Tiny Buddha

Tag: depression

  • The 3 Pieces of Recovery from Addiction or Depression

    The 3 Pieces of Recovery from Addiction or Depression

    Mind Body Spirit

    “I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” ~Brené Brown

    When I started graduate school, it was safe to say that I was running away from things. I’d recently ended a nine-year relationship and I wasn’t planning on dealing with it.

    Upon the birth of my nephew, my father, a long-term addict, had begun rekindling his relationships with his three daughters. I didn’t recognize, though I should have, that this needed dealing with too.

    I began school so that I’d have something to pour my energy and feelings into wholeheartedly. And I did. It worked, at least for a while. I soon began to notice that I was increasingly unhappy in my new student position.

    While I had things I looked forward to, like teaching and program events, I spent my time alone watching television in bed and wishing I could be anywhere else, though I didn’t know where that might be.

    It was the closest I could ever remember feeling to depressed, a word that had long been whispered, though never addressed, in my family.

    There are few perks to being a graduate student, at least on paper, but one of them, for me, was school-funded student health insurance that included mental health care.

    I should mention that, although my family history certainly warrants mental health care, no one had ever sought it. If ongoing drug and alcohol addictions, divorce, and teenage pregnancy apparently didn’t warrant it, perhaps nothing would. But I was feeling pretty bad, and it was free.

    On the day I walked into the counselor’s office, I found two people from my very small program sitting in there.

    It was at first awkward and then comforting—each of us had found ourselves in a similar situation, and something about that Tuesday had summoned us to the office.

    Inside, I met with Krishna, a soft-spoken therapist who identified my family immediately as co-dependent and prone to addiction.

    I felt better already. She recommended that I be around animals and begin practicing yoga. I committed to both and began seeing Krishna every other week.

    Since I was a busy student and unable to commit to a pet, I decided to volunteer at a local animal shelter. Every Friday, I woke up at 6am to walk dogs for an hour before I went to teach. It was inspiring for a few reasons—one, it reminded me that things could be worse, and two, puppies.

    The animal capacity for cuteness and kindness is extraordinary, and I certainly felt better for having been around them.

    It is often said that volunteer work is a selfish task, designed to make the volunteer feel better for having done it. I don’t object to this, nor do I see anything wrong with it. Those dogs got me through graduate school.

    Next, I set out to learn to practice yoga. This was a scary goal because it seemed to showcase many of my fears and insecurities.

    I was self-conscious about my body and asked to put on body hugging clothes. I was uncomfortable being watched, and the eyes of the class would often be on me. Also, I’d never done yoga before and the thought of all of those skinny, stretchy people terrified me.

    With one of the girls I’d run into at the counselor’s office, I searched for a nonthreatening yoga class that I thought would meet my needs.

    Upon the recommendation of a friend, I joined a group with a focus on restorative yoga, mostly stretching, snacks at the end.

    I found a community of like-minded men and women interested in finding a mind/body/spirit balance to treat the various issues we were all dealing with. Is there anything that hurts today, our teacher would ask, mind or body?

    Because I come from a family of somewhat functional alcoholics going back as far as I can remember, I know that these parts of me may just be hidden, dormant for now.

    Yoga has allowed me to channel these possible proclivities into an activity that promotes physical and mental health, an activity that is no longer scary. It’s also my way of acknowledging that there is something outside of me, something larger than me, at work in the universe.

    Yoga is, for me, the acknowledgment of spirit.

    Recovery (from anything, addiction, depression, physical illness) requires the addressing of a triangle in its entirety—mind, body, and spirit. While counseling began to address the mind, yoga and puppies addressed both body and spirit. Learning this felt like my whole body sighing.

    While I’m not an addict, I can see how yoga would be useful there, too. A positive community, a refocus on the body, an attention to self-restraint and awareness that is hard to replicate.

    For me, breaking down the barriers and walls my family had tried so long create was no small feat. In acknowledging my own capacity for mental illness, I was able to begin a road to recovery that improved my health in many ways. That recognition and verbalization of ill feelings was, for me, essential to the healing process.

    In my professional life, I deal with this all the time—men and women struggling with mental disease, often accompanied by addiction, that lack the approval of families to move forward with treatment.

    For me, it was easier to say then to do. Eventually, though, it became a part of myself (this history of mental illness) that I was happy to disclose because it meant that I had begun recovery.

    Then, I suspected that I was alone. Now, I realize that it’s common to fear that acknowledging there’s a problem is failure.

    Be vocal, be active, be spiritual in any way that you find productive. Be alive.

    I have a triangle tattooed on my left foot to remind me that everything that goes to pieces also happens in pieces, even recovery. One, two, three: mind, body, spirit.

    Photo by HartwigHKD

  • Anyone Can Change If They Take It One Step at a Time

    Anyone Can Change If They Take It One Step at a Time

    First Step

    “Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~Alan Watts

    I used to be an insecure girl obsessed with her weight, stepping on the scales about twenty times a day.

    I used to be a bulimic teenager struggling with depression and a way too controlling father, whom I never told, “I love you, Dad.”

    I used to be a lonely woman who always fell for the wrong men because she had not yet learned that she deserved better.

    I used to be co-dependent, fighting for everyone but myself.

    I used to be a bacteriophobe—I was so afraid of germs and dirt that I refused to stay in hotels because I could not stand the thought of having to lie in a bed that hundreds of other people had already slept in.

    This is the way I used to be. And I thought I would be like that for as long as I live.

    But when I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life and marry a guy who wanted to turn me into a Stepford Wife, I discovered what I was not: I was not afraid to change!

    This is how my journey began, and it continued one step at a time.

    I left my fiancé, although everybody thought I had gone crazy. But how could I have stayed with someone who only loved the idea of the girl he thought I could be?

    Fighting the silence of my new place, I forced myself to join a yoga group. And through yoga, I learned something else about myself: I am strong.

