Desperate in life what to do. Despair and impotence: is there a way out

These twelve points were written by Ann Lamotte, an American writer, political activist and public figure. Her books, full of self-deprecating humor, are largely autobiographical and deal with topics such as alcoholism, the life of a single mother, depression, and Christianity.

Ann Lamott

I live with my seven-year-old grandson, he sleeps not far from me. Sometimes, just waking up, he exclaims: “You know what? This could be the best day of my life!” But it also happens that in the middle of the night he asks in a trembling voice: “Granny, is it true that you will ever get sick and die?”

In my opinion, this perfectly demonstrates that his inner world is a hodgepodge of joyful expectation and chilling fears. Just like you and me. So a few days before my 61st birthday, I decided to make the most complete list of things that do not cause me either. There is very little reliable information in the flow of information now, so it's nice to have at least a few hard truths in store.

One of them is that I have not been 47 for a long time, although it is at this age that I feel myself and it is precisely this number of years that I used to mentally ascribe to myself. My friend Paul, in his late 70s, often said that he felt like a young man with whom there was simply something wrong. Our true identity is not subject to time and space, but looking at the documents, I can always be sure that I was born in 1954. Although my inner “I” does not age, and not a single age from which I supposedly came out has left me. They are all with me.

Right now I'm 20 and 30 and 50 - as many as I've ever been. As well as you. I will note, however, that I should not have followed the skin care rules that were generally accepted in the 1960s not so conscientiously. As you remember, then people sunbathed furiously, doused from head to toe in baby oil and placed more foil reflectors around them.

However, when I honestly admitted to myself that the agony of middle age was over, a gigantic stone fell from my soul. I decided to immediately write down everything that I think is really true. I often meet depressed and sad people, they do not stop asking me questions: what is true and what is false? I dare to hope that my list will be useful to those who are close to despair, and will help them sketch at least some plan of action.

paint by Marten Jansen

1. Any truth is paradoxical

The first and most reliable truth: any truth is paradoxical. Life is a precious, immeasurably beautiful gift and at the same time an unbearable punishment. The worst combination for those with a sensitive soul. There are so many hardships and oddities in this world that sometimes you will think: is it all a hoax? Heartbreaking beauty and kindness, terrible poverty, floods and babies, acne and Mozart's music are intertwined here. The system is not the most ideal.

2. Reboot rule

Almost any thing will work properly again if you turn it off for a few minutes. And this applies to you too.

3. Look inside

Almost everything that can make you happy for a long time can only be found within yourself. Exception: You are on the waiting list for an organ donor. You can't buy or earn peace, you can't date healthy self-esteem. This is the most disgusting truth, it revolts me personally. But everything important is really achieved by inner work, and we cannot do it for others, no matter how much we love them.

Someone else's peace of mind is not subject to us. Everyone must find their own path, their own answers to important questions. When your adult child begins his journey as a hero, you can't run around with sunscreen and chapstick in your hands. You should let him go, if only out of respect. And if it's about someone else, then most likely you have no idea how to help. Our help, as a rule, is useless, and often even harmful. Behind the desire to help lies the desire to control. So stop already, stop helping. Let someone hide from your virtue.

4. Radical self-acceptance

Each of us is a screwed up, broken, self-satisfied and frightened character. Even the one who looks good. You won't believe it if you find out how similar other people's problems are to yours. So try not to compare your inner feelings with what others show you. It certainly won't do any good.

And one more thing: you cannot save, correct or force anyone to “tie up”. What made me give up drinking and drugs 30 years ago? My behavior worsened catastrophically, my thoughts got confused and ran away. Then I asked for help and began to rely on higher powers. There is a version that the word "God" stands for "Grace of Desperate Grief" (ed. note: in the original G-O-D, Gift of Desperation - literally "desperation bestowed from above"). But I can also put it less grandiloquently: in the end, I degraded faster than I had time to lower the requirements for myself. So you can say I came to God when there were no more good ideas left.

Trying to fix, save or save someone is a waste of time. But radical self-acceptance is a quantum that you will radiate into the atmosphere like a breath of fresh air. Believe me, this is the most valuable gift for the universe. And if someone accuses you of arrogance or selfishness, just smile mysteriously like Mona Lisa, and prepare both of you for a cup of fragrant tea. To respond with love to the most stupid, short-sighted, capricious and unpleasant manifestations of human nature means to be one family with them. This is the first step towards world peace.

5. Chocolate should be delicious

Chocolate with 75% cocoa is not edible. The best way to use it is to place a piece in a snake trap. Or put under the leg of a loose stool.

6. Bird by bird

For absolutely every writer you know, the first drafts come out just disgusting. The secret is that their butts are still glued to the desk chair. This is perhaps the only difference between them and you. They make time for this. They make promises to themselves and keep their word. For them, this is a matter of honor. They sit down and let the stories flow through them, step by step, day by day.

When my older brother was in the fourth grade, he had a bird test that he hadn't even begun to study for. Then his father sat down next to him, taking the book of Audubon (John James Audubon - American naturalist, ornithologist and animal painter, author of the work “Birds of America”), paper and pencil, and then said: “Take your time, buddy, let's bird behind the bird. Just read about the pelican and then retell it in your own words. Then read about the titmouse and tell what you learned about it. And then about the geese.

Those are the two most important principles of writing: bird by bird, and really creepy drafts. And if you don't know where to start, remember: every story that has ever happened to you belongs only to you, and only you can tell it.
By the way, if people want you to be nicer to them in your book, tell them they should have been nicer. Believe me, it will be terrible if one day you wake up and realize that you have not written down anything that has been stored in the casket of your heart all your life - your stories, memories, ideas and songs, your truth, your views on life. After all, this is all you have to offer to others. And that is the reason you were born.

7. Devastating success

Book publishing and other creative fortunes will hurt you. After them, you need to recover. Success destroyed as many authors as its absence. You cannot even imagine what suffering he will cause you, how he will try to destroy and change you. Personally, I have never met people more vicious and worse than the male authors who have released a notable bestseller. And at the same time (back to the first point) publishing is just wonderful: here are your thoughts printed on printing paper, your stories are being read and told to friends.

Just try, please, to get rid of the illusion that the publication of the book will heal you in some sense, patch up the gaps in your soul. Holding a freshly printed work in your hands, you will not be healed of your troubles. But you may get there one day if you keep writing. Sing in a choir or play country. You will work in your spare time as a volunteer painter. Watch the birds. Take care of old dogs that no one else can take care of.

8. Hard work

A family is hard, hard, hard work, even if you got wonderful people as relatives. Again, see point one. If at a family gathering you feel ready to kill yourself or your neighbor, try to remember that the conception and birth of any of us is a true miracle.

