Paul Jacobson

My feeling is that men have a socially-made role which suggests strength, taking care of things and just getting on with it. To talk to somebody about what is happening for you in a vulnerable time takes real strength, not macho-strength. I think men find it quite difficult to push through this image and ask for help. Women maybe, have a more natural propensity to talking things through with others to make sense. We need to turn this around for men and see that actually, a real warrior (not worrier!), takes on the challenge of showing their sensitiveness, showing their doubt, showing their depression to another. Without the person to person interface it is basically impossible to work through strong emotions like depression. It is also very important to combine this talking with activities that you really enjoy so you can free your mind from its thinking and depressive aspects and have fun, enjoy yourself. Isolation is one of the big key parts of depression. By talking and being with others we begin to bring the intensity of emotions into more manageable and pliable pieces.

The key to working through pain is to accept it. If we consistently push it away, we bring depression or anger. So when negative stuff happens really sit with it with mindfulness. Welcome it in and watch it. Particularly name the emotion. Is this anger, is this fear, is this depression, is this anxiety? Then stay with it and observe. If you do you will see its form change and it loses its power very quickly. It’s like when you have an argument with someone and through walking, distracting and time you think “oh that was really stupid, why did I make such a big deal of it?” Instead of it taking hours or days, it takes minutes. Naming the emotion is very important because when you do, automatically you are not the depression, you are not the fear; you are being affected by the emotion, not ‘you are depressed, you are angry’.

And when doing this, also sit and return, sit and return if you need to but concentrate on it till you see and feel the change. The key parts in whatever is powering the emotion will normally come to you while you are observing so then you can deal with them one by one. The easiest first. One foot after the other focusing on each step without looking to the wider picture until after you are satisfied you have a handle on the piece you then place it back in the wider context.

So this is my main technique, to get people to learn to sit with whatever is happening or meditate on it then bring that focus in on emotions. In meditation you see that all thoughts come and go and you can apply this coming and going to all situations also, all situations are fluid, they are never static. So the intensity of the depression comes and goes, comes and goes, like everything else. Just being strongly aware of this is extremely helpful. Once you experience this more than once you can apply it in many different situations, even imagined future scenarios, which are often the biggest troublemakers.

This takes me to expectation. Expectation is a killer, you have to learn to live life as an experiment, especially when you are young, because you have so much time to muck up and learn invaluably from your mistakes when you are young. If you expect a result and don’t get it, you are easily depressed. So learn when you are trying something new to think “This is an experiment, I will not buy in to definitely expecting a certain result, let’s see what happens”. This is way different to our normal way of looking at things. Saying “Let’s see what happens” immediately brings to your scenario some spontaneity, some joy, some fun and isn’t that a better way to live?

Also another big one for me is compassion yoga or helping others without conditions. Research has shown it is actually better at bringing ongoing wellbeing than mindfulness meditation. You forget about yourself (always good when you have a repetitive negative mind set) bringing joy and contentment that has a long shelf life, in other words it sticks around. The self-centered grabbing at pleasure has a very limited shelf life and often becomes an addiction because of this.

One way to do this is to wake every morning and say to yourself “I will bring help and kindness without conditions randomly to others when the opportunity arises three times today” and stick to this, every day. Also if you can volunteer somewhere where you are of service to others you will pick up the serotonin and natural buzz of helping strongly. It’s so important to forget about me, me, me and myself.

And the mention of serotonin takes us to exercise. Exercise, especially, very specifically, in nature, where greenscapes, more oxygen and the link in to the primal psychestabilise our hormones and brings up our bodies happy drugs is I think very important as part of changing to are more well person.

Our link to nature is largely forgotten as a way to re-calibrate, to come back to zero, a zero which grounds us and gives us a platform to see things clearly again.

So exercise for at least 30 minutes at a good heart rate if you are walking make sure it is fast. I find 40 minutes or more of walking most useful. Do this 4 to 6 times a week otherwise you spend too long without the clarity that comes with it.

And community! When we are isolated, our thinking becomes repetitive, building on itself to create an exaggerated generally negative storyline. We are beings of community and it has been proven that loneliness is the number one part of depression and even early death. So we need to force ourselves to be social, which is not necessarily easy but it is really essential.

There is a website called Meetup which is worth checking out for ways to link up with others who share similar stories and interests.

