90 Decision + Action = Anti-Depressant
Hey, this is Anne with your Coaching on the Go.
This week we’re talking about momentum and I’ve talked about some of my experiences, to share them with you and to share what I discovered.
Everybody has their own journey, and when I share things, it’s for you to apply in your own way.
It’s not to make any assumptions about what your journey looks like, but as human beings, we share a lot of commonalities.
So sometimes in a story of somebody else’s, you can see a shift in your own, or you could see a path to go in your own life.
So yesterday I mentioned, in the email this week, I talked about some experiences I had, and the most remarkable experience that I had that was a momentum shifter was when I experienced depression for the first time, and it was when I left my job.
I felt confused about the situation I was in.
I’m not going to get into the story, but something happened on my job where I was put on almost like a trial, something I did out of generosity, and I didn’t pay attention to the signals as I was going.
I wanted to create something for a group of students that would give them a big opportunity, and I didn’t pay attention to some of the smaller things going on.
I stayed focused on what I wanted to create.
And Tony Robbins… I bring up Tony Robbins a lot, and other people, Abraham Hicks and a few others, because I want to give them credit for having said something that makes me think.
So he talked about how there are always clues along the way, and when we’re not paying attention, it can seem like we’re blindsided, but really, when we look back, we haven’t been.
And then when we look way back, these “traumatic events,” they become a gift on the other side.
What I call them now is liberators.
So you’re going through a situation and you may not be in the trajectory that you’re supposed to be in, that is going to give you the results you’re asking for, and you have certain ways of doing things, perceiving things and operating that the collaborative, co-creative force around you understands… and you can call that force whatever.
Whatever you resonate with, you can speak of it that way.
But there’s a knowing, and you can pay attention to it early and make small adjustments.
I was talking to a client just today about it, the saying that I like about the feather, the pebble, and the brick.
You can get something that brushes by you like a feather, and if you’re astute and paying attention, you take that information, like I do now, and you just make a small adjustment.
There’s not a bunch of stress.
If you don’t pay attention to that micro adjustment, you get a pebble and it stings, and if you’re still not ready to pay attention, it’s a bigger adjustment.
But if you’re really embedded, and sometimes when we get a vision, we don’t want to let go of the vision, and that’s noble in some ways.
We’re committed to it.
But we’re not paying attention to the variables, the possibilities, the direction that we’re being guided in.
So we just stay focused on our own thing without sensing or listening, and the next thing you know, we get a brick in the head and it knocks us over.
It knocks us out.
And to me, my situation where I wanted so badly to be somebody…
What Tony Robbins says, this is a long story, is that we don’t do anything if there’s not something in it for us.
It can sound selfish.
So yeah, I’m in the middle of losing a job.
I lose the job.
I leave the job because the situation becomes a situation that I’m not willing to participate in anymore.
So I leave the job, but it feels like I’m a victim and I lost the job.
So while I’m in the process of waiting for people to determine my future, I am like a puppet on a string.
And then I go to a Tony Robbins event and he mentions how everything we do, we do it because…
I mean, Abraham Hicks talks about selfish.
If you’re truly selfish, you are operating in your authenticity.
So I don’t want this to sound selfish, that there’s something in it for you, but there is something that you want to achieve in it.
So what I was wanting is this group of students that seemed to be underachieving compared to other students, I wanted to prove that that group of students was as magnificent as every other group, and that given the opportunity…
So I had things embedded and I wanted to be a change agent.
I wanted to burst apart old stories.
So initially it was to give opportunities, but then when I really think about it, I wanted to be a change agent.
I wanted to be known as a change agent.
So there was something in me that was having me not pay attention.
I was super invested in not paying attention to the details, which would have kept me from the brick.
Instead, there I was, brick in the head.
I didn’t know, I felt blindsided, I felt like a victim.
I felt confused, I kept asking why, why, why, why?
Why me?
I’m leading with my heart, I’m generous.
I’m always protected.
I had this paradigm that if you lead with love, you’re always protected, it’s your shield.
Why wasn’t it protecting me?
I was so confused.
So I went spiraling down into my first ever state of depression, wasn’t pretty.
I almost felt relieved when the doctor said I was depressed and I could have some medication, and I’m not a medication person.
So I felt justified, I felt like I was being taken care of.
And I think what happened was, for me, the medication…
If you read about depression and medications, it’s a crapshoot.
In fact, one of my neighbors, their son came home and he had a long season of depression, was on different depression medications, and he took his life.
So I knew that sometimes the medications cause a worse problem than depression.
So I’m telling you this story because it’s an important story.
I spent some time, 6 to 8 hours a day, crying.
I was exhausted.
I would find myself, at five in the afternoon, still in my pajamas, crying.
My momentum was so in the direction of the pain, and completely unable to be in the energy of possibility, solution, resourcefulness.
And the day I decided I would leave that job, it shifted.
And people say you need to stop taking your medication, and I’m not a doctor and I’m not recommending how you take medication here.
But for me, in my situation, I stopped the medication.
I signed paperwork, I left my job, and I could feel my power coming back.
It shifted everything.
And then I went to a later Tony Robbins, and he was talking about that.
He was talking about what’s in it for you in every situation, and I could think back to what was in it for me. He talked about, in his ideas working with people, the way to combat depression was to get your power back, to start making some decisions.
So I call decision making an anti-depressant.
I call it the ultimate anti-depressant because you’re not having to take any drugs to worry about side effects, and you’re reacquainting yourself with your personal power.
And that shifted for me right away, I felt liberated.
I made a decision and I felt like, with some superlatives attached, “Blank you and your job, I’m better than this. I’ve got things to do.”
And then on the very far side of that, you can look back because you have your life continue forward, and you see where that particular event took you, and then you will start to see that any kind of struggle you encounter is a doorway to your next incarnation.
So that’s my coaching today.
Start to see that when you come up against something or you experience something really big, that really knocks you over, that’s a doorway to a new realm for you.
And if you can’t get there yourself, that’s what coaches are for.
That’s what I’m for.
If you’re experiencing something like that, jump into one of my Giving Fridays and get on the phone with me.
Have a beautiful day, and become aware of your experiences, your life.
Become aware of the clues of where you’re being navigated.
Shift your momentum.
With big love, have a beautiful day.