One of the biggest problems I face when I am depressed is a distinct case of the can’t-be-bothereds.  I feel totally unmotivated to do anything – even things I enjoy.  Depression plays havoc with the ability to derive pleasure from life and is particularly distressing when what you’re trying to derive pleasure from used to be something that you absolutely loved doing but aren’t enjoying now.  The can’t-be-bothereds come packaged with a particularly destructive concomitant symptom – fatigue.  I’m often much more tired that I ought to be, given the amount of sleep I am able to get.

Additionally, depression provides a never-ending stream of self talk that includes things like: “Well, nobody’s going to appreciate it anyway”, “I don’t have the energy to do that right now” or “I can’t settle to that activity at the moment.”  I’m sure you’ve noticed a substantial gap between this post and the last one.  Yep – it was the can’t-be-bothereds.  Despite deriving enormous amounts of pleasure from writing this blog, I succumbed.  Of course, the huge number of spam comments on my blog that posed as genuine readership sort of quashed my spirit, so I’ve had to practice what I’m about to preach.

In my opinion, the can’t-be-bothereds can only be treated with a course of  suck-it-up.  Suck-it-up medicine is a stern, sometimes over-prescribed remedy that forces the patient to just get on with things.  Suck-it-up medicine must be self-administered and should not be used by unscrupulous physicians who believe that their patients should just allow bad things to happen to them.  It is abuse of the remedy to treat someone poorly and then prescribe a course of suck-it-up.

Suck-it-up medicine is useful in depression, however, because sometimes the motivation for getting stuck into life only comes after we get in and actually do the thing that we can’t be bothered to do.  I’ve often read a scripture that says “…faith is things that are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.”  Upon reflection, I came to the conclusion that this principle absolutely applies to overcoming depression.  The depression presents with its crippling ability to suck the desire to live out of the sufferer and leaves the sufferer thinking that no matter what they do, they will still feel the same.  The trick is to make a conscious decision to try something new and see whether it was as bad as previously thought.  Once you’ve tried, I guarantee that it’ll be better than you thought it would be.  You act on the faith that it’ll be better and once you have acted, you receive the reward for acting on faith and your faith is strengthened because next time you are umming and arring about whether to do something, you’ll be able to draw on the last time you acted and the results you received.  So, when the next time rolls around, your capacity to overcome the can’t-be-bothereds is strengthened and you require less suck-it-up than you did the last time and so on.  After a few doses, you have momentum – the force that propels you through the can’t-be-bothereds and into a motivated and happy place – and you will no longer need suck-it-up because your own experience will help you to pull yourself through.

One great area to try this is exercise – my psychologist tells me that the latest research suggests that 20 minutes of exercise a day has the same effect on mood as an anti-depressant.  Given that I sit on the natural side of the fence with medical treatment, this was music to my ears.  I plan to take a solid slog at this but it will take some large doses of suck-it-up to get the ball rolling.  Once it is rolling, however, I will have momentum and I will use that to create a habit that is not only good for my body, it’s necessary for the health of my mind.

Have you ever wondered why people get radically different haircuts or colours after a break up?  Or why we write New Year’s Resolutions?  Or refuse to shave until their exams are over?  Or why we don’t start a new project until we have collected all of the materials, even though there are parts we could get started on straight away?   I think it’s because we like to have an event or condition that signifies that we are about to embark on a new chapter in life.  From an alternative perspective, these events or conditions also represent closure – we both finish and begin with these little rituals.

I’m a hair cutter myself.  Whenever I need to feel fresh and rejuvenated, I get myself a brand new do.  For example, this is what I looked like before today:

Clearly, I haven’t been styled in a few months… and I’ve just woken up.

Because I have a wonderful rush of giddy excitement every time I leave a salon with a haircut that I love, I decided that getting a haircut to kick off my recovery would be just the treat. You know what’s even cooler?  I have a wonderful hairdresser, named Mark Gardner.  What makes him the best, in my humble opinion, is that he knows my personality (the happy one, not the one cumbered with all the problems mentioned in previous posts) and he has never missed the mark with a style that suits it.  I know that every time I go to his salon, I’m going to walk out feeling great, which is just what I need right now.

