Speaker 1: Today's episode is brought to you by our newest Patreon
Speaker 1: members Mick, Patricia, Christine and Connor, and all the rest
Speaker 1: of our members who support the show. If you'd like
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Speaker 1: the many benefits of membership, go to One You Feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash join. Whose life are you loving? Is
Speaker 1: it the one is right for you? Or is it
Speaker 1: what your parents want? You stuck in some place which
Speaker 1: is really destructive? Welcome to the One you Feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and upon our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us our guest on this episode is Brent Williams.
Speaker 1: As someone who had long suffered from depression and anxiety.
Speaker 1: Brent kept a journal throughout his experience, which has now
Speaker 1: been turned into a beautiful graphic novel called Out of
Speaker 1: the Woods, A Journey through Depression and Anxiety. Hi, Brent,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Nice to be here. It's a
Speaker 1: pleasure to have you on. Your book is called out
Speaker 1: of the Woods, A Journey through Depression and Anxiety, and
Speaker 1: it is a graphic novel about, as it says, your
Speaker 1: journey through depression and anxiety. And we'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a second, but let's start like we always do
Speaker 1: with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always a battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second and looks up at
Speaker 1: his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed, So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Well. I think it's it was really
Speaker 1: ampt It's a it's a really parable for me, And
Speaker 1: in my book, I actually created a character. It was
Speaker 1: sort of the best way I could see depression and
Speaker 1: and anxiety in the form of dogs or wolves in
Speaker 1: my book. So I think when you're depressed, you don't
Speaker 1: see what is going on. You don't really see depression.
Speaker 1: It's sort of such a subtle influence in your life,
Speaker 1: even though it's very significant. Um And by seeing it,
Speaker 1: you actually can start to see how it's effect in
Speaker 1: your life, and you can decide whether you feed it
Speaker 1: or not. It's a complicated process, and I'm sure we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that, but at one level, the parable is
Speaker 1: really effective way that you can actually confront your depression,
Speaker 1: see how it's influencing your life, and make that decision
Speaker 1: about about whether you really want to continue down depression
Speaker 1: path or whether you want to get well. I agree,
Speaker 1: and I think that that parable speaks to me and
Speaker 1: my depression to some extent. I know that there are
Speaker 1: things that I do that are helpful for my depression
Speaker 1: and I know there are things I do that are
Speaker 1: not helpful for it. So, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that struck me in the book was all the
Speaker 1: things that you tried before you would would admit it
Speaker 1: was depression. You were willing to think it was lots
Speaker 1: of other things before you actually said, oh, I have depression. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean I tried everything over a long period of time.
Speaker 1: And because depression comes out and a whole lot of
Speaker 1: depression reveals itself or manifests itself, and with a whole
Speaker 1: lot of physical symptoms, so it's very easy to say
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's my neck, it's my it's my
Speaker 1: stomach pain, it's my back pain, it's my neck pain,
Speaker 1: it's my insomnia. Since all these things, and if you
Speaker 1: go to a doctor, as I did, I went to many,
Speaker 1: they'll treat the symptom that you appear you appear with.
Speaker 1: It was it was remarkable how none of the people
Speaker 1: that I went to said, let's look at the sum
Speaker 1: total of your life, let's look at the sum total
Speaker 1: of the symptoms. And very quickly somebody would have said, hey,
Speaker 1: you're depressed. You need to do something about the depression,
Speaker 1: not just the symptoms. Yeah, I mean, you said, you know,
Speaker 1: you thought you were willing to admit it could be
Speaker 1: a dream, or fatigue, burnout, vitamin deficiency, chronic fatigue, all
Speaker 1: these different things instead of admitting it was depression. So
Speaker 1: what was it about depression that you were so reticent
Speaker 1: to think that this could be well. At the time,
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware that I didn't want to face depression.
Speaker 1: There wasn't even enough awareness to get to that point.
