Below is a nice article I ran across about giving thanks during the upcoming holiday season. The next six to eight weeks are the most difficult for the clinically depressed. Food, alcohol, family togetherness, money, stress, all of these things come in large doses during this time of year. Here are a few tips:
Be Mindful. Know that this is a difficult time, pray over it, and prepare for it.
Be Intentional. The more you react to situations, the more likely they are to control you. Think in advance as much as possible about how you will handle difficult situations. Rehearse in your mind how you will address them.
Be Prayerful. Never underestimate the power of of intercessory prayer. Pray for yourself, and ask others to pray for you. Especially if you are going down the slope. Drop me an email if you need encouragement. Been there. Done that. I will reply if it is humanly possible.
What am I missing? Help me out here, readers.
-DMR
PS Read the article!
Kicking Depression: Giving thanks, remembering this is a wonderful life: “”
Watch your expectations? Don’t make your expectations for the holidays so high that they will probably not be met?
Watch your expectations? Don’t make your expectations for the holidays so high that they will probably not be met?
Hey……I haven’t been here for quite a while. Had to check up on you at this dark time of year……to make sure you’re not planning anything rash. Your spooky header had me worried there for a second……what on earth is on the bottom…..a cemetery?
Seriously, this is a super good little post here. Those 3 tips are excellent, as is Evil Barb’s pointer about expectations. So that’s 4 great pieces of advice, suggestions, or whatever, for the depressively-inclined or for anyone for that matter.
Blogging is keeping me buoyed up……that I’m quite sure of. Many, many times in the past the holiday season was simply a horrible time for me. A sort of paralysis would come over me and it was a drag on my family, too. What I truly believe is that my body wants to join the bears and hibernate this time of year……from mid-November to mid-January. But……we humans for some reason are not allowed to do that. We have to fight our nature and reap the consequences.
I’d add one more tip: Allow yourself to be creative in the way that you were meant to be. Not how someone else wants you to be, but how you were made to be. It takes an awareness of ourselves, though…..something that is often dismissed as selfish…….by Christians, especially.
God bless you and yours this Advent and Christmans season, DMR. Keep up the good work……..(I don’t know about that header, though.)
Hey……I haven’t been here for quite a while. Had to check up on you at this dark time of year……to make sure you’re not planning anything rash. Your spooky header had me worried there for a second……what on earth is on the bottom…..a cemetery?
Seriously, this is a super good little post here. Those 3 tips are excellent, as is Evil Barb’s pointer about expectations. So that’s 4 great pieces of advice, suggestions, or whatever, for the depressively-inclined or for anyone for that matter.
Blogging is keeping me buoyed up……that I’m quite sure of. Many, many times in the past the holiday season was simply a horrible time for me. A sort of paralysis would come over me and it was a drag on my family, too. What I truly believe is that my body wants to join the bears and hibernate this time of year……from mid-November to mid-January. But……we humans for some reason are not allowed to do that. We have to fight our nature and reap the consequences.
I’d add one more tip: Allow yourself to be creative in the way that you were meant to be. Not how someone else wants you to be, but how you were made to be. It takes an awareness of ourselves, though…..something that is often dismissed as selfish…….by Christians, especially.
God bless you and yours this Advent and Christmans season, DMR. Keep up the good work……..(I don’t know about that header, though.)