    Meditation taught me that silence does not equal loneliness. Silence equals inner peace. And inner peace equals strength.

    I was ready to take the next step and, slowly but surely, I broke old behavior patterns.

    I learned that if you want your future to be brighter than your past, you must start acting differently. Today.

    Relationships suffered, but I decided to no longer surround myself with people who I knew would nourish my codependency.

    I also learned another very important lesson: I need to put myself first when it comes to love.

    Because only when you love yourself someone else can truly love you, too.

    This is how I found my soul mate. And although we both are not perfect, we could not be more perfect for each other.

    I moved to another country and finally understood that I was “uncontrollable,” no matter how hard people tried to tell me what to do.

    Space taught me about freedom: the freedom to listen to my feelings, and the freedom to trust myself.

    Once I understood that I could trust myself, I realized I could accept myself, too.

    At this point, I was finally able to let go of my neuroses and cope with the emotions that had been feeding my eating disorder.

    All my life I had been troubled by yesterday’s “what ifs” and worried about tomorrow’s “maybes.”

    But when you are no longer haunted by your past nor concerned about your future, you are ready to see what’s beautiful today.

    And beauty is all around you!

    Now a holistic nutritionist and mindfulness coach, I know I have come a long way.

    I teach my children to love themselves as much as I love them, and every day they tell me they love me, too.

    I’ve also healed my relationship with my father. He is the one person I turn to whenever I get stuck in life and need someone to help me get back on track again.

    He died on September 29, 2008. He was in a coma when I came to see him and I did not have a chance to say goodbye. I wasn’t there when he died; I only heard him take his last breath through the phone. But, Dad, wherever you are out there: I love you! I really do.

    I am by no means flawless, but through my journey I have realized that anyone can change if they take it one step at a time.

    You just have to try and put yourself out there, even though it means you need to leave your comfort zone.

    Because we all deserve to be happy! And it is never—never—too late to take a U-turn and rewrite the plot of your own life.

    Photo by Luz Adriana Villa

  • The Hunger for More: What We Really Want and Need

    The Hunger for More: What We Really Want and Need

    Screen shot 2013-04-24 at 10.19.02 AM

    “Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

    As a child, I was obsessed with other worlds—reading about alien planets, writing fantasy stories, or just playing video games. As a teenager, I longed to know as much as possible— who we were, why we are here, the meaning of life.

    Later on, I started traveling. There was so much to see, so much to do, so many ways to look at the world. I wanted to see it all, touch it all, experience it all.

    This need for more has existed throughout my life in its many forms, and I can thank it for always driving me to do great, exciting things. But at the same time, it has never allowed me to stay still, to just enjoy myself the way so many people seem to.

    When I ignore this feeling, it starts gnawing away at me from the inside. It tells me that I am not doing enough, that I’m lazy, a time-waster. Some would call the feeling a feeling of becoming stir-crazy, cabin fever, ennui.

    I look at it as a hunger. When I ignore that hunger, when I stop traveling or learning or creating or just doing, the weight of the world piles up on me and life suddenly feels like a suffocating, restricting place.

    If I continue to ignore it, I tend to slip into depression or sadness; the smallest of stresses will bring me to tears.

    But what is that hunger? Do we all have it, to some degree? Without the human desire for knowledge and development, we might all still be living in caves.

    Without it, we wouldn’t have medical and technological developments, and we wouldn’t have art or poetry, perhaps. But on the other hand, we might not have war, hatred, and greed.

    That hunger takes different forms depending on how it is channelled.

    Given the right circumstances, we get creativity, ambition, and invention. Given the wrong ones, we get that dark, burning need to amass more and more money and power—that greed that can be seen in so many people throughout our history.

    We often try feeding that hunger with money, power, knowledge, creative output, food, sex, or drugs. We desperately try everything to fill that void, apart from what we really need.

    Four years ago, when I was on the verge of depression, a friend suggested that I try mindfulness. In short, the art of being in the here and now, of focusing on the senses instead of the thoughts, and of looking at thoughts objectively.

    It took a while, but what my most successful moments of mindfulness showed me is that it is possible to be still, to absorb a moment fully, without that restlessness, that hunger, starting to tap its foot and demand to know what on earth I think I’m doing.

    Quieting the nagging voice in my head has become an art of its own, now.

    The most powerful moments are found walking through nature, just listening to the variety of bird song, or feeling the ancient strength of a tree against my back.

    In those moments, another, older feeling comes to me. That feeling is of being one; one with myself, one with nature, one with everything. The flowers, the trees and the birds are just a part of it.

    In the heart of a forest I realize something so true, so powerful, that it brings tears to my eyes.

    We are animals. We are part of the earth, just as any animal or plant is. Somewhere along the line, we evolved to crave more, to be aware of our surroundings, and to think about ways to improve it. That craving brought us the modern comforts that we know now, but it also brought with it a world of suffering.

    In our haste to become more, to know and to create, we also felt that it was our destiny to conquer not only each other, but also nature. But this very act of cutting ourselves off from our roots has had disastrous consequences for many.

    Most of us crave companionship, whether we seek it by clinging to romantic partners or through a string of disconnected, drunken nights. We are addicted to social networking, perhaps not because of the technology itself but because it substitutes for that feeling of oneness, of connection, that we have lost.

    We, in the developing world, are starving ourselves. This fast-paced, technology-based life, focused only on the acquiring of money and status is a twisted manifestation of a hunger that exists deep down in every one of us.

    But what that hunger really is, what that calling inside us really is, is a call back to oneness, to our roots, which we ignore.

    One way to describe it is that we all have souls, and that our souls are connected to the earth and everything on it. Or, you could say, every atom in your body was once part of something else on this earth, and will be again.

    Without nature, we cannot eat or breathe, and yet we lock ourselves up in man-made cubicles and unquestioningly buy food from packets.

    We also need to connect to each other. We might seem to connect online, but it is at the cost of face-to-face interaction, which is far better for us.

