Hot Genius: Main Character Tips

🌝 Lessons of a recovered depresso

January 14, 2024 Christina Modaffari Season 2 Episode 21
🌝 Lessons of a recovered depresso
Hot Genius: Main Character Tips
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Hot Genius: Main Character Tips
🌝 Lessons of a recovered depresso
Jan 14, 2024 Season 2 Episode 21
Christina Modaffari

Get the Main Character Makeover Course here:
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Helplines:

Beyond Blue: 24/7 mental health support Australia 1300 22 4636
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

Lifeline Australia: 24/7 crisis support 13 11 14
https://www.lifeline.org.au/

Mensline Australia: 24/7 support for men (emotional health and relationship support) 1300 78 99 78
https://mensline.org.au/

Kids Helpline: Phone & Online Counselling for those aged 5-25 years old
1800 55 1800
https://kidshelpline.com.au/

QLife: 3pm-Midnight Phone & Online Support for LGBTI 1800 184 527
https://qlife.org.au/

R U OK? (Not a helpline but a directory) They support you in how and where to get help
https://www.ruok.org.au/findhelp


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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Get the Main Character Makeover Course here:
https://www.hotgeniussociety.com/maincharactermakeover

Helplines:

Beyond Blue: 24/7 mental health support Australia 1300 22 4636
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

Lifeline Australia: 24/7 crisis support 13 11 14
https://www.lifeline.org.au/

Mensline Australia: 24/7 support for men (emotional health and relationship support) 1300 78 99 78
https://mensline.org.au/

Kids Helpline: Phone & Online Counselling for those aged 5-25 years old
1800 55 1800
https://kidshelpline.com.au/

QLife: 3pm-Midnight Phone & Online Support for LGBTI 1800 184 527
https://qlife.org.au/

R U OK? (Not a helpline but a directory) They support you in how and where to get help
https://www.ruok.org.au/findhelp


Support the Show.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of the Hot Genius podcast. I'm your host, christina Modafari, and today's episode is called how I Recovered from Depression. Please, as a disclaimer, as always, this is obviously not a replacement for any professional medical support. So, please, if you're concerned about your mental health, go visit your GP immediately. So we're going to really get into the nitty gritties of how I personally ever came depression.

Speaker 1:

But before I tell you that, I think it makes sense for me to share with you, well, what was my experience with it in the first place? Right, and so let's begin there. So, for me, I was actually, honestly, I was depressed for the first 20, 23 years of my life. And in that 23 years and I say that like I'm not joking, yeah, like I'm not being dramatic, by the way I literally was very, very, very young depressed, which can happen, yeah, when you're born into a very chaotic, unstable life and upbringing. You know, like, as a baby, I experienced like poverty and like I had a broken family, you know. So, at a very young age, the baby, the infant, can pick up on that, your environment immediately. And also, you know, my mom was an immigrant and at the time, like she couldn't speak the language, like English properly and stuff. So you can only imagine how scared like a single mother would be in a foreign country raising a freaking child, right? So you get my point. So there was all those things that when your parent goes through something, you're also going to be affected by that thing, right? Whether, even though you're a baby, babies actually are very aware of what's going on. They just don't understand it in words the way that we do, but they definitely feel it. So I felt that shit, yeah, so I went through all of those things. So it started for a very long time ago.

Speaker 1:

But in saying all of that, I let's fast forward to like as I go to older. So there was a time in that timeframe where I actually experienced recovery, but I don't consider me having recovered because I relapsed. Now, the language that I'm using here, I'm just a purist, so that's just me being too technical. But what I want to be clear is that when you hear this conversation about recovery in depression in, I guess, the modern Western world, usually relapse is expected. But that's because the current paradigm and model how we understand mental health is quite is currently still quite outdated, right? And so I had relapsed because I hadn't fully understood or no one really did, no one really science didn't understand yet what depression was really about. We're only starting to recently really understand what it is and what it is not.