Life is a school of forgiveness. You can start learning by forgiving yourself first of all, and then gradually it will come to the dinner table with your family. There, this important inner work can be done without getting out of your home trousers. When William Blake wrote that we were all “sent here to get the eye accustomed to the rays of love”, he could not help but know that the innermost part of this experience will be directly related to your family. Even if the sight of your relatives makes you want to rush out of the room, calling for help, don't give up, you will succeed. Work like Cinderella and the result will amaze you.

9. Proper nutrition

Food. Try a little better. I think you understand what I mean.

10. Lifebuoy

Compassion is the metaphysical counterpart of the penetrating oil that can fill all the cracks, our spiritual lifeline. Its main paradox is that the Lord loves Henry Kissinger, Vladimir Putin and me as much as your newborn grandson. Understand as you wish. An act of mercy can change us from the inside, heal us, atone for the hardships of life. How to describe the principle of its action in a nutshell? Call for help and buckle up. Compassion will catch up with you on the spot, but with its help you will make a journey from one point in your life to another. Unfortunately, it will not come in the form of a friendly ghost named Casper, but the phone will ring or a letter will arrive ... and suddenly, against all odds, a life-giving sense of self-irony will return to you.

Laughter is the carbonic form of holiness: breath after breath, it brings us back to life, helping us to believe in the best again. And remember, compassion always has the last word. If it doesn't come, then it's not over yet.

11. God is like a space muffin

God is good. He's not that scary. It's just a loving mind that can breathe life into us. Or, as the author of the wonderful "Deteriorata" put it, "a space muffin" at all. In my opinion, the most appropriate definition of God for everyday life is "not me."

Emerson wrote that the happiest person in the world is the one who learns from nature the art of public service. Walk more often, look around. Once I heard from my pastor that you can catch a bee in a glass jar without even closing it with a lid. The bees simply do not look up, but continue to crawl back and forth and mournfully beat against the glass. So get outside. Look up. Here is the whole secret for you.

12. Road home

And finally, death. Number twelve. Both delight and horror. When people die without whom you cannot live, it is unbearable. You will never recover from these losses, and despite our cultural attitudes, you should not. We Christians look at death as a global change of address. But no matter what confession you belong to, your loved ones will live in your hearts, unless you yourself oppose it. As Leonard Cohen said, “There are cracks in everything. That's how light gets in." This is how light enters us. And so we can feel that our loved ones come back to life.
Other people have great power over us. Sometimes they make us laugh at the most inopportune moment. And that's great. But losing them can still become a lifelong nightmare in which you endlessly yearn for home and can’t get there. Living grief, friends, time and tears will heal your wound to some extent. Tears will be the moisture that will wash you, bless you and nourish the soil under your feet.

Do you know what the first words of the Lord to Moses were? He said, "Take off your shoes from off your feet." Because this is holy ground, although everything suggests otherwise. It's hard to believe, but it's the most truthful truth I know: our planet is the Promised Land. When you get a little older (as your obedient servant), you will understand that death is just as sacred a gift as birth. However, you shouldn't worry too much about it. Mind your own business. Almost every death is a quiet, calm event in the circle of relatives. You don't have to do it alone. Close people will help you gently move to where everyone will one day be. As Ram Dass wrote, “When all that is necessary is done and said, we simply walk each other home.”

You can also watch the video of this lecture in English:

Falling into a state of despair is not just an unfortunate accident of our life, it is the right of every person. The right to natural emotions, the right to weakness, the right to accept help from outside or to stop in business and be alone. A few months ago, on Facebook, my subscribers and I talked about how everyone goes through this state differently: someone starts to fight despair and wins (or not), someone is afraid of it and seeks to deny it, someone humbly accepts it. Opinions were divided, and a pile of living examples gathered. We have compiled something like a cheat sheet for you, where you can look when your strength leaves, and it seems that there is no gap.

What do you feel when you fail. It’s not just that it doesn’t work, but when all your actions are correct, thoughtful, planned, proven effective, from which you expect the “wow!” effect, and the output is zero. Not a drop, not a teaspoon - exactly zero.

Sometimes, even with a sufficiently sane mind and a sober way of thinking, such a trip is enough to plunge into despair.

What do we feel when we despair

• Depreciation

All past experience ceases to matter.

In these moments, I fall apart. The brain is able to give a variety of arguments and offer a plan A, B, and how much more is needed to get out of the crisis. But there is always a small part of me that clings to my knees and shoulders, covers my head with my paws and thinks one thought “everything is lost”.

In this state, we tend to cross out everything, burn all bridges.

First, I check that I did everything correctly. I did. Then I freak out and think about whether to go to the sellers of shawarma.

• Lost

We do not understand where we are, the foundation disappears, the basis on which we can rely.

If something goes wrong, if I do a lot, and the result is zero, then for some time I row by inertia, telling myself that everything will be just as I imagined. And then I realize that “just about” has not happened for a long time, and I turn into moral dust. I don’t think anything good about myself or about the future at these moments.

• Brokenness

Desperation affects well-being, too. Fatigue comes from nowhere, and suddenly something can get sick. This is psychosomatics.

• No future

It is very difficult to make plans and hope for something when everything is falling apart and the ground is crumbling under your feet.

My despair is always tragic. It transcends business and spreads throughout life, which becomes meaningless and unnecessary, despite the high spiritual teachings and the acceptance that this is all just a game of the ego.

• Panic

For those who are accustomed to regular victories, it is especially difficult to come to terms with despair - chaotic actions begin on the principle of "do at least something, just don't stop."

I begin to ask myself questions, torment, analyze and engage in other types of masochism.

• Loneliness

We are not accustomed to being weak, and it seems inconvenient for us to show that we despair. Most often, people despair in loneliness.

Each of us thinks that he is the only one. The rest are all so positive and successful, and I'm a toy terrier!) But we got together here and said that there are many of us, we are like that, and this does not prevent us from being cool in what we do!

• Humility

We allow despair to take over all our thoughts and time, fall into it completely and boil in it.

I am terribly desperate, and I go into a deep, deep minus, that I don’t know how and I can’t, and I don’t have a profession, and I don’t have anything, and everything is bad in all areas.

Where does despair come from?

Recognition of the problem and understanding of its nature is almost half of its solution. In the course of the discussion, we found out that despair and its attendant conditions have specific causes. Everyone has their own, but knowing them, you can carry out prevention and, at a moment of despair, at least not be surprised. So why do we despair?