    It worries me to see children glued to phones and games, ignoring the people around them. If we aren’t even teaching people to connect to each other and to their world, then there’s little wonder that so many people are unhappy.

    Ironically, people slave away unhappily so that, one day, they can relax in the countryside or on the beach. That retirement dream might be nothing more than recognition that we need to surround ourselves with a more natural environment, not in some distant future but right now.

    I’m not saying that we should abandon all human progress and go back to living in caves. Some inventions have saved lives and made it possible for us to live much longer and healthier lives. However, we need to look at the mental health problem we’re facing and consider all other possibilities before throwing drugs at people.

    Nature therapy and mindfulness are growing industries, and have been shown to treat everything from substance abuse to depression and anxiety.

    You can see the effects yourself; just sit in a park and close your eyes, listening to the birds or the running water. Turn off your phone and let yourself just BE.

    Recognize that you were created by nature; that you are part of it and it is part of you. I have been so much happier since I honoured this core part of myself, and I want to share it with everyone.

    I believe the hunger is a calling—a calling back to where we came from. We are each one tiny part of a massive picture, and when we disconnect ourselves from it we are denying ourselves the beautiful, meaningful feeling that comes from recognizing that we are all part of the same amazing world.

    Photo by notsogoodphotography

  • Reconnect with Your Authentic Self Instead of Denying Your Feelings

    Reconnect with Your Authentic Self Instead of Denying Your Feelings

    “I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” ~Lao Tzu

    I recently took seven weeks off of work and rented a place in Laguna Beach.

    The trip was meant to be a relaxing vacation and possibly a change of residence; it turned out to be a wakeup call.

    I started the trip out by going on my first date since 2010. The pollen count was high, and my sinuses were none too happy. I’m still not sure if it was being on a date or the medication that triggered so much anxiety; maybe it was a combination of both.

    Later that evening, as I replayed the day in my mind, old insecurities came to the surface. That feeling of not being good enough engulfed my being.

    I just smiled, shook my head, and thought to myself, “Really? Does this still ring true for you?”

    The answer was no. But it still came up, so I had to explore it further. So I spent the next two and a half weeks in a battle with the Southern California Pollen Count and my inner self-worth issues.

    Most of my life had been controlled by an underlying sense of anxiety.

    In my teen years and throughout most of my twenties, I numbed it with drugs and alcohol. In 2005, after I celebrated my first year of sobriety, I started to really explore this feeling. I signed up for hundreds of newsletters, spent many hours in the Dana Point Library, and purchased over 100 books that year alone.

    I read, listened, and put into practice anything that came across my path.

    The movie “The Secret” spoke to part of me, and books from Deepak Chopra, Ester and Jerry Hicks, and countless others made me temporarily feel as if it were going to be okay.

    I wanted so badly to just be happy, to be able to really look into the mirror and like what I saw.

    By April 2009, I thought I had it all figured out. My goal-setting exercises were bringing my desires to fruition, my body was as healthy as it has ever been, and my love life was what I had always dreamed it would be.

    A few months later it all fell apart. I found myself again back to square one. It didn’t make sense and all I wanted was to know was: What part of this equation was missing?

    My mission to figure it out was renewed, and the way my life has unfolded since has been a long, strange trip indeed.

    Looking back at my self-education is partially humorous and equally frustrating.

    I now find it humorous that I worked so hard to “fix” something that wasn’t actually broken.

    I find it a bit frustrating to have consumed so much information that perpetuated this seemingly endless cycle of self-help stupidity.

    Two very popular self-help ideals come to my mind.

    1. “You just have to be positive.”

    This may be worst thing you can say to someone who is depressed and sees no way out of it.

    You read books on “how to attract everything you ever want in life.” You understand that positive thinking leads to positive results. Just when you start making progress, something happens and you feel frustrated or angry.

    You find yourself upset at yourself for being upset. You think, “Why can’t I just be happy? What’s wrong with me?” The depression deepens.

    Listen, you don’t have to be positive all the time.

    It’s okay if you get upset or don’t feel happy every waking moment.

    Before you can cultivate a positive mindset, you must first honor where you are and the journey that brought you here. Our general outlook on life is a mixture of genetics and experience. Some reactions are very deeply engrained and will take a concentrated effort over time to change.

    You’re not broken if you can’t see the silver lining, which is why this next bit of wisdom needs another look.

    2. “Just fake it until you make it.”

    It’s a catchy saying, but horrible advice.

    The feelings you have present in your life are valid. The act of faking it is an act of denial, which can have some really negative effects on your psyche.

    You can’t fake your way out of sadness and depression.

    You can put on a happy face, and to some degree it will change your mood. But, during those times when you take away distractions and you have to sit alone with yourself, the act of faking it will make you feel like you’re crawling out of your own skin.

    I didn’t realize that faking it perpetuated anxiety.

    Being really comfortable with myself didn’t actually happen until I began to just sit still on a regular basis.

    At first it was overwhelming; anxiety turned to frustration, to anger and rage, and finally to shame. I felt cracked wide open, exposed and raw.

    The feeling really sucked and it lasted for almost six months.

    But I sat with it. I owned it, and in that space of raw vulnerability I stopped faking it. For the first time in my life it felt okay to be me.

    There is a real power in authenticity.

    It is an act of love to honor where you are right now.

    From my experience with sitting in my own stuff came my life as a writer. My first book followed and my newsletter audience grew.

    Yet, with all that I’ve studied and think I know I still found myself experiencing that old worn out feeling of “you’re just not ever going to be enough.”

    So, how did I find myself in Laguna Beach overwhelmed and feeling less than worthy of love and affection?

    Well, that was actually pretty easy for me to discover. You see, I’m an avid note taker and list maker. It only took a few hours to sort through my 2012 notes to see that I had only half been walking my talk.

    My practice of meditation had taken a backseat to my “trying to achieve things.”

