Reread:
INTRODUCTION
PART 1- Create Space
PART 2- Persuade Yourself
PART 3- Emotions
PART 4 - Broaden your Perspective: Situations
PART 5 - Broaden your Perspective: Truth
PART 6 - Be Individual
BE CONSTRUCTIVE
Hey, you made it to my favorite part! This is my favorite ingredient to add to the mixture: be constructive.
When you're depressed, it's easy to want to just lay in bed and mope. It's easy to be lazy or to just sit around doing nothing because you think you have nothing to do. When all you are doing is sitting around or laying in bed, it leaves your mind wide open to whatever it wants to do--including reflecting on how miserable you are.
I may have only had two major depressions, but I have also had a lot of mild depressions and extended periods of time where I was unhappy. I learned something incredibly simple though: when I was doing things I enjoyed, it took my mind off of how unhappy I was and helped me to focus on other things outside of myself. When I was thinking of things outside of myself, I was momentarily happy, and it was that brief glimmer of happiness that gave me hope that I could one day be completely happy the way that I am today.
This is where I have to get very serious with you and break a few rules of writing by taking a tangent before proceeding and speaking directly to you. In life, there are people all around you who are unhappy for whatever reason. In fact, most people are unhappy and it is rare to find someone who is really happy--someone who isn't blown about by their emotions like a leaf on the wind--those people are rare, and let me tell you, no one is happy all of the time. Life can be pretty rough.
From this unhappiness, people turn to addictions: alcohol, cigarettes, porn, money, sex, power, and food to name a few. It isn't the alcohol it isn't the food, it isn't the sex that is bad--its the fact that they are using these things as means to an end rather than finding ways to understand their unhappiness and what triggers it and to gain more control over it. Sex is good, power is good, and food is good too--provided you aren't using them to numb your unhappiness.
With that in mind, I'll proceed.
My seventh ingredient, being constructive, is to turn your attention to something positive that can benefit yourself or others. Cleaning your house, using a toothbrush to scrub grout or some other intricate work, can turn your mind away from your depression and towards the benefit of other people--including yourself. I like to write poetry every now and again when I start feeling down--that's why my poems are always sad or angry--poetry has been an avenue for getting these emotions out of my system. --I don't recommend that you read my poems, and I've stopped publishing those poems, but you get the idea: the poems benefit me.
Do something constructive: build something, clean something, exercise, or volunteer (or just go out and help people), start projects, start a collection, walk around the block looking for interesting things, go learn something new--do something! Not only does this take your mind off of your depression, it also helps build up your sense of worth and gives you hope that you can be happy because everything you accomplish is another good experience to balance out the bad ones.
You might could say that I'm advocating building addictions--and you'd be absolutely correct to make that observation, but if you're in a situation where you're going to be addicted either way, be addicted to something that improves lives. I can recall a distinct thought I had a long time ago which was, "if I'm going to be miserable either way, I might as well be miserable doing something that will make someone else's life better." All of those things people think are chores (yes, scrubbing grout with a toothbrush), you might as well do them while you're at your lowest, because they aren't going to make you any lower and when you've completed them you'll feel a sense of relief that they're done.
I have heard many times, and experienced it first hand, that when you have other people to look after or other people--or animals--that you care about, you're less likely to be depressed. I think the reason for this is because your responsibility to other people distracts you from your own problems. It it almost as if there is too much time in one day for a single person to take care of themselves and build themselves up, and then with their extra time they tear themselves down and become depressed. When you add another person into the mix, suddenly you have to take care of yourself and assist that other person and you take it from that time that you would have otherwise devoted to being sad and lonely.
NEXT: Part 8
No comments:
Post a Comment