Helping others while being Depressed

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Something that I have been doing from my childhood days is to be the counselor, coach for some of my friends and relatives, later it manifested and developed into coaching and mentoring people in my career life. All through the years, even when I was struggling through my own battles, I have always believed in helping people around me. Whatever lessons my struggles were teaching me, I saw the benefit of sharing those lessons with people I care for and with people who needed some help.

With depression, all the positive outlook on life blurring away, and that feeling of ‘Nothing matters‘ killing my spirit, for a while I couldn’t bring myself up for the normal coaching, mentoring sessions that I usually provide for my circle. After months, I have pushed myself back to involving in others’ life, being there for them when they need me, engaging and listening, sharing my insights and making a plan. It definitely feels home and I instantly felt a speck of energy. Depression cuts off the sensations to a great extent, finding some kind of a purpose in life is almost lost. Most of the activities I used to enjoy or feel for has stopped having any effect on me, but the act of giving, helping others does move the needle a bit. After all a hint of proof that my body can produce some Dopamine on its own gives me hope.

I am trying to learn about how the brain functions and what influences it, I need to understand the chemical composition that has such a power over our cognitive abilities. As I learn, I am trying to take small measures in various areas trying to influence the essential hormones that has a direct impact on our mental well being. It is not just that simple to learn and apply when the energy, motivation, mood, thoughts, willpower, drive, outlook is all affected by depression. Never the less, I am determined to make an effort. I also want to have a structured approach to my efforts so I get to see and spot what works for me and not.

Trick your mind

As a follow up post to my previous one, I am going to talk about what happened during the last two weeks after I decided to challenge myself to start with some form of physical activity and to make some diet changes.

As much as I understand the importance of these changes to help me recover from depression, I find it extremely hard to get to a point of actually doing it. The spring has blossomed, there is more sun light to take advantage of, there is blooming nature to see and surrender, I must be feeling awake and energetic by this season. But my mind doesn’t seem to give in to nature as it usually does. I was counting on the season and the warmth it brings to act on the challenge I took on. Depression is harsh and debilitating, I am so surprised to see how deep it can cut one off from the world around, to an extent where it feels like all my five senses have become numb.

Each day starts with my mind filled with thoughts about how to recover, what I intend to do, making a promise to myself that I will do what I intend to do. But I struggle finding the energy to get to it. This feels like a vicious cycle, and I want to break free from it.

I further tried to understand what is it that is blocking my mind from acting on what it wants. I noticed myself pondering upon how much of an energy it is going to take to get myself out the door to get some exercise, even if it means just walking. After almost two weeks I understood that if I have to break this pattern, I need to find a shortcut to make it easy for my mind to succumb to act. Today I decided that instead of trying to go outdoors to exercise which feels like a humongous effort, why not try to do some indoor exercise to begin with. This trick worked for me, at least for today! I finally did some light exercise for about half an hour. I felt too exhausted for such a light form of exercise, but I am glad I made it today. I want to share this with the hope that it might be helpful for someone in a similar situation as mine, to either use this trick or to find out other tricks that may work for them.

Are there tricks that you use in your life to get by the spells of depression? Please share…

Depression and Anxiety – The tough subject

Photo Courtesy: Everyday Health

Oh, how many times I had typed the title and went back and forth deleting it and rewriting it. I have to acknowledge that I don’t feel comfortable writing about this topic. I made up my mind telling myself that I want to over come this feeling and start openly discussing about it.

Most of the times I see that not many (including myself until it hit me) have an understanding of what happens when depression hits someone. I have to admit that before I got to experience it myself, all I understood about the word depression was just ‘being sad’. Of course like any other human on this planet, I have gone through some tough years in my life early on, and have managed to endure it all along. So I am very accustomed to the ‘sad’ feeling. This time, to a great extent I didn’t even realize that what I am feeling was much more than just sadness. Until the doctors gave a word I didn’t realize that this was more than that. For me the big symptom is – The purpose to wake up and go through another day has disappeared and I find it hard to face another day. All the small things I used to enjoy in life has vanished, everything around seems so empty, colorless and meaningless. I force myself to do things mechanically, but I realize that it is not sustainable. When meaning to life started dissipating I am able to observe myself becoming a lifeless object. This is an absolute unknown state of mind to be in for me.

All those things I enjoyed in my life so far – beautiful nature, a good cup of coffee, small talks with colleagues, talking to friends and socializing, being naturally driven at work, learning something new, hobbies and interests – everything seemed to have vaporized… I now know that I took the gratification I found in those things so granted. I never thought about the source of such interests, always considered them to be my life time companions. Can such interests that I have known all my life abandon me just like that? Living a life with nothing to look forward to is so hard… When I learnt how Anxiety could become an uninvited guest that could decide to visit anytime it wants, it all feels so physically and mentally overwhelming. When the body decides to show that it cannot handle it anymore, it is all out of hands.

Doctors are suggesting me to take medication for dealing with my condition, but I have been resisting to accept that as a real help. I want to try everything I can to get out of it myself. I am afraid of falling into the trap of medications, I want to avoid it as much as I can. I have began to read a lot about this condition with a hope to help and heal myself… Its not going to be an easy road, but I want to push myself in that direction. I hope to share more as I learn more by experimenting on myself.

