5 Steps Towards Resilience

The opposite of depression is not happiness, according to Peter Kramer, author of "Against Depression" and "Listening to Prozac," it is resilience: the ability to cope with life’s frustrations without falling apart. Proper treatment doesn’t suppress emotions or dull a person’s ability to feel things deeply. It builds a protective layer -- an emotional resilience -- to safeguard a depressive from becoming overwhelmed and disabled by the difficulties of daily life. Here, then, are five steps toward resilience.


1. Sleep
Sleep is crucial to sanity because sleep disturbances can contribute to, aggravate, and even cause mood disorders and a host of other illnesses. The link between sleep deprivation and psychosis was documented in a 2007 study at Harvard Medical School and the University of California at Berkeley. Using MRI scans, they found that sleep deprivation causes a person to become irrational because the brain can’t put an emotional event in proper perspective and is incapable of making an appropriate response.

2. Diet
My diet has always been an important part of my recovery from depression, but two years ago -- after working with the naturopath and reading Kathleen DesMaison’s "Potatoes Not Prozac" -- I could more competently trace the path from my stomach to my limbic system. Moreover, I recognized with new clarity how directly everything that I put in my mouth affects my mood.

Here are the bad boys: nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, sugar, white flour, and processed food -- you know, what you live on. Here are the good guys: protein; complex starches (whole grains, beans, potatoes); vegetables; vitamins (vitamin B-complex, vitamins C, D, and E, and a multivitamin); minerals (magnesium, calcium, and zinc); and omega-3 fatty acids. I’m religious about stocking up on Omega-3 capsules because leading physicians at Harvard Medical School confirmed the positive effects of this natural, anti-inflammatory molecule on emotional health.

3. Exercise
Studies showed that the depressives who improved with exercise were less likely to relapse after 10 months than those treated successfully with antidepressants, and the participants who continued to exercise beyond four months were half as likely to relapse months later compared to those who did not exercise. Even as little as 20 minutes a week of physical activity can boost mental health. In a new Scottish study, reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, 20,000 people were asked about their state of mind and how much physical activity they do in a week. 

Exercise relieves depression in several ways. First, cardiovascular workouts stimulate brain chemicals that foster growth of nerve cells. Second, exercise increases the activity of serotonin and/or norepinephrine. Third, a raised heart rate releases endorphins and a hormone known as ANP, which reduces pain, induces euphoria, and helps control the brain’s response to stress and anxiety. Other added benefits include improved sleep patterns, exposure to natural daylight (if you’re exercising outside), weight loss or maintenance, and psychological aids.

4. Relationships And Community
We are social creatures and are happiest when we are in relationship. One of the clearest findings among happiness research is that we need each other in order to thrive and be happy, that loving relationships are crucial to our well-being. Relationships create a space of safety where we can learn and explore. Belonging to a group or a community gives people a sense of identity. Studies indicate that social involvement can promote health, contribute toward faster recovery from trauma and illness, and lower risk of stress-related health problems and mental illness.

Plenty of evidence indicates that support groups aid the recovery of person struggling with depression and decrease rates of relapse. Another study in 2002, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, followed a group of more than 100 persons with severe depression who joined online depression support groups. More than 95 percent of them said that their participation in the online support groups helped their symptoms. The Depression Center here at Everyday Health are a great resource.

5. Purpose
The father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, explains in his book, "Authentic Happiness," that a critical element to happiness exists in using your signature strengths in the service of something you believe is larger than you. After collecting exhaustive questionnaires he found that the most satisfied people were those that had found a way to use their unique combination of strengths and talents to make a difference. Dan Baker, Ph.D., director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch, believes that a sense of purpose -- committing oneself to a noble mission -- and acts of altruism are strong antidotes to depression. And then there’s Gandhi, who wrote: "the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/11/how-to-be-resilient_n_4065246.html?utm_hp_ref=gps-for-the-soul&ir=GPS%20for%20the%20Soul

3 Steps For Making Your Career Dream A Reality

Remember the scene in "Pretty Woman" where a man asks, “What’s your dream?” I watched this movie the other night, and the scene sparked a thought for me: Everyone has a dream, but very few of us actually share our dream with others.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Often it’s just a matter of confidence or fear of failure. But that’s the catch, we all need help from others to reach your vision, find your passion or achieve your lifetime goals. So, how do you make that happen?

1. Clearly define your dream. 

Although most people have an idea of what that perfect life or career would look like, few actually define the details. Few people take the time to understand the components. Have you thought about your details? Who is in the picture? What is the setting? What are you wearing? How do you feel?

2. Acknowledge your dream. 

For most of the population, a dream feels unrealistic. The delta between our reality and our dreams may seem too great. Few people see dreams become realities. Those who make it a reality do it by visualizing themselves achieving the dream. They feel it, they can taste it. These are the people who have the confidence to clearly communicate their dreams to others.

You have to believe your dream is possible for you. If you have a hard time with this, flip the question around, and ask yourself why your dream isn’t possible for you. Then tackle those fears.

3. Share your dream. 

It’s time to start shouting from the rooftops. Let’s move away from all the gender issues and fear of failure. Some people will be intimidated by your communicating your desires. Stop listening to them. The people who see your vision, care about your passion or who have similar lifetime goals will step up to the plate and help you get there. Use appropriate language and effective communication techniques and share your dreams with anyone who will listen.

Throughout Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts’ character walks through these steps. She finds the fairy tale because she was clear about what that looked like for her, and she effectively communicated her dream with someone who could help her achieve it. I hope your professional circumstances are quite different than those in the movie — but that your outcome is the same.

