Some Very Important Questions You Need To Answer About Your Depression

Before, after, or if you listen to this recording, you may like to ask yourself these very important questions about your depression. I found these extremely helpful on my journey out of the darkness and into the light. I've heard you have to name it to tame it, and keeping track of your progress can give you the important feedback you need to know what's working for you, and what is best left behind.

So here are the questions; How often? How long? How deep or severe? and How much damage are you doing to yourself and others while it is happening? (I know, that last one is a toughy, but please do not despair, it has a happier answer than you may think.

Back in the day, I would have answered these questions this way. Almost all of the time, for several years, I've lost the will to live, the only thing keeping me alive is I don't want the kids to see the body, and I'm drinking myself to death, ruining my health, and traumatizing my children. Ouch! That was painful. I'm so glad that is so long gone behind me, but I needed to say it to illustrate how bad things can get. If you do answer these questions honestly, and you don't have to right now if it is too painful, you can wait till you are feeling better, because then it will be more encouraging, because you will have made some progress, please know this is your bottom, your pivot point, where you turn around, and sometimes two steps forward and one back, start going in a new and exciting direction.

If you are waiting to feel better before you take your self assessment, you could just do it this way for now. You can answer these questions as if you have already gotten past your depression and are living a happy and productive life. If you do, as you answer the questions, try to feel the way you would feel if this were true for you today. Your brain chemistry is not very good at telling the difference between what is real or imagined so this is an excellent way to reward yourself in advance for all of the good things you are about to do.

Here are my answers for today. About once every six months, for a few hours, it sits on the surface like a feeling of restless discontent, and I very quickly notice this is how I am feeling and take steps to put myself straight that are of great benefit to myself and others. Yay! That's certainly much more fun.

There are people in the world who are genetically programed for joy and will be happy in any situation, and then there are the rest of us, who have to work at it. That's okay. It can be happy, fun work, an exciting adventure into your own mind, body, and spirit. Winning is good, and you can win.

This first video for self healing help is what I hope to be the first of many that will provide a cohesive system of self help that will help you change the answers to the before mentioned questions so you too can be free. I would like to include sleep hypnosis videos, because they are a good idea, but also short morning meditations, things you can listen to in the daytime while doing other things, and maybe even a workbook where you can track your progress, and try out exercises to see which ones work best for you. I also might include some fun little bits to fluff, here and there, to lighten up the mood.

I'm very excited about this. It feels like a new direction to me, as I remember the time many years ago when I shouted out to I-don't-know-what "If I ever get free of this, I will dedicate my life to making sure no other human being ever has to feel what I am feeling right now." Lofty goal, to be sure, so for now I will just keep climbing the mountain with you, one step at at a time, and know if one person feels even a little bit better, I'm having a great day.

Why Bother With Downloads?

The most obvious answer is it is a cheap, easy way to have one of my recordings available to you, commercial free, any time you would like, or anywhere you have something to play it on. If you don't like this idea, that's perfectly okay, I'll still be making my recordings available for free on YouTube for as long as they will let me. They're pretty happy with me right now, so I'm guessing that will be for a long time.
  Another good reason why you may like to purchase one of these inexpensive recordings is the vast majority of this revenue goes to me, and I use this money to take care of my expenses, like pay off the credit card bill for the mini home recording studio setup I just bought, so you can enjoy better quality sound. If you are reading this right now, you are probably helping me with this, and I thank you, because I'm having so much fun learning to use this new toy. I spend many, many hours listening to my own sound as I'm editing, and I also like to listen while I fall asleep sometimes too. I know I'm much happier hearing this nicer new sound. I'm sure a few others will feel the same way.
  I have included a link in this post to buy my newest recording, Sleep Hypnosis for Depression Self Healing Help, from the CDBaby music store. I've been dealing with them for years and like this company. (unpaid endorsement) If downloads aren't your thing, or you would like to hear the whole thing first to make sure you like it,  you can listen to this on YouTube for free, in a few days.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jodywhiteley14

Thanks so much to my followers, and if any of you feel helpful, you could let me know in the comments exactly how I go about following you back, if you have a blog here. I'm slightly embarrassed to say I'm not completely comfortable with the interface here yet. lol,

What Is Depression?

What is depression?
I would define it as happiness deficit disorder.
I don't think it makes much of a difference whether you have wet depression, where you cry, or dry depression, where you feel nothing at all and are emotionally dehydrated. Either way, you are not happy, and would probably like to feel better.
How did you get this way?
People can become depressed for a variety of reasons, and what made you this way is not as important as what you can do to feel better, but for curiosity sake, I'm going to talk about a few here.
First of all you probably have a hereditary predisposition towards depression, and if you think this is the case, please do not despair. No, seriously, don't, it will only make it worse. Some people are born to be happy go lucky individuals with a generally optimistic outlook, who don't stay down for too long if things don't go their way, and then there are the rest of us who have to work at it and learn how to be happy on purpose.
I am part of the latter group and can tell you first hand depression is no longer a problem for me and I am a happy person. I'm also not special. Millions of people have overcome this painful disorder and are living happy and productive lives today. You could be one of them.
You may also be depressed due to a trigger, like a loss or other bad thing that you didn't like. It showed up as a normal reaction, dug in, and stayed. Ouch. The good news is there are ways to become unstuck.
I also think some people become depressed because they have become bored. They have stopped growing, changing, reaching, achieving, and are stuck in a rut. A rut can be safe. It can also be slowly killing your soul. Anxiety can play a role in this. I will be addressing anxiety in future posts.
So what do you do about it?
There are lots of things that can be done and some of them I will not talk about here. I will not discuss medication because I'm not a doctor, I'm not qualified, and I don't know much about your individual situation. I am medication free, except for a very occasional St. John's wort, and I'll leave your choices about medication up to you.
I also can't tell you much about individual or group therapy. For some people this is a life saver, and for others it does more harm than good. My own experience was these helps seemed to want to focus more on disease than wellness, and feeling better was viewed with a jaundiced eye at best, discouraged somewhere in the middle, and at it's worst, I was angrily dumped by a therapist for getting well. You may have a better counsellor than this.
Addiction is also another topic, but I will add that once I was less depressed and had trusted tools for feeling better, I was able to quit drinking.
So what am I going to talk about?
I'm going to talk about the things I did to beat my depression and become a happy, relaxed, person who is having a really good time. I would like to talk about things like hypnosis, meditation, cognitive behavioural therapy that works, not the kind that doesn't, things you can do for your physical brain to make it healthier so it can function at it's best, spirituality for people who believe in god, and spirituality for atheists, because they shouldn't miss out on the fun and shouldn't be forced to believe in something they don't to join in. This list can go on and on. Basically it's about anything I've found to work to help people feel better.
As you may have already guessed this little blurb I am writing is an introduction to the work I will be doing over the next several months. My statistics at YouTube, and the personal stories I have read at YT and at Facebook, all lead me to believe that putting together a cohesive system of help for depression, anxiety, self confidence, and emotional healing would be putting myself to my highest and best use.
It is my sincerest hope that you will come with me on this journey, taking and using what you find useful, and discarding that which is not for you. Wish me luck and I'm sending warm wishes you feel better soon if you are depressed, or continue to feel happy if that is where you are right now.
Peace out, love to all, bye for now.