12 Step Guide to Fighting Depression, Anxiety, and Stress
1. Confession: sacramental grace enables us to get rid of the cycle of guilt and sin in our lives.
2. Forgiveness: letting go of grudges, also forgiving yourself. Remember, “Anger” is one letter away from Danger. He who angers you, controls you!
3. Acceptance of God's plan for our Lives: accepting the reality of negative things in our life and the fact that this does not take away from God who has a beautiful plan and purpose for each one of us. Even the negative aspects in your life play a big role in this beautiful divine plan.
4. Believing that God loves me: God loves me with an everlasting unconditional love, even when I am depressed, He is with me.
5. Gratitude: having a attitude of gratitude is the key to defeating pessimism. I tell people when I am asked "How you doing?" I say, "I'm too blessed to be stressed, too anointed to be disappointed and "if hope was money I'd be a millionaire." Or "If being happy were a crime, I would be in jail" or "If I were any better, I'd be twins."
6. Prayer: be in constant communication with God our Father who is the Divine Healer and our "Wonderful Counselor" (cf. Isaiah 9:6).
7. Holy Eucharist: receive holy communion as often as possible, Jesus is our source of healing, He is the Proof Copy Do Not Duplicate Jesse Romero, M.A. 91 antidote against sin and the medicine of immortality.
8. Community: find brothers and sisters in Christ for encouragement, support and accountability.
9. Service: involve yourself in the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. This will help you fight against isolation and egocentric negativity.
10. Integration of the 5 aspects of our being: Spiritual (most important - live daily in the presence of God), physical (get exercise, eat right), mental (read and listen to the right things), emotional (guard your senses), and social (maintain good company). God created and loves every part of who we are and wants us to be whole. We can't neglect one aspect.
11. Living in the present moment: Don't dwell on the past and don't worry about the future. The past is history, the future is mystery, learn to live in the sacrament of the present moment.
12. Measuring Up (not down): Judging ourselves from God's mirror and not from the world's standards.
[These 12 points taken from Alicia Leyva M.A., MFTI; recorded CD set entitled: Steps to Overcome Depression, recorded by St Josephs Communications, 2007].
STRESS (Webster Dictionary): anxiety, burden, pressure, worry.
The Psalmist was stressed and depressed. His remedy was to HOPE in the LORD. Read Psalm 42:5-11.
“Remember that stress is not always a bad thing. The purpose of stress is to alert us and protect us from real or perceived dangers, which is important for survival. Stress can excite us, prompt us to act, and force us to use creative problem solving techniques.
Stress becomes harmful when the symptoms of stress overwhelm us and prevent us from functioning, at which point stress can even harm our health.”40 — Dr. Ron Holman
Who can free you from anxiety or stress? JESUS CAN! Here is what the Priest prays after the ‘Our Father’ during Holy Mass. The Priest says, “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us from sin and protect us from all ANXIETY (STRESS) as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” This prayer is borrowed from Jesus' words in John 17:15 where he says, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one."
4 Ways to Relieve Stress
1. “One of the best ways to relieve symptoms of stress is by talking to friends and family about what is on your mind. So often, just talking about your stressors and your fears makes them feel much smaller and less significant than what you have been creating in your mind.”41
2. “Deep breathing works great when you are in the middle of a chaotic stressful event and you need to calm yourself down. Deep breathing lowers cortisol levels that spike during times of stress. A few deep breaths are typically sufficient to help most people calm down.”42
3. “Research has shown that meditation can ease stress and anxiety. There are many guided meditations. Be aware of the process that you are performing and notice all of your senses that are involved. If you notice that your mind has wandered, gently pull your attention back to the present.”43 4. “Rest and relaxation are important to overall health, especially in times of stress. As little as 15 minutes a day of engaging in an activity that calms you and makes you feel good is enough to make significant change in the quality of your life.”44
All 4 of these techniques can be done in Eucharistic Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The best way to find Peace when your Stressed out is run to JESUS in Adoration. How to Relieve Sorrow and Sadness St. Thomas Aquinas can offer us practical wisdom for dealing with troublesome passions, partly because he so well grasps the implications of the fact that we are ensouled, mind-body unities. In prescribing “the remedies of sorrow and pain,” he notes that when we have experienced an evil in the form of a loss or a negative event of some kind, we can lessen our distress by
1) experiencing pleasures of some kind,
2) weeping, 3) experiencing the sympathy of friends,
3) contemplating the truth, and indeed, even by
5) sleep and baths! St. Thomas tells us that “pleasure is to sorrow, what, in bodies, repose is to weariness” – it helps to counteract it. He notes that when Augustine mourned the death of his friend, “in groans and in tears alone did he find some little refreshment.” In weeping, our focus is moved from our self-enclosed thoughts toward outward actions. Also, because groans and tears are fitting actions to that state of passion, they produce a kind of pleasure. The sympathy of friends also works in a twofold manner. First, since sorrow depresses and weighs us down, when friends share our sorrows, it is as if they share our burdens and lessen the weight. Further, a friend’s condolences show his love for us, and this is a source of great pleasure. When we contemplate the “truth” we move from the realm of the passions to the realm of the intellectual soul. When we read in James 1:2 (RSV) “Count it all joy my brethren, when you meet various trials,” we see how the contemplation of our future happiness with God can diminish any sorrow. So much for the soul. As to the body, Augustine wrote that “the bath had its name from the fact of its driving sadness from the mind.” St Ambrose reported, “Sleep restored the tired limbs to labor, refreshes the weary mind, and banishes sorrow.” [All of the above paragraph was taken from the book: The One Minute Aquinas by Kevin Vost; Sophia Press, p.33.]