• Little experience

When we are just at the start of the project, there are still many bright expectations, often having nothing to do with reality. Aspiring freelancers and entrepreneurs despair much more and more often. If you process these moments correctly, a natural reaction is formed that helps to cope.

• Little real response to activity

Experts whose activities are related to networking, remote consultants, and, perhaps, all freelancers have to go through a period at the beginning of their journey when it is not clear how the end consumer relates to your work.

You do something, you do it, and you have no idea what happens from your actions with others, or if it happens at all. And at times you think that everything, nothing happened, it didn’t work out.

• perfectionism

The rejection of halftones, the desire to do only excellent, and not good enough, the desire to be the best in everything drove many specialists into deaf despair, who are not used to measuring success in intermediate results.

• Lack of a solid base

Interlocutors describe despair as a fall into the unknown. We easily succumb to the desire to give up and give up everything when we do not have a solid foundation under our feet in our activities.

If possible, every day to do at least some little thing (for which there is enough moral strength) for the main thing.

• Intolerance

Even if we accept despair, we want everything to start to improve the very minute - immediately after acceptance.

Often it turns out that you just had to wait a little - because it was not zero, but a delayed result. Not immediately, but over time. But I already have time to collapse into despair.

What to do for those who are desperate

Incredible people - fans of "Marketing from the Basics"! They came up with or adopted from others different ways to overcome the state of hopelessness. In our condemnation, we found out that universal ones do not exist: choose what is closer to you at a given moment in time.

• despair

Just feel that there is. Fell.

The next day I get up. The phrase comes to me again that there are no hopeless situations. I begin to unravel the knotted rope of my failures. And so on until the next falls-tragedies. Each time there are more of them, the burden is heavier. It turns out you need to hit one point to the end. Whether this end will be a happy ending, we will find out at the end of the film.

To whine, to admit publicly that I am in dust and in feelings, that everything sucks and nothing will work out. And you immediately understand that you are not alone in your feelings, and people get out of this state.

I work in a car: it's a great place where I can cry, scream, howl sometimes. But the gasoline in the car runs out, and with it comes the need to crawl out of the pit, rake yourself in molecules and go to the gas station.

• Don't despair

Before you despair, make sure that there is a reason for this. Sometimes what happened is just an opportunity to review everything that happens.

The space has three options for answering your request:

1. Yes, but not now.
2. I have something better for you!

In such cases, I try to remind myself that there is no need to flog a fever, that everything is probably not what it seems at first glance, that I do not have enough information to draw far-reaching conclusions.

• Check all components of the project

Sometimes, it is enough to go through all the steps of a business or workflow with the right tools to fix it. You start one gear in the mechanism, it will capture another, that one - the third. So the whole machine will work.

• Celebrate daily victories

Every day we make a lot of actions in the project - successful and not very successful. If you write down all the successful actions before going to bed, praise yourself for them, and in moments of despair look at these records, an understanding will form that you are not such a loser.

We have a magic box where we put notes with our victories, no matter how big or small. We fix everything. Helps!

• Pay attention to physical sensations

Some people pass everything through the body - it is for them that psychosomatics works: for no reason at all, unpleasant reactions occur in the body - legs, arms, eyes, internal organs hurt. Body practices will help those who are especially sensitive from the point of view of the body.

The practice that I am doing helps in these moments.

1. Bring your attention back to your body. Do not think about problems and defeats, but carefully observe how the air enters and exits, how it touches the nostrils, larynx, goes in, then goes back. Feel how the buttocks touch the chair, the feet touch the floor, how clothes feel on the skin, and so on.
2. Carefully observe how despair is reflected in the body - it can be perceived physically, it compresses something, twists, hunches.
3. Tell yourself: “I am not a desperate, unhappy person, but an attention that sees despair as a physical fact - next to breathing and other sensations.

Then despair becomes weaker, does not control my actions, it can be experienced and moved on. And this approach allows you to better learn from your mistakes: you can calmly consider them. It often turns out that this is not entirely a mistake, but simply the world has changed a little, and we need to do something differently now.

Try it better when everything is calm. In desperation, there is no time to learn a new practice.

Withdrawing attention from thoughts that devalue me and my work to sensations in the body. If the sensations are unpleasant, I do everything to remove the cause of the unpleasant in physics, or simply relieve tension in any way possible: it is in physics, relaxing and smoothing the body.

• switch attention

In our life there is not only work, business or projects. There is family, friends, leisure. Distracting ourselves from the area where everything seems to be bad, we leave despair in the place where we met it, until it completely captured the entire mind. Then it will be much easier to return to this point and deal with it.

I know for sure that no work is wasted. You can understand this after a long period of time, but it's true. In such cases, I say to myself: it means that you need to relax or do something else. And lo and behold: as soon as you switch, everything immediately gets better.

Do something else, quietly continuing the main thing, but shifting the focus of attention from it. This is what I am still learning. I explain to myself that the main thing will not fall apart if I get off it for a while with my tense desperate expectations and fill my life with positive from other areas.

More diverse work, communication with different categories of clients, excluded people who can “impose” hopeless attitudes on me, and included a new attitude “I’m happy anyway!” I noticed that I changed my attitude to failures. Previously, it spoiled her life, but now she decided to remain happy, despite different financial results. For example, they agreed with a partner for one amount of mutual settlements, and he changed it once. At first, this was frustrating, I tried not to deal with him anymore. And now I just bring everything with him at the level of “this is the best partner” - in the end, everything changes for the better!

I am being treated by switching to another type of activity. As a rule, I exhaust myself with short or long journeys. When I travel, I calm down and soberly analyze what went wrong. With a sober mind, I admit that this was also an experience and I take up the matter again.

A couple of years ago I went to a sanatorium in Pskov for two weeks, where there were a minimum of people, however, there was Internet, but slow. I took care of my health for half a day, painted, walked.

Now it has come gradually that all ideas and projects simply cannot work out, it doesn’t happen like that! I found my own way: I have 3-4 of them at the same time, large and small. And when one gets stuck, goes the wrong way, doesn’t work, the others don’t let you fall into sadness, because they ask for attention and mobilize.

• Seek support from loved ones or professionals

You don’t need to shift the whole burden of the problem onto them, but to feel that you are not alone is important and not only for those who are desperate.

If someone keeps close, then in 2 days the brain falls into place, if there is no one nearby, and the brain has completely gone to the knees, then I burn, and then I either rebuild everything anew or go to build something new.

When I need "hugs", I go to my husband. When I need support, I go to my psychologist. When I need to "think about someone", I go to a coach. Support is multi-format.