Speaker 1:

So, like I said, anyway, as I got older I'm now, at the time recording this, I'm 28 years old, I am free from depression, I have been free from depression for a long time and because I believe that when you truly recover from depression and you do it quote unquote right, like it's, honestly I'm going to go as far to say it's close to impossible to ever get it again, simply because, well, if you do it right again I define right by going well, you know the warning signs if you are noticing yourself going backwards or you notice your brain going through a certain thing, and so you don't let it get to a point where it becomes the actual mental illness. And so let's just preface this all with this very important thing, and it's that to feel depressed is not the same as having depression. The difference is to be depressed is an emotion, I guess, and when you feel depressed because something happened, like, let's say, you lost your job or you got a divorce, and you're depressed, that's a natural, healthy reaction to something that's going on in your life. Yeah, so, if depression to be considered a mental illness, it has to be going on chronically, and chronically honestly, in the DSM is categorized as two weeks right and it has to be affecting your life, all the things, and so that's the difference. Okay, now now. Now, now, how I actually recovered, though, is well, I actually, the first thing was I understood what depression actually is.

Speaker 1:

Now, a lot of the time, I'm always going on about emotional health being equally physical health, because depression and anxiety, or any other thing that people go through, you know, regarding their mental health as like the most, I guess, common themes, is that it's not just a mental thing, it's not just a thought thing, and that's why talk therapy can only take you so far. Thought therapy, I mean talk therapy. What do you mean? Thought therapy? Talk therapy can only take someone so far, and that's why so many people feel like it's a hopeless situation to feel depressed because they go see a counselor and it doesn't help them, and then they blame themselves and they feel broken. When the person isn't broken. If that's you, you're not broken, right, because talk therapy is only like 20% of what you, what you need to recover from depression. So I recovered, because I understand what depression is. It's physical, right, and so what I mean by physical?

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about this. Let's say you're in high school and let's say you got bullied and you didn't know how to regulate your emotions Okay, which most people don't, unfortunately. Let's say you turn 20 years old and you get into an abusive relationship. So now you're accumulating more unregulated, dysregulated emotions, right. And Then say, at 25, you become a mum or something and you lose sight of who you are and you know. You feel really lost and confused. You get my point here. A lot of shit starts piling up and you start to feel incredibly stressed and your body, your brain, your nervous system is trying to protect you. It's trying to keep you alive, right. And so how it keeps you alive Excuse me is that if you are in the fight-or-flight response, which is one way that your stress response is activated for a certain amount of time, well, your body is like well, we need to adapt, because this isn't working, because the human body can cope with stress, but it can't live in stress for several years, right?

Speaker 1:

So your brain's like we need to figure something out, we need to do a whole thing like, oh my god, so it's in the headquarters in your nervous system and it decides to adapt in a way when it goes Okay. So you've been stressed for several years, boo, and it's time that we put your body in a excessive amount of relaxation, aka depression. When you are depressed, okay, people think it's in your head. It's not. Your nervous system has has made your Parasympathetic nervous system. That means that when you're relaxed, it is Like on steroids. You're so relaxed that you're depressed. You might have heard the concept of too much of a good thing or too much of anything is bad. This is a very perfect example of that. When you are depressed, you're so fucking relaxed that you feel like there's no point to life. You feel hopeless, all the things.

Speaker 1:

So when the first step that I took was really understanding the neuroscience of depression, realizing this isn't really personal about me, I didn't fail. I'm not weak. There's not nothing wrong with me. These people, all my whole life it called me weak, it called me sensitive. It called me dramatic. I don't know what the fuck they were talking about. My body was as exhausted from all the fucking trauma and dysregulated emotion. For however many years I went through my shit and never got taught how to use my body in my brain, which is normal. A lot of people don't, right, and so my body had to adapt to that situation, aka Depression, right? So you step one. How I recovered from my depression, right, was I understood that it wasn't about me or wasn't personal. It's a normal stress response and we'll get more into that later as well.

