Month: June 2020

There Are No Easy Answers For Solving Depression

There are no quick and easy answers to overcoming depression. If you are hoping that I’ve written one in here than you might as well stop reading now. Because you won’t find one.

I suggest you stop trying easy fixes for mental health issues or worse yet, ignoring your mental health issues altogether. Make it a daily personal goal to make sure your past mistakes don’t become your future problems. But how do you achieve this goal?

Start by being honest with yourself over the state of things in your life. How much longer do you want to engage in negative behaviors that are increasing your mental health issues? If you spend your time engaging in negative behaviors, then you will never get around to seeking true solutions. And that’s often when things often go from bad to worse.

I want to help you get your head above the dark clouds of the quagmire of your problems. And to find solutions to at least some of your life’s problems.

Mental health issues spill over into other health issues, as well. So, it’s best to solve your issues as completely as possible as early in your life as is possible.

Don’t settle for putting a “band-aide” solution over your mental / emotional “wounds.” Quick and easy solutions rarely work and usually exacerbates the problem even more.

Take an honest hard look at your life and ask yourself, “How long do I want to keep living this way?” Any bad decision can be solved by you taking the lead and correcting your path.

When I was in the deep part of depression, I knew that I couldn’t help myself. And I also knew that I couldn’t trust some of my own decision making. I didn’t like the answers I was getting from my husband Jeff either. Way before he and I met and married, he had developed a bad habit of arguing over “how white salt is” style of communication. Not helpful.

When life was on an “even keel” then we did things with our three daughters and life was good. But those times didn’t last long enough. So, we went to marriage counseling.

A good counselor will offer communication tools that are helpful. A better counselor will show you how to utilize those tools. Through the years we’ve had a few of each kind. Plus, I’ve gone to individual counseling.

Today I take a serotonin boosting supplement called tryptophan. I stay in counseling about twice a month. Many times, Jeff goes with me. We’ve both learned how to strengthen our support system by speaking into each other rather than at each other. There’s a big difference between the two types of communication.

Find Joy Despite Your Circumstances

“Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” Philippians 4:4 (NLT)

 

The Apostle Paul wrote the above verse when he sat in a filthy prison cell being chained to the wall. He was in Rome awaiting his trail and execution.

At some point in time in his life I believe Paul had a vision where he looked out onto the horizon and saw you and me. He saw us caught in the struggles of life, bad decision making, and efforts that have led anyone of us into dead end results.  We were at risk of losing our joy of life and our hope for better days ahead of us.

Yes, Paul knew all of this and that’s why he wrote some of the most encouraging words you or I will ever read. Those words are found in his short but in-depth book called Philippians.

You see Paul wanted to go to Rome. He thought he would continue his building up of Christian believers in towns that he traveled through, while traveling to Rome. Well, he did get to Rome, but it didn’t happen the way he thought it would.

Since becoming a Christian several years earlier, Paul had many near-death experiences. He fought off wild animals, had huge rocks thrown at him by villagers until they thought he was dead, he went without food, shelter, and other necessities many times during his travels.

Why would anyone want to risk their life more times than even Paul writes about? Only to end up chained to a prison wall where there was not even window.

Paul didn’t let his circumstances determine his level of joy. His source of joy went deeper than his surroundings. His joy came from his belief in Jesus Christ.  And he was completely committed to sharing his love and belief that Jesus Christ is the source of true love, hope, joy, and contentment.

Do you let your situation determine your outlook on life?

Find Joy Despite Your Circumstances

“Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” Philippians 4:4 (NLT)

 

The Apostle Paul wrote the above verse when he sat in a filthy prison cell being chained to the wall. He was in Rome awaiting his trail and execution.

At some point in time in his life I believe Paul had a vision where he looked out onto the horizon and saw you and me. He saw us caught in the struggles of life, bad decision making, and efforts that have led anyone of us into dead end results.  We were at risk of losing our joy of life and our hope for better days ahead of us.

Yes, Paul knew all of this and that’s why he wrote some of the most encouraging words you or I will ever read. Those words are found in his short but in-depth book called Philippians.

