Gratitude is a Switch to a Power Source that Shuts Off Depressive Thoughts

Finding the mental power switch to recognize the miracles in everyday life can be an antidote to worrisome depressive thoughts. 

How to find your switch is simply being grateful.

How do you remember to have gratitude?

For some people, it is a connection to a higher power, an automatic prayer.  For others, it involves a switch we turn on to shift to a consciousness of being in the moment, where we realize that life is a gift, and every moment has its gifts. 

This shift of consciousness can be a meditative moment, an environmental cue like listening to music, taking a moment to see the miracle of life around us, and making a mental note of gratitude, connecting to someone who cares and supports you, or making a journal entry in a gratitude journal.

It can even be a tattoo you get with a loved one.  

Source: Double Arrow Tattoo

It reminds you that you want to let go of the depressive thoughts to a hurtful First Arrow crisis. The Second Arrow is your resultant reaction to a First Arrow crisis. Read about the Second Arrow Parable and teach your children this parable at Parable of the Second Arrow for Kids

Worrisome depressive thoughts are often from that inner critic that was formed when we were criticized or shamed in the past.

How do you maintain gratitude when worrisome, depressive, or self-critical thoughts come?

Share how you switch on your gratitude power.

Image of a toggle switch 

courtesy of Jason Zack at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons

Circles of Shame and Guilt from Self-Talk

  

In the five white circles fill in the name of the shame that characterizes what you feel most ashamed of. Examples might be Body Image, Judger, Anxious, Avoider, People-Pleaser, Loner, Pretender, Procrastinator, Reactor, Perfectionistic, Passive Aggressive, ...

In the blue areas write the words you tell yourself (self-talk) on the characterization you wrote in the white circle. For example for Body Image you might write, I am 40 pounds overweight, for Judger you might write, I never get it right...

Image from AnonMoos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Is Your Daily Life Balanced?

 Balance Your Daily Life by ...

Scheduling time each day to practice SELF-CARE

Finding positive strategies to MANAGE stress and anxiety

CONNECTING with social and emotional supports often

Practicing SELF-COMPASSION

Staying PRESENT-FOCUSED

WHAT'S YOUR EQUILIBRIUM TORQUE?

Does F1 balance out F2?

Image from 

MikeRun, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Forgiveness. Before we can forgive others, we must forgive ourselves

Forgiveness involves giving away the negative energy that is binding and haunting us. We are no longer distracted by this negative energy. The unfinished business of trauma has to be let go of. Negatives feed it. 

Before we can forgive others, we must first forgive ourselves. Self-forgiveness takes courage to comfort the friend within us--that wounded Inner Child we hide and bury deeply within. Reflecting on how we hold onto guilt helps us learn from our mistakes and take responsibility for ourselves. This self-awareness brings self-acceptance and then self-support can emerge. Self-support lets go of past distractions. 

Self-support lets us Move On to Releasing Resentment. 

When We Release these Negative Emotions We make more Positive Choices and 

Dare to take Action.

We develop a Growth Mindset.

A Mindset that is Giving, has Grace, Gratitude, and Courage.

JamesInOregon, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Click here for Self-Forgiveness Worksheet from Positive Psychology

Does Distraction Protect You? Or Create a Cycle of Avoidance?

Distractions protect by shutting down awareness. It quiets the realities of your life--your desire for perfectionism, or obsessive habits like overeating, and overworking, but also shuts down self-care. It creates anxiety and gives more power to the self-critic since we all worry over time lost to distractions. 

When we distract ourselves with numbing activities we may protect our psyche temporarily. Still, we chip away at the ability to take care of ourselves--to NOTICE where we need to care for ourselves and boost our self-esteem. Self-care activities like journaling, meditating, learning new things, and exploring our capacities to learn by playing, are avoided.

Distraction is avoidance. 

Avoidance numbs self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-support which shuts down basic feelings.

 Distraction stops you from living your life. 

Be an observer. Notice what the true cost of distraction is.

Rennett Stowe from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Here's an interesting link from Harvard Business Review:

Are You Stuck in the Anxiety-Distraction Feedback Loop?

Shame is learned

Deconstruct shame. Shame is learned in childhood when we lose connection with others and ourselves. Gabor Mate says such loss is perceived as our fault.

Shame manifests itself as critical self-talk. This criticism creates maladaptive strategies like substance use, eating disorders, other unsafe behaviors, or mental health issues like depression.

Shame is a feeling of unworthiness. How can you feel worthy? 

Learn to separate yourself from the feeling. Identify the origins of shame. Notice your shame as if it were a separate entity--something outside yourself. 

