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?
Often when I listened to what my body was telling me, over the last three weeks, I was able to identify what my mood or physical state in need of alteration or boost was. Mostly for me, it's exhaustion. Take a nap. And loneliness. Reach out to someone you love. I am blessed to be in a period of confidence and sustained happiness. So, the cravings have been fairly benign and less urgent.
When I get in a tough place I try and picture my kid's faces. In the moment I am feeling upset, I can send them a "How's it going, I love you" text. I can SnapChat a silly face.
That same hope and energy is present in my life, at the moment. I have an abundance of joy to share. Walking through the crowd of people on a beautiful day I could hold each of them in my hopeful prayer.
What is a young family to do? How can we learn to turn INTO the relationship rather than AWAY from it? In the nine years since my divorce, I've been writing and examining what went wrong. I've been trying to understand what kind of relationship I might be able to build that would sustain my idea of a lifetime partnership. And I've continued to examine how I could've done better as a partner.
And as we ask for and receive the love we need we are also going to have disappointments. My response in life, now, is "No worries, just desires." If my desires start getting squelched or compromised due to continual misses, then it is up to me to speak up.
Drink if you want to. Make sure you are aware of your motivations when you begin to fix the third cocktail. In my experience, that Third Glass came to represent a turning away from me and away from intimacy. I would choose to drink with her from time to time, but I could not follow her into the nightly oblivion. I wanted a close relationship.
I wish I could've had more time with my kids. I wish my then-wife had agreed to 50/50 shared parenting. I wish my ex-wife would be a more collaborative parent. But even as I wish about these things, even as I can feel regret about the lost time, I am HAPPIER NOW THAN I HAVE EVER BEEN IN MY LIFE.
My role is to help you identify what's stressing you out, work on lessening that stress, and begin to focus on what's good for you. And as important, what's good for your kids. And here is a simple list of things we're going to work on together.