    My practice of mindfulness had eroded; evening meals were consumed along with DVDs and Facebook noise-feeds.

    Three months of sunsets went unseen.

    My reverence for the present moment had once again been lost while my mind searched for fulfillment in the future; the result of which was the rise of my existential anxiety.

    A Simple Plan to Reconnect with Your Authentic Self

    • Still your body and mind. Commit to just five minutes of meditation and build your practice from there.
    • Maintain focused attention on your breathing and honor the task at hand.
    • Witness your reactions to get to the core reasons behind your emotional response.
    • Take time each evening to write down little moments of gratitude, love, and awe that happened throughout your day.
    • Remind yourself that you have nowhere else to be other than where you are right now.

    From my experience thus far the first part of the plan is the most powerful; science backs up that claim. That’s why I am building my daily sitting meditation.

    My dream is to see more authenticity in this world.

    My belief is that this will lead to more compassion, which in turn will lead to more change.

    How about you? Want to change the world too?

    Then please join me by spending just a little bit of time doing absolutely nothing, every day for the rest of your life.

    Who’s in!? Tell me you’re with me!

    Photo by sierragoddess

  • 5 Ways Meditation Can Improve Your Life and Make You Happier

    5 Ways Meditation Can Improve Your Life and Make You Happier

    Meditation

    “If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.” ~Lao Tzu

    For most of my life I had the overwhelming feeling that I was lacking something. I felt like I was not good enough, smart enough, or pretty enough.

    I was nothing but an unattractive, chubby girl of little worth. In my late twenties I formed a huge crush that changed my life, for the worse, or so I thought. Against my will, I developed an unbelievable attraction to women. I was horrified!

    Being gay was the cherry on top of my pile of shortcomings. This new realization confirmed the belief that my life would be nothing but disappointment, and it totally crushed the little self-esteem that I had.

    In spite of my overwhelming feelings of inadequacy, I took the scary steps of falling in love and coming out to family and friends, with positive results.

    Even though my fears of judgment and rejection were proven to be fabrications, I was still unable to shake the negative loop that repeated: “You are not good enough. You will fail. You are a disappointment.”

    I convinced myself that any happiness that I experienced was momentary and would be gone in a flash. So when my relationship ended in heartbreak, I was able to bask in the glory of being right.

    My negativity was justified. My feelings of worthlessness were correct. I gave myself permission to be miserable, to struggle in the dark caves of depression, to continue to live in fear.

    But then one day a miracle happened, even with my negative mantra playing loudly in my head: “Loser. Failure. Disappointment.” Even over the deafening chants of pessimism, I heard a whisper: “You can change this.”

    I knew that my life needed changing, but I had no idea how to achieve this. I wanted to find the happiness that I felt belonged to everyone else. I yearned for the elusive joy that kept slipping through my fingers. I was determined to find it and claim it.

    I tried superficial ways of being happy; you know, the methods that my favorite TV characters used to deal with heartache: I shopped, I redecorated, I adopted a kitten, thinking surely these things would bring me joy. And they did, but it was fleeting.

    Next, I tried psychic readings, life coaching, and finally therapy. It was through therapy that I started a meditation class and my life really began to open up. The veil of depression lifted; I felt lighter and optimistic.

    Finally, through the regular practice of meditation, I learned that happiness can’t be brought, predicted, or achieved from outside sources. Happiness comes from the inside out.

    With this realization, meditation has changed my life in five significant ways.

    1. Meditation gives you a great start to your day.

    I am not a morning person. I am not one of those people who spring out of bed before the alarm chimes. I would hit the snooze button, pull the covers over my head, and pretend it was Saturday.

    Once the cruel hand of reality finally slapped me awake, the morning panic would start. Up in a flash, I’d be rushing to get dressed then out the door. I’d skip breakfast and I’d arrive to work late, creeping past the boss’s office.

    But now I wake up at 5:45am in order to meditate. Though I still have to forcibly drag myself from my warm cozy bed, once I sit on my meditation cushion I’m able to relax, breathe, and set my intention for the day.

    Meditation allows you to center yourself and reflect on the day ahead. By setting your intentions, you are able to shape your experiences and your reactions to events around you. It’s a daily reminder that you are in control of your life. You can choose the kind of day you will have.

    2. Meditation increases positivity.

    I practice Loving Kindness (Metta) Meditation. This type of meditation generates and projects loving and positive feelings/energy into the universe. That means sending love, understanding, and compassion to yourself, family, friends, and even strangers.

    I’ve found that spending an hour being positive has made me—wait for it—more positive. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true.

    Our energy and actions are like boomerangs. If you put out negative energy, if that is what you focus on, that is what will continuously show up in your life, and that is all that you will be capable of seeing. But when you create positive feelings, everything you see seems to change.

    3. Meditation increases self-confidence.

    I have no empirical evidence, but I can say with confidence that as a result of meditation I now have some. Seeing the world in a positive light has resulted in me seeing myself in a positive way.

    I love myself for just being me. I don’t feel the need to pretend to be what I think others want me to be. I have learned that I am not required to chip away at my square-shaped self to fit into a round hole.

    Taking the time to see the world and yourself in a positive light increases self-confidence and confirms that there is a place where you fit, just as you are. There is no need to try to be something that you are not. Meditation is an opportunity to sit with the realization that you are enough.

    4. Meditation reduces anxiety.

    Meditation is about turning off the negative chatter that creates anxiety. It’s about breathing and letting go. By focusing on positive energy and thoughts, you are able to reduce the anxiety that you might be holding onto.

    Through meditation you can relax knowing that any time anxiety rears its ugly head, you have the tools to deal with it. Deep breaths and a quiet moment may be all that’s needed to calm anxious nerves.

    5. Meditation affords you a deeper connection with yourself.

    When I first started meditation, one of the most difficult things to do was to sit quietly with my own thoughts. I knew myself from the outside in, from the labels I wore like fashionable accessories, trying to be what I thought others expected of me.