Speaker 1: But when I started to people started to tell me
Speaker 1: I was depressed. When I went to my general practition,
Speaker 1: you said, you've got depression, then it was more obvious
Speaker 1: that I was running from that diagnosis. That I did
Speaker 1: not want to be depressed. I did not want to
Speaker 1: be the depressed person. I had spent my life being
Speaker 1: the strong person, helping others, raising kids, you know, doing
Speaker 1: good things in the community. And I wasn't the one
Speaker 1: that was going to get depressed. I was strong. I
Speaker 1: would not succumb to something like depression. I would just
Speaker 1: getting myself through it, push overcome it. All those things
Speaker 1: were in my psyche making me believe I couldn't be depressed,
Speaker 1: or if I did something else, surely it's not there's
Speaker 1: something else I can sold it through some other through
Speaker 1: some other action. It took many years of running, and
Speaker 1: of course you know that made things were just getting
Speaker 1: more depressed and run out of options. Really, it is
Speaker 1: that internal belief that is still so prevalent today, and people,
Speaker 1: even though there's more awareness and you know, some of
Speaker 1: the stigma has been exposed and there's perhaps reducing by
Speaker 1: still come across people who won't face the fact that
Speaker 1: they are suffering from depression. Yeah, I find it interesting.
Speaker 1: I feel like we seem to, at least here in
Speaker 1: the U S. We we have one of two approaches, right.
Speaker 1: One is that we don't really acknowledge that it's depression
Speaker 1: and we go on trying all these other things, or
Speaker 1: we are very quickly diagnosed as having depression, we are
Speaker 1: given a medicine and then that's kind of the end
Speaker 1: of the story. And I found both those things and
Speaker 1: in my own life to be lacking, right, Like I
Speaker 1: needed to know what I was dealing with. I needed
Speaker 1: to know I had depression, right, and medicine was a
Speaker 1: big part of my recovery, but it wasn't sufficient, it
Speaker 1: wasn't enough. And so know, I also found that while
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of benefit to say, your average
Speaker 1: general practitioner saying, hey, you might have depression. Again, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of benefits better than suffering unacknowledged. But
Speaker 1: I also find that the tendency then tends to be
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, here's your antidepressant, go on
Speaker 1: about your life. And in your case, it really was both.
Speaker 1: It was the it was it was medicine, and it
Speaker 1: was all these lifestyle changes. And I thought the book
Speaker 1: did a really good job of walking through how you
Speaker 1: did so many different things. So I thought i'd start
Speaker 1: by asking you, just, you know, tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about your resistance to taking any medicine for depression.
Speaker 1: It was the same issue of believing that I was
Speaker 1: needed to use not except help. I think that was
Speaker 1: the big thing, you know. I didn't want help from
Speaker 1: somebody else, even though I was a helper. I was
Speaker 1: a helper and helped others, and it was made my
Speaker 1: living out of helping others. But yet I wasn't prepared
Speaker 1: to accept help from others, which was crazy. And in
Speaker 1: the same way, I wasn't prepared to take medication. I
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't want something artificial to try and get
Speaker 1: me over this that was at one level. I think
Speaker 1: at a more sensible level, um, there was something in
Speaker 1: me which knew that my life was was not right,
Speaker 1: that I was and I needed something more than just
Speaker 1: a quick fix. I look back and think, if there
Speaker 1: was a quick fix, I would I should have and
Speaker 1: would have would have would have taken it. So but
Speaker 1: I took this. I took a tougher path, which I
Speaker 1: wouldn't recommend people. But in my case, I think if
Speaker 1: I had been put back on my feet and put
Speaker 1: back into the workplace, back into my role in society,
Speaker 1: I would have just able have just happened again, because
Speaker 1: in a way, that's what did happen. I got a
Speaker 1: bit better, and then I went back and then I
Speaker 1: crashed again, and I picked myself up, and this carried
Speaker 1: on for quite a while. I needed to really get
Speaker 1: to a point where I needed to change my life. Changed,
Speaker 1: changed the way I was thinking, the way I was acting,
Speaker 1: and that required quite a major restructuring of of myself
Speaker 1: in a way which was through therapy, committed and long
Speaker 1: period of therapy, and that support and that process was
Speaker 1: probably the most significant thing about changing, along with a
Speaker 1: whole lot of other things I was doing but by
Speaker 1: this stage I knew that I had depression, and I
Speaker 1: really embarked on the on a very good path of
Speaker 1: trying to get well. That that took a long time.
