Category Archives: Stress

12 Step Meeting, Act As If, Belief, Choice, Community building, Denial, Exercise, Faith, Fellowship, Focus, Helpful Thinking, Higher Power, Hope, I'll Do It When I Feel Better, Indecision, Isolation, Mindfulness, Mutual Aid, Purpose, Service, Spirituality, Step 01, Stress

Motivation follows action

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

I believer much of 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 mind and so it and the body begin to show the stress. I also believe that so many unpleasant emotions constantly coming to surface and being felt by the body results in an overload situation for my brain.

COMMENT
The best way to get into action is to get into action. I know this is so obvious–but when the time comes for me to actually do something–that is a different story. Then my mantra becomes “I’ll do it when I feel better,” and course this doesn’t get me out of bed. This doesn’t get me walking. Instead, what happens, is that my thinking gets caught in that neural rut, much like a merry-go-round. Round and round we go. Nothing ever changes.

Tell yourself that this day is going to be different .Make a commitment to yourself today! Make up your mind that you are not going to ride the merry-go-round horse today.You are going to start small. Take the “baby steps” that just might push you out the door and put some fresh air into your lungs. MOTIVATION FOLLOWS ACTION. Check it out. See, for yourself if this doesn’t work for you.

Copyright(c) Hugh Smith. Higher Thoughts for Down Days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY January 24, p.15.

12 Step Meeting, Anxiety, Belief, Choice, Community building, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Ego Deflation, Fellowship, Focus, Gratitude, Helpful, Helpful Thinking, Higher Power, Hope, Mindfulness, Mutual Aid, Pain, Purpose, Service, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, Stress, Supportive Actions, The 12 Steps, The Promises, Victim Thinking

The three questions I need to answer

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I have learnt that in order to do any sort of recovery, there are three questions I need to answer. Basically, the three questions are simple in nature and not complicated.

When the Depressed Anonymous Workbook was being considered for publication and to be utilized as a critical piece of the recovery process, the Workbook was the other piece amplifying the message of the Depressed Anonymous Manual. As I began to use the Workbook, I had to reflect upon my own feelings of depression, clarifying the effects of sadness in my life. Also, I am poised to examine my relationships with family, friends and others with whom I was in contact over the years of my life. It is in the circle of these friendship and relationships that my life has been lived. We don’t live as hermits.

I guarantee that you will find a plethora of information about who you are, and how you think about yourself. Your response to so many situations that have brought you to the point where you are today. I believe, having gone through the Workbook myself, question by question and chapter by chapter with those with whom I served as a co-sponsor. I am amazed at the self-awareness that is stimulated for so many of us when we put our energies into this personal and unique process of gaining a new self-awareness of the real me. Many are surprised at the Workbook questions and one’s own responses which the questions elicited from us. The whole Workbook/Manual helps each of us face the real me and not the person whom you believed you were. So many times I find the person going through the Steps, gradually replaces mistaken beliefs about themselves, while Slowly coming into contact with the “real” and not the “false” self that others have wanted us to be, even from our earliest childhood days. Now, by finding answers to questions which were never asked and if they were asked, were not much help. Not that we didn’t want to share, but that we didn’t have an answer. Now, we not only are providing answers about who we are, we also are finding ourselves empowered as we continue to empower ourselves with the right to feel, think, and behave in ways that fits who we know we are. The three questions and their answers are unlocking those of us who were in “lockdown” but now are free.

Here are those three questions that you will be answering, at your own speed, in your own time, in more depth, as you’ve move through the Workbook.

  1. Who am I?
  2. What do I want?
  3. And who is my God?

If I am depressed or a loved one is depressed-the depression doesn’t define all that I am. Even though I may feel depressed all over- this can’t define all that I am. Just as someone who has an eating disorder – this eating disorder doesn’t define their whole person, just as being an alcoholic doesn’t define the whole total person. We might call someone an alcoholic or an addict but the label never defines the whole person.

If you are in a recovery program, such as Depressed Anonymous, it’s obvious that you are seeking help to find a way out of the prison of your own depression. The Workbook will provide you with many questions, and answers, (many your own) to help you find what you REALLY want for your life. The entire Workbook is a process of turning over each and every rock of sadness and gradually provide you with the tools, the support and the faith to overcome a life built on fear, anxiety and misery. You have the solution with credible answers that can and will provide you with a way out – the problem is no one ever told you that you have a choice or gave you the tools to gradually work your way out.

Hugh S., for the fellowship

RESOURCES
© The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.
© Depressed Anonymous, Third Edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.

Both of these books can be ordered from the Depressed Anonymous Publications website Bookstore @depressedanon.com
These two book can be purchased as a combo editions at a reduced price. They are also available as eBOOKS, and are less expensive as you have the ability to print them on your computer.

Statement
All books sold here on our website, the monies go back into buying more books, so as to keep our organization functioning. All work is done by Depressed Anonymous member’s service work. WE receive no outside help as we are self-supporting.

Community building, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Helpful, Higher Power, Mutual Aid, Purpose, Stress

DA fellowship as my scaffolding 

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Some great advice I got from my sponsor was to “find my help and use my help.”  Often times my help comes in the form of DA members.  Over the last two years I’ve spent time at meetings and on the phone in between meetings with members of the fellowship, and they have become an important part of my recovery.  I have built up a network of people around me, much like one uses scaffolding to build a new structure.  I have been built anew by the steps and the help of the DA fellowship.  Now, when life presents me with problems and struggles that previously felt unmanageable and too overwhelming to deal with, I have a support structure in place that I can lean upon.  I have found my help and now I know how to use that help.  All I have to do is pick up the phone and reach out to my DA fellowship.  Through their help, the help of my Higher Power, and the steps, I will be guided to sanity and solutions.

