Emotion: Hopelessness

Meaning: 1) You perceive that what you are doing will not achieve an intended result.
2) You perceive that what you can do could not achieve a desired result.

The purpose of the emotion of hopelessness is so we realize when something is hopeless. This emotion is supposed to tell us that what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, or what we think we are able to do will be entirely insufficient to produce the intended result. If we never felt a sense of hopelessness, we might be inclined to keep trying to do something totally useless without ever changing what we’re doing.

When I attended law school, one woman asked me for help. She noticed that I didn’t seem worried about my classes, so she assumed that I was on top of the information and might be able to help her pass her final. She asked if I would come by her condo sometime and help her study. I agreed, and we set a time.

When I arrived, her place was a mess. It wasn’t that she was incapable of keeping her place neat, it was all her law school books and notes spread out everywhere with empty chip bags, soda cans, and coffee mugs. She was a mess, too. She said that she had only slept a few hours each night for the last week getting ready for finals.

After quizzing her on a few basics, it was apparent that she didn’t remember anything from any of her classes. She could hardly remember her own name in that state, and she was obviously frazzled. Somewhere in her life she had learned that the answer was just to push harder, to study longer, to cut out distractions and focus on only her books. She was wrong.

Had she gained a proper sense of Hopelessness, she would have realized that there was no way she was going to achieve her desired result by studying that way. If she had that proper emotion and understood what it meant, she might have known that she needed to change. She was intelligent enough, but she lacked the study skills and strategies to master the information.

An improper sense of Hopelessness, toward which was what she was being quickly pushed, would tell her the she was incapable of doing law school. Ultimately, she didn’t have to change. She flunked out. It was really too bad because she was a bright young lady with a lot of promise, but she relied on just doing more of what she did in high school. However, she was at a level of education at which even good high school study habits would be insufficient.

Hopelessness is intended for a good purpose. Had that woman felt the emotion as it was designed to be felt and experienced, she would have long ago realized that she needed to do something different. Steven Covey, in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, talks about the need to sharpen your saw. She had the intelligence. She obviously had the drive and determination. What she lacked was a sufficiently sharp saw. The reason she thought I was on top of things wasn’t because I was the best student, or the brightest, or that I was totally certain of everything in all my classes. My grades will attest to the fact that I am not a perfect, ultimate student. It was simply that I had learned the study techniques that would be necessary for the level of education, and whatever my final grade, at least I was studying in a manner that worked for law school.

STEPS WHEN FEELING HOPELESS

What are we doing? What do we plan to do?

When we get a feeling of Hopelessness, there are several steps we need to take. Since Hopelessness has to do with a feeling that what we are doing or what we can do will not achieve an intended result, we have to consider whether the Hopelessness we feel has to do with an activity in which we are currently engaged, or something we either plan to or would like to do. It is important to consider this since we have to know what it was the triggered the feeling of Hopelessness. Once we know exactly what it was that triggered the Hopelessness, we can examine it more closely.

What’s our goal? Can we make it?

Once we know what we were doing or planning to do, then we have to look at the result we intended to achieve. Then we have to seriously consider whether our current course of conduct will be able to achieve our intended outcome. If it can and likely will, then we can simply continue our course of conduct and the emotion of Hopelessness should fade away. If what we’re doing should achieve our goal but there are some variables we need to address, then we address those variables and continue with our plan.

For this one, if we are trying to build a one million dollar retirement fund by the time we’re 70, and we’re 28 and only have $20,000, we might feel Hopeless since we don’t think we can save nearly $2,000 a month for the rest of our working lives. However, if we have $20,000 in an investment that averages 10% compounding interest a year, we’re actually right on track. If we earn 10% a year tax deferred for 42 years, it will double six more times. If it doubles six more times, it will go from 20k, to 40, then 80, then 160, then to $320,000, and $640,000 and finally, in the final seven years, to 1.28 million dollars. So having $20,000 at the age of 28 would actually be right on track for someone with a good tax deferred mutual fund.

The seemingly hopeless task would be revealed as not only being possible, but being highly probable. The feeling of hopelessness would go away once that full realization was made. We may have to make adjustments to account for down markets and move to safer investments as the time for retirement grew closer to reduce the chance that there would be a hard market downturn, which always happen - it’s part of the normal cycle - but seem to happen just at the time we need the money. As we move to lower yield but more predictable investments, we will be ready when the time comes.

What if it won’t work?