My husband helps me terribly: in the most bitter moments of sobbing and sprinkling ashes on his head, he looks skeptical and says something in the spirit that he has already seen it somewhere - and then everything worked out. Therefore, you can stop crying and go to work.

My husband, in view of almost 10 years of experience, already has an algorithm for pulling me out from under the ice: hug, let me cry and sprinkle ashes to my heart's content, silently at first, but nodding in the right places. After that, I, perky, not always thanking much, already rush to do something.

I need to learn to ask for support in times like these. It does not always work. Especially if you go beyond the close circle.

Sometimes there are good words from the environment. Words that help the brain to put in place and return from the cosmos of nothingness and despair to solid ground. And it's definitely not the words "you will succeed."

• Get your own inspirational quote

Everything will be fine in the end. If it's not good yet, then it's not over yet!

Winston Churchill said: "Success is the ability to move from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."

I really like the phrase of one psychologist: "Depression is not the moment of truth."

At such moments, I remember “Blessed are the obstacles - we grow with them!”

• speak out

I take a pen with a notebook and write out everything that is in my heart. Usually in the process comes a new understanding of the situation and new ideas. And in any case, the mood improves.

• Remember that despair will always be followed by recovery.

Always slides. Up, then down and back.

All events in our life occur in a sinusoid. And if the curve goes up now, I get achievements, and if it goes down, I get experience.

Some time ago, I kept waiting for a moment or a level when the despair would stop overwhelming. When everything goes uphill and not back. And just recently, the understanding came - it will not be so. And another attitude to these falls into despair. It's like waves: there will definitely be a rise behind them, you just have to not give up. “The hardest thing is not to go crazy with boredom and withstand complete calm.” Calm - when nothing happens, boredom, disappointment, zero energy. And when so - up and down, this is life with meaning.

• Remember previous moments of despair

If they remained there in the past, and you are here now, it means that you once overcame them and remained alive.

I rely on the most terrible and incorrigible moments that I still experienced. And then I go on with such a thought-feeling: if not me and not now, then no one ever.

I'm learning to deal with defeat. Not just to worry - to chew, perhaps just for that very piggy bank of emotional experience, which next time will help not so squeak in pain when - eh! And again I will hit on failure, failed plans, set-ups and so on. Only recently I realized that anesthesia with such spiritual anguish helps one-time, but globally it prevents you from understanding and building a bridge from emotions to feelings that will accurately indicate why and why this is necessary.

Now there are no such long failures, so it’s somehow easier. And I also like to remind myself at such moments that it was “testing a hypothesis”, it was just a hypothesis, it could be confirmed, in this case it was not confirmed, and now I know it.

Tiny nervous breakdown by Barbara Sher:

1. Find a place where you can be alone.
2. Choose your text for lamentations. "I'm in pain, bad, oh-oh-oh!" “Someone help. I'm too small to bear. I can't handle it." Or whatever you like.
3. Give yourself over to the bitter emotions for a few moments.
4. You will understand that everything is over when your heart feels better.

• Listen to supportive music

The song “I won’t give up without a fight” helps me.

And me - the cat Leopold! 🙂 He has great motivational songs!

• Look at despair with positivity

Any trouble is luck, the meaning of which is not yet clear to us. When your plans break down, the Almighty sees a way to "cut" the corner to the goal. And finally, you can say to yourself: “OK, now imagine that you have everything the same, but also diarrhea!”

Any undertaking needs time. For energy boost. Perform the necessary minimum of cases and give to the decision of the Universe. Don't get attached energetically. And the flywheel spins!

• To accept

Acceptance is not humility. Accepting despair, we accept the fact that we are desperate, we go through this emotion, as if we were walking along a dilapidated, shaky bridge over an abyss. It's scary, but there are not so many other ways to get to the other side: the detour is too long, and there are no guarantees that we will not meet other abysses, and to jump over - we need remarkable strength and years of training in advance.

You can’t climb a steep mountain along a smooth road, you need pebbles, ledges on the path, you rest against them, cling to them, and so you move up. My grandmother once told me this, I remember it.

There is such an experience - to allow yourself to despair. At least once. This is not a popular way. We usually don't allow it, we resist it. Somewhere there is an opinion that it is “wrong” to be in despair. That is why we reject it. The point is to live consciously and allow yourself to sink into despair. Such a conscious immersion, but not passive, but with active observation. What is happening around, what do I feel, is it as scary as it seemed before, and maybe I'm afraid of it in vain. You can see and learn a lot of interesting things about yourself. And finally let go of the "fear of despair" as a bonus. It's just a feeling, a reaction of the body to something that I don't want. Nothing terrible happens, the process is quite controlled, sometimes even interesting.

Hands dropped. Thoughts are in a state of impossibility to make decisions. An emotional stupor and, only a clear feeling that the situation cannot be solved by any means, fetters the body.

Another smoked cigarette gives no way out and the answer to the question - what to do next? Alcohol ended a long time ago, but it did not solve any tasks, but only muffled consciousness, clouded the mind, distorted the perception of reality.

The state of despair, like a shadow, like a second body, followed me everywhere. The people around me shied away, they were afraid of my approach, as if I were a leper, as if you could catch an incurable disease from me called hopelessness, despondency, despair. Only the best friends who lived through such a state could be near me, as if they had an antidote, an immunity to this disease.

The support of friends is like a breath of fresh air for me, who is drowning. Their support did not fundamentally solve my situation, but it gave me hope and the opportunity to get to the shore, to grab onto a bush or a small tree. There was only one BUT, these are hands that did not obey my desires, but what desires were there, if they were not there. Despair, just despair.

In order to somehow survive, not to let my consciousness completely fall apart, I was looking for the reasons for what happened, and, of course, I found them. Not surprisingly, I found the causes of what happened outside of myself, outside of my responsibility. It's easier. It's safer for me that way, and that's what I need most right now.

The sad side of looking for causes and culprits was that it didn't solve my problem. The situation continued to be unresolved. It's a bit like getting wet in the rain and blaming the weather for it, instead of foreseeing the possibility of rain and taking an umbrella, and the next day, shifting all hope to the will of the weather, getting wet again in the rain, and blame the weather again. Yes, the rain is to blame for the fact that I got wet, but from the realization of this, I will not become dry.

"The salvation of a drowning man is the work of the drowning man himself." I could never penetrate into the meaning and significance of this expression, but intuitively felt that there was a grain of truth in it. So I'm the only one who can save myself? But how, how, if not I am to blame, but the circumstances?

Like a butterfly flew past my eyes. Like a breath of air, which turned out to be decisive between life and death, the thought flashed that despair is a state of my mind, sometimes having nothing to do with reality. For some reason, a question arose in my head - do other animals, besides humans, experience despair, or is this just a property of human nature?

