Category Archives: relationships

Depression . Suicide . Help

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Pattern Abstract

Pattern Abstract

 I am amazed that many of the people that I have been closest to in my life have had a history of suicide attempts. I guess it was just something in me that gave me some sort of understanding of these souls or maybe it was for my own understanding and protection because I was bound to have the crisis that I had this year where my entire world went black. At my darkest moment, there was someone standing beside me that had been there before. He offered me a hand to literally get up off the ground and a shoulder to cry on. I feel like the most blessed man in the world at this point to have had that friend there at that moment and to have come out the other side. I want to help as many people as I can that might travel down that dark tunnel like I did and that is really what this blog is about.

I am grateful for the writings of Louise Hay for giving me a few strands of hope to hold onto. I continue to do my daily walks and they are important in keeping my mind and body in a better state even if I do not have earth-shaking revelations every day. I am grateful for every step of my walk. I am grateful for the time that I have every day to take these walks to remake my mind and to create peace in my soul and my world.

Today in doing some research into Deepak Chopra, I came across a website that I thought might be very helpful to those of you struggling with depression and with thoughts of suicide as I was a short time ago. The site is appropriately called This Is A War.com, and this is their welcome message from their page on suicide:

Welcome to thisisawar.com.

This site was created to remind you that while you may well feel overwhelmed by life circumstances, no problem is greater than your ability to solve it.

Having said this, we all need a hand from time to time.

So click on the index below for the sections that apply to you (and there will probably be several).

Take your time to read each page. Copy them and print them up if you feel the need.

In each section, you will find useful information, immediate help, email addresses, telephone numbers, message boards, links to helpful books, and terrific sections on hope and laughter.

You may not feel needed at the moment but believe me, you are.

You may not feel loved at the moment but believe me, you are.

You may feel like there is no hope but believe me, there is.

You are needed.

You are loved.

There is hope.

Nothing happens by accident; there’s a good reason you reached this page.

Welcome!

By the way this post today is part of my healing. I needed to admit that I have had thoughts of suicide. I am not ashamed. I will not hide. The fear of the thoughts, and the shame of having them is almost worst than the thoughts themselves.

Letting Go: Challenges of a Perfectionist

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Yellow Flower from the Garden District in New Orleans

Yellow Flower from the Garden District in New Orleans

I think I probably could have called this Blog “Letting Go” because on the spiritual journey that I am on it seems that I am coming up on the need to do this over and over again, each time in slightly different ways. My need to let go is very strong evidently.

I have always felt driven to always tell people exactly what I think about them and about the best course that I think they should take. The problem is that, not everyone wants to hear my opinion all the time and sometimes I just need to shut up and let it go. I have to trust the universe to get the message out without thinking that I am the sole messenger of truth or wisdom.

I may be driven to perfection, but I don’t have to use it as an instrument of torture over myself, my family, my friends or my associates. I have to learn to let things work themselves out sometimes or simply fall where they may and find their own way.

I am grateful that I am learning to temper my perfectionism. I am grateful that I am learning how to express it. I am grateful that I am learning to let go of my perfectionism. I am grateful that there is a wonder and a beauty to the world around me that is an imperfect world.

Learning about perfectionism is learning about forgiveness.

Recovering From Depression Without Pharmaceuticals

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Grass . Sky . Light

Grass . Sky . Light

I first have to state a disclaimer. I am not a psychiatrist or a psychologist or a mental health professional. I am a man recovering from a serious depression and I offer my story as one of a simple example of what has worked for me. I am recovering from depression without using any prescription drugs. I am happy about that and I know my way might be right for others too. I have quite a few friends and family that are on mood stabilizers and some of them seem to be comfortably numb or getting by with just enough high anxiety to get to the next day, but never fundamentally getting any better, experiencing more peace or joy or fulfillment in life.

I should also say that I do not have health insurance and in a sense I think that has been good. There wasn’t a doctor sitting in an office ready to fill out a prescription for his favorite pill from his favorite drug company to give to me to make my pain go away. No, I have had to talk to friends, take long walks, stop smoking and stop abusing my body and brain with alcohol. I have had to find ways to get out of myself and my myopic obsession with my own pain.

