace the negative features of my life with new directions, new behaviors and continuing to put into action those positive beliefs about who I am. The Depressed Anonymous fellowship helps us meet others who were depressed and  who now are living a full life.  We are grateful for coming into contact with those who  have a  story of hope to share. So, if you are feeling miserable and helpless, just know  that what you read here will definitely make a difference in your life. We don’t have a magic wand that will take away your pain but we do have a step by step recovery process that can  lighten your load and give you courage to live one hour, one 24 hour period at a time. You are no longer alone. No “snap out of it” from our group. You can make your decision today to join us and  begin a journey that can  lead you eventually  to say,  “I don’t have to be like this.” I did!

Hugh

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Focus, Mindfulness

Remove the letters “d”, “e”, and “i” from the word depression and I have “press on”!

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AFFIRMATION

“The idea that we have to be responsible for ourselves and that the ways of the world are neither good nor just is too terrifying for you to contemplate. You cannot tolerate such uncertainty. You do not trust yourself, so how can you take responsibility for yourself?”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I  don’t like facing the fact that ultimately I am the one responsible for myself, no one else. It appears to me that I have to take care of myself, depend on my Higher Power for direction, and go from there.  My Higher Power isn’t going to do it all.  I know that I have to do all that I can to restore my life and my feelings.  God is the rudder to my boat and I have to put my oars into the water if I am going to get moving in the right direction.

I am attempting, day by day, to tolerate the unpredictability  of my life and gradually learn new ways to cope with uncertainty. While I am depressing myself, I want everything to be perfect and under my control. I know now that I will be  happier when I learn how to tolerate a pleasant mood without telling myself that it will not last. (I also know about this last one from personal experience when I started taking care of myself).

MEDITATION

We believe that the closer that we come to God, as we understand God, the closer our God draws to us.  We believe that whatever we want changed in our life this can best be accomplished by approaching the God of our understanding and letting his power greater than ourselves steer us across the stormy sea.

PRESS ON!

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Choice, Focus, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Mindfulness

TODAY IS ALL I HAVE

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AFFIRMATION

I can live each moment as it comes. I can live only in today. Today is all I have.

“Try to work out which is your habitual response to change which you see as dangerous, so that as you dare to explore you don’t suddenly find yourself running away to the safety of old ways, or resisting the new ideas with old prejudices.( 3)

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I find that when I am depressed I find all the comfort in the predictable and the familiar.  Right now, I am in battle for my life and I am going to stay and work things out. My feelings are agitated and make me feel very uncomfortable, but I know that it is only by feeling them and accepting them (not run away) that I will, and can in time, begin to taste the freedom of a new me beginning to be born.  I believe that by desiring change, this desire will produce a greater motivation in my self to think and feel differently.

This is an important concept when I am depressed. I desire the safety of the familiar and the predictable.

MEDITATION

God, help me to live in the peace and the serenity  of the present moment. And let us be aware of the moment when we begin to depress ourselves.  Alert us to the moment that we can CHOOSE to turn our minds to something more constructive.

SOURCE: Higher Thoughts for down days(c). (March 17).

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Belief, Choice, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Faith, Focus, Hope, The 12 Steps

The Risks Of Faith ( Part 2)

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Yesterday we talked about the various parts that make up one’s progress on the path to recovery. Now we will continue to see how the path of hope is formed.

1. The first item is choices and we discussed how our path is first formed with the choices that we make.

2.  Next come acceptance. Acceptance for how  we are and what we are, accepting our own ideas, values, feelings and emotions but even more important is accepting the  fact that these changes  can and will be made by ourselves and other people can’t do  that for us.  They can only add or detract from those changes. By accepting our choices and taking responsibility for those choices for our journey on the path of hope has begun.

3. The third item is trust. Trust in ourselves to make the right choices. Trust in ourselves to overcome any obstacle we face no matter how difficult it is. Also, trusting another person, especially when that person loves, cares or just  believes in us.   Trust is so important, as it tells us we are not alone and we can accept and trust in another to lead us down our chosen path as well as trusting in our self.

4. The last item is faith.  Faith in ourselves that things will be solved even when no answer or solution is in sight or seems impossible. Faith in others helps us when we need help and that they will be there for us.  Faith in God or our Higher Power and that thru him our anguish, our sorrow, our pain will be lifted. Faith in our path of hope.”

The path of hope for depression sufferers is not easy to build or to find sometimes.  That’s why I think it is so important to take your medications  if medications  are prescribed, see your Doctor, counselor or therapist and go to a Depressed Anonymous meeting as often as you are able. Remember –when all seems to be lost there is always hope.”

Source: Copyright(c) How to hope and let it blossom. 1999. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky 40217. Pages 12-13.

And more from How to Hope — “As I attend more meetings I sense growing within me a personal competency to meet head-on the challenges of what were formerly fearful feelings of just existing  –just going through  the motions of life.  Now I attempt not to run when I feel so miserable but instead I stand and feel what  I am feeling. It seems the more I gain a sense of personal competency about how to love life, the more I am able to be willing to express my feelings whenever I feel them, This seems to be the secret of my gaining more hope on an ongoing and daily basis  — namely,  that the more I am able to feel less insecurity in having to have everything nailed down in my life and a willingness to express my feelings whenever I need to express them and with whomever I choose to share them with.” Page 5.

This is empowerment!

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