Category Archives: Higher Thoughts for Down Days

Motivation Follows Action

AFFIRMATION
I promise to do something positive for myself today.
“When you are depressed you are plagued by tiredness. Indeed, there are many people who experience the major portion of their depression in tiredness.”

Copyright(c) Dorothy Rowe. Breaking the Bonds, Fontana. 1981.

I find that if I am depressed and want to start to feel better, or at least get my mind off of depression, I need to go for a walk and keep on moving. In DA we say MOTIVATION FOLLOWS ACTION. WHAT THIS MEANS IS THAT YOU’LL NEVER GET MOTIVATED TIL YOU GET BUSY DOING SOMETHING. This was my feeling a lot of time. It was only when I started walking that I wanted to walk. I didn’t want to do anything to help myself, until I forced myself to do something.

I believe that one’s tiredness when depressed comes from having too many things going through one’s brain at the same time. The strain of being overwhelmed is too much for the human brain and so it and the body begin to show the signs of stress. I also believe that so many unpleasant emotions constantly coming to surface and being felt by the body results in an overload situation in my brain.

Copyright(c) Dorothy Rowe, Breaking the Bounds. Fontana. 1981


QUOTE FROM:
Hug Smith. HIGHER THOUGHTS FOR DOWN DAYS. DAP. LOUISVILLE, KY. 2005 (January 24) Pg.15.

Belief in myself

Depression is something that is so overwhelming. For myself it is like crawling from beneath the earth and facing the light, with fear
that no one would understand how I truly feel.

When in depression, isolation would follow, being my only friend, but actually it was my own worst enemy. I should have been opening up to someone, instead I shut myself off from the world.

Through therapy and a belief in myself and encouragement, facing the days didn’t seem so difficult.

Working on my Twelve Steps of Depressed Anonymous, and reading “Higher Thoughts for Down Days” gave me reassurance that we are not alone.

I now appreciate what I do have when I work through the program.
– Reatha, Canada

101: How to eliminate wild weeds (Negative Thinking)

Eliminating weeds from our gardens or from the Spring beauties who show their marvelous colors every year, makes it our major task to dig the weeds out, cutting down these thriving seeds of destruction. They become a pest when allowed to grow and take over what was hoped to be something beautiful and bountiful. Negative thinking is likewise that noxious weed- It yields no good fruit!
Our strategy, is to knock them out before they can get a root- hold, destroying our hard work and handiwork. Seeing the first sign of the noxious weed (negative thinking) tells us that more are on the way.

This I believe, serves as a metaphor for when a mind has been taken over with negative thinking and accompanied by a sense of hopelessness.
Our mind, if filled with uninvited negative thinking, cycling us down with a feeling of loss and hopelessness, we find it’s time to get into action, take a crack at that first negative thought–before it even gets a chance to sabotage our thinking, our feelings and motivation to change.
When the negative thoughts begins–say STOP–don’t go any further with a debate about that first thought. We refuse to get entangled with this tangent thought, always leading us to places where we don’t want to go. We have been at this point of thinking far too many times. We know now how to dismantle this crippling form of negative thinking. Change the script. You do the managing of what you think about.
First, cut the thought down to size–don’t let it scare you, but tell it “I’m not going to believe this anymore.” Another reccuring negative thought, for example might be, “You are worthless.” When this thought appears, we can replace it with a positive “sunspot.” This “sunspot” can be a positve recent mental image of a past event or a positive affirmation of ouselves. And with your own weed control operation, tell yourself as many good things about yourself as you want. What you can accomlish at this point is to see the weed (thought) for what it is. Cut it down, like a bad weed, and dig it out. Have an affirmation ready at hand, to replace each and every negative thought. Positivty thinking is what you are all about!

AFFIRMATION
“Making direct amends and using a personal inventory continues our progress and helps free us from all the hurts of the past. We know now that we can’t afford to think long about real of imagined hurts, or we will throw ourselves back into saddening ourselves once again.”

