Hello and welcome to this week’s theme ‘dumb things people say to you when you are depressed’.
And a few suggestions on how to get over it.
With the best intention people say ‘Why are you depressed?’ and ‘What you need to do is get over it.’
A mate of mine was in a bit of a pickle with their business and decided to ‘let go’ as in ‘knowing when to quit’.
Quit as in the book ‘The Dip’ – a very short read and well worth the time.
Please don’t confuse ‘let go’ and ‘giving up’. They let go and stuff started to work and now the party is back on.
So a few things come up for me here.
Developing an attachment to things and outcomes is exhausting.
Back when I was at the peak of my depression I was anxious about everything.
I mean EVERYTHING.
Even on the better days the only way for my world not to end meant this brand of risotto served on this plate in this order to these members of my family using this cutlery.
As I started to work to be more self-aware…
I’d noticed would not do the thing that would get me to that place that would stop the cycle of despair beginning.
Rather than have a big glass of water and walk around the block.
I’d eat sugar and carbs, even crap ones and watch Netflix none stop and wait for the feeling to go away.
The LESS TV, movies, newspaper headlines and Facebook I choose to expose myself to the more stable my mood the better the world occurred for me.
How do I know this?
I have tracked my activity in Rescue Time, Exist and Productive every day for two years now, and guess what?
In Exist I need to rate my day and the 3,4 and 5 days ALWAYS happen when I am eating the right food, posting on Instagram and walking.
Going to bed between 10 pm and 11 pm, avoiding screens, bright light and movies really work.
When I say really works I mean – fuck me that was life changing.
It is always annoying in these types of blogs when people say ‘this is how simple it is’ in a self-satisfying smugness.
So let me back it up a bit, and I’ll do this fast, which is the opposite of what making and accepting a change.
It has taken me years, Right now I guess it has taken me about ten years to make these changes.
One of the few things that made me feel less crap in an instant was reading The Power Of No by James and Claudia
In here Claudia makes the case that it takes five years to reinvent yourself and is painful.
I am sure I tried reinventing myself and part of my depression was my own resistance to making the change I wanted.
When I encounter resistance I know what it looks like now and how to tackle it.
I don’t know how to tell you to let go, I’ll try and work it out.
In the mean time switch off everything, go for a walk and get to bed early.
Which could be the best takeaway for you from this.
One more thing….
I am TOTALLY offline for two weeks.
No phone, no nothing.
When I get back my Podcast will be around again to work out “How to find your voice” 😉
We are about to leave the house and head to the airport so I’m going to say goodbye and have a remarkable day!