Speaker 1:

Now, the second thing that I did was I got closure. I got closure on all the things that actually gave me so much. You know pain. Now I don't know if you know this, but you know the whole belief and bullshit where you used to hear that depression was a chemical imbalance. That's been proven to be untrue. It's not true, okay, not true, and so I just wanted to put that out there.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, getting closure was the second thing that I did, and I learned how to give it to myself, right, and when I learned how to give that to myself, already, it gave me a lot of peace, because when you don't give yourself closure, every single unanswered question you've ever had, ever, okay, is this lingering there like whether, like wondering why Gregory from Grade 5 Didn't come to your 10th birthday party. You know, if you never answered that, it's still lingering there somewhere in your mind and every time you see a guy with blonde hair and blue eyes, it makes you feel really depressed. You don't know why. It's probably because of Gregory. It's Gregory's fault. I don't know where I got that name from, such a random name. I don't even know a Gregory. Anyway, let's blame everything on him. Excuse me. So you got to get closure. That's what I did. I got closure. I learned how to give it to myself, most importantly and yes, you can give yourself closure. And no, you do not have to have an actual, legitimate answer to everything that you've ever wondered in terms of like. For example, you don't have to know why Gregory didn't show up to your 10th birthday party in order To have closure.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes getting closure is simply telling your brain, telling yourself that you will never know and that that's okay, that you're not supposed to know everything. Sometimes, getting closure is actually Creating a relationship with the mysteries of life, and being okay with that. Number three was I had to get direction. I had to know where I was going, and I'm gonna tell you why this is really important. So I depressed brain, I told you earlier in this episode is a very relaxed brain, so relax that it's so tired. You can imagine this if you're tired, you can't see into the future.

Speaker 1:

You know how you hear that saying um, when you're depressed you're thinking about the past, and when you're anxious, thinking about the future sort of accurate, not really, but it's. It's missing so much context. But let me explain the context for you. So the reason why the depressed brain is more prone to thinking and dwelling in the past not because, again, the person Once they do that, because they're a silk it's because if your brain's turning so slow and your brain isn't literally turning, by the way, but I'm using that as like a metaphor and that's the right word, where you can imagine your mind as a thinking wheel, and Everyone's got a thinking wheel in their minds, right when you are depressed, that thinking wheel goes really slow. And if that thinking wheel is turning really slow, well, all it's got is the past. Now, a non-depressed brain is actually that thinking wheel is moving at a very healthy and stable speed. It's not too slow that it's like not working, it doesn't have any speed, but it's not too fast that you have like many, like you don't experience mania, right, because if your mind goes too fast, and that's not good either.

Speaker 1:

Now, what I'm trying to say here is that the reason why I what helped me recover from depression was having clear direction was that when you, when you are able to project your mind into a desirable future, that's how you get that thinking wheel in your mind to move at a stable, healthy speed again. Okay, not being depressed anymore, but obviously without doing the other steps that I did. That wasn't enough, but that's a very, very, very big component into how I recovered. And so, because, once again, when you have a depressed brain, the depressed brain doesn't see into a desirable future, it only sees darkness. You know and if you've ever had depression, you might relate to this, but I know, when I had depression, the way that I would describe it right is that it looked like the world became a black and white movie.

Speaker 1:

Do you know what I'm saying? Like there's no color anymore. You remember? You know in theory, because you once could see that an apple was red or green, but you physically cannot see red or green anymore. You simply just see grayscale, right. And so that was what it was like for me when I had depression, like I, the whole world, no matter what, it just nothing, no matter what. I looked at the things that once made me so happy, it felt nothing, I felt numb, and that's because, you know, if you look at the way the nervous system works, when the body is in a parasympathetic dominance, aka it's hyperaroused, aka, further, it's depressed you don't just feel depressed, you feel numb, you feel emotionally shut down, you feel like you don't care about anything, even though in theory, you know you care, because you remember that you once cared, but you, physically and emotionally, can't get there. Yeah, and so like that's what it is.

