DEPRESSION

Whatever we plant in our minds and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.

Earl Nightingale

Today we live in a world characterized by fear – failing health/health care, struggling economy, loss of jobs/unemployment, an uncertain future, corruption, rising crime, insecurity, kidnapping, and feelings of powerlessness. The government can’t help and there is almost nothing the individual can do about it.

The cost of fear is toxic thoughts – constantly thinking the worst in all situations and at all times leading to toxic stress and then anxiety and depression which then increases our vulnerability to developing various kinds of disease.

If we don’t manage our minds, due to fear of all that is happening around us we become dependent on external factors such as pain killers, medications, wellness fads to try and ease how we feel. We presently live in a world where there is a lot of information about lifestyle yet the quality of life does not seem to be improving. This is as a result of the fact that a piece of the puzzle missing is the responsibility placed on individuals to effectively manage their mind.

When our thinking is toxic i.e filled with thoughts relating to all the negative things happening around us without censor from within it can mess up our stress response and this in turn makes us vulnerable to disease. Most of us allow a lot of information to pass through our minds daily without paying attention to the quality of sensory stimulation. While there is information that we can’t control there is also information that we have a lot of control over.

One critical point is that you are your mind, you always use your mind and your mind is always with you. Pause and think over this last statement. Also while you can go weeks without food and days without water, you cannot go seconds without thinking or using your mind, that’s how important your mind is. Whatever information that comes to your mind will return to you as defining who you are, determining your views of what constitutes success, failure based on information from others out there.

To what are you comparing yourself? Who determines success and says what it looks like to you? YOU DO. No one else has the right to define your purpose. However for many people purpose is being defined by others. Some of these “others” have spoken directly into our lives, some “others” we have only observed and concluded that this must be the definition of success. When we have come to the realization that we need a re-definition we must begin the healing journey however, we set ourselves up for failure when we try to copy someone else’s healing journey. This tendency to “copy” is fueled today by the social media where people many times sincerely share their story for altruistic reasons to help others but then when we try to uproot their situation and plant it directly in our space it becomes problematic.

It is however important that as we come in contact with the healing journey of others, it helps us to shape our lives, it gives us some direction helping us to take bearing. If you don’t shape your life it would be shaped for you and to shape your life however you need to know how to shape your mind. Shaping your mind requires your active involvement and a large part of the problem is that because we have lost much of our ability to think deeply, spend time thinking without carrying out an activity our minds are being shaped by the things that happen around us. Such that when negative things fill our experience we tend to dip into helplessness our speech becomes tainted by negativity and our mood becomes sad.

Anxiety and depression at this point become warning signals telling us that something is going on, they are connected to our stories our place in the world and how we perceive ourselves and our lives. Someone suffering from the emotional and physical warning signals of depression therefore needs to be listened to and noticed. Their pain which is very real needs to be acknowledged and they need help learning how to problem-solve and manage their minds they need to tell their story and we need to listen.

The podcasts below are a series titled depression and are by no means diagnostic or the only solution to the problem, they are intended to only help you see where you are at and what you need to do. For further information and necessary help please see our contact on this website.

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/introduction-to-depression/

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/contributing-factors-to-depression/

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/signs-you-may-be-depressed-1/

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/signs-you-may-be-depressed-2/

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/spiritual-depression-1626766946/

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/causes-of-spiritual-depression/

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/overcoming-spiritual-depression/

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/overcoming-depression-1626882184/

https://tosinadekeye.podbean.com/e/preventing-depression/