Because Mark and I have a bit of history, I tend not to go into his salon with an idea of what I wish to look like.  Being a consummate professional, he’s been to all the industry events and analysed all the trends necessary to know exactly what’s fashionable and how to bend that to suit my little round face, so I sit in the chair and say “Create!”.  Let me show you the style Mark chose for me:

I think it’s important to begin difficult journeys on a positive note.  I think having a ritual to kick off new phases in deliberate self development is one way to do this.  It allows you to start what may be a difficult change cycle in a positive state.  I like to think of it as a bit of deliberate classical conditioning.  In classical conditioning, the subject associates the response to a particular stimulus with another, concurrent stimulus.  The most famous example of this is Pavlov – a man who rang a bell every time he fed his dogs.  He soon realised that his dogs would begin to salivate at the sound of the bell alone, even if they did not receive food.  In my example, I am trying to associate the pleasant feelings I have when I get a great haircut with the advent of a deliberate period of change because, if I am successful, each time I begin a period of change, I will do so positively because I am conditioned to be happy every time I decide to undergo a period of self-improvement.

I will add here that it is important to keep rituals in their proper place.  It is our aim to condition joy into the commencement of potentially difficult or stressful periods, not to further complicate those with a feeling of compulsion.  It would definitely be counter-productive if we had thoughts like “I can’t do this until I’ve <insert ritual here>” or “This will never work because I didn’t begin it with <insert ritual here>”.  The purpose of this ritual is to help us increase happiness and motivation, not to be one more thing that we agonise over.  If ritual or the need for ritual is taking over your life, it might be an idea to do some work with a therapist around it. 

As for me, I’m delighted with my beginning because I look different than I did when I was working under the very poor conditions that led me to starting this blog and, consequently, I feel different, which is the whole purpose of the Self Care Project.

Previously in my life, when people asked me whether they should plan or project manage important events or processes in their lives, I’d tell them that I believed it was an extremely valuable thing to do.  I’d tell them that if they wanted to give themselves the best chance at success in any endeavour, they might like to consider writing a vision statement, setting SMART goals and then figuring out their milestone map before preparing a SWOT analysis and writing affirmations to boost themselves as they set about achieving.  I’d then express my personal belief in their abilities and tell them I was there if they needed any help.

Sounds super uplifting, eh?

Well, it was – until I developed anxiety.

Now, the idea of setting SMART goals, writing a milestone map, preparing a SWOT analysis and writing affirmations makes me feel like beating a hasty retreat to the sanctity created by the impenetrable forcefield of my doona.  So, I began to ask myself whether it was really necessary to plan.  I wondered if I could just float along through my recovery and, in doing so, have everything magically right itself – no more anxiety, no more depression and a lifestyle adjusted so that I minimised the chance of ever being crippled by these things again.  About that moment, reality fell from the sky and hit me on the head, jumped up, bit me on the bum and then, in a loud voice, announced “I am REALITY!”  It occurred to me that, regardless of how nightmarish planning seemed, it really was the only way to get the most out of the time I have set aside for recovery.  You see, I only have 10-12 weeks that my husband and I can afford for me not to work.  After that, I will have to recover whilst dealing with being back in the workforce.  I need to be careful that I don’t squander the few weeks I have before money earning becomes imperative. 

I’ve come to the critical juncture.  Which is worse – forcing myself through the seemingly agonising task of planning or the horrific possibility of frittering away my opportunity for concentrated self-healing?

In this case, I firmly believe that the pain of changing, though it seems worse right now, will actually be more bearable in the long run than the pain of staying the same.  I need to take a dose of my own planning based medicine – bitter though it may be to swallow right now.  I love the idea of writing a vision statement, which I will do and post here. However, I think that the SMART acronym (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic/relevant, time-related) may, in part, be aiding and abetting the anxiety because it is so cold and officious.  Being both depressed and anxious, I feel that I need to restate the principles so that I actually want to engage with them.

I propose a very different acronym.  I think all us little anxious or depressed fellows could benefit from making SUMMER goals.  Let me explain:

“S” is for Simple.  A goal should be simple.  This means it should treat only one thing and that thing should be written in language that is as plain and precise as possible.  Goals that are written in diffuse language aren’t overly helpful because they produce diffuse results, so plainness and precision are imperative.  I try to avoid stacking things into goals – I find that goals written in compound sentences are really just two or more goals that have been stacked together.

Here’s an example.