Speaker 1:

So when I learned how to be able to have clear direction of where I was going with my future, with that balance, I'm not needed to control it, though like there's such a thing as like, I guess, controlling your future and like not having any flexibility and space for, like spontaneity or, you know, having no, you know, open-mindedness. You need to have the balance, obviously, but what I'm saying is like if you have a general and not general, but a pretty decent container or structure of where you're heading, then that's really, really good for your brain and I always say this as well and it's like you know the same skills that it takes to recover from depression are the exact same skills it takes to actually prevent depression in the first place, because if you have a human brain, then it's just gonna, it's no different. Do you know what I mean Like? So don't feel like this is irrelevant to you. If you've never had depression before, I'm really happy for you, but this is just really good to know about this, because I guarantee you know at least one person with depression. Yeah, and it's just good to have this knowledge, to be able to be able to prevent it, know what to do, know how to support people, understand what's going on. But, yeah, anyway, the third thing that I did was I got really clear and where I'm going in life, but that's the micro, the macro element of it.

Speaker 1:

The second part of getting direction, though, is actually the micro direction, that is actually, you know, being able to project into a desirable day. You know your future in terms of the day, the future in terms of the week or the month. You know, and a good way to kind of gauge like where you're at with your mental health is have a look at your calendar and your life right now, or your year, whatever, and how many things do you have to look forward to? Because I guarantee you something if you can't list things that you are looking forward to tomorrow, tonight, next week, next month, next year, next ten years, and you feel depressed, well, that's one thing that's contributing.

Speaker 1:

Your mind isn't doesn't have anything look forward to, and a lot of the time people like, oh, but that's, you know that my life sucks like you know, that's not my fault, it's out of my control, and that's not true. It's actually in your control. You just never been taught, you know, like that that's important. But when you were younger maybe you were it was just intuitive to you to have things look forward to you. Because when you're younger, you know, under 24 years old, your prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet, so you're more keen on taking risks and shit. But after 24, if you're not actively doing something at all the time, if it's not a part of your lifestyle, it's not a part of who you are, to create a life, a week, a day, a year, a life, etc. Where you have something look forward to. Well, your brain can only, you know, be so healthy, that thinking wheel that we're just talking about. That exists in your mind as a concept as a metaphor it can't spin. It can't spin properly, right? So, yeah, that's number three.

Speaker 1:

The last thing that I did that not only helped me recover from depression, but made sure that it would just I'll never relapse again. I can say that full confidence, right is that I learned how to regulate my nervous system and my emotions. This is I can't. I think, out of everything, I'd say, this is probably the most important. They're obviously all important, but without this, this step, then everything I just said means nothing. And remember how early in this, in this podcast episode, I was telling you about you know, there was a point in my life, you know where I did recover, but then I relapsed. It's because I didn't have that last step. That last step is where you honestly this is my opinion, like, for me anyway, absolutely no way I'll relapse. It's impossible.

Speaker 1:

And if you understood how, yeah, like the science of our emotions, or science and the connections and how things link with our mind, now body, and our nervous system, you know exactly what I mean and you'll feel equally as confident, believe me, because in order to learn how to regulate your nervous system properly like properly, I'm yet Okay. I just need to go on a quick rampage. Just let me give me a moment, right, I have yet Okay to see someone who's a Expert or professional. I must say they don't exist. I'm saying I personally have yet to have seen it. I've yet to have seen someone talk about nervous system Regulation. The way that I talk about it, people miss Depressed for depressed people, meaning that there's a lot of regulation for anxiety and that's amazing. But I Never hear about the other kinds of regulation.

Speaker 1:

What I mean by this is that, for example, when I was a therapist, it actually like Really fucked up my head as to, you know, I was taught in counseling school when a client, you know, presented with stress and feeling anxious and stuff to recommend, you know, calm, breathing and all that shit right. And I remember when I was like starting out as a fresh counselor this was such a long time ago I had a client and they had anxiety and I was like walking them through these breath work and they felt they had a panic attack from it. Okay, and you can imagine me as a young counselor going what the fuck is happening, everything's alive, blah, blah, blah. And the worst part about it was I absolutely related because I was also going through that myself. Right, I just thought there was something broken with me. But seeing that it was happening with other clients who had similar issues to me, it started to really light. A bulb light, a bulb, um light. Something in my mind that put me on a quest to understand that. You know, we don't really like, yeah, we don't understand the brain properly.

