mindfulness and depression Archives - Lawyers With Depression

7 Things Lawyers Can Do to Break the Bonds of Depression

Helplessness and hopelessness.

Two pillars of depression. And they’re tough to topple.

Helplessness

Lawyers, when in the vise-like grip of depression, feel helpless. Despite their best efforts to pull out of it, they still feel depressed and all endure the consequences that flow from their chronic melancholy: a lack of productivity, chronic fatigue, falling behind on work projects because of procrastination and a pervasive sadness or feeling dead inside.

Hopelessness

This sense of helplessness, if not addressed, often leads to a profound sense of hopelessness about the future. Sufferers’ conclude that they doomed to feel depressed for the rest of their lives. They just can’t envision good things happening to them in the future. They have a type of tunnel vision: they only see a crummy future ahead of them and on-again, off-again skirmishes or battles with depression.

Lawyers breaking the bonds of depression

But many lawyers not only survive depression; they pull themselves out of it. They break the bonds of the depression that have shackled them to a life sucked dry of joy, wonder and vitality. If you’re a lawyer who struggles with depression and can’t see any light down the road ahead of you, remember that you too can not only survive it – you come out the other side, thrive and grow.

To do so, you’ll have to leave some negative things behind and grab onto some positive ones. Here are some kernels of wisdom that I’ve learned over my decade-long journey of helping depressed attorneys recover:

Learn to let go. Depressed lawyers tend to nurture wounds inflicted by clients, judges and other lawyers. The wounds can be the result of an opponent’s downright nasty behavior, a cold and unsympathetic judge or a badgering client. Lawyers take all of this too seriously and personally by magnifying these exchanges. They churn infractions and insults over and over in their head. This type of ruminative thinking not only wears them out, but feeds their depression. The truth is that a lot of the bad behavior we see in the law really isn’t really about you. It’s usually the product of the ignorance and unconsciousness of others. Remember this. AND LET IT GO.
Let go of hanging around other negative lawyers. It’s easy to gravitate to other attorneys who, while that might not be clinically depressed, are extremely negative about law and life. Hanging around these folks will only feed your negative view of your law practice and life. It fosters a corrosive and cynical view of the world. You have a choice to make. LEAVE THESE PEOPLE BEHIND.
Let go of surfing the net. I know many lawyers that are on the web for big chunks of time during their workday. It’s a maladaptive stress, anxiety or depression management behavior and, in the short or long term, destructive. They surf for everything under the sun during work: music, porn, Facebook, YouTube, etcetera. Deep down, they feel like they “deserve” these breaks because law takes so much out of them. In their minds, these surfs are something pleasurable they crave because it distracts them from the pain of too much stress, unhappiness or depression. But it comes at a cost. They waste precious time, procrastinate and then beat themselves up for it for being unproductive. Beating one’s self up only leads to low self-esteem, which chips away at self-worth. They don’t make positive changes. They just don’t think we’re worth it. But, you are worth it and you need to start acting as if you are. LET GO OF THIS TIME WASTER.
Embrace a sense of hanging around more positive lawyers. Yes, they are out there! And there are more of them than you think. I know because I’ve met and developed friendships with them. Finding others, who are doing more than just complaining about the law and are trying to do something constructive about it, will help you gain some sense of hope about the future and a more positive direction. IT’S IMPORTANT TO LET NEGATIVE PEOPLE GO.
Find silence wherever you can. There’s something profoundly healing about silence, wherever you may find it. The practice of mindfulness meditation to cope with the stresses and strains of modern life has become widely popular. It has found a powerful foothold in the law. Mindfulness has been studied and found to be a powerful antidote to everyday unhappiness, too much stress, anxiety and depression. What makes it so powerful? The practice of unhitching our wagons from the constant stream destructive thoughts and feelings that batters our brains that are accomplished by following one’s breath and not buying into troublesome thoughts or emotions. Basically, we get “out of our heads” and drop back down into our bodies and short-circuit the negative rumination that fuels depression. An excellent book on this topic is The Mindful Way Through Depression. If mindfulness mediation isn’t your cup of tea, I know many who find solace in their local church or synagogue. There’s lots of research to support the theory that people who have a regular spiritual practice cope better with their anxiety and depression than those who don’t. FIND SOMEPLACE TO DRINK IN SILENCE.
Find a way to be more organized. Researchers have found that chronic stress is a powerful trigger for depression. Realistically, there are some things we’ll never be able to change about the demanding nature of the legal profession. But, it’s equally true that there are many steps we can do that significantly lower our stress load. One of the most powerful things you can do to help yourself is to be better organized. If you have trouble with this issue, and most depressed lawyers that I know do, delegate it to someone else to help you with this. It may be your secretary or even an outside consultant who are pros. Also, check out my prior blog, My Desk, My Enemy: 6 Helpful Ways to Get Organized.
If you can’t go to the gym, walk. I’ve resolved so many times to go to the gym, but often don’t. I have come to accept that sometimes I will and sometimes I won’t. Even when I know it would really help my mood. Sometimes it’s because my day is full of too many commitments, I’m feeling lazy or I’m unable to find the one-hour block of time to do it.