One of the best things that I did in the depths of my depression was to remember that I wasn’t the only one in the world with pain, regrets, loneliness and hurt. I reached out to contact old friends and family to tell them that I loved them and that I wanted to do something special for them. I reached out this way 3 times. Two times life slapped me in the face, and a third time life rewarded me with one of the best experiences of entire life.

The first time life slapped me in the face was when one very old and very good friend was way to busy to come over for Christmas and called that afternoon to let me know they couldn’t make it. They didn’t even have the dignity to tell me they had no plans on coming earlier in the week. The second I got slapped was when a friend did come over for Christmas and then acted as like I had done nothing special for them. Then to make matters worse, a short time later they were far too busy to talk to me. These experiences almost made my depression worse and I have had to work for months to pull myself out of an emotional hole of resentment and a larger sense of loneliness than the one I started with.

It was however the third time, someone reached back and the experience ended up changing both of us. I reached out to my father and told him I wanted him to come and visit me this summer. He did. It was for me a reason to keep on living in the months leading up to his visit. In the planning stages there were flights to check and arrangements to be made and things to get my mind off of myself. When dad arrived, it was a chance to deeply connect with someone I had always loved but never spent much time with, and most importantly, for him at the advanced age of 87 years old, it was as he told his older sisters ”the best thing that has happened to me in 50 years”. This experience where I reached out and someone else reached back, changed my life.

At times, I have a problem focusing only on the negative, on what turns out badly and on how I fail. I obsess about people that reject me. I concentrate on how much I hurt. I now can take those two negative experiences and let them determine the rest of my life or I can let that one incredibly transformative experience guide the rest of my life. I can make a choice to live in pain or to live in happiness, acceptance and forgiveness. I have to remember that I did something for my dad that turned out beautifully. His visit changed us both for the better. I have to remember that I am capable, even on the darkest day, of changing my world for the better.

I am learning to let my own wounds go and to release those that hurt me to have a good life. I have to release them with no feelings of resentment or jealousy or pain.

I have been feeling the need to publish this story because on my daily 5 mile walks, it just kept coming back to me. I think other people need to know that a pill is never THE ANSWER. Prozac,  Zoloft and Cymbalta might be part of a treatment, but they should never be counted on to do all the work. Exercise, reaching out beyond ourselves and our pain, good diet and positive mental habits are just as important in our healing.

What Do I Create Today?

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Fleur de Lis > Fleur de-cor

Fleur de Lis > Fleur de-cor

This is not just a question for the artist but for all of us. Do we create Love today? Do we create Peace today? Do we create Wisdom? Do we create Love? We are all creators. We all “make our own reality”. What will you make today?

These were my thoughts for my walk yesterday, September 4, 2008. They were inspired by Deepak Chopra and his marvelous work, The Book of Secrets.

Letting Go II

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Healing . Looking Up . Sky

Following up on yesterday’s post on “Letting Go Of Hurts”, I had some more thoughts. While on my walk I realized that part of my problem is that I am hording my pain like it’s a treasure. I am giving it more life by picking it up and examining and analyzing it way too much. I have done enough releasing of these people that I feel have hurt me. I now release them totally and wish them the best.

I also am happy to learn that I do not need to continue to bring up their names in my meditations. I now release them and the pain and I seek to heal the bruised parts of my soul.

I need to move on now. I need to just forget my own pain. I’ve done the forgiving, so now it is time to forget and move on. It is time that I said “NEXT” to my own thoughts. It is time to think new wonderful thoughts.

I want to heal. I am healing.

Letting Go Of Hurts

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Stone Heart

Stone Heart

I don’t always hold onto the good things and good times. I seem to be attached to some very bad things and horrible times in my life. It is amazing how hard it is for me to let go of these old hurts; those times when I have been rejected or ignored for reaching out to someone. It is important to remember that the hurt is something inside of me and not something that they did to me. I am responsible for my own emotions, my own reactions and my own well being. They may do something that causes me to feel hurt, but they did not place that feeling there. I did. I can choose to let that hurt reside in me and grow and set up residence, or I can choose to let it go. I guess sometimes I have to release some situations, some people, some hurts, over and over again until they disappear or dissolve into nothingness.