Speaker 1:

Because why is it that it was making people with anxiety Not everyone, but a lot of people with anxiety? Why was like these traditional down regulation, nervous system regulation techniques making people worse? Why, why, why? And let me tell you, boo, it took me fucking eight years to figure out why. So let me tell you why. Why did it make my client worse to relax? Because they were also depressed. And what did we learn about? Depression means you're overly Relaxed. So if you're breathing to relax more, you are further Disregulating yourself, because when you are in that state, someone is depressed, needs to up regulate the nervous system to create homeostasis.

Speaker 1:

Homeostasis, this means the opposite of stress. It's when your body is in like the healing, the, the resting and the digesting state. That's where you want to live in, right, that's where we should be to be healthy. Okay, we should live there most of the time, and, and so that's why I was going. I was on my rampage, I wasn't going on a tangent, because it's like I'm yet to hear about this, I'm yet to hear someone talk about. Hey, by the way, nervous system regulation isn't just you calming the fuck down for some people. You need to come up, you need to get some energy, you need to, like you know, oxygenate your brain, right, and so, anyway, that's what I mean when I say I learned nervous system regulation. I learned it properly.

Speaker 1:

Now, listen, if you're listening to this and you're a counselor and you're a therapist or whatever I ask, I'm not having a go at you, it's not about that. Yeah, like you don't know what you don't know, I didn't ever know this. It's not our fault, by the way. Like I don't know about you, but I wasn't taught this in any of my education, like formally, right, this was all learnt through like years of research, reading a million fucking journal articles and looking at so many different, like rebellious medical doctors From the last. You know, people who aren't even alive today. Right, it was a lot of research. It wasn't like something you just was in my face, not something you can Google. It was like years and years of like, like, almost felt like a treasure hunt, trying to find this golden fucking answer.

Speaker 1:

But it's not our fault. This is not to shame you yet. This is just to raise awareness, because I wish someone told me this oh my god, like that would have made me a better therapist. It would have made me a better recoverer. You know, um, this is good to know. Like that's all we're having these conversations, yeah, like I want everyone to know about this, that you know there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with you, blah, blah, blah. Cool, like it's true, there's nothing wrong with you. But like nervous system regulation isn't just you coming the fuck down like it's just not enough. It really isn't. So let's quickly go over the steps. Okay, so I'm going on a fucking tangent here, but that's why we're here. You love me for it.

Speaker 1:

So the steps how I recovered step one is that I understood the neuroscience you could say of of depression, and Because I was able to understand it, I stopped making it personal, I stopped making it mean something about me and who I am as a personality and I just saw it objectively and it relieved honestly relieved most of my suffering. I believe that there is pain that's inevitable, that we're gonna go through in life. For me, it was the pain of being depressed and whatever else that was experiencing. But suffering, that's something we have to do. Suffering comes a lot from that Feeling out of control and not understanding something, because when you, when there's such a mystery to something that we have experienced that it can be really scary. Do you know what I mean? So, yeah, so number one was, you know, understanding the neuroscience of depression itself. The number two thing I did was I got closure, but I learned how to give myself closure. Number three is that I created direction in my life so my thinking wheel could spin at a, you know, healthy right. I got macro direction, meaning like, where do I see my life as a big-life vision, and I got micro Microdirection, meaning what does my day look like today, what does my week look like, what does my month look like, etc. Very, very important I'm. The last thing I did was I learnt proper nervous system regulation as well as emotional regulation.

Speaker 1:

Now, everything I share with you sounds I might sound, complex. Some people have said that sounds like a lot. It's actually not a lot as it sounds. It's actually really simple. And this is this is why I built the sim Academy. Yeah, so if this is calling your name like, if this is something that you can really relate to, if you listen to the previous episode on the show, I was talking about fulfillment, what it's gonna take, and we went through similar steps and the truth is is, because they are very similar steps, what's gonna make you fulfilled is gonna make you, you know, heal. It's gonna. It's gonna heal your mental health. It's they link. Yeah, but all in all, I'd say that, being a, this is how I recovered from depression.

