Depression Learning

Principles For Recovery (cont)

Question:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Principle Four:  Prioritize Your Life. The more of your time on earth you can spend doing things that will help you get what you really want out of life, the happier you will feel every day; the more time you have to spend doing things that are unimportant, the more miserable you’ll feel.  But you can’t do everything you want.  You can’t please everyone.  You have to make choices.  Try to arrange your life so that you spend some time each day in an activity that moves you closer to your goals or allows you to express your values.  You have to reduce the amount of time you spend procrastinating or in time-wasting activities in order to accomplish this.  This will require effort on your part, but it will pay off. Principle Five:  Communicate Directly. We have to give up the wish that our loved ones understand us merely because they love us.  If we don’t tell people what we want, we can’t expect to get it.  If we don’t tell people how we feel, we can’t expect them to understand us.  We have to learn to speak in direct, unambiguous language, and we have to learn to match what we say with how we say it.  We also have to listen carefully to what others say to us.  If we don’t understand, we have to ask for clarification. Principle Six:  Take Care Of Your Self. Practice play and relaxation.  Take a course in yoga, or t’ai chi. Take care of your body, and learn to listen to it.  Eat healthy but delicious meals.  When we neglect or abuse our bodies, we’re only being passive aggressive with ourselves.  We’re treating ourselves as if we’re unworthy of love. Principle Seven:  Take, And Expect, Responsibility. We are only responsible for our own actions.  We are not responsible for how we feel, how we look (physical characteristics–the size of your nose, the shape of your eyes, the color of your skin, etc.), who we’re related to, how smart we are.  We’re not responsible for the way others feel, except insofar as our actions engendered those feelings. We’re not responsible for making others happy.  We have to be responsible for making ourselves happy.  If we practice continual self-sacrifice, we’re not being responsible for ourselves.  If we don’t do it, who will?  We must also expect responsibility from others.  If we are hurt by another person’s behavior, we need to let them know how they have hurt us; to do less diminishes our self-respect.  We can, and should, be forgiving; but there is a line between forgiveness and being taken advantage of. Principle Eight:  Look For Heroes. We construct our selves on models we derive unconsciously from our experiences with our parents and with popular culture.  When our models are people we truly respect, we respect ourselves.  Find people for yourself to admire, and strive to be like them. Principle Nine:  Be Generous. If you have a true generosity of spirit you can’t be depressed.  You, just by virtue of being yourself, have something valuable to give to others: your time, attention, respect, or love. Principle Ten:  Cultivate Intimacy. We put on masks for the world because we believe our true selves to be shameful.  If we just open up and let our loved ones know about our secret fears, our doubts, our inadequacies, we can grow through the corrective emotional experience of being loved and accepted despite our guilty secrets; as we do this the gap between our public self and our secret self diminishes; eventually it may disappear altogether so that we are just one congruent person.  No secrets, no shame. Principle Eleven:  Practice Detachment. We spend far too much time and effort trying to control things we can’t.  When we’re in a stressful situation and feeling upset, we need to ask ourselves two questions:  How much does this really matter in the context of my life, and what can i realistically do about it?  We can find that many things that worry us are really unimportant;  we’ve just gotten caught up in emotional contagion and lost our bearings. We may find that we’re trying to change things that we realistically cannot change.  If that’s the case, the wiser course is to accept the inevitable.   Principle Twelve:  Get Help When You Need It. Set up a support system in advance of the bad times, and take advantage of it.  Remember that being ashamed of needing help is a symptom of your disease.  Be smarter than your depression. denise

thank you, Denise. erminia

Response:

Principle Four:  Prioritize Your Life. The more of your time on earth you can spend doing things that will help you get what you really want out of life, the happier you will feel every day; the more time you have to spend doing things that are unimportant, the more miserable you’ll feel.  But you can’t do everything you want.  You can’t please everyone.  You have to make choices.  Try to arrange your life so that you spend some time each day in an activity that moves you closer to your goals or allows you to express your values.  You have to reduce the amount of time you spend procrastinating or in time-wasting activities in order to accomplish this.  This will require effort on your part, but it will pay off. Principle Five:  Communicate Directly. We have to give up the wish that our loved ones understand us merely because they love us.  If we don’t tell people what we want, we can’t expect to get it.  If we don’t tell people how we feel, we can’t expect them to understand us.  We have to learn to speak in direct, unambiguous language, and we have to learn to match what we say with how we say it.  We also have to listen carefully to what others say to us.  If we don’t understand, we have to ask for clarification. Principle Six:  Take Care Of Your Self. Practice play and relaxation.  Take a course in yoga, or t’ai chi. Take care of your body, and learn to listen to it.  Eat healthy but delicious meals.  When we neglect or abuse our bodies, we’re only being passive aggressive with ourselves.  We’re treating ourselves as if we’re unworthy of love. Principle Seven:  Take, And Expect, Responsibility. We are only responsible for our own actions.  We are not responsible for how we feel, how we look (physical characteristics–the size of your nose, the shape of your eyes, the color of your skin, etc.), who we’re related to, how smart we are.  We’re not responsible for the way others feel, except insofar as our actions engendered those feelings. We’re not responsible for making others happy.  We have to be responsible for making ourselves happy.  If we practice continual self-sacrifice, we’re not being responsible for ourselves.  If we don’t do it, who will?  We must also expect responsibility from others.  If we are hurt by another person’s behavior, we need to let them know how they have hurt us; to do less diminishes our self-respect.  We can, and should, be forgiving; but there is a line between forgiveness and being taken advantage of. Principle Eight:  Look For Heroes. We construct our selves on models we derive unconsciously from our experiences with our parents and with popular culture.  When our models are people we truly respect, we respect ourselves.  Find people for yourself to admire, and strive to be like them. Principle Nine:  Be Generous.  If you have a true generosity of spirit you can’t be depressed.  You, just by virtue of being yourself, have something valuable to give to others: your time, attention, respect, or love. Principle Ten:  Cultivate Intimacy.   We put on masks for the world because we believe our true selves to be shameful.  If we just open up and let our loved ones know about our secret fears, our doubts, our inadequacies, we can grow through the corrective emotional experience of being loved and accepted despite our guilty secrets; as we do this the gap between our public self and our secret self diminishes; eventually it may disappear altogether so that we are just one congruent person.  No secrets, no shame. Principle Eleven:  Practice Detachment.   We spend far too much time and effort trying to control things we can’t.  When we’re in a stressful situation and feeling upset, we need to ask ourselves two questions:  How much does this really matter in the context of my life, and what can i realistically do about it?  We can find that many things that worry us are really unimportant;  we’ve just gotten caught up in emotional contagion and lost our bearings. We may find that we’re trying to change things that we realistically cannot change.  If that’s the case, the wiser course is to accept the inevitable.   Principle Twelve:  Get Help When You Need It. Set up a support system in advance of the bad times, and take advantage of it.  Remember that being ashamed of needing help is a symptom of your disease.  Be smarter than your depression. denise

Response:

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