    There was a disconnection between who I was and who I thought I should be. However, when you sit in silence without external distractions, your inner dialogue is difficult to ignore. The inner voice that tells the truth of who you are gets louder.

    Meditation has a way of making you more mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and sense of who you are. It’s easier to create a life of happiness if you are able to connect with your authentic self. It’s a way for you to get to know yourself, from the inside out.

    —

    You can easily incorporate meditation into your life. All you need is a quiet place to sit and a couple of uninterrupted minutes, and you can even use a guided meditation (there are tons of free ones online).

    The important thing is just to sit quietly without set expectations, free of self-judgment. There is no right or wrong way to do it.

    Don’t get me wrong; I’m not skipping around with my head in the clouds. There are days when I revert to my old thought patterns, allowing the negative mantra to cry out. But the difference is that now I am mindful of this and have the tools to deal with negativity more effectively.

    Five minutes of meditation can have a significant and lasting impact on your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. It certainly has on mine.

  • 10 Tips to Help Relieve Depression and Heartache

    10 Tips to Help Relieve Depression and Heartache

    “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ~Johann Von Goethe

    Not long ago I was completely imprisoned within myself, feeling lost without any direction. Sleeping consumed most of my time. I had brief moments when I checked in on Facebook, only to get a glimpse of others’ seemingly perfect lives with holidays, parties, babies, and weddings.

    This made me more miserable, as I felt I had nothing going on in my own life.

    Frustration was building within me because somewhere deep inside, the dreams that I had hidden away wanted me to start pursuing them. Easier said than done of course, but I knew that hiding under my duvet cover wasn’t going to take me anywhere.

    I needed to change my negative outlook on life to a much more positive one. In this new process, I started to apply what I call the 10 “T”s to help with my feelings and fears.

    The 10 “T”s to help relieve depression and heartache:

    1. Trust yourself and the universe.

    Know that the universe has a greater plan for us than we can ever imagine. My first authentic feeling of surrender came by reading self-help books. This gave me the first push toward believing and trusting in the power of the universe. It’s the greatest comfort knowing that you are taken care of. (more…)

  • Getting Back Up After You Fall & Healing from Depression

    Getting Back Up After You Fall & Healing from Depression

    “The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.” ~Theodore Rubin

    Growing up I was a thoughtful and happy kid—carefree, easy going, not afraid to make mistakes and take on challenges.

    Just before I turned thirteen, my parents moved our family halfway across the world where we knew no one.

    I adjusted well, made friends, and felt content and successful in my pursuit of whatever I decided was worth pursuing. I was strong and confident. I worked hard, laughed easily and often, and felt as if I had the good life all figured out.

    Then shortly after I turned twenty-five a severe depressive episode hit me like a ton of bricks. Looking back, I can see how it came about, how several traumatic events stacked upon themselves until I finally collapsed under their weight, but at the time I felt annihilated, ploughed over, and destroyed virtually overnight.

    I spent the next nine months steeped in profound physical, emotional, and mental anguish.

    The shame was the worst part.

    Despite years of evidence to the contrary, when I couldn’t get myself off the couch for months, when I couldn’t enjoy any activity, and when I couldn’t smile genuinely at anyone or anything, I truly thought that this was my actual self, my real personality—that I was boring, unmotivated, useless, a loser, an anomaly; that I was weak, and that all of this was my fault.

    Essentially, depression lies to you—about everything. And when you are used to trusting your thoughts and being self assured and confident, it takes a long time to realize that the torrent of negativity in your brain may not be an accurate representation of reality.

    It’s hard not to trust your thoughts and it’s hard to sit and mull over what is true and what isn’t, but it’s an important exercise, even you only do it in small doses at first.

    There is a light in you that never goes out. (more…)

  • When You’re Pretending to Be Fine: 9 Tips to Deal and Heal

    When You’re Pretending to Be Fine: 9 Tips to Deal and Heal

    “Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    I never thought I’d want to kill myself.

    All my life, I’d been a strong, independent woman, building a business from home, raising two wonderful sons, and staying happy and positive throughout.

    If you’d told me I’d one day consider taking my own life, I’d have laughed and said, “You’ve got me confused with someone else!”

    But after twenty years and two sons together, my husband and I decided to split up.

    So what? Separation and divorce are commonplace. You just cope with it like everyone else. I was strong, so not coping would mean I was weak.

    But it hurt and hurt and hurt. And eventually I just wanted to stop. I couldn’t put my boys through that, but I couldn’t see another way out. So, while pretending to everyone that I was fine, I thought about it. Seriously.

    What Do You Pretend?

    Coping with everything life throws at you is tough. 

    Juggling all your different roles, trying to be all things to all people, and “shoehorning” so much into every day.

    You and your needs aren’t even worth a mention on your very long to-do list.

    You feel guilty and inadequate and worry that someday all those plates you’re spinning will come crashing down. You’re an amazing somebody who often feels like an invisible and overwhelmed nobody. Feeling lost and alone, living in silent despair.

    Not always much fun being a grown-up, is it?  (more…)

  • How to Maintain a Healthy Relationship When You’re Depressed

    How to Maintain a Healthy Relationship When You’re Depressed

    “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun, like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”  ~Fred Rogers

    When you’re depressed, your perception about many things changes—so how does this affect your relationships?

    I’m thinking about this today, because—drum roll, please—I’m a little depressed.

    Now, I’m not depressed in the suicidal “I want to drive off the road” kind of way, but in the far less dramatic but still deeply unpleasant “mild to moderate” kind of way.  

    For me, one of the most challenging aspects to feeling like this is that I don’t feel as connected as I normally do—with my friends, the world in general, and with my beautiful, kind, sweet, smart, sexy husband.

    And this isn’t specific to me; this is what depression is, a lack of feeling.