Speaker 1:

I built the sim Academy because we go through this. We go through the ins and the outs. We understand properly how emotions work. You know how to stress link to our lives and how important is and why is important. How does it relevant to you? We learn how to get closure, how to give ourselves closure. We learn how to actually create direction and create legitimate transformation. That sticks right, because, statistically speaking I don't have the exact statistic, I fucking forgot it now, but it's a from memory it's approximately like I don't know anyway between 80 to 95% like failure rate for transformation. It's really fucking, it's sad and it's like it's actually possible to transform.

Speaker 1:

It's just a matter of just knowing how to do it and finding a way to make it convenient and simple and applicable to you and your Personality and what you want, and that's what we do. Like I love the sim Academy because it's not like a cookie cutter situation, if you know what I mean. Like it is really Really. Like I took me. It's my life's work, yeah. Like it took me so long to find a way to create something that can be Customized to a person and instead of me, just in, they're going hi, do this. It's going. No, look, within, here is the framework. And Like these are the steps. Now you get to choose and make this your own way for as long as you hit this criteria. And then, when it comes to like learning skills, like regulating your emotions, um, we're not just learning how to do it in the academy. This I'm so proud of this, I love this so much.

Speaker 1:

There's like a stress regulation center where if the person, one of the students, for example, they had never, when they, when they first got into the academy, they had never, ever felt calm in years like we're talking, several years and they listened to the anxiety regulation and it's sort of like you go into the app because you can access Sim Academy on app, right, um, and you hear, like me pretty much guiding you through it. You're regulating your emotions. It's a three minute fucking audio just so we clear. My student Completely started crying, but like you're not in a bad way, but like you know, it made me so emotional because a lot that they were crying, because they had never felt calm. They don't remember the last time I felt calm or they couldn't remember the last time they felt not anxious. And when the when the human body cries, when we cry, that's our parasympathetic nervous system coming online. Okay, you're regulating every time we cry, that's our body trying to relax us. Like regulate our stress and our anxiety. Right, and so if I can work like, do you know what I mean? It's not enough to just learn it. You know what I mean. Like when you're fucking anxious, you don't remember what to do, even if you learn it. So building Sim Academy was not just about just giving you fucking information. It's about as well, like Giving you a tool where you just grab your phone. It's as simple as logging on to Instagram. You click on the app, you click on anxiety regulation. You straight away, have that tool available to you to regulate it, and every single time you regulate anxiety or any emotion, you get stronger. It's like a muscle. The concept is the same every time you work out your biceps, they get stronger, right same goes like every time you regulate your anxiety, you become more resilient to stressors. It's just the way it is, and so yeah it's.

Speaker 1:

I'm really, I'm really proud of this program. This is I wish I had this. I wish I had this. This would have saved me years, guys, like years of suffering, years of like like being in a dark place. I can't even begin to explain, so I'm gonna tag, I'm gonna like put in the show notes down below if you want to join. I think that if this is something that's calling you, you don't want to do this alone. This is like the perfect place, like we have a community. You get lifetime access to everything. You get access to like all the updated Editions, anything that comes in, like no extra charge. You know you're when you're in it. You're in it like you've got that support right and it's yeah, it's pretty amazing. So, yeah, anyway, I Am going to wrap up this episode by quickly going over Really important message, sharing with you bit of a summary of what's what you can take from this.

Speaker 1:

I just want to say once again please do not do this alone. You cannot do this alone. No one can. Yeah, we're not. We're not independent creatures, we're interdependent creatures. Interdependent is just a healthy version of being dependent, right. The unhealthy version is being codependent. Don't do this alone, all right. See a therapist. Just make sure you find a therapist who's who understands trauma, who understands how the nervous system works. Unfortunately, not every single therapist knows about. It's not their fault again, it's just that they probably weren't taught it the way. I wasn't taught it, yeah, like when we were getting trained.