Two Steps:
1) Evaluate the Goal
2) Change our Action Plan

If we find that what we’re doing just isn’t working, there are two steps. One is to evaluate our goal. If a child has decided that if he can find a big enough towel, he can parachute off the roof, he needs to throw away that goal. Whether he uses towels, sheets or blankets, he will eventually hurt himself and there is very little benefit in achieving that goal, and much danger in the effort.

We must make similar evaluations. Is the goal something we really ought to pursue? What are to risks of trying? What are the odds of success? If a beautiful young lady leaves her small town home for Hollywood hoping to be discovered and become a movie star, what are her odds of success? What are her odds of being asked to do things that would probably violate her morals? In what sort of movie would she be most likely to find work? If, when we really think through something, we know that we can eliminate certain courses of action and we understand that we have to set some things up before we begin. Hollywood is full of young beauties who would love a shot at the big time and are willing to do just about anything for a chance. Nearly all of them end up in dead end, demeaning work. Exceptionally rare has been the one that can walk into Hollywood without an agent, a job, or a resume and make the big time.

If we conclude that the result is desirable, and we believe that it is possible - we just have to change what we do. If, for example, we know that what we’re doing with our children isn’t working, we know we have to change. We know that some children grow up to be wonderful adults, and even some severely troubled children can overcome. Because we know that this is true, we know that there should be something we can do as parents, no matter the circumstances, to make a positive difference. If we keep producing a result contrary to our intended result, we know that something needs to change. If we run out of ideas, we can ask others.

Consider that much of life is like a very complex maze. There are many, many beginnings, and even more exits on the other side. In between there are literally millions of paths that lead out, and also millions upon millions of dead ends. With the billions that have gone before, most of the paths have been traveled before, and someone knows the way. If we run into a dead end, we need to change directions, not live there. We will never beat the maze if we keep pounding our head into the wall of a dead end. We will never beat the maze if we just back up and run the same path again. Divorcing and remarrying and walking the exact same path with a new spouse will only produce the same result.

HOPELESSNESS FROM PERCEIVED INABILITY (also see Inadequacy)

The other source of Hopelessness is when you want to try something, you want to try to achieve a particular goal, but you don’t think you can do it.

I spoke to the parents of a young girl who saw a notebook of information that you learn in a martial arts class over the course of five years. In her training, she would only be required to do 12 pages a month. She would not even have to read the pages unless she forgot what she was taught in class. Half of the information was not even on a test; it was only there as reference material. In short, she freaked out over the helping tools and didn’t even want to try because she thought the effort was doomed to failure - hopeless - the truth of her perception notwithstanding.

When we feel a sense of Hopelessness in any undertaking we desire to undertake, the analysis is nearly identical to being caught in Hopelessness as we work out way through something. We need to evaluate the goal, evaluate what we think we can do toward that goal, and find out if there is a way to get there if we decide the goal is worthy.

We might need to acquire new skills, get help, redefine our goal, redefine what we’re willing to do to get there, or simply let go of the goal. Some people watch television and see a distorted view of the world in which serious problems are solved in half and hour or an hour with a few simple platitudes, or everything works out. We might see people driving nice cars, living in expensive houses, or having fantasy lives in some other way. We might only hear the best from others about their own lives and mistakenly assume that their whole life is like that - and be depressed because ours isn’t like that at all.

Some people have bought into an ideology, an often politically motivated set of beliefs that may or may not have anything to do with reality. By asserting personal rights over responsibility to others, we might destroy our marriages, raise our children to rebel against us (without realizing that they are learning this from us), and ruin many of our friendships. By accusing others of being the reason we, or our group, cannot succeed, we might trap ourselves when success was available to us if we worked at it.

So when we feel Hopeless because we do not think we can do a thing, we take many of the same steps we do when we feel Hopeless when we’re trying to do something. We ask ourselves what we want to do and ask ourselves to define our goal. Then we must seek to seriously evaluate whether or not the goal is possible for us.

If I set a goal to save one million dollars this year, I can’t do it. I don’t have a million dollars at all, much less that I can save. If I was a billionaire, saving one million would be easy. If I feel Hopeless, that’s good. I should feel Hopeless with that goal. It’s impossible.

If I make a goal to save 10% of my income, that might be possible. I might have to make serious adjustments in my life, but saving a small percentage of my money is easily possible. After all, I get along okay with money taken for taxes, social security, and all the other things that cost business money for employing us that we don’t see. If taxes went up, I’d manage. If I could manage if they took more, I should be able to manage if I’m the one taken money out of my paycheck.