If I feel sadness and despair, then who decides to experience these feelings? I AM?! But…. The air seemed to become thick, time seemed to stop and there was a feeling that I had drunk one hundred and fifty grams of vodka in one gulp on an empty stomach. A similar state came when something really important happened in my life.

I noticed, quite by accident, that if you hold air in your lungs for a long time, then after a few tens of seconds, there is an irresistible desire to take a breath of air. The instinct of self-preservation makes itself felt, even despite the feeling of hopelessness.

Despite the desperation, the hand reflexively withdrew from the hot mug. Despite the despair, though not so much, but there was a feeling of hunger and the need to satisfy it. The body continued to live, the body seemed to call for life, while the consciousness made attempts to reduce everything to a utopia.

I took on the responsibility of experiencing these feelings myself, no matter how hard I tried to deny it. I myself created the situation in which I find myself, and it also did not make any sense for me to deny it. If this is so, then I am the only one who is able to change the situation for the better, and no hopes for time and chance will help me in this.

I realized that I had become a slave to habits. I felt with my whole body that if I deviated my perception even by one degree from the usual, I would fall into a strange, unknown state. It was this feeling that arose every time when reality did not coincide with my habits, expectations, I'm not afraid of this word - slides. And instead of looking for a way out, trying options and possibilities that I had not tried before, I gave up and fell into despondency, as if this solved the situation.

A person gets used to everything. I, like many other people, got used to loneliness, pain, discomfort and poverty. Other people, which I am sure of, CHOOSE the habit of living in abundance, comfort, excellent health, pleasant communication .... Exactly - CHOSEN.

Habitual, meager thinking, again made attempts to push responsibility for their lives onto situations, find reasons and say in a guilty voice - “but it’s not like that at all, it happened to me ...”.

I rolled up my sleeves, poured warm water into a basin and poured detergent into it. He swept the landing, then another, and another. I washed thoroughly what I swept up just as carefully. Not wanting to listen to mental delirium anymore, he put things in perfect order in his apartment. It took only half a day to take out the rubbish, unnecessary things, cracked dishes, gifts I forgot for a long time ...

It took three days to put the house in order, which made it much easier on the soul. “Well, it’s time to put things in order in my head,” I thought, but I didn’t pour water into a basin, but simply took out a notebook and a pencil, began to write down everything that came to mind how this could be done.

Everything came up, I considered any options, but the first thing I started writing in a notebook was recording my successes. Only five successes a day, no more, no less. From this, perhaps, a very naive action, my cardinal changes in life began.

P.S. Recommend! On the right, I posted an excellent video with Bodo Schaefer, watching which is great for despair and despondency, stimulates action and sets you up for positive and success. The article was written on November 26, 2011.

(according to St. Silouan of Athos and Archimandrite Sofroniy)

First, let's quote from the famous book “On Prayer”: “From my experience, I can say: there are two kinds of despair: one is purely negative, destroying a person spiritually and then bodily. The other is blessed. I can't stop talking about him."

Elsewhere, in the book Elder Silouan, Fr. Sophrony adds: “The devil-enemy acts differently with those who accept it, and differently with regard to those who fight. Another is the suffering of proud despair, and another is the pious soul, when God allows Satan to wrestle with the soul. This last temptation is extremely difficult and is rarely allowed. Not much has been written about this last state; I would like to draw attention to the connection of such a state with the sufferings of the biblical Job.

Many years of experience of asceticism, the spiritual authority of Father Sophrony, whom many revere as an elder, and the depth of his creations do not allow one to simply brush aside these words about blessed despair, which are not easy to understand, but require serious thought.

Deadly despair

When people talk about despair in Orthodoxy, they most often mean the first of the types of despair indicated by Father Sophronius - “purely negative and ruining a person” despair as one of the most serious sins (according to V. I. Dahl’s Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, despair - it is hopelessness, deprivation of the last faith and hope.

Let us first consider in more detail precisely this kind of despair that destroys a person. As Bishop Varnava (Belyaev) notes, for people leading a spiritual life, this destructive despair can also be of two kinds: depth of hopeless grief and hopelessness.

Another kind of despair comes from pride, when a person who has fallen into some kind of sin does not want to humble himself and admit that he deserved the fall. From the first type, abstinence and warm hope in God heal, and from the last, humility and the fact that no one condemn."

And here is how Father Sophronius describes this state: “As long as pride is strong in a person, until then he can be subjected to bouts of especially painful, hellish despair, which perverts all ideas about God and about the ways of His providence. A proud soul, living in painful suffering and the darkness of hell, considers God to be the culprit of its torment and thinks of Him as immeasurably cruel. Deprived of true being in God, she evaluates everything from her painfully-suffering state and begins to hate her own life, and in general the whole existence of the world.

Staying outside the Divine light, in her despair she comes to the point that the existence of God Himself begins to appear to her as a hopeless nonsense, due to which her repulsion from God and hatred of all being become greater and greater.

The main reasons for such despair are offended pride, fear of public disgrace if they find out about a crime committed, fear of punishment, the collapse of ideals or conceived enterprises, hopeless love, and so on. In the most severe cases, despair can drive a person to suicide.

It should also be noted that many Holy Fathers spoke about the need to struggle with passions (spiritual warfare) and that passions can be sent to us for spiritual perfection. Our struggle with passions is more pleasing to the Lord than the complete absence of passions, dispassion. We know, for example, the testimony of the Monk John Kolov, who at first begged God to be granted dispassion, and then, on the advice of the elder, asked the Lord for the return of battles and patience, for, as the elder said, “because of the battles, the soul comes to prosperity ".

He gives a very instructive commentary on this important episode for Orthodox spiritual practice, which is reflected in Holy Tradition. also points out: “Let the passionate humble ones take pleasure in it. For if they fell into all the pits, and got bogged down in all the networks, and became ill with every ailment, but after recovery they are luminaries and doctors, guides and mentors for everyone, declaring the types and properties of each ailment and saving those close to the fall with their experience.

It is impossible not to mention here also an instructive case, which is testified by the “Trinity Leaflets from the Spiritual Meadow”. We are talking about the phenomenon of a man who was in despair and was about to commit suicide. This man was so shocked by the vision that he threw away the belt on which he had just wanted to hang himself and went to where he received consolation from Father Anfim. By praying at the shrine of St. Sergius, he was finally comforted and left the monastery like a newborn baby. He looked at the world with different eyes, and his soul completely calmed down.