You see Paul wanted to go to Rome. He thought he would continue his building up of Christian believers in towns that he traveled through, while traveling to Rome. Well, he did get to Rome, but it didn’t happen the way he thought it would.

Since becoming a Christian several years earlier, Paul had many near-death experiences. He fought off wild animals, had huge rocks thrown at him by villagers until they thought he was dead, he went without food, shelter, and other necessities many times during his travels.

Why would anyone want to risk their life more times than even Paul writes about? Only to end up chained to a prison wall where there was not even window.

Paul didn’t let his circumstances determine his level of joy. His source of joy went deeper than his surroundings. His joy came from his belief in Jesus Christ.  And he was completely committed to sharing his love and belief that Jesus Christ is the source of true love, hope, joy, and contentment.

Do you let your situation determine your outlook on life?

The Good Samaritans

“Jesus answered, “…a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers attacked him,…leaving him half dead….

But a Samaritan who was traveling that way…saw him, his heart was filled with pity. He went over to him, poured oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them; then he put the man on his own animal and took him to an inn, where he took care of him.” Luke 10:30,33,34

Before I settled down to marry my husband and have my three girls, I was a restless young woman moving from place to place and job to job. I was in my early twenties during those years, and living in Atlanta GA.

I had moved there when I was nineteen to learn photography at an art school. It was located near Pershing Point, so my parents helped me find a nearby place. As it turned out I lived between where “Gone With The Wind” was written and Piedmont Park. l mention this because those two places were at opposite ends of polarizing cultures at that time if ever there was.

The book was written in a peaceful quiet neighborhood. Piedmont Park at that time, was ran over with dirty hippies that camped there, smoked dope, and dealt drugs out in the open. Small children ran around with little direction. That was the summer of 1971. About a year later the Atlanta police cracked down and cleared the Park out.

I bought dope there at the Park while finishing my year of study. After that I worked in photo labs around Atlanta and moved often to be closer to work. And I continued my habit of smoking dope. All that put me in the company of some people who didn’t have my nor their own best interests in mind.

By the Spring of 1975 I realized I could no longer continue in that lifestyle. I was seeking a new direction for my life. I began seeking God’s presence in my life like I had experienced in my childhood.

From that desire I found a local church that was warm and friendly from the start. During that same time, I also was trying to get into a branch of the military but had failed the first round of testing. My math skills were lacking to say the least.

On my life’s horizon came two women that were a great help to me during that time. The first was my sister Deena who had left a federal job in D.C. to move to Atlanta a year earlier. Deena was much more of a career person than I’ve ever been. She gave me advice and encouraged me to keep trying to join the military that year.

The other woman came out from a large crowd of friendly people at my church and showed an interest in me. We had little in common, but I appreciated her friendship. On a Sunday afternoon after having lunch together at my apartment she turned our conversation to the state of my spiritual life.

That’s when God used a sledgehammer to break the hardness of my heart. In between crying I made it clear enough that my whole life was still pretty much a mess. I was still smoking dope and being “on the fence” over everything in my life.

My friend allowed the Holy Spirit to guide her and I sensed that. Otherwise, I would’ve insisted she leave immediately. After all, I had a nice veneer of an organized Spiritual life going on. But that’s all it was, and I knew it. It was time to jump off the “fence” and make a commitment to be a Christ follower.

I flushed all the dope I had in my apt and then we prayed. After that we talked about my wanting to join the military. I knew my friend was a college student but hadn’t ask what her major was.

I had centered much of my life around me, myself, and I back then and showed little interest in getting to know others on an in-depth relationship.

It was that day when she told me she had left her steady job, worked a plan out with her mother to help raise her daughter. And had moved closer to Georgia Tech University to pursue some type of a math degree. Soon she would be graduating and returning to get her child to pursue a new career plan.

We only knew each other for a few weeks at best. But before graduating, she wrote a full sheet of simple math formulas that I read and practiced over and over. By late Summer I went into the Air Force Recruiting station and passed their tests with above average abilities in understanding basic schematics, math, and comprehension skills.

I entered the Air Force on a delayed enlistment plan in 1976. By 1978 I had met and married another Air Force member, Jeffrey Jordan. We have three daughters that we’re very proud of.