I am grateful this day that I am free of all old emotional wounds and that I set myself and others free. I release myself. I release those that “hurt me”. We are all free of my hurt. We are all free to love again. I can let go of my own hurt feelings and my negative emotions so that I can more fully embrace wonderful and great and beautiful things.

Now I am ready for my walk.

Louise Hay Video

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Louise Hay Video Still

Louise Hay Video Still

This wonderful Louise Hay video [called Metaphysical Healing is available on Google Video] is about an hour and a half.  If you are depressed, stressed, overworked, or if you are feeling a little lost, you just might find something to hold onto here. You can also get her book “You Can Heal Your Life”

Enjoy.

The Diseased Funeral

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Grave Yard

Grave Yard

Last week I went to a funeral for the first time in what seems like a decade and it has been on my mind quite a bit since then on my daily walks.

My friend that died last week was a gentle soul who had been in pain for years. He was loved by everyone that met him and we will all miss him very much. His funeral turned out to be not so much an exercise of tribute as it was an opportunity for the preachers to attempt to scare everyone in the audience back into church because if we knew this man very well then we most surely must be headed to hell just like he was.

We all knew exactly what the preacher meant when he talked about “the Disease” that our friend had and how it ravaged his body and spirit. He was proudly telling the whole world that this man was an alcoholic and that was what he should be remembered for. So much was made of it that it seemed that the funeral was more of a tribute to that infernal Disease than it was to our friend.

This funeral was very much like the one that was given for my brother where the preacher somehow thought that it was appropriate to talk about my brother and a desperate prostitute in the same sentence.

In other words, please don’t call the preacher to lead my funeral service who never knew me and never cared to get to know me. I will be very glad when I leave this planet to have all of my friends and family have a celebration service to remember the good times that we all had together.

I affirm the right of every man and every woman to leave this earth in a dignified manner and not have their entire lives disparaged and lessened just because they were not in the right place on the right day at the right time in someones “right view of the world”.

To end on a more positive note, I am grateful for the times that I had with my friend. I am grateful that I got to know him. I am grateful for his smile and his wonderful silly little dance that he did when he was happy. I am grateful for the love he showed me and how he made me feel special when I sat down next to him. Here’s to you my friend. We’re all happy that you aren’t in pain anymore.

Neat Little Packages: Emotional Perfectionism

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Neat Little Packages with Bows

Neat Little Packages with Bows

On my walk the other day I was thinking and meditating about an argument that I had with a friend a few days earlier and I was trying to figure out what the problem was or what had gone wrong, and for the life of me, I could not come up with anything that had caused the problem that morning. I could not see what I or they had done wrong. All I came up with was an image of a tiny little package tied with a bow. At that point, it made no sense and I gave up on trying to understand it’s significance, and just kept on walking.

When I turned around at my two and a half mile marker, it hit me. I always seem to want to tie up “all my packages” with neat little bows. This can be an emotional package, a relationship package, a conversational package, a work package or any number of things that I might encounter or experience as part of my life. Life in all of it’s glory is not easily packaged in a neat little box. Friendships and intimate relationships certainly can never be neatly contained and perfectly wrapped. I guess this is part of my perfectionism that I need to learn to release. I cannot expect any relationship to not have a certain amount of dynamic tension or mystery in it. I have to learn to be comfortable with letting things be unresolved sometimes. I have to more trusting that the answers will come to me over time if I am patient.

I am grateful for the things that I am learning. I am grateful to be able to release the need for neat little packages. I am grateful to be able to embrace a larger and more powerful truth. I am grateful that I can enlarge my perspective on life. I am grateful that God and truth are bigger than my neat little packages. I am grateful to release more of my perfectionism to be able to embrace life as it is.