REFLECTION
One of the things that is toxic for the depressed peron is negative thinking. This thinking continues to grow, once nurtured by my attention into a large and uncontrolled wild weed, taking all the attention from the good things happening in my life. I know that I can no longer give into that first thought allowing to pound me to the ground. My negative thinking is very much akin to drinking for the alcoholic. Once I give into that first moment of self-bashing, the cycle of depression begins. There can be no second negative thought!
Hurts from my past continue to grow stronger the more I allow them to dominate my thinking and my behavior. Hurts are best eradicated (Seep 4 and Step 5) when I deal with them openly and honestly.

MEDITATION
The spirit hopes in God as we begin today with a prayer and a belief that this day can be a good one, like the days that I have had in the past.”

Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowships. Depressed anonymous Publications.Louisville, Ky. Pages 153-154. (September 17)

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous. Third Edition (2011). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.

Stick to the plan – A prescription for change today

It took me awhile to put into practice a simple idea. That idea is to do the same thing, day after day, in the same place and at the same time. If you have trouble following through on ideas or commitments, then you might feel better about reading the next few paragraphs.

With different situations in my life, some upheavals, some turning points, changes in my life goals, plus trying to do to much at the same time. It was somehow never easy to do what I knew needed to be dome. I used as my mantra “I’ll do it when I feel better.” In fact, this idea seemed to express perfectly, what I was doing, so I titled one of my books after it. Gradually, procrastination, I sensed, would not fit into my recovery program. I had put off for too long to knuckle down and start to do the work that I needed to do.

Here is my plan. I know it can work for you as well. There is no particular time limit on how long your prayer time is to be.

1. Everyday, I have found that morning works for me, I go to the quiet place that is best for my time alone with God, and start with a daily reading of Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 Daily Thoughts and Meditations for 12 Step Fellowships. This reading begins with an Affirmation, then a reflection, and a final meditation. I have my notebook handy and I write down a positive thought that I want to carry me through my day. Most of the time this is a simple single sentence.

2. I then read and reflect on a paragraph or two from our Depressed Anonymous manual.This is coupled with the accompanying Depressed Anonymous Workbook, where personal reflections, in the form of questions, help me clarify how I think about myself. These questions continue to uncover issues which I might have never encountered, becoming the positive basic building blocks, helping with an understanding of the nature of my own depression experience, and developing in myself strategies, the 12 spiritual principles of growth, for my personal recovery, day-by-day.

It’s not complicated. It’s a plan. This time of prayer and meditation is a powerful way to make “conscious contact” with the God of your understanding. (Check out Chapter 10 in “I’ll do it when I feel better.” This chapter discusses more fully the topic of prayer and meditation.

Resources

(c)Hugh Smith. Higher Thoughts for Down Days:365 Daily Thoughts and Meditations. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky.
(c) Depressed Anonymous, THIRD EDITION (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY
(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook, (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications.Louisville, Ky.
(C)Hugh Smith. I’ll do it when I feel better. (2020) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky.

+ These works can by ordered online at www.Depressedanon.com. Click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore.

I found my depression a comfort

It strikes people as a strange thing to say when I tell them that I found my depression a comfort. I found it convenient because I didn’t have to make my decisions about anything or anybody. I could medicate these thoughts of how bad I was and continue to meditate until I felt completely numb and immobilized. Thanks to the program and the emphasis on personal honesty, the more I got the courage to take charge of my life and change what I knew had to be changed.

Today, I am not going to allow myself to get into addicting to negative and unpleasant thoughts. I will risk being myself and step out of the prison of my depression into the fresh air of living with a certain amount of unpredictability and freshness.

Avoidance is a vast reality when you are depressing, as I learned through the Twelve Steps program. I don’t want to see, talk to or have anything to do with anyone else when I am depressed; I will have to force myself to get involved with other people if I want to have a chance of ever feeling better.

