Anxiety, Anger, & Depression Management Education
How do I manage Anxiety, Anger, & Depression?
These are the most common conditions of life. Anxiety, Anger & Depression are all cousins. They represent a pattern in your life where upset and negative energy are more than just temporary moments. They have settled in and become unwanted burdens in our lives. I will never suggest you “ignore it” or “get over it”. In fact we do the opposite. We look at the entire picture of the person and understand how our past experiences and methods of coping are impacting our perspective. We bravely take stock of how we filter out information to bias ourselves towards seeing the world in a certain way that supports our outlook.
Anxiety is like the boogeyman. He has power in our lives so long as we believe he’ll jump out at you in the dark, leaving you helpless to do anything. Worry is a manner in which we attempt to gain control of a chaotic world. Maybe if we are vigilant, then maybe the bad won’t happen at all? But what if instead of running away from our fears or believing that we can’t handle the bad, we hold our ground and look the boogeyman in the eyes? We identify why you are anxious and become more proactive in preparing for the worst, hoping for the best, and knowing most times the actual thing will fall in the middle. You are more powerful than you realize. You will persevere. The rest of the time we practice letting the moment be whatever it’s going to be. Anxiety can be the root base of a sort of superpower–being cautious and sensitive can allow for insight and informed decision making.
Anger is the defender of sadness and worry. It’s far easier to be mad than to be at the mercy of other emotions. You feel temporary relief and a sense of power that is habit forming. To combat anger, we explore what your beliefs and concerns are and then do a reality check of what you believe are the rules of the world. Are you willing to allow for losses in a battle but be able to win the overall war? We cannot always win and certainly we cannot change anyone but ourselves. Anger gets under control when we do everything we can to make things right and reevaluate the plans when we reach an impasse. That is, when we find a door that is locked, we can’t just knock it down with a frontal assault (usually). We go around the back door, we open a window. Sometimes we just have to go somewhere else to get our needs met. Maybe you never even needed whatever it is you’re trying to force open in the first place. Remember anger isn’t by nature wrong or bad. It’s misdirected. It’s telling you to act towards solving a problem. In the end you’ll have to be honest with yourself if it is productive and healthy. In this way, we will take those things that upset you and transform what was negative–destructive and transform the energy into MOTIVATION, which is healthy–productive.
Depression is power the power suck of our soul, a black cloud over our lives. The symptoms make us do, or believe, things that are typically the opposite of what is healthy. We lose the energy and motivation to do what is good for us. We stop enjoying the things that actually would lead to things starting to get a little better. It leads us to extremes, which almost never helps: Indulging or abstaining too much on things like sleep, food, amusements/distractions, completing work/personal tasks, and personal relationships to name a few items.
In treating your depression, we work slowly but persistently on what you know is good for you. We combat those obstacles you see are in the way of following your own rules of success. You are powerful when you change the way you measure the moments in your life. A drop of water is small and harmless. A tidal wave rolls over and smashes everything. Your issues aren’t tidal waves—they just collectively feel that way and you thinking of them as an uncontrollable mass makes them unmanageable. You will learn to assess, improvise, adapt, and overcome.