Gratefulness part I

Some of you might know, that one of my biggest problems is depression and attacks of the mind. As I said yesterday, I’m ripping off the band-aid, and will be speaking about some issues I’ve been dealing with in my own life. Who knows, it might help someone else 🙂

My disposition in life has always been, helping others. I love providing assistance and what has been my downfall was helping others at the expense of my own well being. Twenty years ago, I was a lot more energetic then now, and able to handle all the disappointments and hurts, and what not. And if I use the word handle , what I really mean is sweeping them under a rug and pretend they’re not there!

Now logically, if you keep doing that long enough, what happens? It will be a built up and if you don’t deal with said built up.. well then the logical explanation is kaboom! Crash!

So in hindsight, it’s no wonder that my first burn out occurred in 2007. It was classified as such and I thought to myself: how on earth is that possible? But, having the personality I have, the only way through it was to dust myself off, and go back it again. Hindsight and 3 burnouts later, I now know that this is definitely not the way to go. If we don’t deal with the root of the problem, the symptoms will continue to show up.

But how does having burn outs and severe depression tie into faith? That’s totally illogical, right? Because if you have faith, then you should never ever be depressed and let alone need psychologists, psychiatrists or gasp: medication.  right? 

Ah! This article is way too short to answer that question, so I’ll continue it tomorrow. But one thing that did and does help me is gratefulness. When you’re in a depressed state (at least, that’s how it is for me), all the joy and happiness is sapped out of you. And there is absolutely nothing to be grateful for. I repeat. Absolutely nothing. The last burn out I had was the worst because I was unable to even be grateful for my kids or for my own life.

And  yet, I’m still here thank goodness. And I believe it’s solely due to the people who prayed for me and the push I got to start looking at the small tiny little light at the end of the tunnel which was a light year away at that time. But that’s all it took; a little sparkle of gratitude which blossomed into the will to live.

What are you grateful for today? What does your heart repeatedly tell you, even though you don’t want to listen? Feel free to share in the comments, or if you wish to connect personally just drop me an email… and I’ll gladly assist. Gratefulness part i to be continued by part ii tomorrow. Stay blessed!