The problem may not be the goal, it may be my ability to achieve a goal. Often, we get process oriented and we’re only willing to do certain things - but we want our goal. If we feel it’s hopeless to lose weight - but we keep eating lots and lots of high fat, high calorie food with little nutrition - we won’t lose weight. We might want to lose weight, but we have to find and follow a realistic process to do so. When I needed to lose 25 pounds, I simply made a decision and did it. When I wanted to get stronger, I started weight training and kept it up. If I had kept eating the way I was eating and exercising the way I was exercising, I’d have much more fat and much less muscle than I do now. Wouldn’t it be silly to be depressed about that if I never did what I was supposed to do?

Of course, the problem might be actual ability. Even with a good, sensible goal and a willingness to do “whatever it takes,” we may still be unable to achieve a goal without several intermediate goals. We might be unable to achieve a goal at all. I could never be a professional basketball player - I’m too short and can’t shoot. I could never be a professional jockey - I’m too heavy. There are a lot of things I haven’t the talent to do, and other things I’m too old to begin. I might be able to learn some gymnastics, but at my age, the Olympics is out of the question.

When you can’t do something, it often means that goals must be let go. If the problem is intermediate goals, we need to be willing to start slowly and do all the steps. If the problem is simply willingness, we must make decisions and take action without regard to our feelings.

A mother was tearful about her daughter. She had tried everything she could think of, everything she was told my every supposed expert she visited, and nothing seemed to work. Her daughter was emotionally unstable, and the mother felt that the child might spend her life with mental instability. She wanted an answer, but there didn’t seem to be one.

There might not be one. Some believe that mothers are not supposed to give up on their children, but that’s ridiculous. If what I want for my child is impossible for my child, then I have to give up on that. My child does not exist to fulfill all my goals. My job is to raise my child using everything I know and all the things I can learn. It does not mean that my child will fulfill my personal vision for his or her life. My child is an individual with abilities and limitations beyond my control. A lot may be possible, but I cannot change my child’s biology. As much as I might want to fix a disability, I can’t make an autistic child normal simply by being a good dad. I have to take the reality I have and conduct myself accordingly. In this case, I’d have to be the best dad of an austistic child that I can be.

DEPRESSION

When we understand Hopelessness as a useful Emotion, it should not be a prison. Even Christians, people who believe they have God Almighty as their Father and King, that the Holy Spirit indwells them, often feel Hopeless. That fact alone should tell us that there is more to Hopelessness than simply not having any hope at all. If people believe they are going to Heaven, if they have that hope, then why would they feel Hopeless? For the same reasons as anyone else, of course. Something they are doing seems futile to achieve a result.

When Hopelessness takes hold and won’t let go, it often results in depression. After all, when we feel Hopeless on a regular basis, especially if we don’t understand the emotion, we think that there is no point in anything. As we sink lower and lower into depression, it can be dangerous. If we generalize our Hopelessness to all of life, we can get suicidal. Thus, depression is an enormously dangerous place to be.

If we can narrow the cause of our depression down to a small handful of things, we can often deal with them as individual expressions of Hopelessness. However, as depression sinks in, it often spreads throughout our lives and permeates our view of everything. When that happens, we are imprisoned by it and breaking out of the prison requires a more complex process than dealing with two or three specific causes.

Referring to the Body, Soul and Spirit model, we know that Hopelessness takes place in the Emotion. However, Emotions are reflected in the Body. First, our Action expresses the feeling, our Senses seek information that will reinforce our feeling or could somehow be twisted to reinforce our depression, and then it takes hold of our physical Body, sometimes in the form of physical illness.

In our Soul, depression also changes our thinking as the emotion permeates upward, and it affects our decisions. In our Spirit, it will change how we respond to and deal with Others, it will build it’s own depression-sustaining Principles and it will impact our Religion. Something as powerful as depression can totally change us, like any powerful emotion that won’t let go. This truth lends itself to standing as an example of breaking free of an emotion.

BREAKING THE BONDS OF DEPRESSION

One woman suffered from clinical depression, and she was sick of it. She knew she had a wonderful husband, and she had wonderful kids, and she had a wonderful house. All these were facts stored in her brain, but for some reason she never felt happy. She had been depressed her whole life.

