Beyond Blue

Last year on this day, I got fired. That was a real pleasant Groundhog Day. I was so confused by what had happened that I drove around the D.C. beltway twice. I missed my exit, and realized that halfway around the second time.

I just thought on this day, you could probably use some winter depression busters, too, although I know I published them last month.

Let’s call a spade a spade: winter sucks for some of us. So, little marmot, I don’t care what you do. I don’t care if you get yourself a nice rat for dinner, I’m sticking to these techniques regardless of whether the hairy little thing sees his shadow or not!

1. Watch the sugar.I think our body gets the cue just before Thanksgiving that it will be hibernating for a few months, so it needs to ingest everything edible in sight. And I’m convinced the snow somehow communicates to the human brain the need to consume every kind of chocolate available in the house. We are mammals, yes, so do we think we need an extra layer of fat in the winter to keep us warm? I’m starting to think so.

Depressives and addicts need to be especially careful with sweets because the addiction to sugar and white-flour products is very real and physiological, affecting the same biochemical systems in your body as other drugs like heroin. According to Kathleen DesMaisons, author of “Potatoes Not Prozac”: Your relationship to sweet things is operating on a cellular level. It is more powerful than you have realized….What you eat can have a huge effect on how you feel.”

2. Stock up on Omega-3′s.

During the winter I’m religious about stocking in my medicine cabinet a Noah’s Ark supply of Omega-3 capsules because leading physicians at Harvard Medical School confirmed the positive effects of this natural, anti-inflammatory molecule on emotional health. I treat my brain like royalty–hoping that it will be kind to me in return–so I fork over about $30 a month for the Mac Daddy of the Omega-3s, capsules that contain 70 percent EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid). One 500mg softgel capsule meets the doctor-formulated 7:1 EPA to DHA ratio, needed to elevate and stabilize mood.

3. Give back.

Ghandi once wrote that “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Positive psychologists like University of Pennsylvania’s Martin Seligman and Dan Baker, Ph.D., director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch, believe that a sense of purpose–committing oneself to a noble mission–and acts of altruism are strong antidotes to depression.

The winter months are a good time to do this because the need is greater, the holiday spirit ideally lasts until February, and you don’t have the excuse of attending family picnics, unless you live in California or Florida.

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Writer Jennifer Yane once said, “I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days will attack me at once.” Admittedly, I spend too many days myself running from “the attacks of the calendars.” I am thinking that if I didn’t have so much stress in my life, I MIGHT be able to grab a cup of coffee first thing in the morning instead of jot down in my mood journal: how many hours I slept, where I am on my menstrual cycle, my anxiety/depression level upon waking, and any other important notes I need to record for my therapy and doctor’s visits.

It’s an awful lot easier to stay resilient, even if you have a severe mood disorder, when you’re not encased in stress. When you have all that cortisol—the backstabber hormone—mucking around in all of your biological organs, staying sane is about as easy as getting off a chair lift for the first time, or so it feels.

Here are a few steps I’ve been practicing lately to stay resilient in my days and nights loaded with stress.

1. Quit the guilt.

For some reason, the more stressed I get, the more guilty I feel about being stressed, which makes me more stressed. If none of that makes sense, simply move to the next point. If you were raised Catholic or Jewish, my guess is that you can relate. In a recent therapy session, my counselor gave me an assignment for two weeks: every time I’m about to feel guilty, give myself a hall pass until our next session. The two-week exercise made me mindful of the needless baggage I carry with me throughout the day.

Enough with it!

If my guilt is not helping matters—like making me act more like Mother Teresa, which it clearly isn’t, according to my kids—then I shall try to lay it on the doorstep and walk on a little lighter. In my guilt video, you’ll see how I compare it to a bag of rocks.

2. Carve a little space for “Ahhh”

I know I should tell you to meditate or do yoga here, but being that I have not had great success with either, I will tell you what works for me: swimming!

Why? Because I can’t concentrate on anything else when I’m swimming my laps but how many laps I’ve swum. And if you are OCDish like I am, obsessing about numbers of laps is a nice break from fretting about millions of things that could go wrong. I wish I were one of those people who could sit still and meditate or pray for long amounts of time. However, coming to terms with who I am—a person who needs to move while meditating or praying—is part of tackling the stress head on, and ditching the guilt about the way I do it.