Speaker 1:

So let's start there. Please get support. I really encourage this. Just so be clear. Like I'm, like in terms of my mental health, it's fucking phenomenal. Like I'm solid and I still get help. Because it's about prevention, all right, because I believe that the new way of healing is prevention. The new I'm gonna say that again the new way to heal is prevention. Because I already said this the same skills that it takes, that it took me to recover from depression, I'm telling you the same skills to prevent depression. It's a real thing. There's no Difference. Besides, if you don't have it, I'm happy for you. It's just gonna be easy, whereas obviously, if you're already in it, it's gonna take a little bit more effort and energy and whatever else. But it works, it's possible. Healing is possible.

Speaker 1:

Don't listen to people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about telling you that you're stuck like this, you're broken. You're not broken. Okay, you're just fucking tired. Okay, you're just tired. Your nervous system is exhausted, that's it. You don't have to make this about you. There's nothing wrong with you, all right.

Speaker 1:

Um, the second thing that I wanted to say is that when you can understand that Emotional health and mental health is equally physical as it is mental, okay, then you can have that conviction. And when other people invalidate you because they probably will, because as a society we haven't gotten to it I'm losing my voice, excuse me. As a society, we haven't gotten to a place that will be understand how depression works. Yeah, like we don't understand it yet, we're getting there, much better than where we were five, ten years ago, right, but we're still not there yet. We're still in the learning curve in society.

Speaker 1:

But if, as long as you know, as long as you know that you're not a silk, as long as you know that you can't, that you know it's not your fault because you just can't get over it. Of course you can't get over it. It's not something that you just get over. It's something you physically have to change, like it's, you know, a nervous system thing. Third of all, please, please, seek support. There's so many I'm gonna leave the bottom in the show notes here Lots of services that you can speak to, hotlines that you can act, you can contact, that you can access. Yes, please, please. It's very important that you have a look at that if you're struggling.

Speaker 1:

The next thing I wanted to say is that please reach out to friends and family who you know. You know, okay, and when you reach out that's a form of regulation as well you get to release oxytocin. You know that's really good for you. You want that, okay. The third thing I wanted to say or probably the few thing I've lost count is that the world's fucking better because you're in it. I, I'm gonna say that again. The world is better because you were in it. There was a one to, I think, four trillion chance. Wait, no, let me say that again. It was one to something trillion chance, okay. The number is so big that I can't even say it of you being born Do you understand how much a trillion is? I don't even know how many zeros that is. There was like such a tiny speck of glass chance for you to have been born. That shit ain't no accident, all right. So please know that you're worthy, that you're fucking valuable, not because of what you do or what you don't do, but because you exist. Because you exist, you are worthy. Because you exist, you are loved, and don't ever let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Speaker 1:

The next thing that I wanted to say is that I recovered, and I recovered from a very dark place, and you know I was borderline suicidal. I didn't want to be here Like I, it was dark. You're fucking dark for me. I'm on a potency right and I'm now genuinely like such a happy person, and I define being happy more so as being emotionally healthy, meaning that I feel sad. I feel sad sometimes and that's great. I love that.

Speaker 1:

For me, we're supposed to feel sad, but we don't have to stay sad. We don't have to stay stuck. It's not a jail sentence to be in. What you're going through doesn't have to be. You have power and although no one can save you. You can save yourself. The first step is just making that decision and rolling with it reaching out, get support, talk to someone right, you're not alone.

Speaker 1:

And lastly, the way that I recovered once again was number one, I understood the neuroscience of depression. Number two, I got closure and all my shit. Number three, I created direction and the big vision of my life and the micro vision of my life. And the last thing is that I mastered nervous system and emotion regulation. I'm no different to you. If I could recover, you can as well. If you are in a dark place yourself, please consider me your success story. If you're not in a dark place, consider me a wake up call that you don't have to wait for something tragic to happen to you before you are proactive about your health, before you take your mental health, really your physical health, seriously, because they are all interconnected. So so much love to you. I hope you have an incredible day, incredible night, incredible morning whatever it is for you. I love you so much and I'll speak to you soon, ciao.

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Future Direction in Depression Recovery
Learning Nervous System and Emotional Regulation
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