She didn’t want her children growing up seeing a depressed, sad, listless mother, and she knew that her husband deserved something more than a depressed, unhappy wife. So she decided that it was time to make a change. She spoke with friends and they prayed. After years of prayer, she was still depressed despite repeated admonitions and religious sounding platitudes she desperately sought to implement in her life. She was so fed up that she made an appointment to see a doctor about getting mood elevating drugs. She hoped that something would be able to break through the fortress of depression that had trapped her for her whole life.

The next day she was at her Cardio class, and the answer was given to her by the teacher. Among the things he spoke about that day was a mention of clinical depression, and how to cure it without drugs - provided the depression was not chemically induced in the first place. She listened intently, then she spent an additional forty five minutes with the instructor after the class. Breaking the depression would be a three part process, but the first part was so ridiculously simple as to almost be laughable.

She just had to move differently.

ATTACKING DEPRESSION IN THE BODY

It was obvious to anyone who looked at her that she was depressed. She was hunched over. She seldom smiled, and when she did, there was still sadness in her eyes. She moved with very little energy. Her first step was simply to take control of how she moved.

She just had to stand up straighter. She had to learn to smile a deep, genuine smile with her eyes and well as her lips. She had to practice laughing for no reason at all. She had to practice the gestures of joy and happiness, simply moving the way she would move if she was truly excited about life. She knew in her mind that she had a great family, so she was told to move like it, talk like it, and express the love and excitement she knew was appropriate for the wonderful things in her life. That was her first exercise.

As she learned to smile and stand straighter, she started breathing more deeply. Poor posture kills lung capacity, and once she stood up straigher and filled her lung more completely, her energy level started to rise. As she learned to smile more and gesture more excitedly, as she changed her voice from her depressed lilt to a voice of passion, she actually started to feel better.

As we change our Actions, it also changes our Senses. As we move differently, we see things differently. For instance, when we routinely hang our heads low, everything is “up” to us. Everything that happens, everything we have to do, everything we have to deal with comes at us from “up,” which means we’ve made everything bigger to our perception. The reason we talk about people with their noses in the air as arrogant and elitist is because that posture means they will be looking down at us, even if we’re taller than them. As we stand tall and strong, we see things more as they are, not artificially made bigger or smaller to our perception. It gives us proper perspective.

The Actions we take determine where we will be and what we will see, what we will hear, what we will touch, taste and smell. If we aren’t around something, we won’t perceive it. As we start to express ourselves differently and look for things that will support how we feel, we can support just about any emotion we choose.

As we will soon see in a letter this woman wrote, after several weeks of expressing her emotion with proper posture, her physical Body adapted. It actually changed. The proper posture that was so hard in the first few days became normal. Her back actually started to hurt more when her posture was wrong than when it was right. Her muscles had adapted to holding her Body in the position she had practiced.

ATTACKING DEPRESSION IN THE SOUL

There was no cause for her depression. She said her husband, children, home, church, friendships and everything in life seemed upbeat and positive - but she was her own dark cloud. She said that she had felt this way since she was a child. That meant that there wasn’t a specific cause to address. However, had there been any specific issues about which she felt Hopeless, those would have been addressed as normal Hopelessness exercises described earlier. She learned those excercises so when specific feelings of Hopelessness arose in the future, she could deal with the feeling effectively.

In the Mind, she had to change the way she thought. Our thoughts and feelings show up in our bodies. Not only is the change chemical, but it manifests in our posture and movement. If she allowed herself to dwell on the negative, it would impact the way she moved. To get that block out of the way and allow her to have full control of her body, she had to remove the mental blocks placed there by her emotional thought process.

He asked her to close her eyes for a moment. Then he simply said “Don’t think of a blue elephant.” When asked what she thought of, she admitted that she thought of a blue elephant. Sometimes people think they didn’t think of a blue elephant because they thought of something else, like a green tiger. But how do they know that green isn’t blue and a tiger isn’t an elephant? Their Mind had to take a quick peek in the blue and elephant files to compare them to make sure the green tiger wasn’t in any way the blue elephant. This woman, however, clearly thought of exactly what she was told not to think.

Then her instructor asked her about why she wanted to break out of her depression. She explained again what she didn’t want, and he asked her if she heard what she had just said. He asked “When you say you don’t want your children to see a depressed, sad mother, what do you see?” She admitted that she saw a depressed, sad mother - and she didn’t want to be that. But when she completed her thought, that’s where her mind stayed. That image of a sad woman remained etched in her mind.