Speaker 1: The other thing is a very personal thing in my family.
Speaker 1: My father had severe anxiety and this mental illness in
Speaker 1: my family and this drug abuse in my family, and
Speaker 1: I it's sort of seeing my father taking handfuls, literally
Speaker 1: handfuls of drugs and send as personality affected by that,
Speaker 1: zodiazepines and things like this city was just downing to
Speaker 1: stay awake, it's just to go to sleep and everything
Speaker 1: in between. And you know, something deep in me, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to go down that path. You know, my
Speaker 1: father is a big influence in my life, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to live a different life to him and not
Speaker 1: going down that path. But the drugs medication was part
Speaker 1: of it as well. So it's quite a complex thing
Speaker 1: for me. So I'm soon of anti medication. I think
Speaker 1: it works brilliantly for some people, it works horribly for others,
Speaker 1: and somewhere in the middle there is a group that
Speaker 1: it sort of works for. I think for any of
Speaker 1: those all groups though, they need to do more than
Speaker 1: just take medication. Like, definitely think medications there's a way
Speaker 1: to get you up to a point where you can
Speaker 1: really start helping yourself when perhaps without medication you're not
Speaker 1: capable of doing that. You use the analogy in the
Speaker 1: book antidepressants sort of like a life jacket if your
Speaker 1: float and but you've still got a swim to shore.
Speaker 1: You know, you've still got to get there and find
Speaker 1: your way home. And so, you know, your book really
Speaker 1: is illustrative of something that I often say about me
Speaker 1: and my depression is that I just kind of through
Speaker 1: the and sync at it right, like I threw everything
Speaker 1: that you know, I continue to just try as many
Speaker 1: different things as I can. And the word holistic is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a cliche in some ways these days,
Speaker 1: but it really turns out in my case to be true,
Speaker 1: like I need all of those different things. So we've mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, antidepressants, you've mentioned therapy. Tell me about some
Speaker 1: of the other things that you had to do that
Speaker 1: you learned would be useful for you in dealing with
Speaker 1: your depression. We want to look at it about all
Speaker 1: the things we need to do and to live well
Speaker 1: and other basic things in life, which is to beat well.
Speaker 1: Nutrition is really important to see the sun, to get
Speaker 1: out and exercise, move our bodies, to be with with people,
Speaker 1: not to isolate yourself, which depression does so well, but
Speaker 1: to have good relationships with people. And it's a very
Speaker 1: difficult thing when your depressed and have anxiety to have
Speaker 1: good relationships. It's hard enough with friends, little owner intimate
Speaker 1: partner to have. When you've got depression and anxiety, you
Speaker 1: are not a very pleasant person. You're actually a really
Speaker 1: annoying for yourself and for others to be around. So
Speaker 1: you've got some big, some basic things, and they're really
Speaker 1: big things, and they have to be sort of worked at.
Speaker 1: And I think there are the key things for me
Speaker 1: getting support and I did that in the form of therapy.
Speaker 1: That was my main support because I was re isolated
Speaker 1: at that time. Stopping your mind ruminate and that's because
Speaker 1: that's a really big thing and depression, and I think
Speaker 1: mindfulness is a really good tool for me. And it
Speaker 1: was getting my sleep right, moving my body at the
Speaker 1: right time and in the right way. And there's lots
Speaker 1: of little things that came sort of later, and I
Speaker 1: added a lot of them fall out of therapy. Working
Speaker 1: at how you want to live your life. Whose life
Speaker 1: are you living? Is it the one you really is
Speaker 1: right for you, or is it what your parents want,
Speaker 1: or is it what you've good Scott's you know, you
Speaker 1: stuck in some place which is really destructive in your life.