    When you’re depressed, you can’t access feelings of self-love. And since the love you feel for others is a reflection of the love you feel for yourself, this is why you feel disconnected.

    You have an intellectual understanding of the love you have for your girlfriend/mother/sister/boyfriend, but you can’t feel it as much as you normally do.

    Years ago, during a time when I was depressed, crying, and unhappy, a friend told me, “I can see you’re still feeling something, so you can’t be too depressed.”

    And it’s true. The more depressed you are, the quieter your heart is. It’s like a continuum.

    It’s not like you don’t have all the feelings in you; you just can’t feel them right now. Just in case you’re tempted to worry about not having feelings.

    And this can be a problem in a relationship. One day you’re connected to yourself, and therefore your partner too, and the next day you don’t feel connected to anything.

    When you’re depressed, you misread situations; you perceive others as being critical of you. (more…)

  • Courting Chaos: Embrace the Unexpected and Grow Into Yourself

    Courting Chaos: Embrace the Unexpected and Grow Into Yourself

     

    “In chaos, there is fertility.” ~Anais Nin

    “You know you’re eating tongue tacos, right?” asked the slight Mexican hipster beside me. I choked, wide-eyed.

    “I thought it was just beef,” I stuttered, surveying the thick slabs of juicy meat I’d just been scarfing down. He subtly rolled his wide brown eyes. What a gringa, I’m sure he was thinking.

    It was an inauspicious start, but this unexpected event ended up setting off a chain reaction of positive events in my life.

    My new friend Juan invited me back to a studio where his friend’s rock band was recording. I’d recently quit my job to travel and had been in Mexico City for less than a week so I was hungry to meet new people and dive into new experiences.

    I ended up spending the evening in a dilapidated old mustard-colored house in the Roma Sur neighborhood. I met many artistic types, including a Brooklyn-born man named Mark who had a substantial mustache and an equally significant swagger.

    Mark ended up being the recruiter who interviewed me less than a week later for an English teaching job. “I know you!” he exclaimed as soon as he saw me. The interview led to my first teaching contract in Mexico City.

    Meanwhile, Juan took me on a series of adventures. I accompanied him and a friend on a late-night street art project in the downtown. We lingered on a disintegrating stone rooftop, watching the stars glistening faintly above the teeming city.

    We sat talking about the impossibility of atheism in an apartment cluttered with plants and lit with the sounds of Bob Dylan and Joy Division.

    I felt like I’d discovered a whole new world of creativity and spontaneity. It was as if I was underwater, only I felt like I had much more oxygen to breathe in.

    I had wanted to live in another country since college, but events had always conspired to keep me in my hometown of Toronto. A long-term relationship, a steady job, or tenuous finances were my usual excuses.

    Certainly, I didn’t think I could bear the emotional cost. I had struggled with depression since college and had been on and off medications, and in and out of therapy, for years.

    I simply did not think I was resilient enough for such a massive change. (more…)

  • 30 Ways to Improve Your Mood When You’re Feeling Down

    30 Ways to Improve Your Mood When You’re Feeling Down

    “The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.” ~ Anais Nin  

    When I was eighteen, I got depressed and stayed depressed for a little over a year. For over a year, every single day was a battle with myself. For over a year, every single day felt heavy and pointless.

    I have since made tremendous progress by becoming more self-aware, practicing self-love, and noticing the infinite blessings and possibilities in my life, but I still have days when those familiar old feelings sneak up on me.

    I’m not always self-aware, I don’t always love myself, and sometimes I agonize over everything I don’t have or haven’t accomplished.

    I call these days “zombie days.” I’ll just completely shut down and desperately look for ways to distract myself from my feelings.

    I suspect we all have zombie days from time to time. I think it’s important to give ourselves permission to not always be happy, but there are also simple ways to improve our mood when we’re feeling down.

    Everybody is different, and everybody has different ways of dealing with pain, but if you’re looking for suggestions, you may find these helpful:

    1. Step back and self-reflect. Whenever I start feeling depressed, I try to stop, reflect, and get to the root of my feelings.  

    2. Reach out to someone. I used to bottle up my feelings out of fear that I would be judged if I talked about them. I’ve since learned that reaching out to a loving, understanding person is one of the best things I can do.    

    3. Listen to music. Music can heal, put you in a better mood, make you feel less alone, or take you on a mental journey.   

    4. Cuddle or play with pets. I have really sweet and happy dogs that are always quick to shower me with love whenever they see me. Spending quality time with a loving pet can instantly make your heart and soul feel better.  

    5. Go for a walk. Walking always helps me clear my head and shed negative energy. It’s especially therapeutic if you choose to walk at a scenic location.   (more…)

  • Healing Depression by Taking Care of Your Mind, Body, and Spirit

    Healing Depression by Taking Care of Your Mind, Body, and Spirit

    “Suffering is not caused by pain but by resisting pain.”~Unknown

    Prior to my twenty-second birthday I was spiraling down a self-destructive path, partying at all hours of the morning and drinking excessively to numb my pain. I was a rebel with a cause, as the lure of the nightlife kept me away from my dysfunctional home.

    I was searching for love and happiness in all of the wrong places, but the universe stopped me dead in my tracks, both literally and figuratively, when my brother committed suicide.

    Devastated by the loss of his presence in my life and the close bond we once shared, I felt utterly alone. I couldn’t fathom my life without my beloved brother. His death was not something I anticipated.

    I needed answers and some sort of explanation as to how a happy-go-lucky young man had changed into a moody and depressive person.

    In my grief-stricken state, I went to the public library and retrieved books on suicide and mental illness. I needed to categorize his disease. Was it bipolar, schizophrenia?

    Coincidently, I had a medical appointment with a general practitioner. I was a new patient and had never met this doctor before. But I immediately felt at ease with him, and though I went in for a physical reason, I left his office with a plan for self-healing.