In minutes she had learned that her thinking was backwards. She quickly learned to capture her thoughts and remind herself out loud about what she wanted, she wanted her kids to see a happy, energetic mother in love with their father, in love with them, and passionate about life. Suddenly her mind completely turned around, and when she changed her thoughts to focus on where she was headed, she was able to change her physiology. She could stand up straight just by reminding herself “Happy mom,” because she knew that she had every reason to be happy. Instead of focusing on what to avoid, she started to focus on what to seek.

To really illustrate this point, pull over on a street you often drive and try to think about all the things you don’t want to run into. You don’t want to hit that pedestrian. You don’t want to hit that car, or that other car. You need to avoid that sign, that light, that other sign, the businesses over there, the curb, not go in that parking lot, don’t turn at the next left or the next right. You get the idea.

There is no way you will be able to pay attention to everything you need to avoid. When you start to really look at those things, you lose sight of the road. Really, all you need to do is stay on the road and only pay attention to potential obstacles that get in your way or whose actions indicate they may get in your way. That’s a much easier thing to do.

Her Will, of course, was important because she had to choose happiness over depression. She had to simply exercise her Will to do what she had to do. In fact, her friends had prayed for her and one of them specifically thought she had to exercise her Will. The problem, of course, was that she had no idea what to do. All she got was platitudes. “Let Jesus handle it,” but how does one do that? “Give it all to God,” but can she put it in a box and drop it off at the church?

It is difficult to choose an outcome if you don’t know what steps will get you there. Once you know the steps, you simply have to do them. If you just don’t feel up to it, do it anyway. The hallmark of maturity, of being human rather than an animal, is that we can make choices exactly contrary to how we feel. Our Actions are not limited to what we feel like doing.

ATTACKING DEPRESSION IN THE SPIRIT

In this woman’s case, Others was easy. She had five children and a husband who loved her and whom she loved in return, several dear friends and many others who she helped through her work at her church. She dealt with them using all her exercises to show and express the love she genuinely felt, except she took away the longstanding veil of depression and really expressed her love by the way she moved, and expressed her joy by the sparkle she let shine in her eyes, and her gestures and smile. Others noticed, and in their compliments she found herself fueled with even more joy and enthusiasm as Others saw that she was changing right before their eyes.

In Principles, there were some adjustments to the way she lived life. For one, she quickly dispensed with the idea that you can’t help how you feel. This is a common Principle espoused by people who feel emotions that are inappropriate or destructive in some way if acted upon. She changed that Principle to “I can control how I feel.” She threw out the idea “I’ve always been like this, so I’ll always be like this” and changed it to “I can change right now.” As she made her decisions based on her new Principles, she reinforced those Principles and they became more real to her.

In Religion, she realized some important things that are actually Principles, but because they are so religious in nature, we’ll discuss them here. She realized that all her prayers for God to take control of her depression were largely fruitless because she didn’t have the control to give Him. She had given control away to her posture, to the inertia of her life, to her fear of what her children would see growing up. She had given control away, then when she didn’t have it, she tried to give it away again. She realized that she had been expected God to do something when He had already designed her with the power to change it herself. It would have been like being hungry and praying to be full when what we really need to do is go get some food and eat it.

Because she recognized that all of this works because it was designed to work this way, that in so many areas God built us to fix our own problems and that doing it herself didn’t mean that she wasn’t relying on God, she was able to fix it. Of course, God would not design human beings to need Him for everything or all the humans who rejected Him could never survive. If they only came to Him because they had no choice, then that isn’t really choosing God. Even among His people, so often they work without Him anyway. You don’t have to use Christianity as the example. Just look in the Torah. The Jews, His chosen people, blew it so bad when He was actually with them that they were forced to wander the desert for 40 years.

THE LETTER

Weeks later, as she had achieved a near total triumph over her emotions, she wrote a letter. The woman’s name is Dawn Knott, and with her permission her name is used and her letter reprinted. Yes, it was my wife and I that gave her the information she used to make the changes, all of it starting one night in a Cardio class when depression was brought up in a discussion. What followed was the forty-five minute teaching session with her after the class to explain exactly what she could do to beat her depression that had gripped her for 37 years.

Here’s her letter:

Hi Scot and Wendy,

I have been meaning to do this for about 10 days now and haven't. I wanted to write a nice card and mail it, but rather than let any more time go by, I thought email was good.

I just wanted to say THANK YOU!