Speaker 1: Alcohol and drugs is another big one. You know, often
Speaker 1: people who are depression abusing ourcohol and drugs, and that's
Speaker 1: another issue that has to be dealt with you. And
Speaker 1: you're not going to recover easily in the issue deal
Speaker 1: all those addiction issues, right, Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: so many of those things are are so true. More
Speaker 1: and more I am becoming aware of how important nutrition is.
Speaker 1: You know, there are more and more studies that are
Speaker 1: really linking diet and proper nutrition to depression and overall
Speaker 1: psychological well being. So that's certainly been one that has
Speaker 1: been a little bit of a later arrival on the
Speaker 1: scene for me. I wouldn't say it's been like just now,
Speaker 1: but I think I continue to grow into seeing that
Speaker 1: link now. I think it's fun to meental and what
Speaker 1: we put in our mouths is what our brain needs
Speaker 1: to to think, to grow to function, is what our
Speaker 1: body needs. It's just so it's so fundamental. We we
Speaker 1: think now came across a person who said they woke up,
Speaker 1: they went to their desk and they had a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee in a cigarette, and then they sat at
Speaker 1: their desk in the computer and didn't get up to
Speaker 1: about three in the afternoon, and wonder why they're feeling
Speaker 1: so depressed, and they're just it's just so. It's sit
Speaker 1: still in a dark room in front of a computer
Speaker 1: screen and try and survive on a coffee and a cigarette. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a recipe for the disaster. You're not going to
Speaker 1: recover from depression if that's your lifestyle. You do have
Speaker 1: to sort out nutrition. That's very important. But I think
Speaker 1: it's sorry, but it's also important not to get absisted about.
Speaker 1: It can easily start socially if you've got anxiety and
Speaker 1: worry about foods and what you're eating and what you're
Speaker 1: not eating and being a little too obsissed. I think
Speaker 1: it's really good to just to eat healthily and a
Speaker 1: wide variety of food and not stress about food. The
Speaker 1: book does a really good job of of talking about
Speaker 1: breaking the downward spiler depression by doing lots of small
Speaker 1: and manageable things. So oftentimes if we are in the
Speaker 1: midst depression, and we hear a conversation like this one
Speaker 1: and we think, oh my goodness, well, I've got to
Speaker 1: overhaul my diet and I need to start, you know,
Speaker 1: doing a ton of exercise, and I need to be
Speaker 1: going to therapy and I should be. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's all this stuff that we take, and in the
Speaker 1: book you really do a good job of sort of
Speaker 1: breaking down how for you it was lots of small
Speaker 1: but manageable things like take the nutrition one early in
Speaker 1: the book, what's the first thing? I opened the cover
Speaker 1: because I wasn't eating. I lost ten kilos when I
Speaker 1: was depressed and I thought I was eating. I wasn't
Speaker 1: aware that I was actually just missing meals and not
Speaker 1: eating much. And it's just things that you're not even
Speaker 1: aware of at the time. Open the cup and put
Speaker 1: out a tin of baked beans and sit there and
Speaker 1: eat them out of the can. Well done, You've actually
Speaker 1: eaten some food. Okay, it's not brilliant food, but it's fine.
Speaker 1: It's something in your stomach, and well done. And now
Speaker 1: now I can sort of build from there. When you're depressed,
Speaker 1: you haven't got the energy with the motivation where you
Speaker 1: can't see the benefits. There's no sort of reward mechanism
Speaker 1: have in your brain which says I need to go
Speaker 1: and shop, I need to buy good food, I need
Speaker 1: to cook a meal. It's just like where do you begin?
Speaker 1: Too hard? Just sit down, give up, don't eat. So
Speaker 1: starting small for me is like, just have something and
Speaker 1: in the cupboards that is really simple and you can
Speaker 1: just grab an open and meat that without even eating it.