I want to have a manicure, a pedicure and a hair cut.

This is, in fact, three goals chunked together.  I think that when you’re suffering from anxiety, splitting goals up into the smallest possible units makes the whole process of achieving them much easier.

“U” is for Uplifting.  A goal needs to be uplifting.  Depression comes nicely packaged with negative self-talk that makes everything seem grey and lifeless.  I believe that this can be overcome by goals that are designed to lift the spirits and develop a sense of achievement.  This means framing the goals in language that makes you feel good.

Here’s an example.

I want to clean my house.

This satisfies the ‘simple’ requirement but it’s not super uplifting (to me at least).  I would write it something like this:

I want to turn my home into a bright, clean and clear space.

Yep, it’s flowery, but doesn’t it feel great? 

“M” is for Meaningful.  When you’re either anxious or depressed, no goal, however good for you, will ever get accomplished on purpose if it doesn’t mean something to you.  Meaningfulness (if that’s even a word) helps overcome the self-talk that I mentioned previously.  It also helps in the mental game when dealing with the ‘flight’ kind of anxiety, also known as doona anxiety.

Let me explain – in the above example, it talks about turning a home into a wonderful place to live.  This is a simple and uplifting goal however if you don’t really care about the state of your home because it’s your work environment that’s killing you, it may not be the best goal to start with.  I was advised to find the meaning in my life by my psychologist.  She suggested I read Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, which I plan to do as part of my healing process.  Once you find meaning, make goals that reflect it.

The second “M” is for Measurable.  I believe it is necessary to make goals measurable.  There is no way to chart your progress if there is no metric involved.  Two common metrics are quantity and time.  In my opinion, goals need to have a deadline or an amount of work to be done or both, even if they are ongoing.  Here’s an example:

I want to read more.

This is a wish, not a goal because all I have to do is read the back of a jar of peanut butter in addition to whatever I’m reading now and I will have achieved it.  It doesn’t really lead to any lasting improvement.  If I fiddle it around like this, it becomes easy to determine progress:

I want to read one novel per week.

This has both a quantity metric (one novel) and a time metric (per week).

In six weeks’ time, if I have read six novels, I will know that I have achieved my goal.  If I haven’t read six novels, I will know that I haven’t achieved my goal and will probably have a good idea of why.

“E” is for Energetic.  By energetic I mean that the goal must resonate with you.  It can’t just be something that you think is good and meaningful for you, it must be something that feels good and meaningful for you.  Your goals need to come from deep within your soul and they must make you tingle, otherwise the anxiety and depression could kill your desire to achieve them.  One of the best ways to do this is to meditate on what you need to progress in your physical, spiritual, mental and emotional wellbeing.  Shortly, I should be posting some pictures I drew that represented the issues that arose as I meditated on these four aspects of my self.   Another thing that helps with resonance is to check in with which chakras aren’t functioning well and meditate on what the blockages mean for you.  Finally, it can help to create a vision statement.  I won’t go into detail about that in this post, but will dedicate a post to it soon.

Last but not least, “R” is for Relevant.  No matter how simple, uplifting, meaningful, measurable or energetic a goal is, it will not propel you forward unless it is relevant to your overall vision.  Here’s a great example from my Dad:

My vision for my fitness is that I wish to be an ironman.  I think I’ll make a goal to eat ironman food (this refers to an ad campaign here in Australia for a breakfast cereal).

The eating of this particular breakfast cereal is completely irrelevant to my goal.  It will not actually train me to be an ironman, nor directly improve my fitness so that I am able to train more productively.  A more relevant goal might be this:

I will enjoy a two kilometre run every second morning for two months.

That goal is relevant to my vision.  It actually results in me starting to become an ironman, rather than just eating different food.

Now that I have sorted out my goal setting method, I’m off to set some depression and anxiety friendly goals. I think it’s important to remember that this is supposed to be gentle, fun and cathartic, not officious and driven, so I will take some time to set some really enjoyable and artistically encouraging goals to kick start my process.  I’ll share them when they are written and would love to take feedback on them.  I will also construct a vision statement upon which all these goals are based.  Once I’m done, I’ll write a follow up to let you know whether the process was particularly painful or not.

Just over a year ago, I think I would have killed my father and anyone who tried to stop me if I’d heard these three words one more time.