I think for all of us but especially for young people who are trying to form identity, social norms can be crippling. We mostly create our sense of self from external reference, horribly these days it’s often commercially driven or societally driven by un-useful negative traits like competition and being the best. If we don’t shape up to these we feel like crap, feel useless, feel unworthy. Charles Darwin, in one of his famous books, A Mutual Aid a Factor of Evolution, mentioned love Ninety-Five times and survival of the fittest two times. Our society latched onto the two mentions of survival of the fittest at the expense of the very thing that makes us feel whole: love. So, if you are building your values using external reference try trading, winning, being the best, competition for those examples of people who exhibit the wholeness of incorporating others fully in their world with compassion and love. You will move through life in a different freer way. The Dali Lama said “The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your action will be”. This includes loving yourself! By loving yourself you become free. And by loving others you receive love.

Gratitude is also very important as a tool in battling depression. No matter where you are at there is always someone worse off. Practicing this when you are in a depressive episode is not easy, so it is best with this technique and all the others I have mentioned topractice when things are not at their worst because then you build up a taste of the positive feelings that come and you are creating a stronger reservoir of experience for the positive. Then when you apply it when things are tougher you know it works.

Check the internet for gratitude tips, there are many. Get some that fit you.

Also don’t forget that drugs and alcohol are feeders of depression, they make it stronger, the temporary reprieve is very short compared to the catch up to where you were before partaking.

Having goals and plans is very helpful with depression. They don’t have to be huge plans, they could just be things like “I will walk fast for 40 minutes today, breathing and not judging whatever I come across”, “I will start this essay and work for 45 minutes on it before I decide if it is too hard or difficult”. Or “I will clean my room and the fridge today”. What you will notice in general is a feeling of satisfaction from doing something that you could have not done or put off.

A larger plan is really helpful as well, it may be you have an idea to start making art to sell, doing study for work or apprenticeship, or doing research to look at the different ways you can make what you enjoy doing your vocation. Anything that inspires you. Begin this by mind mapping and start the mind mapping by including every feeling, idea and thought without making mental or academic limitations on it and then refining it.

Bring your plan into the different parts that lead to the total and then work on the parts one at a time, not thinking of the big picture when you are working on a piece but rather mentally saying to yourself “I will resist thinking of the big picture at all times knowing each brick or piece of wood in the end makes the building”.

In summary I’d suggest that depression comes when we depress what we really want to say or do. Expressing what’s happening for you as it happens either internally or externally in conversation or both helps a lot and becoming the observer of emotions is key. You are not the depression, you are affected by it and its strength like all things comes and goes. And finally “What other people think of me is none of my business”. With this I mean everything is perspective and no two people have exactly the same perspective so why would I base my own wellbeing on what others think? They are not me and I am not them.

Mindfulness meditation quick tips:

Be relaxed but keep a straight spine. Put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth and breathe through your nose. Follow the breath in and out, or just focus on the sensation of the air as it meets your skin just below your nose which is a better focus. Don’t get annoyed that you can’t do it. It is the same for everyone, it is very different to not focus on your thoughts. Be kind to yourself. Thoughts come, thoughts go just gently bring your mind back to the breath again and again. You are not trying to block thoughts out. Just gently return. Then you notice them come and go a bit like a river flowing past you. Start for three minutes go to five then ten, fifteen and more slowly over time. Don’t force it. The opposite of meditation is forcing. Twice a day morning and night. This gives you more continuity of the feeling of relaxation. After two or so weeks you can change to noticing sounds meditation then after a similar time to body scanning then to watching thoughts meditation. Your choice but it is good to check these topics also.

The idea behind mindfulness is to be able to become the observer of feelings and thoughts and so gain control over them. With this practice it is really important to practice it when you are not full on into a bout of depression, it can make it worse. Start the practice when things aren’t too bad and as I said earlier then when you need to use a technique you know how it will be and you are abler to feel the effects and use it in a progressively deeper way.

Surf Counselling as a new idea:

• Learning ability and cognitive function is primed and enhanced by physical activity

• A natural increase in self-esteem and wellbeing comes with the trial and error and development of new skills in the water

• The physical/psychological effects from the surf training provide a grounded more open platform for the counselling work

• Trust is developed through the relationship forged in the water

The combination of different tools for processing problem thinking and the re-calibrating to our wise self that comes with the nature connection provided by surfing gives a life- long way of maintaining emotional strength.