NO UNDERSTANDING, NO “CURE”
By
Bill Cottringer

There is no permanent cure or fix to anything without a complete accurate understanding of the thing you are trying to cure or fix. When you take the time to really understand the most disturbing and disruptive aspect of life—depression—you will understand most other things in life.

A correct and complete understanding of the phenomenon of depression starts with realizing that there are really only two primary emotional energies we have in reaction to what happens to us and how we act upon those reactions. On the one hand there is the positive love emotional energy and all the positive feelings that come with it; and on the other hand there is the negative fear energy and all the negative feelings that come with that side of the equation. And when you start noticing what you have failed to notice about this primary split, you are making good progress at understanding the fundamental source of depression and all the other negative aspects of life, which paradoxically helps you to understand all the positive aspects of life better and have more of them.

The positive emotional energy of love and the negative emotional energy of fear are part of the most fundamental process of life—creating chaos by separating away from everything towards complete aloneness and alienation and restoring order by joining the unity and oneness of everything towards complete closeness and belonging. This is the most fundamental Yang and Yin process that makes life go round, and so in essence, depression, or the negative emotional energy of fear, is very important and undeniable.

With this beginning understanding of depression, you can also understand why drugs and psychotherapy aren’t really that effective in curing it. Depression demands to be heard and experienced by the soul and the best thing you can do about it is to understand its necessary positive purpose and begin to eliminate the illegitimate things that prolong its grip on you (or a person you love), and replace them with positive loving actions.

The real key to understanding depression is in realizing that it is not the depression itself or even the event causing it, which is the real problem, but rather allowing yourself to get caught up in the vicious circle of being depressed about being depressed and being convinced it is controlling you instead of vice versa, and not doing anything about it. Below are some practical tips on dealing with the secondary and unnecessary “blues” part of depression that you can do something about to lesson its negative impact and duration.

BEATING THE BLUES

The key to dealing with this inevitable blues part of depression is to not jeopardize your self-confidence or positive attitude further, by doing nothing to feel better. Below are twenty action verbs that anyone can use to lessen the blues burden in inevitable depressive episodes:

SLOW DOWN

Everything happens for a purpose and you can’t begin to see what that purpose might be by going 1000 mph. When you are unhappy you need to resist your tendency to want o hurry up and get out of that feeling and slow down so you can see what is happening clearer. You can’t beat the blues that are a blur.

LISTEN

Although the blues are an inevitable part of life, they are not necessarily a lasting natural state. Unhappiness, discontent, frustration, sadness and hopelessness can all be trying to tell you something about your approach to life. When you listen carefully to all the clues, you might find out what you are doing wrong, that is keeping you from feeling the way you want to feel—loved, happy and content.

TALK

You can’t change feelings until you get them out in the open to look at critically and understand better. There is no better way to do this than to talk about what you are feeling to a close friend, professional helper or family member. Sometimes just talking about how you feel is enough to clear some space in your mind and heart to start feeling better.

THINK

It is often the thoughts you are having that contribute to undesirable feelings and changing your thoughts is one way to feel differently. You can’t wait to feel better to start changing your thoughts or you will remain stuck in a negative vicious circle for a long time. Start thinking about the repetitive thoughts you are having that might not be true or productive. There is no good reason to hang onto such thoughts. And while you are at it, start noticing what you have failed to notice, such as some of the ideas in this article.

READ

You are reading now and that is good. Sometimes all you need is new information to change your thinking and feeling. Read inspiring quotes, articles or biographies to reprogram your mind and heart. The quotes article suggestions, and biographies are from people who have beaten the blues from personal experience and reading how others did.

FOLLOW-UP

Having a good thought about anything is worthless unless you follow-up and act on it. You will never get results at anything without finishing something you started. Sometimes a few seconds of following up on an hour’s worth of helpful conversation and productive suggestions will lead you to feeling better for days.

REPAIR

During a period of blues, it might be productive to repair some things that may need fixing—like resolving conflicts at work, taking the time to say you are sorry to someone you may have hurt, trying to communicate past a relationship problem, or even settling small financial debts. These worthwhile activities can lift your confidence level.

