Since depression and anxiety are very universal things which are more commonly than not a part of someone’s therapeutic process I thought it may be helpful to just give a few tips to take an edge off. This does not take the place of therapy but can at least give something so you have a start.

1. Take a quick review of the previous week. Examine when you have been feeling most depressed/anxious and when least.

It’s a great behavioural hack to recognise what is going on in each of the states (the assumption here that there are times you are feeling better) then see if you can commit to a 10% increase of the happier environment/activities and 10% decrease of what increases depression and anxiety.

A common reflection could be something like the recognition that being in one’s room mulling over things is associated with depression and anxiety whereas talking to a friend, watching a movie is a time you feel better. See if you can just make a small switch even by just 10% for the next week.

2. Commit to 3 new actions/activities to alter things ‘potentially’ for the better.

This is a lead on from number 1 particularly if you couldn’t think of anything. Although Counselling/Coaching is a talking way of working which helps it’s so important to remember that we don’t need to ‘feel like’ doing something or to wait for that. Just actually doing an action by default alters our physiology and state and can then move us into a more empowered way of being.

Ideas could be: Have a 20 minute walk 3 times over the next week. Reach out to and connect with a friend. Take action to create a new connection (meetup.com is great). Cook yourself a nice meal. Write 10 things you are grateful for.

To emphasise again these things won’t necessarily solve the overall issue but a new action to take an edge off can be a great start.

3. Ask yourself the miracle question.

This is a lovely very solution focussed practice which can often get to deep levels when we really go into it.
The miracle question is asking yourself what life would be like if there was a magic wand and suddenly you woke up tomorrow and everything was the way you wanted.
What would be happening ? How would you be feeling? How would you be living your life? What would you be doing and how would you be showing up ?

For example you may say something like : things would be really great with my partner, we’d be interacting well, we’d be doing fun stuff together. I’d be doing x type of work which I really enjoy. By bringing out what we’d like life to look like we can then pick out what we can maybe do to start to create this. The focus is then not on the depression/anxiety and what we want to go away but rather on what we want to create.

This is an opportunity to start to show up in a new way. Can you take an action around finding a new role for work or maybe showing up differently in your current role so you can enjoy it more? Can you ask your partner to do something together ?

Sometimes the miracle question by nature brings up things which aren’t possible. e.g. the person I lost last year would be with us. This is a perfectly fine answer and within this more exploration can happen and the acknowledgement that we are looking for more good connections and making new good memories and the potential search for how we may be able to create something else in our life now.

4. Practice therapeutic breathing.

This can be a good hack to relieve anxiety. SImply my focusing on our breathing we can take some charge over our physiology to create a calmer state.

An exercise I often teach clients is the following:

1. Take a deep breath in and count to 10 while holding your breath and breathe out while saying the words ‘Relax , two, three’.
2. Breathe in while counting to 3 in your head.
3. Breathe out while saying the words ‘Relax, two , three’.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 three more times.
5. Repeat this whole process 3 times per day.

Note: These activities should give some hacks and a jolt to what you’ve been doing to start the process of change. Be honest with yourself and feel into where you are at. These are not intended to solve everything at all but can be a nice start. Counselling work is very useful to give a healing space to support the overall journey through depression and anxiety which can become crippling if not checked and worked with. Feel free to reach out should you wish to have support.

Recently I’ve been really enjoying some work by Michele Weiner-Davis. One of her books I’ve been enjoying is ironically called ‘Fire you shrink’. She is very much a therapist herself while her techniques for success are very much based on what we would call strengths based working or solution based working.

What particularly resonated with me in her work was the way she drew attention to the whole impact on us from the work of Freud and our introspections about why problems may be occurring. Now don’t get me wrong I think Freuds’ place in history is very secure and I have no doubt that this being able to introspect and to find answers is very valid and real.

What Michele Weiner-Davis draws attention to though in this for me very much bridges the possible dark side of Counselling whereas we can go around in loops and not move anywhere into successful coaching. She speaks about how this continued introspection and searching for this why and the potential a ha can keep us more trapped rather than finding a way out and creating something new.

The author draws on the work of therapists like Milton Erikson who worked with these kinds of ideas.

A method used within this method which she recommends is the idea of ‘the miracle question’. She suggests reflecting on what would happen if a magic wand were waved and the issue was all sorted out and life was how you wanted it to be. It’s an interesting practice.

When you do this how would you be feeling? What would you be doing ? What would be happening around you ?

These kinds of questions allow a movement into this space and to draw on your own resources and to potentially start to act like this and therefore promoting change.

Another method discussed when couples for example were arguing was to ask what was occurring when things were going well. There is a presumption here that sometimes things are going well. By leaning into this and what is happening in those situations does it maybe become possible to do this more or to maybe bring over some of the skills that are being used at those points over into the times when things aren’t so good.