You can break those bonds. One link at a time. And be free.

5 Truths About Depression

A common misconception about depression is that it is something people can just “snap out of.” Unfortunately, for those people who experience major depression disorder, it’s not that simple. While depression can be serious, it is far from hopeless. There are effective treatments and actions people can take to overcome this disorder. There are certain truths about depression that are important to understand; as we target this debilitating disorder that often spans generations.

1. Depression is a more than just a bad mood.

As I’ve mentioned above, it’s important for friends and relatives of those struggling to understand that people who suffer from depression can’t just feel better. People experiencing a major depression really need professional treatment. Depression is a mind/body issue and should be treated with the same self-compassion and treatment seeking with which we would treat any major illness. Different forms of therapy and/ or medications work for different people. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), psychotherapy can benefit depressed individuals by helping them uncover the life problems that contribute to their depression, identify the destructive thinking that makes them feel hopeless, explore the behaviors that exacerbate their depression and regain a sense of pleasure in their lives.

2. Mindfulness helps with recurrent depression.

There are a lot of great treatments out there that have proven effective for dealing with depression. Research by psychologist Mark Williams, co-author of The Mindful Way Through Depression, has shown that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) can have a positive effect on preventing relapse in recovered depressed patients. His research indicates that if you teach people with recurrent depression mindfulness skills, such as meditation and breathing exercises, it reduces their chances of having another depressive episode.

Mindfulness practices don’t change our feelings or thoughts, but they do change our relationship to our feelings and thoughts. This enables a person who has a tendency toward depression to not get swept up in the thoughts and feelings that contribute to his or her depression. Another way mindfulness skills can benefit people struggling with depression is by helping them to be better able to regulate and tolerate emotion.

3. Anger often underlies depression

Often, one strong emotion behind depression is anger. Anger can be a hard emotion to deal with, but it is actually a natural human reaction to frustration. Getting angry may seem like it would only make you feel worse, but when you don’t deal with anger directly, you tend to turn it on yourself. It is important to allow yourself the freedom to fully feel your feelings, but at the same time, to control yourself from acting them out in any way that is harmful. You can recognize and accept your anger in a healthy way that releases the emotion without allowing it to fester or be turned into an attack on yourself.

4. Depression is fueled by an inner critic.

We all have an inner critic, what my father, psychologist Dr. Robert Firestone, refers to as your “critical inner voice.” For people who are depressed, this critical inner voice can have a powerful and destructive influence on their state of mind. It may be feeding them a distorted commentary on their lives: You are too fat to leave the house. You are so stupid. No one will ever love you. You aren’t capable of being happy. You will never succeed at anything.

The critical inner voice may then persuade you to act in destructive ways: Just be by yourself; no one wants to see you. Have another piece of cake; it will make you feel better. You shouldn’t even try for that job; you’ll never get it. Finally, once you’ve listened to its directives, the critical inner voice will attack you for your actions: You are such a loser, staying home alone on a Saturday. You messed up your diet again. What is wrong with you? You’ll never get a decent job. You’re so lazy.

5. There are active steps you can take to alleviate depression.

One of the worst symptoms of depression is a feeling of hopelessness. This very feeling can inhibit someone suffering from taking the steps that would help them combat their depression. In my blog “Eight Ways to Actively Fight Depression,” I outline a series of actions people can take to fight depression. These include:

• Recognizing and challenging your critical inner voice • Identifying and feeling your anger • Engaging in aerobic activity • Putting yourself in social or non-isolated situations • Doing activities you once enjoyed, even when you don’t feel like it • Watching a funny movie or show • Refusing to punish yourself for feeling bad • Seeing a therapist

For people struggling with depression, it’s important to have compassion for yourself and to take actions to overcome this state, including seeking help. Remember that no matter what your critical inner voice may be telling you, the situation is far from hopeless.