I should state for the record that I think my father is the best in the world (I’m not biased, honestly…) but I was so sick of hearing him tell me to heal myself  I was seriously contemplating death by pummeling.  You see, I’d just begun studies in natural medicine at a fairly well known college here in Sydney, Australia.  I was very much enjoying learning about everything, in particular homoeopathy.  I had been through the “What, ANOTHER career?!?” with my husband, parents, sundry other members of my family and a couple of my friends.  I had also reached that tense standoff point every natural medicine devotee who has students of orthodox medicine in the family reaches where everyone agrees that there’s a place for both in public and ruthlessly searches for examples of where the other side has failed in private. (I still believe I’m one up…)

I digress.

The reason I was so sick of hearing *those* words was that about the time I started studying, my health, (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual) began to decline.  I was going through some very tough experiences.  I was substantially overweight, I had torn my anterior cruciate ligament and so was not able to do heaps of exercise to overcome the weight, my husband’s health was in decline and that resulted in him being a bit more demanding of me than I could actually cope with.  I was working a job that I felt sucked every inch of creativity out of me and I’d just left another job that wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.  I was picking up minor illnesses left, right and centre and to top it all off, I was tired.  All the time.

I complained a lot to my parents.  Mum was very consoling.  Dad used the words.

At the time, I found them trite and grating.  Now, looking back more than a year later, I wish I’d had it in me to take his advice.  I was learning about everything I needed to heal others, yet despite recognizing that I could use them on myself, I never bothered.  Or perhaps, I was too overwhelmed with everything that was going on that I lacked the capacity to heal myself.  Perhaps if I’d taken the time to look after myself then, I wouldn’t be in this position.  Yes, it got worse.

At the beginning of last week, I resigned from my job with a company here in Sydney.  I left because I had such a horrid time working with the management there and being harangued within an inch of my sanity that I was teetering on the edge of a breakdown.  My mental health, in particular, was on a steep decline.  I went to see a psychologist because it was a requirement of my counseling course and found out that I was severely anxious and depressed.  I had sort of guessed that the anxiety was there – something to do with the palpitations and cold sweat every time my manager said she wanted to see me in the training room – but finding out that the depression was so bad shocked me.  I knew I wasn’t doing spectacularly well when I hobbled down the stairs at my parents’ house on crutches in tears after being unable to sleep due to my knee reconstruction a few days prior, my boss phoning me every hour demanding an update on the project I was working on and the antibiotics I had had pumped into me caused the destruction of all my good bacteria as well, resulting in a bunch of REALLY unpleasant side effects.  However I was still a little surprised at how high the scores came out.  By the time I had worked there six months, it became very apparent to me, my parents and my husband that either the job went or I did.  It took some negotiating – we needed to ensure that we could afford a sabbatical – but in the end, my husband told me to put in my resignation.

So – where does this leave me?  I’ll tell you…

I am going to heal myself.  It is blatantly apparent to me that very little of the stress I’ve endured over the last decade has actually seeped out of my system.  In fact, it has been so suppressed that, homeopathically speaking, it has worked its way into my constitution.  So – here is what I propose: a year of self care.  That’s right – I will be spending the next year in self-rehab.  This will include physical rehab by exercise and nutrition, emotional rehab by natural treatment of the depression, anxiety and stress, mental rehab by unblocking my creativity and helping me to develop a more retentive memory and spiritual rehab by delving deeper into my religion and spirituality.

I’d love for you to join me.

I will share daily activities I do to nurture and care for myself and the insights into life I receive from doing so.  I’d love your feedback and comments but I do ask that they be as positive as possible – I’ve had more than enough criticism and negativity to last me quite a while!  I’m particularly interested in suggestions on new activities or variations on ones I post up.  I’m also willing to consider special requests – if I post about something and you’d like more information or details, please leave me a message.

So – wish me well!  I’m off on my journey to wellness; my very own disaster-to-dream life transformation.  If more work needs to be done after the first year, I’ll do it again and again until I am healthy and happy in every aspect of my life.  I don’t expect that everything will suddenly be peachy and that I will spend the rest of my days prancing through fields of daisies in a flowing white dress with a wreath on my head, I just expect that I’ll be happy more than I’m sad and I’ll have found and be following my dreams.

P.S.  Yes, Dad – you were right.  Again.  ;^)