1. For your ministry. I never would have imagined that I was walking into what I have become a part of when I first signed up for Cardio class. It was just suppose to be about exercise and losing weight. Instead, I have discovered a transformation of my life. God has just plunked you both down into my life and used you in a powerful way to open my heart and my life to truths that I have never been able to grasp until now. Thank you for your dedication and hard work, for your caring about your students, for giving your all to make me a better person, the person God created me to be.

2. Thank you for your prayers. I know with all that is in me that along with your talents and work, that your prayers have made an incredible difference in my life. I can feel this difference and I KNOW that you are praying for me. The work that I am doing is so much easier with the strength of the Lord that I have received from your prayers. I am BLESSED by your prayers.

3. Thank you for your encouragement. Actually, tonight, this rang so loud in my heart, that it is why I am sitting here now writing. I know for one of the first times in my life that when you say something about me that it is the TRUTH! That neither of you are feeding me a line or just saying something to be nice or you feel like you have to. I feel the honesty and the truth in what you say. Scot, you had said during one of my first classes that you never say anything that you don't mean. I KNOW that. Most of my life I have felt like people have been lying to me when they encourage me. I appreciate and BELIEVE what you both say. This is very different for me and it excites me! Thank you.

4. Thank you for sharing the expansive knowledge that you have. I have learned so much about the human body and physically how God created me to be. I know some of the things you say from my college classes, but, you put things so I have a good understanding of how the body works and why it is created a certain way and why I need to work a certain way to get it to do what God wanted it to do. (Does that make sense?) Your class is worth FAR MORE than what you charge each month!!!

I thank the Lord for putting both of you into my life. I seriously was at the end of my rope just two short months ago. WOW, what a difference I can say these weeks have made. It was SO totally arranged by God. You are the answer to the prayers Vira and Karen prayed over me. My hope has not decreased since the night we first talked outside, Scot. Different people have spoken to me or I have heard speak in these last weeks also about being ALL that God created me to be. I truly have that as my mission in life now. I desire with all my heart to be ALL that God created me to be and I am excited about getting there.

For the first time in 37 years (except for a few times that Deron has told me), I GET IT- that GOD MADE ME SPECIAL. THAT I AM A WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. It is still not really easy for me to laugh at myself in the mirror. I am still working on that one. But my life has been transformed- is being transformed. I can't wait to live everyday and see what is in store for me. WHAT A DIFFERENCE. I don't dread the day when I wake up anymore, no matter how tired I am or how many times the baby was up. I feel like I walk taller and stand stronger than I ever have. I know I am a much brighter light for Jesus now.

I love when people I know see the change in me! I know I am loving my children and husband more and better. I have the ability and the desire to live in the present now, not as much in the past. I do not fear as I did before, about what people think of me and how they see me. I don't think people see me as awful or ugly any more. My muscles in my back now are beginning to hurt more when I have bad posture than when I have correct posture! YEAH! Life is so exciting. I am so energized and excited to see both of you three times a week. I am excited to work out. I miss it when I don't. I miss you when I don't see you both. God has really blessed me! Praise Him to the ends of the earth!

I am sure I could go on for quiet a while here! Oh yeah, and the losing 12 lbs and 3 sizes in two months is quite the bonus too! Thank you both for all you have brought to my life. Thank you for your ministry, your dedication, your help, your obedience to God. I AM BLESSED.

Just wanted you to know.

Dawn Knott :)

PS: I LOVE seeing my smile, and so does Deron!

BIOCHEMISTRY

Sometimes we suffer certain emotions because of a medical condition. Sometimes our biochemistry is imbalanced and we require medication to even out our mood. For all the power of dealing with depression, or any emotion, by making a comprehensive attack on all levels, serious biochemical issues still need to be addressed medically. No one should just throw away their pills and start doing this instead. The time between the success one can have with these techniques and the loss of control by dispensing with the medicine can be enough to assure failure.

Rather, someone on medication should use all these techniques first. Then, only when a qualified medical specialist has indicated that it might be okay to try to wean you off the drugs do you start to get off the medicine. Remember, your brain and body have been using the medicine to do what they have not done, and you will probably need to strengthen those skills and your body’s ability to produce the necessary chemicals before you stop using medical assistance.

Also, if you biochemistry really is off, chances are there are some health issues. You should explore all the elements of creating a healthy body. You may have a low threshold for emotional problems from poor health, so you should take excellent care of your body in addition to the depression-specific exercises.