Lisa Firestone, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, author, and the Director of Research and Education for the Glendon Association. She studies suicide and violence as well as couples and family relations.

Firestone is the co-author (with Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett) of Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice, Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion, and Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships.

Firestone speaks frequently at conferences including the APA, the International Association of Forensic Psychology, International Association of Suicide Prevention, the Department of Defense and many others. She has also appeared in more than 300 radio, TV, and print interviews including the BBC, CBC, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Psychology Today, Men’s Health and O Magazine.

Copyrighted, Lisa Firestone, 2013

Why We Can’t Think Our Way Out of Depression

In the book, The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself From Chronic Unhappiness, four experts explain why our usual attempts to “think” our way out of depression or “just snap out of it” lead us deeper into a downward spiral where depression only worsens. Through insightful lessons (and an included CD with guided meditations) drawn from both Eastern meditative traditions and cognitive therapy, they demonstrate how to sidestep the mental habits that lead to depression, including rumination and self-blame, so that one can face life’s challenges with greater resilience.

The authors explain how our trying to outthink depression is problematic:

“When depression starts to pull us down, we often react, for very understandable reasons, by trying to get rid of our feelings by suppressing them or by trying to think our way out of them. In the process we dredge up past regrets and conjure up future worries. In our heads, we try this solution and that solution, and it doesn’t take long for us to start feeling bad for failing to come up with a way to alleviate the painful emotions we’re feeling. We get lost in comparisons of where we are versus where we want to be, soon living almost entirely in our heads”

Lawyers, by the nature of our work, are required to live in their heads a lot. Not only that, our thinking habits are prone to pessimism –we look for problems everywhere and try to fix them. We are the ultimate “fixers”. This can get us into trouble, however, if we are prone to or suffer from depression. The authors point this out:

“Once negative memories, thoughts, and feelings, reactivated by unhappy moods, have forced their way into our consciousness, they produce two major effects. First, naturally enough, they increase our unhappiness, depressing mood even further. Second, they will bring with them a set of seemingly urgent priorities for what the mind has absolutely got to focus on – our deficiencies and what we can do about them. It is these priorities that dominate the mind and make it difficult to switch attention to anything else. Thus we find ourselves compulsively trying over and over to get to the bottom of what is wrong with us as people, or with the way we live our lives, and fix it.”

The author’s solution to this virtual swampland of depression: mindfulness. The practice of mindfulness is actually quite simply to do and involves sitting in silence and watching our feelings and thoughts float by the stream of our consciousness. But instead of taking them literally – that such depressing thoughts and feelings are REALITY – we just detach from them and let them continue to float down the river. We stop trying to react to these states by stopping our attempts to try to fix them. We move from a “doing mode” to a “being mode.” We pay attention to a neutral experience – the in and out sensation of our breath. When we notice a thought or feeling flowing by and see that we are getting embroiled with it, we let it go and return to our breath. Check out this great video, “Mindfulness with Jon Kabit-Zinn.”

In “The Zen Path through Depression”, Philip Martin advises us to stop running away from our depression and face it. It can even provide us with a unique type of experience:

“In depression our back is often against the wall. Indeed, nothing describes depression so well as that feeling of having nowhere to turn, nothing left to do. Yet such a place is incredibly ripe, filled with possibility. It gives us the opportunity to really pay attention and just see what happens. When we’ve done everything, when nothing we know and believe seems to fit, there is finally the opportunity to see things anew, to look differently at what has become stale and familiar to us. Sometimes when our back is against the wall, the best thing to do is to sit down and be quiet.”

Part of the quality of our lives, of maintaining ourselves, is learning and growth. The ongoing pain of our depression is a wakeup call that we need to think about how we typically respond to our depression and how we might respond differently – by moving from a doing to a being mode. This can be achieved with mindfulness meditation.

Tag: mindfulness and depression

7 Things Lawyers Can Do to Break the Bonds of Depression

5 Truths About Depression

Why We Can’t Think Our Way Out of Depression

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