You Need A Better Story

Everybody gets stuck. Life can be difficult, painful, and confusing. It's in those confusing seasons of life that we often find ourselves the most stuck, unable to change and move forward with our lives. I hate being stuck.

Solving Stuck
Like you, I've been stuck a lot. What immediately comes to mind is graduating college with no plan, the first and the second time my mom was diagnosed with cancer, that time my girlfriend broke up with me when I was just weeks away from proposing marriage, discovering a dead body in a lake, waking up one day and realizing I'd somehow become thirty pounds overweight during my twenty something years, and that terrible day when I was left unemployed for the first time in my life with two young sons, a pregnant wife, a mortgage, and a chest full of fear.

I've noticed that my tendency (and the tendency of everyone on the planet) is to solve stuck by doing something. We set new goals, write a to-do list, read a self-help book, and try to get un-stuck. Now, there's some merit to this. We certainly need to take action. But, at least for me, I've found that the problem of stuck runs much deeper than what can be fixed by a new exercise program, a change of scenery, or the latest method for improving my self-esteem. I need something bigger.

Finding A Story
A few years ago I read a quote that changed my life. Here it is:

The same impulse that makes us want our books to have a plot makes us want our lives to have a plot. We need to feel that we are getting somewhere, making progress. There is something in us that is not satisfied with a merely psychological explanation of our lives. It doesn't do justice to our conviction that we are on some kind of journey or quest, that there must be some deeper meaning to our lives than whether we feel good about ourselves. Only people who have lost the sense of adventure, mystery, and romance worry about their self-esteem. And at that point what they need is not a good therapist, but a good story. Or more precisely, the central question for us should not be, 'What personality dynamics explain my behavior?' but rather, 'What sort of story am I in?' - William Kilpatrick, Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993

I realized I'd been asking the wrong questions. I'd been asking questions that were too small. When life got hard and I got stuck I tended to ask questions like, "How do I fix this?," "What's wrong with me?", "What do I do now?" Instead I started asking myself, "What sort of story am I in?"

Stories are powerful. Whether we're conscious of it or not, every single one of us believes some kind of a story in order to make sense out of our lives. Human beings are meaning makers. No matter our culture, background, or beliefs, we need to make meaning of our lives and the story of our life only begins to make sense when it's understood under the banner of a bigger story. We need a story that is big enough to make sense out of both the beauty and the brokenness in our lives and in our world. Or, in other words, we need a story that's big enough to get us un-stuck from whatever life throws at us and to keep us moving forward in the plot.

You Need A Better Story
Change and forward movement in our lives isn't merely a matter of trying harder. It's a matter of believing and living more deeply into a big story in which we each have an important role to play.

Your life would actually be a lot better if your life could become less about your life. If you could see that your life is part of a larger plot than simply "the story of me," then adventure, mystery, and joy would reenter the picture. Most of the stuck-ness in our lives is a product of an over focus on our lives. We spend so much time looking in, when we ought to be looking out and up. The late Austrian philosopher, Ivan Illich, was once asked about the most revolutionary way to change society. He answered the question this way:
Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into our future so that we can take the next step... If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.-- Ivan Illich, "Storytelling or Myth-Making? Frank Viola and Ivan Illich," Proclamation, Invitation, & Warning, July, 2007

What our larger society needs is the same thing you need: an alternative story. A bigger story. Ditch the small goals, anxious to-do list, and the self-help craze of the month. Instead, get your heart wrapped into a better story and watch what happens.

What sort of story are you in?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-buzzard/you-need-a-better-story_b_3397077.html.

Discover Your Purpose And Passion

It is so easy to say…discover your purpose and passion and you will unlock the true potential in your life — if only it were that simple.

For many of us, it has been so long since we had that feeling of true inner joy where time didn't seem to matter because we were doing what we loved…we forget how to dream, how to know what we even really want in our lives. Like a dog chasing its tail, we get up each day and do our best at our job, as a friend, in our role as parent, but is that enough? Is that all there is to life?

For me, the question was always could I get back the feelings I had as a 10-year old playing outside, reading or learning when I was perfectly in tune with life, unbelievably happy. For me, there were different points in my life that contributed… That led to the question – how do you discover your purpose and passion?


Here are 3 methods that you can use to change your life, regain excitement and fulfillment no matter what your age or circumstances…

1. Recall our childhood – I think if we look back on as much as we can remember between 5-18 we will remember/find passions we had at that time. We had time to dream, less preventing us from taking time to think and dream. Part of finding passion involves going back to those times and remembering what interests and passions you had back then. Sure, there may have been some bad stuff too…but really focus on what gave you the most joy and happiness. These years are where I did most of my initial learning, found music, discovered that I was very good at being critical, questioning and finding solutions to things – these are now passions.

2. When you go through momentous times in your life…major health challenges, a crisis, or a really happy time in your life (wedding, birth of a child, moving to a new job or country) It seems these times allow us to shed what has been hanging over our heads and focus on our passions once again

3. Relaxation and Introspection – learning to meditate effectively over the last 15-years or so has meant I get constantly to re-visit my passions, something I am thankful for each day. Focus first on learning to meditate and calm your mind, then you can begin to work toward guided meditations in which you can seek out your purpose and passion without a cloudy mind from the day's challenges.


Happiness, clarity, focus, health and well-being and earning potential are all linked very closely (if not dependent on) you finding your purpose and passion – do you know what your passion is?


http://www.peak-personal-development.com/blog/index.php/discover-your-purpose-and-passion/