Anxiety and Coping Vs. Intention, Decision, Action

I have been in a peculiar state recently.  One of the things you notice after treatment of depression is that moods that would have completely left me incapacitated turn into moods that "merely" leave me in a unproductive state.  It is frustrating, because I have responsibilities that are being throttled down, and I am getting to practically nothing done.  But people, from the outside, cannot see much evidence anything is wrong.

When I don't fully acknowledge that I am in an incapable state, I often put the cart before the horse.  Recently, that means I have been contemplating "Intention, Decision, Action" when I should have been more honestly grappling with "Anxiety and Coping Vs. Intention, Decision, Action".

It has not been taking very much to put me into the teeth of anxiety, and I waste my day with coping mechanisms, like web surfing and being an indulgent nurse-maid to my own sinus headaches.

Serendipitously, the Adam Carolla Podcast with Marc Maron ended with a very interesting segment.

http://www.adamcarolla.com/ACPBlog/2010/02/10/adam-and-marc-maron/

There was a caller who asked the basic question of "How do you get off your ass and do what you are supposed to do?"

Adam approached the problem as "this is a skill I don't yet possess, and I will develop it by continually challenging myself".

So, using that mentality, I should apply that to "Anxiety and Coping Vs. Intention, Decision, Action".

Breaking it down a bit:

* Acceptance of the anxiety I feel - even to the point of taking time to experience the full depth of it, so that I waste no energy on a persistent draining state of fruitless avoidance.

Acceptance and commitment therapy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy

ACT:

• Accept your reactions and be present
• Choose a valued direction
• Take action

ACT commonly employs six core principles to help clients develop psychological flexibility:

1. Cognitive de-fusion: Learning to perceive thoughts, images, emotions, and memories as what they are, not what they appear to be.
2. Acceptance: Allowing them to come and go without struggling with them.
3. Contact with the present moment: Awareness of the here and now, experienced with openness, interest, and receptiveness.
4. Observing the self: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is changing.
5. Values: Discovering what is most important to one's true self.
6. Committed action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly.

* practicing the skill of dialing down the anxiety level

* practicing the skill of interrupting the coping habitual wasteful activities

* practicing the skill of substituting in "Intention, Decision, Action"

Long dark twenties

"Long Dark Twenties" was a song on the Kids In the Hall movie "Brain Candy" soundtrack. It had the lyric:

"He sized things up He was dismayed At how the years had flown by so fast He had a future He had a dream But all he really wanted was to have a past"

At 25, I thought this was talking about me. Now, I realize that I, personally, was deprived only of a certain kind of past, and I definitely had a past. I can remember it all, thankfully.

Tree of Life in Spring

(Erf.) I kind of missed out on my first quarter century of life. I was all wrapped up in protecting my fragile ego, and I had absolutely no energy left to live life. That plus depression. I finally had a breakdown at 25, and I sure would have appreciated having it earlier. But I cannot generate much self pity. The Raw Spot is embryonic compassion. The very best injuries are the ones that never fully heal, because now you have the prerequisite for authentic compassion. I hope to form that authentic compassion during the rest of my life.

Image by Stephen Poff via Flickr

The weirdest part is knowing that if I had a time machine, I doubt I could have pushed my younger self to a better place. It would have been like pushing on a rope. Maybe I am being too pessimistic. One of the nice things about the Internet is that it is collecting, for all time, stories about humans that are true and have happy endings, but which are completely unmarketable. If you want to write a story about human triumph that is completely unmarketable, put a long hard slog in the middle of the story, and end it with an internal personal victory, and an ambiguous external victory.

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Image via Wikipedia

Read and listen more about "The Raw Spot" - spoken lecture by Zoketsu Norman Fischer.

The title, "The Raw Spot," refers to the teaching by Chogyam Trungpa on embryonic compassion, which grows from the sore or raw or wounded spot in our bodies and hearts. http://www.everydayzen.org/index.php?option=com_teaching&task=viewTeachingId&Itemid=26&id=785

Little Moe inside my Head, Sphere of Direct Influence

I was thinking about:

I will work towards _short term victory condition_ with Grace and Intention, both in Action and Thought, with Gratitude for my circumstance and the Positive Expectation that this will take me towards my long term goals and highest aspirations.

Has it, in fact, been a big bucket of awesome? Well, not quite. Then I was thinking about:

Viktor Frankl's distinction between Liberty and Freedom. Liberty is a description of the external environment, Freedom is a description of the ability to choose how to respond, instead of simply reacting.

Where it hasn't been a big bucket of awesome, I really felt the lack of Liberty, and, so, needed to strive for Freedom. Why am I now tying it all together with:

The "Extension Spring" connections between the Sphere of Direct Influence, the Sphere of Responsibility, and the Sphere of Concern.

Why? Well, because of challenges. I am feeling my depression strongly the last few days. I know that depression is a "heavy" word, and I know to break down the depression I feel into the exact components, because there are specific techniques for countering each component. I am feeling:

• Fatigue, resting in a napping pose is so delicious, as a way to make it all go away
• Irritation coming easily and creating pain
• confusion from overwhelm
• loss of hope from overwhelm
• strong, steady stream of impulses to manage mood
• strong, steady stream of impulses to distract self with time wasters

OK, I have some challenges here. So it all goes back to the Spheres of Direct Influence, Responsibility, and Concern. I will put the whole of the solution inside my sphere of responsibility, and use that to grow the size of my sphere of direct influence. It really does feel like a little Moe inside my head, who has a limited sphere of direct influence, against the issues listed above.