Ask yourself how this feeling of shame is protecting you. What would happen if shame didn't do its protective role? You can deconstruct shame by moving into the suffering you feel when you experience shame.

Approach shame. 

Move out of the trance of unworthiness. 

Believe in the healing power within you. 

Cultivate self-compassion.

 

Anthony Easton/flickr: PinkMoose, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Here's a beneficial link to advice by Jason Wu:

Why countering shame can help build a healthy sense of self

Living in Fear Can be Addictive

 

We can be driven by fear. In childhood, we may have learned to wait for the next blow. 

The blows didn't have to be physical. They could be emotional or even from neglect. 

We became fear-based adults.  Our fixation on these fears created cycles of inaction. 

HOW DO YOU STOP ADDICTIVE FEAR CYCLES?

You choose to act. Viktor Frankl described when to act:

Victor Bezrukov, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Between stimulus and response there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY is Self-ACCEPTANCE, Self-AWARENESS, and Self-SUPPORT.

If you are emotionally sober, you do not depend on others for your self-esteem. You do not have unreasonable expectations of others.

 

You are AWARE of your emotions. You ACCEPT your emotions. You SUPPORT your emotional health by not looking outside yourself for your worth.

You have no need to manipulate others because you know who you are regardless of what others say or do during troubles

. 

DO YOU HAVE EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY? 

Original image: jura-photography, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

See Bill W's Grapevine article on The New Frontier: Emotional Sobriety

https://aainthedesert.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/EMOTIONAL-SOBRIETY.pdf

Make Rediscovering Poetry Your New Year's Resolution

Make your Own Poetry Tree 

for your New Year's Resolution

The Poetry Tree: installation by Lidia Chiarelli (Immagine & Poesia) as a homage to the Italian poet Guido Gozzano. Agliè (Torino)- June 2012

Brad Aaron Modlin's Poem, 

WHAT YOU MISSED THAT DAY YOU WERE ABSENT FROM FOURTH GRADE

Feelings? Stuffed your feelings? Traumatic childhood? Lost Ability to Feel or Express Emotion?

 So many of our feelings are stuffed. Unexpressed. Stifled by angry feelings you don't express. It takes a lot of energy to keep boundaries especially if you have had a traumatic childhood. Pushed your feelings to an exhaustion point. Do you avoid direct conflict? Do you withdraw? Evade problems. Has anyone ever called you passive-aggressive? If any of these apply, try identifying your feelings on a feeling wheel.  Here's one: University of Oregon's Feeling Wheel by Bret Stein, 2011.

You need to click on the U of Oregon's Feeling Wheel link above to see this fantastic image.  It is an awesome image. 

It will definitely help identify your feelings. 

Below is an image to distract you from identifying feelings. 

Simple Color-top from 1895 by Edward Wheeler Scripture, Wiki Commons. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/NEW_Wheel_enhanced.png

Bias. How to assess what is FACT or FICTION. Logical Fallacies and Eric Bean

Sophivorus, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Eric Bean in his new book, Bias is All Around You: A Handbook for Inspecting Social Media & News Stories says:

 

"If you cannot properly assess information bias, it could:

1. Lead you to follow a false cause

2. Leave you feeling foolish

3. Tarnish your credibility

4. Attract the wrong people

5. Create undue stress

6. Compromise your values

7. Harm your mental health"

Are we biased? Have Social and News Stories based on our reasoning and logic?

Logic is about understanding what follows from something else. If p, then q. 

However, have we used the correct reasoning? Did we make the correct assumption or inference?

In logic parlance, from p to q. Logic takes us from the premise via inference, to a conclusion. However, often there are often logical fallacies, where a person is attacked, or correlation is not causation, or either-or thinking, distortion, overgeneralization, using a slippery slope, or a false analogy. Our own biases interrupt logical thinking. That is Confirmation Bias. Confirmation Bias is where we interpret and recall information that supports our own biases. 

How Confirmation Bias Works 

Common Logical Fallacies

More info about Erik Bean's book, Bias is All Around You

Listen to Hidden Brain's podcast on Thriving in the Face of Contradiction 

   

How Logic Filters Our Thinking. Why is everyone's thinking so crazy? Is it Confirmation Bias?.

 Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Modus_ponendo_ponens.png

Logic is about understanding what follows from something else. If p, then q. 

However, have we used the correct reasoning? Did we make the correct assumption or inference?

In logic parlance, from p to q. Logic takes us from the premise via inference, to a conclusion. However, often there are often logical fallacies, where a person is attacked, or correlation is not causation, or either-or thinking, distortion, overgeneralization, using a slippery slope, or a false analogy. Our own biases interrupt logical thinking. That is Confirmation Bias. Confirmation Bias is where we interpret and recall information that supports our own biases. 