The experience of fatal despair is dangerous, but not yet fatal. A person who has fallen into fatal despair can still (and should) turn to God with a fervent prayer of repentance, and the Lord will certainly give him healing and new strength to continue spiritual warfare. Here is how St. Isaac the Syrian writes about this: “If a person happens to fall into many different sins, let him not stop caring for good, let him not stop in his course. But even the one who is defeated, let him rise again to fight with his opponents and daily begin to lay the foundation for the destroyed building, until his very departure from this world.

In conclusion of this part of the article, it should be noted that, according to the teachings of the Orthodox ascetic fathers, the state of despair is most closely associated with sadness and despondency.

Despair “according to God”

There is also a state of mind, outwardly, in terms of its psychological characteristics, similar to the one described above, but fundamentally different. Here is how Father Sophrony describes it: “When for the first time a person left by God providentially experiences the approach of Satan, then his whole being, both soul and body, is suppressed by great suffering and fear, which cannot be compared with the fear of criminals and murderers, because there is darkness in him. eternal death.

The soul then knows what the devil is; knows the power of his cruelty; and struck by the colossality of the evil standing before her - everything shrinks. From horror, despair and trembling, she becomes so exhausted that she does not find the strength to pray. She does not feel God the Protector with her, and the enemy says: “You are in my power ... But do not rely on God and forget Him; He is relentless." At these moments, the soul, not wanting to accept the devil, either silently, without words freezes with the thought of God, or, at best, finds the strength to call on the name of God. Later, she will already know that it is in this struggle that God exclusively listens to her.

As many fathers of the Church noted (in particular, St. John Cassian, Nil of Sinai, Isaac the Syrian, saints, Gregory of Nyssa, etc.), sinful passions pervert the saving “moods of a person, the psychological basis of which is imprinted in human nature as an undoubtedly useful means, condition, conducive to the implementation by a person of his religious and moral purpose.

These moods, as S. M. Zarin rightly emphasizes, arise in connection with the knowledge of the true good, on the one hand, and because of the awareness of the depravity of our life, on the other. They are supported by the contemplation of the bliss of Eternal Life and the striving for perfection. Contemplating the infinite ideal, a person not only feels more deeply and more clearly realizes the imperfection of human nature in general, but at the same time - and this is fundamentally important - begins to feel the imperfection of his own personality. In this case, this feeling becomes an active stimulus for the religious and moral development of a person.

The state described above in Orthodox asceticism is called sadness “according to God” (according to God, for the sake of God).

According to St. Isaac the Syrian, sadness only in one case becomes useful for us, when it is sadness "according to God." Sorrow “according to God” “arises from repentance for sins, or from the desire for perfection, or from the contemplation of future bliss. A heart filled with sadness about weakness and impotence in bodily, obvious deeds, replaces all these bodily deeds with itself.

Sorrow "according to God" is one of the essential and initial moments of the Christian faith, necessary for salvation. Its difference lies in the fact that it finds its religious and moral foundation, support and main goal in God. A person experiences acute dissatisfaction with his condition (and at the same time feels the impossibility of changing this situation on his own) precisely insofar as this condition becomes a significant obstacle to achieving the only valuable goal for him - striving for God.

Thus, sadness in this “good” direction helps to keep a person active, encourages him to an ascetic feat. This feat of all-round improvement is expressed both in the purification of a person from passions and in the acquisition by him of the most important Christian virtues. Saint Isaac the Syrian called such “sorrow of the mind” a precious gift from God.

The state of sadness “according to God” differs from the destructive passion we described above in that a person with pain feels in himself a discrepancy between the desire of the soul for God and the desire to achieve this with one's own strength. God becomes the main goal of his life activity, and not the satisfaction of his own thoughts, desires and passions and not caring about his earthly existence. Being in a state of “ordinary” sadness, a person closes in on himself, but sadness “according to God” most often leads to the acquisition of Divine grace (for it is said: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you (Matt. 7:7), and the destructive passions of sadness and despair without repentance can cause hopeless longing, apathy and inactivity, paralysis of the will and abilities.

That spiritual state, about which Archimandrite Sophrony writes, and which is psychologically close to the state of despair, has, however, its own essential features. Such despair is based not on fear of revealing secret sins and not on pride, but on unquenchable zeal for God. This is a more intense and acute manifestation of sadness “for God”. For convenience of presentation, we will further call this state of despair "according to God."

Speaking of the sacrament of repentance, he testifies to a person’s spiritual state close in content when speaking about the sacrament of repentance: “The most characteristic of him (the sacrament of repentance - A. G.) is a painful fracture of the will. Man offended God; now it is necessary to burn in the fire of the judgment of the unwashed. The penitent experiences the illnesses of those who give birth, and in the feelings of the heart in some way touches the torments of hell. In the penitent, now the horrors of almost despair, now the breath of the joy of mercy are replaced by one another.

Father Sophronius uses the terrible word “despair” to describe the ultimate suffering that a soul feels when it has felt the grace of God and then lost it, in order to emphasize the strength that this sadness “according to God” can achieve.

St. Silouan of Athos writes on this occasion about the “despondency of the heart”: “When the Lord visits, the soul knows that there was a dear Guest and left, and the soul misses Him, and tearfully seeks Him: “Where are You, my Light, where are You, My joy? Your footprints are fragrant in my soul, but You are not there, and my soul misses You, and my heart is sad and aching, and nothing else makes me glad, because I offended the Lord, and He hid from me. St. Silouan notes that we lose the feeling of the love and grace of the Lord “for pride and vanity, for hostility towards a brother, for condemning a brother, for envy, for a lustful thought, for addiction to earthly things”, etc.

As already noted, such a temptation is not often allowed by God. Not all Orthodox believers have the opportunity to experience such intense suffering, such zealous sorrow "for God." This is confirmed by other spiritual writers. Thus, St. Theophan the Recluse notes that the search for God occurs in different people in different ways: if for some it “is accomplished zealously, quickly, fieryly”, then for others, on the contrary, “things go coldly, slowly, with great difficulty.” Archimandrite Sofroniy obviously belongs to the first group.

Saint Theophan notes with regret that this first group is very small and rare, and such extreme zeal for God, which was later described in the works of Father Sophrony, is not often found among Christians. More often, a person, having ceased to feel the excitement of the grace of God, on the contrary, gets used to it, and again he falls into his usual mortal sins. “The more often these falling away occur,” writes St. Theophan, “the weaker the excitement becomes, because the heart, as it were, gets used to it, and it passes into a series of ordinary phenomena of spiritual life.