Speaker 1: So I have some fruit, you know, have an avocado,
Speaker 1: have some crackers, Have just simple simple food that you
Speaker 1: don't have to have to prepare because you've got no
Speaker 1: energy when you're really depressed and you just basically sit
Speaker 1: around and the world just passes you by. In the book,
Speaker 1: throughout there is a character who is sort of guiding
Speaker 1: you through how to get better. Who is this character?
Speaker 1: What does that represent to you or was it an
Speaker 1: actual person? The character came about because when I was
Speaker 1: writing the book, by the stage, I had made a
Speaker 1: lot of progress. I was I was recovering and I
Speaker 1: accepted my depression, and I was quite a different mode.
Speaker 1: I was investigating, I was researched, and I was I
Speaker 1: was looking at a lot of stuff. I was doing
Speaker 1: it everything over my book I was sort of road
Speaker 1: testing and assessing and making diary notes and keeping a
Speaker 1: new chart and what was working, what wasn't, and the
Speaker 1: person that was doing that it was a lot wiser
Speaker 1: than the person that was depressed. And so that the
Speaker 1: helper is the wisdom that was in me that came
Speaker 1: later looking back on my life and seeing okay, well
Speaker 1: what do they do but worked, what don't? And then
Speaker 1: it became quite a really helpful character in the book
Speaker 1: that could easily have been my therapist or a good
Speaker 1: supportive friend. And I like the fact it was left
Speaker 1: open so people could bring their own helper into their story,
Speaker 1: into their own story. One of the things that's interesting
Speaker 1: is you now talk about therapy as being such an
Speaker 1: important part of your recovery, but your initial attempts at
Speaker 1: therapy did not go real Well, no, no they didn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, first I didn't want to. I vow not
Speaker 1: to go to a therapist. I'm never going to go
Speaker 1: to a therapist. I'm not going to sit in front
Speaker 1: of somebody else, even though I probably sent many other
Speaker 1: clients off the therapists. So again it was that shame denial.
Speaker 1: It took me a while before I found therapist that
Speaker 1: was right for me, and many were going down paths
Speaker 1: which really was not and was not helpful. So you're
Speaker 1: not necessarily going to strike the right person immediately. And
Speaker 1: the other thing I learned was that there it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily who's right for you is not necessarily the one
Speaker 1: that is the easiest road either. In some ways, your
Speaker 1: therapist is not there to be your friend that had
Speaker 1: been your therapist. Are there to believe in your as
Speaker 1: minded believe in my ability to get well. That was
Speaker 1: the thing that she never lost sight of. So sometimes
Speaker 1: it needs to. It's it's going to be a bit tough,
Speaker 1: it's going to uncover stuff. But it was always even
Speaker 1: though it was tough, it always felt that I was
Speaker 1: making progress and I wanted to go back and I
Speaker 1: formed a very good relationship and it was Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think for me it was I would not be in
Speaker 1: the position name today unless I had really done that
Speaker 1: and committed to it. I'm very lucky I eventually found somebody.
Speaker 1: So it's really not working. You've got to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: I'm I just running away from therapy or was just
Speaker 1: not right for me? And it could be it could
Speaker 1: be both. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that you
Speaker 1: sounds like a couple of therapists legitimately weren't a good fit,
Speaker 1: but that you didn't give up on going. You tried
Speaker 1: someone else, and then you tried someone else's But then,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd see myself just slowly sliding back, sliding back.
Speaker 1: I think, no, I need to give it another guy,
Speaker 1: And I'm so pleased I did that. Yeah, eventually I
Speaker 1: did find somebody that was very good. One of the
Speaker 1: things that we hear a lot about in this this
Speaker 1: show talks about it a pair amount is meditation, and um.
Speaker 1: It was interesting to me that early on meditation wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily that helpful for you. It wasn't. It sounds like
Speaker 1: later mindfulness became a bigger part of what you were doing,
Speaker 1: But it sounds like very early on that was a
Speaker 1: tool that you were going to that wasn't very helpful. No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. There's some research out there that supports that.
Speaker 1: It's not just my personal view. I think people have
Speaker 1: got to be very careful because meditation is so easily
Speaker 1: thrown out. There is the thing you've got to do.
