No way am I doing the “Happy New Year!” thing. I mean, with all a mood or anxiety disorder sufferer endures, I’m going to cliché you? No chance. Hey, we fight for what we get from life, so well wishes are going to stay in theme. Put up your dukes and let’s step into the ring…
Rarely are things as dire as we first experience and interpret them. Without intervention, cognitive distortions and subsequent knee-jerk reactions will nail us every time.
But!
My restrictions (hang-ups?) don’t need to get in the way of bringing you a positive message going into 2020 – and wishing you the best.
So…
10 Goodies to Take Into the Ring for Round 2020
If you’ve been a Chipur reader for any length of time you know I’m no spring chicken. And you also know I’ve been fooling with this mood and anxiety business for the bulk of my non-spring chickeness.
Been there, people. On the personal and clinical sides of the fence.
Perspective, angles, remedies, outcomes, joy, devastation, rage, and great hope: ain’t much I haven’t experienced. But sitting here today, if you asked me for 10 goodies to take into the ring, this is what I’d give you…
- Mood and anxiety disorders are legitimate illnesses that require ongoing assessment and treatment. They are the real-deal, and if you have one you won’t feel good – for lengths of time determined by what you have and what you do about it.
- Acceptance is the first and most important step in recovery. Why generate even more inner turmoil by denying the reality of your circumstances?
- Effective treatment is always a combo approach, not a one-hit wonder. A constellation of symptoms calls for a constellation of interventions.
- Never discount the impact of healthy lifestyle habits. Diet, exercise, sleep, calming the mind, etc. are real. Don’t blow them off.
- Finding and operating within one’s life purpose and passion makes suffering tolerable. Why would anyone want to endure what we do without some sort of life meaning?
- Rarely are things as dire as we first experience and interpret them. Without intervention, cognitive distortions and subsequent knee-jerk reactions will nail us every time. Don’t be fooled.
- Consider the presentation of troubling symptoms as dashboard warning lights. Rather than immediate disasters, they’re calls for calm assessment and positive action.
- There is something greater than each of us that holds the potential to comfort and sustain. Find it and nurture the relationship.
- Isolation is a dead-end. And thinking and believing there’s no option is a cruel self-deception.
- Hope is at times all we have. And it’s plenty strong enough to get us through any storm.
Tell ya’ what – how ’bout a bonus #11? I wrote the following on an index card and have carried it in my wallet for years. The words of psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, MD from The Road Less Traveled…
The symptoms and the illness are not the same thing. The illness exists long before the symptoms. Rather than being the illness, the symptoms are the beginning of its cures. The fact that they are unwanted makes them all the more a phenomenon of grace – a gift of God, a message from the unconscious, if you will, to initiate self-examination and repair.
Have always loved that.
Keep Up Those Dukes
Absolutely, I wish life as we know it didn’t have to be such a fight. But, yeah, it often just is. Still, it’s up to each of us to continue-on; finding gentleness, sweetness, and love where and when we can.
I assure you, they’re out there.
Hey! Wishing you the best in Round 2020. And thank you for being a Chipur reader. It means so much to me.
Bill
Be sure to check-out my new poetry and commentary eBook. Lots of feelings and perspective.
And as always, those hundreds of Chipur articles.