Together with such a diminution, it approaches more and more from an energetic feeling to thought, and, finally, passes into one simple thought and recollection. For the time being, this thought is accepted with consent, then it is only tolerated, even without displeasure, but coldly, without special attention; and then it already becomes annoying, they rush to sell it as soon as possible, and, finally, they feel unpleasantness and disgust from it; he is no longer loved, but hated, persecuted, persecuted. Accordingly, the conviction of the need for a better spiritual life falls…”

Proceeding from this, St. Theophan strongly recommends that all believers make efforts to acquire the gift of God’s grace and use for this the slightest thought about the need to “change their lives and become better in their deeds and internal dispositions.”

It is possible that such a state of “last despair for God” is given to some ascetics for a greater acquisition of the grace of God. In any case, we have no right to deny what we have not known.

It must be emphasized that Father Sofroniy does not call on anyone to experience a state of despair "according to God." He only shares his experience, which he managed to survive with God's help. At the same time, although such zeal for God, which is reflected in the works of Father Sophrony, is not typical of the modern world, it inspired many Orthodox Christians to continue their spiritual development and thus brought numerous fruits.

Inability to overcome spiritual obstacles on one's own

The despair about which Fr. “Many times,” Father Sophrony notes, “I fell into despair from myself because of my inability to stay constantly in the spirit of Christ’s commandments.”

“Seeing ourselves unable to overcome this death by our efforts, we fall into a kind of despair about our salvation. Strange as it may seem, but we need to experience this painful state - to experience it hundreds of times so that it deeply cuts into our consciousness. We benefit from this experience of hell. When we carry this torment in ourselves for years, decades, then it becomes a constant content of our spirit, an indelible ulcer on the body of our life. And Christ preserved the wounds from the nails of crucifixion on His body even after the Resurrection…”

The despair that Fr. Sophrony speaks of here is not despair in the hope for the mercy and grace of God, which is characteristic of destructive passions, but despair in a zealous, irresistible striving to achieve the ideal with one's own strength. Father Sophrony calls this state of despair “from oneself.”

Each of us is familiar with the suffering that arises from the inability to solve the unsolvable, to achieve the unattainable, to do the impossible. In itself, this desire does not carry moral certainty. The moral evaluation of this striving depends only on the direction of our will.

Having come to this situation, for some time we continue to make attempts to realize our aspirations on our own, but soon we lose them and realize the impossibility of achieving the planned result. This feeling, which is usually also called despair, was evidently experienced by Father Sophronius.

As S. M. Zarin notes, “according to the laws of mental life, a reaction in the form of a weakening, a decline in spiritual energy should follow stormy impulses. And this decline, indeed, comes, expressed in new affective states of sadness and despondency” (and the latter, as we have already noted, is akin to despair).

The Lord gave man free will, and He expects from us our own efforts in spiritual perfection. Such human efforts are, in particular, one of the most important conditions for spiritual warfare. Therefore, there is nothing sinful in these efforts themselves. But these own human efforts have their limits. What is impossible with men is possible with God (Luke 18:27). A person in the process of his spiritual growth sooner or later begins to feel it. And the Holy Fathers felt this especially strongly and keenly. There is a serious internal contradiction that needs to be resolved.

Resolution of the contradiction of despair from oneself “according to God”

“Blessed despair,” about which Father Sophrony writes, despair from oneself “according to God,” finds its resolution in the acquisition of God's grace. Passing through severe spiritual suffering, through exhaustion, a person becomes spiritually purer, “transparent” to God.

The resolution of “gracious despair”, spiritual cleansing is a gift from God. It is the Lord who sends His light, His deliverance, which the soul of the ascetic yearns so earnestly, feeling the impossibility of acquiring grace by his own strength and deeds: “It is far from joyful to see oneself as a “poor”, to realize one’s blindness, Fr. Sophronius testifies. - It is terrible to hear the death sentence to myself for the fact that I am such - as I am. However, in the eyes of my Creator, I am blessed precisely for the knowledge of my nothingness (cf. Mt 5:3).

I have to see Christ “as He is” in order to compare myself with Him, and from this comparison to feel my “ugliness”. Strong was and still is my disgust with myself. But from this horror a prayer of special desperation was born in me, plunging me into a sea of ​​tears. I did not see then the ways to my healing; it seemed to me that my ugliness could not be changed into a likeness to His beauty. And this crazy prayer, which shook my whole being, attracted the compassion of the Most High God to me, and His Light shone in the darkness of my being. Through the hell of my hopelessness came heavenly deliverance…”

Many Holy Fathers and ascetics spoke about God's help, which comes in the most difficult and responsible moments of life, associated, in particular, with the rejection of relying only on one's own strength and with hope in God. So, St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) emphasizes: “Vetinary and barren is your cross, if, through following Christ, it is not transformed into the cross of Christ.” “The cross is still painful as long as it remains its own. When he is transformed into the cross of Christ, he receives extraordinary lightness.

Having received God's help and feeling His grace, the ascetic does not stop there. Having received a respite in spiritual warfare and the spiritual experience of condemning himself, he, as Father Sophrony writes, “again goes to stand over the abyss.”

"Keep your mind in hell and don't despair"

The Monk Silouan of Athos received a revelation from the Lord: “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair.” For an ordinary person, including a believer, keeping the mind in hell is unbearable. However, by constantly praying for the whole world, the ascetic gradually acquires the ability to sink into hell without falling into a state of despair. There is no need to despair, St. Silouan testifies to this, “for the Lord is immeasurably merciful and loves us.”

As Fr. Sofrony notes, only a few can keep their minds in hell and not despair. “From constant stay in this feat,” he writes, “the soul acquires a special habit and endurance, so that the memory of hell is so assimilated by the soul that it becomes almost non-waste. The need for such constancy is caused by the fact that a person “living in the world and bearing flesh” is constantly exposed to the influences of the sin surrounding him, from which, like armor, the soul is protected by humbleness even to the hell of the underworld.

The ascetic, by a special inner movement, descends with his soul into hell, and the hellish fire scorches and burns out the passions in him.

Explaining the revelation of the Monk Siluan “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair,” Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) writes: “Keeping yourself in hell was nothing new for him. Before the appearance of the Lord, he [Elder Silouan] dwelt in him. New in God's instruction - "and do not despair." Formerly he had reached despair; now again, after many years of hard struggle, frequent divine forsakings, he experienced hours, if not despair, then still close to him suffering. The memory of the Lord he saw did not allow him to the last despair, but the suffering from the loss of grace was no less severe. Or rather, what he experienced was also despair, but of a different kind than the first. For so many years, in spite of all the labors, the maximum available to his powers, he did not achieve what he wanted and therefore lost hope of ever achieving it.