EAT

The key is to eat right during periods of the blues. When you aren’t feeling well emotionally, your judgment becomes clouded and you tend to eat too much of the wrong things or too little of the right ones. Realize, to a large extent, you are what you eat, so eat right to feel right.

EXERCISE

The benefits from this action verb never fail. It is one of the few activities where your results are directly proportional to your efforts, so long as you eat right. You can’t possibly continue feeling depressed, unconfident or unfulfilled, if you are busy exercising—whether it is walking or engaging in a rigorous workout. Physical exercise is a sure confidence and attitude builder.

ACT

Talk may be cheap and the real proof in the pudding is always action. When it is all said and done, and more gets said then done, you will still feel lousy. Your tangled thoughts and feelings will not change, until you act—and sometimes any action will get you moving in the right direction. Make the choice to act and just do it.

LET GO

The blues won’t pass on naturally when you grab onto them with a stranglehold. There is a time to let go of something past the point of it being any benefit to you. Once you understand why you are feeling blue and start doing what you can do to undo such feelings, then let go of the past and give into what might lay ahead for you. Letting go is a liberating feeling.

ENJOY

When you are unhappy, you have a tendency to look past the many enjoyable things you have, to those things you don’t have. There is always something simple right under your nose that you can take the time to enjoy and feel better by doing so. When enjoyable things are taken for granted, they have a strange way of disappearing when you need them most.

LAUGH

Just as food is nourishment for the body and love is for the soul, laughter is for the heart. Just like physical exercise, you can’t possibly feel bad when you are laughing. Half of life is humorous, so look around to find something to laugh at. If you are desperate, type “humor” in as a key word on an Internet search. Or listen to the funny 92 year old feisty life adviser on Jay Leno.

PRAY

The trick of effective prayer is to not ask for divine intervention to relieve you from the things that cause your suffering, but rather for the intelligence and courage to see what you might need to do to change things for the better, or the patience to accept the seemingly unacceptable.

FOCUS

When you are feeling blue, there is an unexpected side benefit to take advantage of—real priorities in your life seem to rise to the surface where you can see them more clearly. Force yourself to keep these few important priorities in focus so you can act on them appropriately.

ASK

The only dumb question is the one that goes unasked. If you are not sure why you are feeling blue or what you might do about it, swallow your pride and start asking some questions. Other people may have already gone through a similar situation as you are experiencing and have some good answers.

DECIDE

Indecision is a decision that becomes addicting—it paralyzes and immobilizes you from doing anything to get unstuck. And the ambiguity and anxiety from indecision is debilitating. Decide on anything that has a chance of opening another door ahead of you and which isn’t likely to close all the doors behind you.

CHANGE

The rule is change or be changed and it is always more comfortable to be the changer than the changee. Pick something you can change right away—whether it is your attitude, appearance or behavior. Life and people can’t treat you the same undesirable ways when you take the initiative to change. And, poor interpersonal relationships are the source of most unhappiness.

CONTRIBUTE

Another rule of life is that you get back what you give. Find some way to volunteer or serve somebody else with your skills and make life better for them. Serving and helping others is a sure way to feel better. At the very least, it will occupy your mind away from your own unhappiness.

BELIEVE

No matter how unhappy, sad or hopeless you feel, you can’t give up your belief that things will eventually get better, because it is certain that they will. Belief in goodness is one constant that always prevails, no matter what the obstacles are. There has never been any proof to the contrary, so the belief is true .

Apply any one of these twenty action verbs and watch your blue mood evaporate into thin air. Apply ten or more and be more joyful than you ever imagined possible.


William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security, Business Success Coach, Sport Psychologist, College Teacher, Writer and Photographer from Issaquah, WA. He is author of You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too and The Bow-Wow Secrets: How Dog Live Simple Lives & People Don’t. . He can be reached at (425) 454-5011 or bcottringer.pssp.net