How Confirmation Bias Works or 

Common Logical Fallacies

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Twemoji2_1f914.svg

Depressed. When was the Last Time You Played? Make a Playdate with Yourself.

Children playing at creating the effect of a wet day with bellows

Picture Source from Wiki Commons.  Full Bibliographic Record:

Some helpful links:

What's your play personality? The 8 Play Personality Types

Mental Health Benefits of Play

Here's a Book you might like: 

 Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown

         Book review of the above book

Insightful Quotes: George Bernard Shaw:

         We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. 

Albert Einstein: 

         Play is the highest form of research.

Life's Miracles

Cory W. Watts from Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

COVID-19 makes one feel like there is no bottom or top to the crisis as if we are in mid-air. Wind and cold air hit us from all sides like we were holding onto an airplane wing with no sure grip. The only solution is to ride the wing like a surfer feeling the current and gliding with it. To be in the moment. No past. No future. Just discoveries of life's miracles in our true home--the present moment.

Life is upside down in a COVID-19 world.

Erin / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

In a COVID-19 world, perspective is upside down. Nothing seems as it should. The invisible virus stalks cells yet makes us prisoners in our cells behind masks and protective gear. There is no comfort being upside down. Too much blood rushes to the head. Pressure builds as the familiar seeps away. Too much is changed and we become dizzy with fear. The outer world is askew. The only comfort comes when we close our eyes and seek inner peace. Peace comes with a concentration on relaxed breathing. Breathe in and slowly breathe out. Now we connect with our bodies. Thoughts come and go like clouds. Being present in the now heals the fears and strengthens perspective. Though upside down, we can learn to purr with rhythmic breathing.

New Year's Resolution for those who worry - Build some steps!

The best New Year's resolution for those who worry is asking 5 questions about each worry:

1. Is the worry real? Is it true?
2. Is it important or significant?
3. Is it my responsibility? Or even partially mine?
4. Is it timely? Is it an immediate concern?
5. Thus what can I do about it NOW?

Then turn it into practical steps.

DO IT NOW!

BUILD SOME STEPS FOR THE NEW YEAR

This Image was released by the United States Navy with the ID 090911-N-1783P-005
(U.S. Navy photo by Machinist's Mate 3rd Class Juan Pinalez/Released) Fireman Chris Liberton, assigned to Naval Nuclear Power Training Command at Naval Weapons Station Charleston, constructs a new wooden stoop for a homeowner. More than 2,000 Navy volunteers worked in the Charleston area community on September 11, 2009 as part of the annual Day of Caring

Why is My Mind Full of Black Holes?

Why is my mind so full of black holes? Black holes are areas in outer space that swallow everything that comes near them. My mind has many of these swallowing engulfing heavy spaces.  They swallow my useful productive thoughts and replace them with depressive painful thoughts.

 Mind has pain when I am caught in one of these black holes. A kind of phantom pain. Phantom pain is physical pain that feels like it is originating in a limb but the limb isn't there. The limb has been removed. So my black holes are the phantom pain when my mind is not connected, not connected to living.

My mind's black holes are the depressive phantom pain from not living...the life is drawn out of me.

Source: NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia16695.html

I can reduce my phantom pain by looking at myself. Physical therapists address phantom pain using mirrors. I never used to look at myself in a mirror. Maybe using a mirror I can pull myself out of my mind's black holes. Mirror therapy for the mind's black holes of phantom pain when the mind is cut off from living.

From: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_110613-N-YM336-079_Lynn_Boulanger,_an_occupational_therapy_assistant_and_certified_hand_therapist,_uses_mirror_therapy_to_help_address_phan.jpg 

 

Small Stones

Grateful stones
Grate full of stones

Mindful stones
Mind full of stones

Mind full of grateful stones.
Grateful mind.

By David Bleasdale from England (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Victorian Stone Grate with small stones and heart-shaped holes

Visit other Small Stones at 
"Small Stones Anthology - A Black Bird Sings" link

Remembrance for Death of Grandchild

Buzzing ears

flowers bunched in vases.

Rosemary creeps.

Salty eyes burn from emptiness.

Bee landing on rosemary flowers

Taken by

fir0002 | flagstaffotos.com.au

Rosemary is for Remembrance.

Strangling a Boulder Headache

Eyeglasses pull down my forehead.
Eyes press together.

Pain shoots out the temples
To clenched jaw.

Muscles wrestle the inside out
Strangling a boulder of thought tangles.

A Strangler fig growing around a boulder at Katandra Reserve, near Gosford, New South Wales, Australia. It is a prominent landmark along Toomeys Walk. The boulder is around 1.5m in diameter.

By O. Baudys (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons