Depression and Anxiety are Two Sides of the Same Coin

In this week's video, we're going to take a look at depression. It's an issue so many of us are dealing with nowadays, and I want to give you really in this video five new ways to think about depression, what it is, and how we can actually start to deal with it in a much healthier way. So we're going to take some time here with depression. I want to thank you for being here first of all, because maybe someone you know is dealing with depression. Maybe you yourself are dealing with depression or have dealt with it in the past. And actually somebody sent me a question, and it was quite a long question, but there's one section of it here that I want to read to start our video today. And this person is dealing with depression. With their question, the part that I wanted to read at least was, it says, I was fine up until about three months ago, and that was until I had an interaction with my boss. So they were fine up until recently. An interaction happened with their boss, an authority figure, and she gave me some terrible feedback. It completely took me by surprise as my performance had been excellent until then. I had a series of panic attacks after this, and as the weeks passed, I found myself slipping into a depression. Nothing makes sense anymore, and I don't see a way out of this. I feel completely lost, useless, and without hope. Okay, so that last part there, without hope, is really the quintessential aspect of depression. And the first thing I want you to take away from this, the first tip, if you like, is that what we need to do is understand what depression is. Because there's so many people, I mean, do a Google search on depression, what is depression? Or how do I deal with depression? How do I get over depression? And you'll find hundreds of thousands of hits. But essentially, you could break it down to, I mean, it is a big topic, but essentially, you can think it's going to be a feeling of there's no hope. I've lost hope here. Now, hope in what? Essentially, you could say it's hope in terms of getting my emotional needs met. So it's a lack of hope that leads to a futility that we experience in life. So that's the first tip. We need to understand what depression is. And one way to think about it is it's typically, it's the sensation of a feeling of hopelessness in our life. Just in general, you know, if you are someone that's dealing with depression, I see a lot of people with depression. I see probably more people with anxiety. And as we'll see here, two of these things are not unrelated. They're very closely related. In fact, you could even say that they're the opposite sides of the same coin, in a sense. But if you are someone who's dealing with depression, I want you to realize that it's absolutely okay for you to be going through what you're going through right now. We really need to start giving ourselves permission. Now, it's not a nice experience. I mean, obviously, it's not a nice experience. But so many of us go through this experience at some point in our life. So we need to give ourselves permission. We need to realize it's an absolutely fantastic time in our life, even though we do want to withdraw into ourselves and isolate ourselves. It's a great time to think about, okay, if I've ever considered talking to somebody, or if I've ever considered seeking out help, professional help, maybe. This is probably a great time to consider doing that. And I can tell you, so many people that have gone through this, once they've managed to come through it on the other side, they actually look back and think, that was one of the most transformative things that has ever happened to me. Now, I'm not saying we actively go out there looking to depress ourselves or experience a depressive episode. Typically, it's the life itself will offer that opportunity to us. There's many things that will bring on an episode of depression. But we do tend to re-evaluate things through this. It's also okay for us to be vulnerable. Typically, we're often in a position or a state of being where we're not vulnerable, or we're very reluctant to be vulnerable that leads up to this. So in seeking out help, to work with someone who's okay with you being vulnerable, and any good therapist will obviously do that. The other thing is to realize, okay, I'm going through this experience of depression. It's a good time for me to slow down. It's a really good time for me to slow down. I mean, the body is probably already showing us to slow down. When we're depressed, our energy levels are just non-existent sometimes. Especially in a clinical depression, it's sometimes even difficult to lift your arm up, never mind do anything. So it's really about slowing down. The other thing is, you know, there's the biological explanation about dopamine, serotonin levels in the body, in the brain. And personally, I don't know. I have kind of mixed feelings about this. What I do know is that many people I've talked to have given me a prescription by a psychiatrist and have said that it's been very, very helpful to them. Other people have had poorer results. There's a lot of debate about this whole issue, obviously. But from my point of view, I can completely understand why someone will go to the psychiatrist when they're depressed. Especially, and here's the thing, especially if they have no social support in their life. But what I would encourage people to do, and I think a lot of doctors do this now, is that they encourage people, even if they are going to get a prescription, is to also seek out talk therapy or counselling while they're doing that. Whether or not it is a purely biological phenomenon that leads to the depression, or maybe it's life itself leads to the depression, and then the neurochemistry of the brain changes to reflect that, I'm not sure. But I do know one thing for sure, is that if we're going through a depressive episode, it's a great time to seek out help. The mindset we find ourselves in, it's very, very difficult to get out of that mindset by ourselves. So whether it be professional help or even some person or group of people in your life that you know you can rely on and you can be vulnerable with, we need to reach out to those people. Okay, so the first thing, as I mentioned, is if we understand what depression is, it's a lack of hope, or it's a feeling of futility. In terms of, I don't think I'll be able to get my emotional needs met. The second thing I want to say, is that we need to realize that depression is not about trying harder in life. It's not about trying harder in life. In fact, it's often after a prolonged period, many, many years of trying hard, and we realize something goes wrong, that a depression takes place. So if trying hard was the cure, I mean, what about all those years of trying hard that led up to the depression? It has nothing to do with trying hard. And of course, I mean, everybody who is experiencing depression, you know, if they thought that trying hard was going to actually do anything, of course they would do it. When we're depressed, we don't believe that. We don't believe that it's going to work because we have already been in a pattern of trying hard for a long time. And actually we don't even trust trying hard anymore. So it's not about trying hard. But the next three little tips here, I'm going to talk about, we're going to really try and break it down. And the third thing I'm going to say here is that we need to accept that this, whatever the situation we're in, and this person was in a situation where things were going well, and an event, it was bad feedback in this situation, led to this depression. It led to anxiety before that, and then a depressive episode. It's what I would sometimes refer to as we attach ourselves or we develop a persona, which is a protector for us, maybe in a work environment or any environment or situation. But we have to accept that this protector sub-personality or persona we develop, and I'll explain that a bit more now soon, that will only take us so far. So what do I mean by this persona or this sub-personality that we rely on? Well, where are my people pleasing? Where am I desperately searching for validation from other people to be successful, to be popular, to be smart, to be respectful, to be ready for everything, to be more powerful or confident in myself? These are all things that we feel, we wear as armor when we're out there trying hard in life. And, you know, that's all well and good. That's, I mean, we all do it, right, to a certain extent. Now, it's all well and good when that's working for us. So, you know, I'm out there trying to be successful and I'm trying to be popular. I'm trying to convince everyone I'm a pretty smart guy. I'm trying to show everybody that I'm really ready for this. Until some kind of an event comes up and we realize this whole persona that I'm actually attached to here is incredibly fragile to the point where it takes some event like negative feedback. And, you know, maybe the negative feedback in this case was not delivered very well, for instance. Okay, maybe your boss, your manager yells or something, which is completely inappropriate, by the way. But we realize that this thing that I'm trying to maintain here, this public image, this persona actually is not going to really work. It's not really very robust at all. So we can start to accept that this thing hasn't worked. And, you know, this is really the realization that we get to in depression. You know, we're trying to cultivate that image secretly over here in our shadow aspect of our psyche. It's like all this unworthiness and low self-esteem and low confidence and stuff I don't want to deal with. This persona is a way that we try to avoid that. We try to certainly avoid other people seeing it or sensing it in us. And an event comes up, the persona fails us, and we find ourselves over here, painfully reminded about what it's like to be over here. This is the depression. We're in the depression. But here's the thing. We're in this shadow aspect of the mind. That's what depression is. There's no hope over here. But we're still secretly kind of attached. We think I should really be trying to save my persona. Okay, I should really try to go back in there and be successful. And maybe other people are telling us to go back in there and try harder. But we know it won't work. We know it's very painful. We know how vulnerable it is. And we also know how much energy goes into cultivating that or sustaining that image of ourselves. It's exhausting. It's completely exhausting. Now, what do we do with this? I mean, it's almost cruel to tell a person, look, really, we're attached to being a pleaser. We're attached to being successful. We're attached to being respectful and smart and everything else. Over here, we're beginning to sense it's impossible. They're never going to accept me as those things now. So it would be almost cruel to tell a person, you know, you have to forget all those things. Don't try to be successful anymore. That's a pipe dream. That's what the person already believes when they have depression. Okay, now here's the thing. Yes, the attachment to the persona. Is very fragile, but only with the interpretations we currently had or we had before we had the depression. I'm going to explain that in a bit more depth here. What we need to do is, with all the practical advice about finding a better support system and everything else, on a psychological level, what we need to do is find a way to reinterpret all the things we used to be attached to in this persona. In a way that is going to be a lot more robust. Now, really what we're trying to do is drop the persona entirely because actually what's happening is that when we're in our persona, we're only strengthening our shadow. All this hopelessness, unworthiness, I'm not good enough, there's something wrong with me stuff. But we're going to reinterpret them, which is actually another way of saying we're going to get out of the persona entirely. When we're out of the persona, we're into our authentic personality ourselves. So for instance, what do I mean by that? I'm kind of attached to being a pleaser. If I have to go back into work now, I'm depressed and I have to go back in there, I'm going to have to be the pleaser again. And it would be very scary for me to go in there thinking, what if I'm not supposed to be the pleaser? Who the hell am I if I'm not the pleaser? Well, let's first of all realize what the pleaser is. The pleaser, if we look at the fine print there, when I'm people pleasing in work, it really means I am putting my own needs at the bottom of the list or I'm putting them as not important at all. I'm perceiving them as not important at all. It's self-sacrificial. People pleasing. Now to reinterpret this doesn't mean that you go over here and now you're the person that doesn't please anybody or you're something else, right? A better definition of people pleasing would be, yeah, I'm going to please people and I'm including myself in that. I please everybody. I please myself and I am open to pleasing other people too. That's a different definition to the one we had previously been using. What about our definition of success? If you're in the depressed mindset and you have to go back in and try and attain that success, which hasn't worked and it seems hopeless. But what have I been attached to over here? This idea of being a success. What does that really mean? It means to be somehow better than the loser I secretly think I am over here or better than other people in the job I'm in or something. We need a new definition of success if we're going to come out of the depressed mindset. Something we can start to cultivate a better relationship with as an attachment if you like. And we want to start to see success as, okay, what is success to me? Well, I know when I was in my job I felt anxious all the time. My new definition for success when I go in there is going to be my own emotional well-being. Not going to be some exterior feedback I'm given necessarily. But the ultimate marker for success here in this position I'm in is how do I feel emotionally when I'm in this place? And my goal is that I'm going to start to feel more peaceful. And that is my only job when I return if I'm staying away from work for a while maybe. This thing about being smart, okay? If I have to go back in there and pretend like I know everything when deeply I feel insecure about my lack of knowledge around a lot of things which is completely natural and human. What does it really mean to be smart? It means to pretend I know everything. So I'm not going to go back in there and pretend I know everything anymore. I am going to go in there. I'm going to be smart. And my new definition of smart now when I go back is I'm going to be the one who questions. Who asks questions. Because smart is curious. You know, I don't know. Can you tell me more about that for instance? I'm not going to pretend like I know everything because secretly I have this low self-esteem over here where I'm maybe super critical of myself all the time. Any number of these things. Respectful. There's a good one. I need to be respectful towards my manager. What does this respectful really mean? Respectful means I need to be a doormat. I can't ever express any of my own emotional needs in case somebody might feel I'm being disrespectful. So that's what we've been attached to. That's and that has influenced our behavior. A new definition of respectful. I'm going to be respectful to myself. I'm going to speak authentically. I'm going to consider other people's feelings but I'm also going to consider my own feelings and my own preferences and needs. And that's our new definition. Okay. You see, this is where you do a lot of the work in therapy is to convince someone to come out of a depression. Is to realize you're not going back into that old way of being which was very, very anxiety provoking. Deep feelings of insecurity there all the time in case this fragile thing I'm trying to achieve gets pulled down. We just need to realize there's an alternative. There's an alternative mindset that we can occupy that isn't exhausting and also doesn't rely on as heavily at least on external validation. Now the fourth thing I'm going to talk about here is related to what I've been saying already is that when we're working with depression we can accept that the persona that we develop does not and will never work. So the persona that we're developing and it's fragile and it's proven to us in this person's question it's proven that it was very fragile. It does not work and it will never work. It certainly will not work long term. It can work for a short period of time and you know that's when everything seems like it's going great. Maybe I'm still being a people pleaser and I'm trying to be popular and everything else. It's good while it lasts but the point is it won't work and it will never work long term. Okay. Eventually something you know a pin will will break that bubble right and we will realize okay this thing was kind of built on a house of cards if you like. It's okay. We realize I'm just not going to I'm going to look at all my attachments this person I'm going to look at from my point of view what I can do. Maybe I don't have to go back in there and be a doormat. Maybe I can talk about my own preferences a little bit. And you know if there was any abuse going on in there maybe I can take some action in that because I'm as valuable as anybody else is. Okay. Each situation is obviously very very different. But this is about accepting that our persona does not work and it will never work. Finally the fifth thing is we're going to reinterpret the persona to discover new ways to live. So all our decision making will be different. Our behavior will be different. Our boundaries will be different. When we start to reinterpret what our values are and what we're attached to in this persona that we're trying to cultivate. It's no coincidence. You know it's it's it as in this person this person's question. It was an event came along that challenged the persona and maybe wasn't done in a very sensitive way which doesn't help. But anything that challenges the persona is likely to put us into a into a depression. Now really the attachment that we have to the persona is not particularly good anyway. And there are better alternatives better ways to live which is what we'll discover. And though that that way of living as I said it has an influence on. OK. First of all how am I thinking and perceiving about myself in this position or my life. How valuable am I. Am I as good as anybody else or am I as valuable as everybody else. These are the kinds of things that we're reinterpreting after depression with therapy. It can be very very helpful to do that for instance or with someone that you really trust and is supportive unconditionally. But it's a little it takes a little bit of time. Get to do this. This is deeper work and it sometimes involves challenging the old ways of seeing that we had prior to the depression setting in. We can take take a good long look at our values and the attachments that we had and we can start to drop some of those reinterpret what's valuable what isn't valuable. And when we do that we gently are willing to come out of depression. We won't come out of the depression until we're willing to. And you know if someone's saying just go right back into that old persona you had who would ever do that because they know that that doesn't work and it feels very dangerous. We've reinterpreted this and now we feel okay there's actually another option and it's called stepping into authenticity. It's stepping into self-respect stepping into a new way of thinking about yourself and the relationships in your life. It has to be a new way because the old way we had has lost hope for us. Again it's that hopelessness which is the essential thing about depression. A new way offers new hope. Okay and now we have that hope back. What if I did this differently? What if I started to do things in a way that I've never really done before? Now obviously with a lot of support and encouragement, rest, self-care, those things are all fundamental. I mean I'm talking about the persona and the shadow here. I mean I wouldn't start off talking to somebody with depression really about these things. Really fundamentally self-care. I mean that's one of the first things that kind of goes out the window with depression. So we work on those practical aspects and then we start to look at our values also and find a way to find hope through living in a different way and relating to ourselves differently. So guys those are a few thoughts on depression. It's very very common and I think now you can probably see why it's so associated with anxiety. It's like if I'm in this persona I am going to feel insecure and I'm going to feel anxious. I'm also going to feel tired and exhausted all the time. When something comes along and challenges that it's going to put us right squarely into this depressive mentality or experience of depression. And over here okay there's no anxiety anymore but there's this hopelessness. There's also feelings of unworthiness, shame, even guilt. What we're looking for is not to go right back into that old way of being. It's to find new ways. New ways of cultivating hope within ourselves. And that way is so possible guys. I promise you if you're depressed or someone you know is depressed and you're watching this it is absolutely possible to do that. Now it takes a little bit of time to do it. A little bit of work on ourselves but through talking with somebody I can't emphasize enough how helpful that can be if you're in a depressive episode. So I hope this video was helpful and if you'd like to know more or contact me you can do so through my website. And if you have any comments or feedback on this video please feel free to leave them below. Thanks as always for joining me here and I'll see you again next week. Bye.