Beat the Blues by Changing Your Colors

I always found it surprising that a number of doctors referred patients to my wellness center because of symptoms of depression. I’m not a doctor, a licensed counselor or even a psych nurse, so how can I play a role in helping these folks who are battling the blues?

Some of these depressed patients clearly had needs beyond the scope of my expertise. They needed long-term counseling, psychotherapy, or medication—none of which are things I could provide. However, I was amazed by how some simple tools could often bring dramatic improvements in people’s emotional health. I’ve seen people’s depression lift when they took action to identify their purpose, connect with God, engage in healthy social interactions, and change their diet and exercise patterns.

One such transformation took place in the life of “Lynn,” a middle-aged woman who participated in my cancer support group. Although Lynn’s cancer was in remission, she had been seriously depressed ever since her battle with the disease first began. She changed her diet, started exercising and having a daily quiet time. Lynn made new friends in the support group, and started gardening, which was one of her life long passions. She was a graphic example of someone who was now healthy in body, mind and spirit.

Our Source Theme for this month is Attitude & Gratitude. Lynn provides a great example of someone who adjusted her attitude when faced with the challenge of dealing with cancer. She could have withdrawn from society and just curled up in a fetal position the rest of her life. She had been through a lot, and it must have been tempting to wallow in self-pity. Yet she didn’t do that. Her cloud of depression lifted, primarily because she discovered some positive attitudes and activities to replace the blues.

So what does it take to “beat the blues”? Depression is a multibillion-dollar industry in our country today. But while the pharmaceutical companies and therapists are getting wealthy, lots of people are still feeling depressed!

The mindset we need when we’re feeling “blue” is to actually fairly simple: We must “change our colors” by changing our attitudes and actions. Instead of complaining that our surroundings need to change, we need to start with changing ourselves!

However, many people dealing with depression waste their time trying to change everything else. They change their hair styles, therapists, medications, houses, jobs, or even their spouses—yet their depression remains. While they’ve worked hard to rearrange the external things in their lives, the internal root issues are left unaddressed.

As author M. Scott Peck points out, “The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

I don’t claim it’s always quick or easy, but you can overcome the blues. So pack your bags and get ready to leave the valley of depression behind. It’s time for an internal makeover. 

What about you?

•             Think about a time in your life when you experienced “the blues.” What factors triggered your depression, and what happened to help you recover your peace and joy?

Quit Being an Adrenaline Addict

One summer day when I was about 10 years old, I decided to climb a tree. A BIG tree!

It wasn’t actually my idea, but a friend dared me to do it. Has that kind of thing ever happened to you?

Well, instead of settling for the lower branches, I decided to go all the way to the tippy top. It was one of the tallest trees in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and I could see the whole city from my lofty vantage point.

What a view! The rush of adrenaline was incredible.

However, my euphoria was abruptly shattered when my mom saw me and freaked out at the danger I had put myself in. You see, the branches at the top were pretty thin and brittle. But I was so caught up in the thrill and emotion that I had hardly noticed.

So there I was, clinging to fragile branches that seemed a mile off the ground. My mom stood at the base of the tree, screamed that she would tan my hide if I didn’t come down that instant.

I was stuck. And suddenly the adrenaline was gone, no help to me at all. Somehow I managed to find my way down, branch by fragile branch.

I wish I could say that was the last of my adrenaline-induced adventures, but it wasn’t. As a teen, I loved the thrill of riding roller coasters. Being scared out of my wits was my idea of a good time.

And some of my adrenaline escapades simply aren’t appropriate to write about in this blog.

You see, rather than sitting at home and being bored, I’ve always loved to live “on the edge,” facing challenges and transitions that most people are happy to avoid.

You might say I’m an adrenaline addict.

There are lots of us out there—people who have a “wild and crazy” side and want to live life to the fullest. Like Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, we typically are looking for mountains to climb, even if that also means quite a few valleys along the way.

I was shocked, though I guess I shouldn’t have been, when my doctor told me several years ago that I was suffering from “adrenal exhaustion.” Too many thrills and chills, I guess. Being a little on the hyper side, I thought I could live on adrenaline forever. The rush of adrenaline was exhilarating, but as they say, “What goes up, must come down.”

Addiction to adrenaline is not a healthy way to live, either physically or emotionally. Although some people view their roller-coaster existence as normal, but in all likelihood they are just suffering from a bad case of adrenal addiction. So great is their attachment to adrenaline that they now cannot separate even their emotional experiences from the rush they get from overexerting their adrenal glands.

Adventure is one of the life areas we focus on in the Source, the coaching system I teach. Kathrine Lee defines adventure as an exciting or very unusual experience.

My life changed and my adrenaline glands were healed when I began to schedule adventure into my life.   Learning the art of participating in exciting, unusual experiences or activities that take us out of our comfort zones can be fun and exhilarating. It helps us deal with the mundane parts of life and gives us something to look forward to. Playing it safe is easy but I want to live a life with no regrets. Having said this, I want to make sure I am taking good care of my health and the safety not only of myself but of those around me.

Making adventure a part of your life is a rush that has nothing to do with adrenal glands.   And this is a lift that lasts!

What about you?

How can you become an adventurer? What are you looking forward to? How can you press past what you think you cannot do?

Stop Being A Mrs. Fix-it

On the way home from the gym, I was listening to a home improvement show. A woman called the radio station, wanting to know how to caulk her bathtub. She told the host of the program that her husband wasn’t much of a handyman, so she was going to become “Mrs. Fix-It.”
A flash of insight struck me when she called herself “Mrs. Fix-It.” I thought to myself, Wow! I’ve always tried to be a Mrs. Fix-It, too—just in a different way.
I’ve always loved to problem-solve, analyze and figure things out. As I constantly search for ways to make things better for myself and others, my mind finds it hard to shut down. I see problems everywhere, and want to fix them all!
As you can imagine, being a Mrs. Fix-It is an exhausting job. There is never any shortage of situations that require help. And the busier I get trying to fix them, the more they seem to multiply. Like some sort of sadistic video game, no sooner do I shoot down one problem, when ten more appear.
Once someone has been a Mrs. Fix-It for many years, it isn’t very easy to change. After all, it’s pretty addicting to fix things. We gain a smug satisfaction from being able to point out all the situations we have valiantly remedied. Pretty soon our whole self-image gets wrapped up in our ability to fix the unfixable.
Yet some things simply can’t be fixed by human effort, no matter how noble the effort. The world is woefully imperfect. This is hard for fix-it people like me to accept, for we would like to believe we can fix anything we set our minds to.
I’ve had to face a hard reality: If I could fix and control everything, I would be God! Gradually I’ve had to concede that He’s the ultimate “Handyman,” the only one who can reverse all the effects of fallen humanity.
What about you?

• Make a list of some troubling areas of your life you are frequently tempted to “fix”—even though they can only be fixed by God or other people.