12 Step Meeting, Depressed Anonymous, Despair, Fellowship, Helpful, Isolation, Mutual Aid, Purpose, Service, Stress, The Promises

Promise # 5 of the Promises of Depressed Anonymous.

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Promise # 5 : No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we see how our experiences can benefit others.

“Some of us have attempted suicide. A few of us more than a few times. We had despaired of ever finding peace or hope. We believe that we had no future and that our yesterdays were as hopeless as our today’s.

It was hard to attend our first Depressed Anonymous meeting. We felt horribly alone. We just know that no one in the group has been through what we have been through. But as we listened and watched the other members of the group speak – we saw ourselves in their stories.

Personally I believe that whatever you give out to others is the amount that comes back to us. Our experiences can usually help another. An experience such as depression is so isolating, so predictable in its misery that it is bound to have had an impression upon us that it changed our life. And then when our life is changed for the better – thanks to DA and the fellowship that we have to share it with those still suffering.

Ironically, it appears that the farther we have gone down in mood– and up again in our recovery -the more powerful is this experience. They see the after and hear how it was before we got involved in the fellowship.

The fact that we have recovered so completely is in itself a message of tremendous hope for those who are newcomers to the group.

Isn’t it amazing that those who can do the most for those still suffering are those who have worked themselves out of the pit of isolation and depression.”

Copyright (c) The Promises of Depressed Anonymous (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky. (Page 12).

Stinking Thinking, Stress

Manage your stress

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During these months of being cooped up during the pandemic it’s a good time for learning more about how to manage our stress. Depression and stress go together.

Take a look at the TOOLS FOR RECOVERY at the Home Page menu and see how they may be a source of help for you in your own life. There are many tools listed here and we encourage all to try them on for size. I hope they work for you as they did for me.

Hugh for the Fellowship

Choice, Egoism, Stress

Higher Thoughts (positive)are like vitamins! Have you taken yours today?

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Affirmation

I am able right now to read and discover how I can undepress my self.

“… It seems that the physiological changes which accompany fear can have profound effects on the body which lead to a breakdown of the immune system, the system which enables us to throw off  obnoxious substances and viruses. Once this  this system ceases to function efficiently we are laid open to the ravages of all kinds of diseases.”

Reflection

It happens frequently that those who come to the office and say that they have had a cold which they haven’t been able to shake off,   are oftentimes under an undue amount of stress and pressure. The effects of continued worry and tension accumulate over time and should bring with it the effects of an impaired autoimmune system.

My body is made up of various systems all intended to work in conjunction and in harmony with each other. One of the many ways I could work against my stress   and overcome depression is to understand how I set myself up for depression. Sadness and depression aren’t caused just by a few irrational thoughts held over time – – if that was the case, then all of us would be depressed all the time. Depression, to be overcome, has to be understood and the best way to understand it is to begin to see that no matter how unclear is its origins, I’m still unable to do something so that I can undepressed myself.

Meditation

“God, put your hand in our hand and give us the gift of understanding those  areas, past and present in our lives which continue to produce those  thoughts  of self-hate and fear.”

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Personal comments

Source: Copyright ( c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve-Step support groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 41. February 24.

Belief, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Stress

LIFE CAN BE GOOD FOR A CHANGE. PLEASE DON’T GIVE UP!

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” I am writing this information with the hope that it will help anyone who is suffering from depression that is brought on by stress, anxiety, loneliness, physical or mental emotions, death or insecurity.

I am a thirty-four year old single female, who has been suffering from depression for a long time.  Most of my depression was brought on by feelings of insecurity, such as not being able to express my inner feelings, such as being controlled by a dominating parent, loneliness, stress, workaholic, anxiety attacks  (related to work and everyday pressures of living), too much sleep, nervousness, lack of motivation, being tired all the time, sadness, weight gain,. digestive problems, a feeling of being trapped, self-consciousness, not trusting myself, dreams of dying but yet managing to come back to life, withdrawal from family, or loss of interest in meeting with the opposite sex.

It seemed that I was living in another world until one of my parents gave me a phone number of Depressed Anonymous(502.569.1989).   The Depressed  Anonymous meetings, plus reading the Depressed Anonymous manual have provided me with the tools to live without being depressed.  Most important of all, the  Twelve Steps mentioned in the book have made me understand that God (my Higher Power) will give me strength to deal with my depression and get  on with my life and be happy with myself.

The book with its Twelve Steps, has taught me that I am not alone. And that I am not the only one who is suffering from depression. It has taught me to believe more in my Higher Power and to let it handle my depression.

I read the Depressed Anonymous manual, go to counseling, and attend the Depressed Anonymous meetings. The meetings are a must. I need them to survive. The support group’s members help each other by listening, talking, expressing their feelings, and give support on how to cope with depression.   By letting my Higher Power help me, I am beginning to feel free from depression.  I am not so nervous and tenses up. My Christian inner faith is getting stronger. I am not so stressed out and I am beginning to get confidence within myself.  I still have trouble with sleep pattern and I am getting some motivation back. I have learned how to handle anxiety by getting some motivation back.  I have learned how to handle anxiety by taking deep breaths while I am nervous or troubled.  This was suggested by my therapist.  I am also learning how to stand  up for myself.

All these  new tools have helped me and will continue to do so.  They also taught me not to dwell on my past, to live life one day at a time, and to look toward the future, but not live there.  It will take a long time to deal with depression, but I am glad  that these tools are available.  Life can be good for a change. Please don’t give up!.

-Anonymous

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SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous (3rd edition). (2011)  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 148-149.  # 29 of Personal Stories