    After a few sessions with the doctor, I learned about depression, dysfunction, abuse, and addiction. Initially I didn’t know what those terms had to do with me and my brother’s death.

    I was completely overwhelmed, and as I excavated my past, I plummeted even deeper in my darkness. I remained stuck in stage four of the grieving process—depression.

    My pain was so unbearable I even contemplated my own death. When the doctor offered antidepressants, I declined.

    I chose talk therapy as opposed to antidepressants, not because of any stigma, but because I envisioned myself in a vegetated state for the rest of my life.

    I already had family members in this predicament and I vowed that it was not going to me. So I was quite aware that I was genetically predisposed to manic or bipolar depression.

    After one year of dealing with my issues, I abandoned my own treatment. I was caught up in a whirlwind romance with my prince charming. We got married and built a life that my girlfriends dreamed of.

    Yet, I was still unhappy and, after a nine-year relationship, I found myself divorced, picking up the pieces of my life, and headed back to the doctor’s office.

    I was severely depressed and diagnosed with bipolar tendencies. Still, I stubbornly refused antidepressants. (more…)

  • Seasonal Sadness: 7 Tips to Make the Colder Months Better

    Seasonal Sadness: 7 Tips to Make the Colder Months Better

    “There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept responsibility for changing them” ~Denis Waitley

    It’s still summer, and the last thing I want to be thinking about are the cold months ahead. There are still bike rides to take and gardens to enjoy, and I still haven’t taken that kayak ride that I wanted! But in the back of my mind I am already beginning to panic.

    Many people in the more northern latitudes feel down in the winter—less energetic, less engaged, less motivated—and those people may start feeling apprehensive as winter approaches.

    Other people slip into a bona fide depression, either because they suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder or perhaps a predisposition to depression that simply worsens in winter, and those people are the ones who truly panic. I know, because I am one of them.

    A few years ago I declared that I was through with suffering through every winter. I was ready to take control of my situation instead of letting the situation control me. That simple decision made all the difference because it changed my attitude.

    The first thing I did was to address the biological basis for winter depression.

    As the days become shorter and the light becomes less direct, we absorb fewer rays through our eyes. In some people, this leads to a reduction in serotonin (one of the important chemicals in our brain) and thus a reduction in mood and energy.

    To combat the lack of sunshine, I purchased and began to use a light box. This is a specially designed light, packing in 10,000 lux. As a point of comparison, the average office is lit to 320 to 500 lux, while the sun provides approximately 10,000 to 25,000 lux in full daylight (more in direct sunlight).

    Once I started sitting in front of my light box for 20−30 minutes every morning, I began to feel much more alert and in control. But it was not quite enough. I still felt out of sorts and foggy, like there was a roll of cotton between me and the rest of the world.

    Over the next year or two, I learned that to truly cope with my winter funk I had to change the way I responded to not only the season, but the inevitable vagaries of life.  (more…)

  • Understanding and Lifting Depression: 5 Helpful Attitudes

    Understanding and Lifting Depression: 5 Helpful Attitudes

    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” ~Charles R. Swindoll

    People almost always misunderstand depression. I know I used to.

    My first dance with depression happened fifteen years ago. I was in my early twenties and it totally freaked me out.

    When you’re depressed, your perception of pretty much everything changes.

    Except you don’t realize that it’s your perception that’s changed, and instead it feels like the world has turned bad. If you’ve been depressed you’ll know what I’m talking about.

    It goes something like this …

    One day you feel confident and happy, and then the next day, ugh!

    All the ideas and plans you have now seem ridiculous, your thoughts become morbid, and boy do you feel sluggish and sleepy, and why (yawn) is your boyfriend/friend/parent/spouse being so critical and mean all of a sudden?

    And if that’s not enough, the world seems more abrasive—as if someone’s turned up the volume and taken off your sunglasses.

    This is what happened to me. I cried. I felt sorry for myself. And I couldn’t for the life of me understand why I felt so bad: I had loads of friends and an awesome boyfriend; I’d recently been accepted into a post graduate masters degree program for human nutrition.

    Life was good. Or it would be if I only could stop crying!

    Finally I went to the doctor, which made me feel better because the doctor told me I had a chemical imbalance in my brain; but then she told me I was “depressed,” which made me cry again since I thought depression was for negative people with no plans for their life.  

    So that was that. I was depressed. I had an illness. I took the medication and kind of, sort of started to feel better.

    But after a year things started to change. I don’t remember why I started doing this—maybe I read it somewhere—but I stopped taking antidepressants, and whenever a “flat” period would come I’d watch it with as much distance as I could summon.

    I started to notice that if I just let the “flatness” be and stopped worrying about it, my perception about something would shift, and as it did, the depression would lift.

    The more times this happened, the more I began to trust that it was going to happen. And always, there standing on the other side of the flatness, was an understanding that made my life richer, less stressful, and more pleasant, well worth the ticket of entry.

    Back then I had very little sense of self-care. I pretty much treated myself like a machine—a friendly, do anything for anyone, study-hard, play-hard machine. (more…)

  • You Can Blame Others or Save Yourself

    You Can Blame Others or Save Yourself

    “You save yourself or remain unsaved.” ~Alice Sebold, Lucky

    Last year was a year of great changes for me. I ended a three-and-a-half-year long toxic relationship, I started a new relationship (which fell apart six months later), I applied for a semester abroad, and started a full-time job while studying full-time, as well.

    Honestly, I don’t know how I managed to survive this busy time, but I did, and in January 2012 I left for Stockholm.

    It was the best six months of my life.

    I met amazing people from all over the world and I found true friends among them. I was in places I always dreamed of being. I was studying at the one of the best universities in Europe. I traveled, explored, and had fun in my life again. I made my dream come true with my hard work and tenacity.

    Even though everything seemed perfect, I felt that something was missing.

    I struggled with my emotions and stress overload after six months of hard work to afford living abroad for the next six months. I also dealt with periods of depression.