Do we recollect negative events more often

Photo Courtesy: Southeastern University

One thing that I have had difficulty with for many years is the recollection of situations or happenings that didn’t end well. When I am left alone to do my chores, walk alone or be by myself, my memory recollects it much faster and relives those situations all over again. I fall in to a feeling of desperate wish to go back and do things differently to change the negative outcome to a positive one. I would feel so stupid about myself to have not read the situations properly to take the right move towards a better outcome.
In the reflection process, things become clear, there is time to analyse and
understand. But during any specific event – In spite of being all present in that moment, it may not strike all needed chords to take the right action or say the right things.

I do appreciate the learning I get to take from my past failures and I hope to become a bit more wiser to apply that learning in the future. I also realize that this learning I get by reflecting leads me to recollect those events too often in my mind and I end up feeling this deep wish to have done things differently.

This poses questions in my mind – Are there side effects to the process of Reflection? Does it lead us to be tied down to our past more often? Does it lead us to relive those moments without being asked for?

I realize that it may take another level of abstraction to exercise Reflection to side track the likely side effects!

To Live In The Present

Photo Courtesy: The school of Life

As I observe an explosion of chaos in my mind, I sense fractions of past events, memories, moments of joy, sorrow, sadness, pain, all mix up and play in a fast rewind and forward fashion.  I want to contain, I want to let go, I want to explore, I want to experience, I want to give, I want to pour, I want to hold, I want to do more.  This experience repeats itself quiet often going into a loop.  I am searching for answers, searching for wisdom, searching for a direction, searching for a channel, searching for a relief, searching for tools to slow down, searching for calmness and much more.  I understand that this chaos is necessary to reach serenity.  I find myself never stopping to search, find myself never settling with what I find, it cannot be bad after all, one day I might find enough to keep me anchored, or I might just continue to search…

By design our mind is devised to dwell in the past and the future, very rarely do we live in the present.  But the key to life is devised to be hidden, encrypted, morphed that we have to constantly work against our default design.  I go searching again…

Past is dead, future is a dream, present is all the six senses.  If I don’t think about the past, I don’t reflect, I don’t learn.  If I don’t think about the future, I don’t plan, I don’t go anywhere.  Can living in the present be an answer for a fulfilled or a better life?  Can I accommodate reflecting and dreaming into ‘Living in the present’?  Then would it still be called as ‘Living in the present’.

Perhaps the answer might be in what is being searched for.

It could be that – If the search is to build a better tomorrow, use the present to dream and plan.  If the search is to learn from experience, use the present to reflect on the past and learn.  I am rethinking the phrase – ‘Live in the present’.  Here I go searching again…

Do you want to share your experience on ‘Living in the Present’ ?

What is Hope?

Photo Courtesy : http://www.mondaymusings.org

What is Hope?

I do not know if you all have wondered about something called hope.  I often wondered about it in my life.  The reason why I had to often think about it is because, I realized that I more often needed it to pass through the difficult phases in life.

When I think back what helped me get through all that I had to, I could point my finger on one thing, that is Hope.  So, I started analyzing it a bit more to learn to keep it by my side more often than I am used to.  To begin with, I started with questions like ‘What is the source of Hope?’.  Where does it generate from?  Who creates it?  How can I have more of it?  How can I make sure of its permanent presence in my life?  As several questions clouded my mind,  I was determined to take all the time needed to find answers to those questions.  These answers could make a big difference in my life… So they were quiet important.

Thinking about the source of Hope, I could see that it could have many sources.  It could originate from my parents, my friends, my colleagues and other acquaintances.  I saw that Hope coming from these sources did give me something to work on, but not to the same extent as I have seen it working in some other situations where I saw some phenomenal results.  So what were those other situations where I saw phenomenal results?  How did I reach those results?  More thinking led me to see that the source of hope in these other situations was none other than self.  I chose to call this ‘Self Hope’.  Then I understood that there is a big difference between the results originating from other sources and self.  When a person learns to practice to be self hopeful, it directly has an impact on the person’s attitude.  When the person’s attitude is loaded with self hope, the person starts to look things differently, the person is more motivated to exhibit the strength required to keep going, to retain the energy required to look for new dimensions of life, to spot the right opportunities and do more.  Self hope motivates the person to not give up.

Why does the source matter?  I figured that when the source is external, it is like an energy drink.  The effect dries out soon when the sugar level goes down.  But when the source is internal, it is like a perennial river.  It has no bounds and it is free flowing.  When I spotted this difference, in all my difficult times, I kept this in mind and worked on having an inner source of hope and real belief that something different is yet to come.  I saw myself more in control, and more in command of what I should be doing next to make that new different thing to happen in my life.

What do you all think of Hope? Did the source of hope matter to you? I would love to hear your experiences.

Snow Fall has began this year

I love it when the snow sets the tree as its new holiday home. Beautiful…
Winter times are known for the dark gloomy short days.
If there is anything that brightens up the mood and the days, it’s the snow.
This year it has started a bit early, there is snow storm today, the day time temperatures have fallen down to -10 degrees centigrade.
This is going to be a colder winter than last year.

Finally I am here

For a very long time (actually years) I have been thinking of creating a blog.  Finally I came through and did it.  I am glad to have my own little space out here to pour out my thoughts on various topics.  I don’t expect it to be exotic, as English is not my mother tongue to express myself with a style and sophistication, but I do hope to manage.

Let me see how far I could go on this journey.