Translating our feelings can overcome stress & depression

Too many people are being diagnosed with depression when in reality they are just unhappy, says an Australian psychiatrist Gordon Parker.
Parker conducted a study which included 242 teachers who were followed for a period of 15 years. During that time, more than three-quarters of them were found to meet the criteria for clinical depression. These criteria include having a “low mood” for more than two weeks combined with appetite change, sleep disturbance, drop in libido and fatigue.
Parker says that having such a low threshold for diagnosing clinical depression creates the risk of taking the normal ups and downs of living and treating them as an illness. He argues that treating these individuals will not be effective because there is nothing wrong with them.
I tend to agree. Feeling sad occasionally in response to our circumstances is a normal part of living. Emotional pain can be a signal that we need to make some changes in our lives. If you touch a hot pan and get burned, do you take a painkiller to deaden the pain or do you learn from your mistake and use a potholder the next time?
A recent telephone conversation with an acquaintance got me to thinking about stress, anxiety, depression and all that is associated with them. Her life at
home was under so much stress raising her children, she said, it was affecting her
job. She wanted to change job assignments thinking this would cure her stress at
home. She wanted to rid herself of the job stress and drop it on someone else. It’s not as simple as that!
Perhaps the root of the stress or depression is at the home rather than the job itself. If we get to the bottom of the stress at home, then we will bring a better
outcome to the job. We call it working from the inside, out. Fixing our internal
self is a good place to begin. It begins with you, not some other person such as
your husband or children or some external issue. Fixing this first will allow you to
overcome stress or depression. Depression, stress and anxiety are often companions, and this is a global problem. One in six people around the world will suffer from major depression at some point in their lives.
When new challenges and opportunities show up in our lives, we may diagnose ourselves as feeling scared when what we really feel is excited. Often we have not been taught how to welcome the thrill of a new opportunity, and so we opt to back off, indulging our anxiety instead of awakening our courage. One way to inspire ourselves to embrace the opportunities that come our way is to look more deeply into our feelings and see that butterflies in our stomach or a rapidly beating heart are not necessarily a sign that we are afraid. Those very same feelings can be translated as excitement, curiosity, passion, and even love.
There is nothing wrong with being afraid as long as we do not let it stop us from doing the things that excite us. Most of us assume that brave people are fearless, but the truth is that they are simply more comfortable with fear because they face it on a regular basis. The more we do this, the more we feel excitement in the face of challenges rather than anxiety. The more we cultivate our ability to move forward instead of backing off, the more we trust ourselves to be able to handle the new opportunity, whether it’s a new job, an exciting move, or a relationship. When we feel our fear, we can remind ourselves that maybe we are actually just excited. We can assure ourselves that this opportunity has come our way because we are meant to take it.
Framing things just a little differently can dramatically shift our mental state from one of resistance to one of openness. We can practice this new way of seeing things by saying aloud: I am really excited about this job. I am really looking forward to going on a date with this amazing person. I am excited to have the opportunity to do something I have never done before. As we do this, we will feel our energy shift from fear, which paralyzes, to excitement, which empowers us to direct all that energy in the service of moving forward, growing, and learning.
If a person feeds on negative thoughts all day long, every task and every trial that comes his or her way will be approached from a defeatist attitude. We have the ability to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. It takes practice, but it is worth it!

John W. Cargile, Msc.D, D.D. is a licensed pastoral psychology counselor. He is a member of the National Education Association and Alabama Education Association. He is the author of a new novel, The Cry of the Cuckoos. www.thecryofthecuckoos.com You can contact him at jwcargile@charter,net. All conversations are confidential.