Tag Archives: friends

Learning to Listen

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Listen . Water . Waves . Light

Listen . Water . Waves . Light

One of the things that I am learning right now is how to listen.

At times when I listen to friends talk about their problems I am tempted to jump in and try to offer solutions even before they have finished describing the situation. At other times I feel overwhelmed by what they are saying and have a hard time not letting their chaos or despair overtake me and make me feel hopeless.

I know that the best thing for me to do is sit and wait and let them come to a natural stopping point. I know that the best thing is to see the situation they are describing as outside of myself. I guess I can sometimes be so empathetic that I put myself at risk. I also want to maintain a certain openness. I do not want to be clinical and detached. I guess I am seeking balance.

It’s time for my walk.

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.

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.