    I have been struggling with depression since I was thirteen. The worst period took place while I was in high school, when I thought about committing suicide. I got through this eventually with the help of my friends and a psychologist.

    Currently my mood is stable, but I still experience heavy mood swings and depressive episodes that seem to appear “out of the blue.” That was the case with my semester abroad. One day I was happy with my life, and couple of days later I couldn’t find the strength to get up from the bed.

    Maybe it was the stress, or the heavy Swedish winter with lack of daylight, or maybe it was something different. For two weeks in February I didn’t want to leave my room.

    I tried to do so many things, to use my time abroad to its maximum so I would not have the feeling that I wasted my time there after I got back home. (more…)

  • Uplifting Depression: 15 Unexpected Lessons from Adversity

    Uplifting Depression: 15 Unexpected Lessons from Adversity

    “Whenever something negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Two years ago, reading this quote, I would smirk and think, “What a cliché.”

    In the last two years, I would read this quote and be in utter disbelief that anything can be learned when one is in the depths of hell.

    Today, I read this quote and resonate confidently, that yes, even though I tried to end my life, even though I had to quit a high paying job, even though I still suffer from major depression, good has come out of my negative experience, and I have learned the lesson to take care of myself and listen to my body, albeit the hard way.

    Around November 2009, my doctor said to me, “Noch, I think you are burned out. Your migraines are most probably due to stress. Please go see a psychologist.”

    My fiancé dragged a reluctant me into the shrink’s office, and I came out, diagnosed with major depression. I had no idea what it meant or what would become of me. I just felt extremely unmotivated, had no appetite, only had negative thoughts in my little head, and was excruciatingly tired of life.

    I was immensely frustrated with myself. I didn’t know why I was depressed, or burned out. I thought I had it all: the executive job, high on the corporate ladder at the young age of twenty-eight.

    I spoke a few languages, lived all around the world, had a man who loved me for who I was, had my few soul mates and a wide network of friends. So what happened to me?

    Indeed, I felt really ungrateful to be sick at all.

    All the people who passed me everyday in the misty smog of Beijing seemed to live much harder lives, scraping by the wayside. So, who was I to be unhappy about my life? I had no answer. And the more I thought about it, the more I got caught in my web of negative thoughts and unreasonable reasoning of life.

    I closed myself off from the rest of the world and disappeared off the social radar. I was forced to take medical leave from work, being physically unable to do any work or concentrate.

    The few close friends who knew of my plight tried to console me.

    “It’s a challenge and test, to make you stronger,” they’d say. They gave me examples of all these great leaders of the world who had to go through trials and tribulations to get to where they were. There was something in store for me, and it would end up a positive life changing experience, they reassured me. (more…)

  • The Relief and Power of Accepting Your Struggles (and Finding Hidden Gifts)

    The Relief and Power of Accepting Your Struggles (and Finding Hidden Gifts)

    “It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron

    I love acceptance. Acts of surrender create forward momentum.

    If we all pause for a moment and observe what we are fighting, right here and right now—maybe depression, anxiety, weight gain, low self-image, or financial stress—we’ll have an opportunity to accept then.

    But that’s just the start.

    Recently I accepted something I never thought I would. Reframing the way I thought about it changed my life.

    I have moderate to severe OCD. Having OCD is basically like believing everything that goes through your mind. Scary, right?

    Obsessive-compulsive people have intrusive and extremely terrifying thoughts—for example, that he or she may have been contaminated by something, which might lead him or her to spend hours washing. I have a base underlying all of my obsessions: that I will hurt people. It was and can be my greatest fear.

    For example, I used to worry that I left the oven or iron on and that, in doing so, I may have burned the house down, which would ruin my husband’s life and also kill our cat. So I’d return home multiple times per day to check these appliances and also send my husband home to check. I also had massive rituals around shutting appliances off.

    OCD is a time-sucker. Obsessive compulsives create rituals to lower the anxiety. I’d check to make sure I didn’t leave the iron on, do everything evenly on both sides of my body so I felt “balanced,” retrace events that happened in my life to make absolutely certain I hadn’t harmed anyone accidentally, and search the internet excessively for answers.

    These rituals literally took up hours my day.

    I discovered that I had OCD one afternoon when I was trying to figure out how you know something for certain.

    Try googling that.

    The first thing that popped up for my search query was about obsessive-compulsive disorder. I felt immediate relief. (more…)

  • Simple Happiness: Choose, Practice, Repeat

    Simple Happiness: Choose, Practice, Repeat

    “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” ~Denis Waitley

    I just spent the past 17 months of my life trying to find, travel to, or somehow earn happiness.

    I had just given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I had a loving husband, a home, good friends, and a supportive family. I was supposed to be happy. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t explain why, even to myself.

    This led to more anxiety and major guilt. I felt like I had tripped into a deep, dark, cavernous hole. My family and friends threw me many ropes in various attempts to pull me out. Four months after my son’s birth, I sought help.

    The diagnosis was post-partum depression and anxiety.  For the next year, I tried both therapy and medication, though I was hesitant to ingest anything more than the lowest dosage available. Neither of them seemed to be consistently effective for me.

    Then last April I had a falling out with my boss and a co-worker on the same day. As a perfectionist and people-pleaser, this devastated me. I hit my rock-bottom of sadness. It finally dawned on me that I had spent the past year and a half isolating myself from all that I used to love.  Even my husband and closest family members felt disconnected from me.

    My head was so crowded with feelings of how the hell am I going to get through this day thatthere was no room to enjoy my life. The next morning I awoke with an epiphany—an “aha!” moment, if you will.

    I was reading a magazine article about a frazzled new mother, trying to balance a coffee, a stroller, a grumpy toddler, and a cell phone—all with a glazed-over, vacant look in her eyes.

    “Oh my God, that’s me,” I thought.

    My one-and-only messy, beautiful life was happening, and I was missing it. I needed to wake up. (more…)