Reflection

Because of you, O Lord, I wait: you O Lord my God will answer.
Psalm 35:16

The more we work our Program, God is as near as we are to God. The more we open up our consciousness to the God of our understanding, the more God draws us to himself. We believe that as we wait on the Lord to speak to us, our God will speak to us in some fashion that we will recognize. (Personal comments).

Resource
Higher Thoughts For Down Days, © 2014, Depressed Anonymous Publications, Louisville KY. (Pages 157-158)

I am depressed and I am wanting a change

The past is always full of hurt and and unexpressed anger. The future never seems to be without its colossal fears and “what if’s.” Now is the time to accept the fact that I want to change the way I think, act and believe. Right now I am wanting a change and am willing to face the challenge that making changes bring. To do this is called living.

Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 step fellowship groups
Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY. January 7.

Hugh, for the fellowship

I will keep physically fit. Exercise is my priority now!

MOTIVATION FOLLOWS ACTION

AFFIRMATION
I promise myself that I will walk today to regain a positive feeling about myself and my world.
Keep physically fit. It is a must for us who are and have been depressed. Walking not only restore harmony to the body, it likewise restores my self-esteem and self confidence. Remember that motivation follows action.

REFLECTION
How can motivation follow action? Isn’t it the other way around, namely that action follows motivation? In a sense the criticism is true, but in another sense, it isn’t quite that accurate. When speaking about the paralysis of depression the individual’s motivation is almost completely nonexistent. That is why it is important for me, a depressed person to force myself to get moving -that’s right, force myself into an activity because even though I say “I will do it when I feel better.” I never usually feel better. So I need to find that point in my day, when I feel better and get out in the air and walk, if nothing else, it tends to distract from my wanting to sad myself.
When I take care of myself physically and begin giving myself p[permission to express my feelings, especially the unpleasant ones, I begin to speak more assertively and begin to like myself.

MEDITATION
Today, help me sort out what needs to be thrown away and what we need to keep. Help us keep those memories that had love attached to them.

RESOURCES
Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowship groups. (2002)Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Pages 150-151.

Copyright(c) Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Chapter Six. Pages 33-36.

Do I value myself?

“I am convinced that when I am depressing myself, that is, talking to myself and telling myself how bad and unacceptable that I am, I probably come across to others in in the same manner. When I try to please people I seem to be more depressed than before. I want to have other’s approval so much because I don’t really have a self that I can approve. It is only when I begin to value myself that other’s may or may not approve of me. When I begin to look on myself more positively, it will be alright with me, if someone disapproves of me.
The more I value myself, my word, and my future, the more my depression is gradually diminished. ”

Resource

(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. October 20. page 172.

I want to get my life back again

AFFIRMATION

I will express my feelings in an  appropriate and reasonable manner.

…In different contexts I would describe   how I  construe  anger: To me it is a human response to frustration.  It is not essentially evil, but it is a facet of our civility and creativity. Our task in dealing with our anger is to inspect critically the sources of our frustration and to develop ways of expressing our anger is to inspect critically the sources of our frustrations and to develop ways of expressing our anger which are socially acceptable and creative.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

In my efforts, to find peace and sanity in my life, I am beginning to figure out a few things, namely., that if I want to get my life on track, I will  have to live by the principles of the spiritual program that we call Depressed Anonymous. In my doing the 4th and 5th Steps of the program, I am finding that, I must take an inventory of my character defects that have kept me from living with trust and hope in my daily life. The principles of the Twelve Steps are an assurance that my life can get better. The more  I work the Twelve Steps, the more that I must  develop in my life.

I need not declare that I will never get angry again–only that I will get  in touch with my feelings and express them appropriately. Once my anger is acknowledged, I hope in time, for my ability to forgive to grow and be expressed.

MEDITATION

We thank you, God, for your grace, a gift to be sure. We don’t have to be the most perfect ones to achieve it. We know it is from you  that we receive the courage to live our  lives in a more hopeful and serene manner.

RESOURCE
Copyright(c)  Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts   and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups.  Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky. Page 73.

 

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