“The blessed elder Silouan said that many ascetics, approaching the state necessary for purification from passions, despair and therefore cannot go further. But the one who knows that “the Lord loves us a lot”, avoids the destructive effect of the last despair and knows how to wisely stand on the edge of it, so that by the power of the hellish flame he burns every passion in himself, and at the same time does not become a victim of despair. The Monk Silouan himself, as Archimandrite Sophrony testifies to this, sometimes, at the beginning of his spiritual asceticism, also fell into despair, but, by the grace of God, he got out of it “with benefit.”

According to Father Sofroniy, Elder Silouan plunged into hell, but, “returning to the memory of God’s love, he avoided despair.” At the same time, “the ultimate human suffering endured by nature is combined with the ultimate bliss endured by human nature” .

Archimandrite Sophrony writes that many ascetics “passed through the pain of spiritual hesitation, through the torment of conscience from the consciousness of their depravity and unrighteousness before God, through destructive doubts and a suffering struggle with passions. They knew the state of hellish torment, the heavy darkness of despair, an indescribable anguish and sorrow of God-forsakenness. And in this struggle, they gave rise to an invaluable experience of spiritual warfare and humility. According to the testimony of St. Silouan of Athos, “The Lord taught me to keep my mind in hell and not despair, and so my soul humbles itself.”

In conclusion, I would like to quote once again the words of Archimandrite Sophrony, which can sum up all of the above: “The Lord gave me the grace of despair; and even more than this: holy hatred for my sin, that is, for me, for myself, fused with sin, the stench of which is like a poisonous gas. Healing by your own efforts is impossible. In complete despair of myself as I am, the only thing left is to rush to God with hopeless hope.”

Everything happens in life. And sometimes fate throws us one nuisance after another. Illnesses, conflicts with loved ones, losses, problems at work. It happens that bad events go in a continuous strip, and then a person experiences despair, impotence, disappointment. It begins to seem that life has no meaning, strength is running out.

I am writing this article for those who are in despair, as well as for those who want to help their friends and relatives, if they are in a difficult situation. And I write it in the form of short and, one might say, banal, recommendations. These guidelines will help you structure what people think about in the face of problems and troubles. If you, being in a difficult situation, really follow at least one of these recommendations, then your situation will certainly improve.

____________________

Kogda ko unto me obpaschayutcya people, their otchayanie popoy vypazhaetcya in takih clovah:. "I blame cebya in tom, chto nichego ne cmogla cdelat I ceychac vdaleke From podnyh, ne znayu kak otvlechcya, ne znayu chto delat I zamknylac in cebe and ne. I don't believe that my life can change at all. "

Paradoxically, but I rejoice when I hear such words. This always means that a person wants to move on, that he looked beyond the shell and found in himself the courage to look his fate in the face. Psychotherapy with those who can no longer tolerate the current circumstances is especially successful.

A person who does not even know yet what exactly he wants, but knows that he is going to change something in his life - always finds the strength to move forward. After a period of despair and other difficult experiences, forces gradually return, however, it is important to overcome this state, and not to wallow in powerlessness and self-pity.

So what to do if you are in despair, you are depressed, or you feel like you are on the verge of a breakdown?

1) First, banal, but fact. This is what works. Recognize the situation. Surely, you remember the parable about the three blind wise men, and about how they felt the elephant. One thought that the elephant looked like a snake, the other - on the wall, the third - on the rope, feeling the tail of the elephant. Assessing the situation, do not focus your attention exclusively on one aspect - only on the bad (or only on the good). Try to capture everything in its entirety, with an impartial look of an outside observer. And be honest. Don’t take comfort in the fact that things are not so bad with Bac. Do not consider that if you make a cheap compromise with yourself, calming yourself with the phrase "it used to be worse", then something will improve. Skopee vice versa. Only by admitting that the situation is bad, you can start looking for resources in order to improve the situation.

2) Bo-second - noite! Allow yourself to be weak. Let yourself sour. The more you try to "keep yourself in hand", the faster your strength will run out. If you qualitatively "let the nurses go", then part of the tension will go away, and part of the forces previously expended on holding back will be restored.

3) B-thirds. Think, in the current situation - what or who can serve as your support. On whom you can rely, with whom to share your problems. Ask for help, look for it! It is possible that in your environment there are people who have encountered exactly the same problem as yours and know a quick and effective solution. If you keep silent and do not start looking for supports in the outside world, then, perhaps, you will not use a good chance to quickly deal with troubles. Life is unpredictable, and it is impossible to guess from which side help may come.

4) Part four. Direct part of the effort to improve your morale. This can be done with the help of physical activity (for example, walk 7-8 km, ride a bike, run around the stadium). The principle is simple: the more the body is loaded with a pleasant thing for him, the more the consciousness is "unloaded". If you think about problems constantly, then there is a risk of getting stuck in such thoughts and pushing yourself to the limit.

In that case, if physical exercise is impossible (contraindicated or simply lacks strength and willpower), then try to find something that will allow you to recover. Let it be a computer game, a short budget trip to another city, shopping - whatever you like, the main thing is that the occupation of Bas should be interesting at least for some time.

By mozhete poppobovat poceschat obschectvennye mecta - chodit in bacceyn (otlichno cnimaet telecnoe nappyazhenie, kotopoe neminyemo voznikaet in pezyltate vozdeyctviya ctpeccovyh faktopov) ydelite vnimanie cebe, cvoey vneshnocti.

If you feel that you are not able to cope with yourself, nothing helps you - seek qualified help (psychological or psychotherapeutic)! Mental balance is restored the faster and easier, the sooner you start taking care of yourself.

5) And recommendation number five: think of a rational plan of action. Think about what resources you have. What can you do immediately to improve the situation, and what can you do later. If it is impossible to do certain things right now, then stop thinking about it and torment yourself once again. Write down the action plan on paper, in a notebook, and select a specific date when you can carry out the planned.

As they say, "The best thing about depression is that it ends sooner or later." The same applies to the "black streak" in life. Sooner or later it will pass. Coping with the difficulties on our way, we certainly learn something new. We perceive life in a different way, we begin to take a philosophical attitude to that which would previously have caused painful experiences. It is never possible to understand in advance, "for what" or "for what" we fall like this.

Odnako life mydpaya shtyka and vozmozhno in bydyschem nam ponadobitcya ymenie kontsentpipovatcya, ymenie nahoditcya in pozitsii nablyudatelya, dyshevnoe pavnovecie, kotopye in konechnom itoge obyazatelno ppiobpetaet chelovek, ppohodya chepez zhiznennye neypyaditsy.