3. Laugh at the messes.

Each Christmas season, I like to post “The Dysfunctional Holiday Letter” because it allows me (and maybe you) to chuckle at those holiday letters that make you want to use the airplane bag because they are just so wholesome, positive, and down right impressive! It always seems as if the events in other people’s lives flow seamlessly, and ours is a choppy river. But everyone is paddling against the current. I know this because, as someone who lives her life as an open book—with the front jacket listing 20 of my disorders–people tell me things they wouldn’t publicize to a stranger, much less their relatives and friends. And it’s genuinely funny stuff! All of the mistakes, disappointments, ironies of our lives are Jon Stewart material. If we can try our best to look for the humor in the messes, the cortisol running through our systems will stop being a choppy river, too.

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I’m sure most of you are familiar with the poem “Desiderata.” The framed text hung in the laundry room of my childhood home, and every time I read it I came away with something new. The word “desiderata” is Latin for “desired things.” The the poignant poem was written by the American writer Max Ehrmann (1872-1945), however it was generally unknown in his lifetime. I’m hoping the same will be true of everything I write. All I have to do is die first!

Here is the full text.

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

American journalist Allen Saunders was the first one to coin the phrase, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” I’m sure most of you can appreciate the truth of those words.

In the last three years, life events have had me in a kind of half-nelson, from which I keep trying to escape instead of relax and surrender … as much as human beings can. I’ve gone over some of this before, so I apologize if it’s redundant to some readers….

Three years ago, my life took an unexpected turn when the construction market sort of fell into the toilet, and the world suddenly had little need for architects like my husband. I began my mad chase for a job with benefits, or at least health care insurance and a stable income.

My mental health/ spirituality writing is, without question, my passion and what I feel is my life purpose.

But they can’t exactly feed my family or give us the health insurance we need. So I became a government contractor and consultant with one of those humongous companies that has its own TV ads. I got fired. Well, first I was sent to boot camp. But even after I graduated from there, I still wouldn’t drink the freak’in Kool-Aid. Back to freelance writing I came. However, to make enough income, I had to work like four jobs. So I wrote for a gazillion Web sites. When my appendix burst, I took it as a sign that I did not have same DNA as Linda Carter (Wonder Woman). Besides, my COBRA health insurance plan was about to run out, and I know by experience that good health insurance must be priority number one when career planning.

Last August, as soon as I got stitched up (literally), I took a full time position leading the communication efforts of a small, local technology firm. Even though I am not an engineer or ontologist (just learned what that is!), and do not get AS excited about cloud computing and Semantic Web technology as other software developers, I feel incredibly blessed to have found a company where I can be myself (sarcastic as hell) without being sent to sensitivity training, to be at a place where I genuinely like and respect all of my co-workers. It’s a first!

I have tried, over the last six months, to maintain Beyond Blue as best as I can. But it has taken a toll on me, as well as my family. In the last two months, my husband and I have also had to address some important issues that have surfaced with both kids—hours of attention (patience attention) that are impossible to give when you’re stressed out. And in the last two weeks, we’ve had a health crisis in our family that will require extra caregiving on our part (and additional hours).

Life happens when you are busy making plans.

I don’t mean to whine, as I have been criticized for doing on this blog. But I do feel the need to be perfectly honest with you about where I am, because I find that when I lay my problems and burdens out like this, some of you are relieved to know someone else is struggling to get through the day, and that the person writing this blog has plenty of issues herself.

So what does this mean for Beyond Blue?

I’ve decided to not renew a contract for right now; I don’t want the pressure of having to produce an original piece every day, or at least four times a week. However, I am going to try my best to post something at least three times a week. I may have to rely heavily on archives, but many of you come and go, so I don’t think that will be a huge problem.

On a post I recently published on how to grieve the loss of a loved one, a reader asked how to grieve the loss of a dream …

I thought it was an excellent question, one for which I’m still trying to find the answer. In a sense, I feel like that’s what I’m going through right now … I’m transitioning from being a professional writer on a topic that inspires the best in me to being a communications advisor—with a little writing on the side as a hobby. Beyond Blue is no longer a primary source of revenue. When introduced to people, I won’t say I am a “writer” or “blogger.” It’s now a hobby or a ministry that I do when I can.

I will still write original posts when I can. And you will see at least three posts/a week for now. But trust that you are not alone if life is happening while you are busy making plans.

Artwork by the talented Anya Getter.