Depression showed up in many ways in my life. My management of these dark moods has become part of my lifetime discipline. Long-term sadness may be something deeper and more serious. Learn how to take charge of your depressive or manic cycles with mindfulness and a good support team.
Here are a few of my latest posts about managing my moods. Your results may vary. But, here’s the answer: keep going, depression comes in waves, you just have to keep moving forward, back into the positive things in your life. Sometimes it takes someone else to help you see the good in your life.
I have written mostly about my experience of depression after divorce. But I had depressive tendencies before I was married. And I still struggle with depressive episodes from time to time. Often triggered by a traumatic event, like a job loss or a relationship coming apart, being sad can become more of a personality trait if depression is not nipped in the bud.
Mindfulness is my answer to depression and my own depressive thoughts. It is critical for each of us to learn our depressive patterns, triggers, and solutions. What can I do when I’m starting to feel the dark slippery slope of depression?
When divorce with children is your path be prepared for a lot of highs and lows. You can do it. And your efforts will be rewarded later. Your kids will never know what you went through to stay in their lives, but they will appreciate your presence and loving guidance well into adulthood.
How do you find your community? Can you bring more creative energy to your life path? Do you know what things give you aspirational ideas? How can you begin to celebrate and nurture your own Alive Tribe?
Let go of your anger in any way you can, that does not involve your kids or your ex. And rebuild your best life by focusing on your actions and words. Move forward towards the hope that your kids will be healthy and undamaged by the divorce.
Many men get tossed into the deadbeat dad category by their wives who are looking to score the package, regardless of the dad's parenting skills, their loving availability for their kids, and often discounting the dads even if they are the ones who hold down the emotional and logistical side of the household.
The power of sex is back and I don't want to give it up now any more than I did when my marriage began to falter. This time, I don't have to suffer when things go off the rails, I can just pack up and move along to another potential mate.
Then as our lives spun into the dark void of micro-alienation and bitterness, and as my ex-wife continued to spit vile at me, I began this journey to become positive about all that I was going through.
The pitch: "Ferris Bueller gets a divorce."
We can hold on, we can fight/struggle/counsel to make things work. We can sacrifice so many aspects of our lives to try and keep the marriage together. And in this sublimation, we can become separated from our own inner truth, our own listening and responding heart, as we try and compromise and grow and hope for the eventual LOVE we believe will heal us.