There was another method which was around breaking patterns. For example a couple who always fight at a certain time like clockwork or parents dealing with a child and there is a particular time where a certain routine follows through and somehow results in undesirable consequences usually of something anger related. By seeing it like steps in a pattern the possibility is looked at of just changing even one thing in the pattern as a way of maybe creating something new.

There’s a lot of depth to the book and a lot of different resources to take out. It’s by no means a quick fix and I still believe there are times when really going into things and feeling is very important. Nonetheless I found the discussion here very helpful. Just these few ideas here I feel could be good to give a go.

I’d encourage you to try the miracle question, the looking at what is going well to see if there are things there to build on and move into other areas, and to see if there are any particular disruptive patterns you could perhaps put in a different step in order to break and move to a more desirable outcome and future.

Best of luck.

There’s a lot in literature and in film showing the idea of the heroes’ journey. I’ve written about it before. The classic text about it is ‘Hero with a thousand faces’ by Joseph Campbell. The Star Wars movies draw on a lot of hero archetypes. I’ve often heard the idea that life begins at the edge of the comfort zone and I believe this to be true. It has to be balanced with good emotional intelligence but there’s a sweet spot of growth for us all to find. The space where we are growing and expanding into something new. Being creative and making a new canvas so we’re getting better so our lives become more triumphant. Life has to be about somehow living into the hero archetype I think.

I’ve noticed in my own life and also professional experience of moving from Counselling and then also into Coaching how it can become easy to stay in a comfortable space. I really recognised myself through all my Counselling training and using the methodology on myself that had such amazing benefits that it could also non intentionally keep in a loop of doing the same and reinforcing the same state and not actually moving us into our fullest potential.

There’s lots now in the area of wellbeing and life balance and as much as I do think this is a great thing I’ve become aware of a potential dark side that it can keep us from growing and can in fact make us more neurotic rather than less.

I experienced it myself in conversation with my personal/business coach when we were discussing life and goals and realised that it was in fact an over-focus on a balance and plodding along which was in fact stressful. The idea of playing into a new game which is bigger while bringing with it a new stress was something which was more expansive and was the way forward. There is such a thing as ‘healthy stress’.

I experience it with my clients too as I work to create a balance between Counselling and Coaching when we have done a good level of healing work to actually really be playing into the new. It’s a delicate balance and there’s a sweet spot to find. I believe life is ultimately about growth.

So I wanted to give you this point of reflection to think about if you are at your courage edge or are you too comfortable ? Are you in the process of being your own hero ?

Perhaps a missing idea from Maslows’ hierarchy of needs.

You may or may not have heard of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I always loved this when I first studied Psychology. It’s a model of personality development showing how we first of all need to get physical and emotional safety and then we travel up the pyramid where we can work to higher needs such as esteem building, community and feeling actualised. That sense of living out our purpose.

There’s criticisms of it but it’s a pretty good reference point to go back to. I work a lot with clients who have been in or are coming out of destructive relationships and I find it helpful to use this idea of the safety needs of the person being torn out and needing to be rebuilt within. Here is where I find that the supportive therapeutic relationship combined with self connection practices like journaling and meditation can help recreate a sense of safety in the individual.

This theory was created in the 60s and since then we have had a lot of developments in the field of neurology. In my research more recently I found a great and very relevant critique/expansion of this idea. It suggested that everyone is looking for ‘a feeling of being alive’ and suggested that if this was in the pyramid it would be somewhere near the bottom even wrapped around safety needs.

It was an interesting exploration and discussed issues of dopamine and adrenaline and thereby opening up a medical model while attaching it to the hierarchy of needs.

It can be easy to get caught up with certain ideas and theories and for example the hierarchy of needs and looking at it and maybe even wondering why we don’t feel fulfilled. In discussion around ADHD which was where I found this newer information Thom Hartmann discusses that people with ADHD in particular have lower adrenaline and dopamine and it is medication which increases this to better meet the need to feel alive experience; then allowing a calmer growth perhaps through the pyramid.

A few days ago I saw a nice little video by one of my coaching teachers, Annie Lalla who also discussed this need to feel alive in romantic relationships to also lean into as a point of reflection.

When I read the book by Hartmann it really spoke to me a lot in reflecting on my own life particularly as someone who has studied Psychology a lot. It was helpful to open up the medical model and I’m always aware of it with clients to avoid the potential of going around in loops and wondering what is wrong.

A recent video on ADHD I watched just discussed the idea of a dopamine menu and making sure yours is a healthy one. Since this is quite linked to the need to feel alive, it could be good to have a reflection on yours.

In your life and relationships is your need to feel alive being met ? If not, what can you do about this ?