Speaker 1: You do yoga, meditate, and you get out of depression.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's simplastic, and it's in fact a
Speaker 1: little bit dangerous because if you think what is meditation,
Speaker 1: it's mostly sitting quietly on your own with your eyes closed,
Speaker 1: doing something quite concentrated, been night on your technique. And
Speaker 1: if you're if you're in the middle of depression and
Speaker 1: your mind is ruminating badly, which it does, just going
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. Um. The last thing
Speaker 1: year I needed to do was to go into um,
Speaker 1: a place where I was isolated and just sitting with
Speaker 1: my mind. I actually needed something which took me out
Speaker 1: of myself, out of my situation, to engage with other people.
Speaker 1: And that's where mindfulness was a very different aile of
Speaker 1: meditation and drew me out to connecting with people in
Speaker 1: the world and my senses, and that was a very
Speaker 1: that was a far more productive form of meditation. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think meditation can mean many things, many practices, and
Speaker 1: not all necessarily going to work for you, And it
Speaker 1: depends to on which stage you know. Maybe suggestion is
Speaker 1: now that meditation is actually better to stop people relapsing
Speaker 1: back into depression, but is questionable whether it's good to
Speaker 1: get out of you when when you're in the pits
Speaker 1: of depression, and so you found mindfulness to be more helpful.
Speaker 1: And by mindfulness you mean being more present to what
Speaker 1: was happening to you as you were out in the
Speaker 1: world it was and both both that and also be
Speaker 1: mindfuls as to what was happening to my body, what
Speaker 1: was working, what was happening to my mind, being more
Speaker 1: aware of myself generally and aware of what was working
Speaker 1: and what wasn't working in terms of my recovery. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that did work was to use
Speaker 1: mindfulness to actually engage to the world, particularly nature, to
Speaker 1: get out and you can go for a walk in
Speaker 1: the woods, which you know I did a lot of,
Speaker 1: and you can go through the woods and you can
Speaker 1: just get through a long period of time where you
Speaker 1: don't just see anything. You're just stuck in your mind
Speaker 1: and your mind is going over a whole lot of
Speaker 1: really negative, unproductive or crazy nonsense thoughts. And you get
Speaker 1: to the end of your walk and you think, what
Speaker 1: did I see, what did I feel? What did I notice?
Speaker 1: And pretty much you notice nothing. You're just consumed by
Speaker 1: your thoughts. So practice of mindfulness actually means you actually
Speaker 1: see what's going on, you engage with the colors, the shapes,
Speaker 1: the wind, the sun, the light, what your feet are
Speaker 1: doing on the ground, what you're hearing, the wind, people,
Speaker 1: children playing dogs, And it's a totally different experience, and
Speaker 1: it's a very healthy experience. You give your mind a break,
Speaker 1: You actually focus on what's real, rather than this pantomime
Speaker 1: that's going on in your head which just keeps you depressed,
Speaker 1: which just turns and turns and turns and just just
Speaker 1: keeps you trapped and depression and anxiety. I think that's
Speaker 1: a really useful idea, this one of like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: go for a walk in the woods, but the entire time,
Speaker 1: all I'm doing is being in my brain and mindfulness,
Speaker 1: being paying attention to what's real, what's actually real here,
Speaker 1: instead of what is potentially not real, which is all
Speaker 1: these thoughts about what may or may not happen. They're
Speaker 1: real and that they're happening, but they're not real, as in,
Speaker 1: they don't exist outside your mind. And I would do
Speaker 1: things which really really prompted me to pull me out
Speaker 1: of my mind quite strongly. I would go to botanical
Speaker 1: gardens and and I would go into the fragrant garden
Speaker 1: and smell all the different smells, or the herb gardens,
Speaker 1: smell the herbs. Rub some herbs on my fingers and
Speaker 1: smell them. And if you know, if you rub a
Speaker 1: nice lemoning time on your for doesn't smell them. You
Speaker 1: can't ruminate at the same time as you're doing that.
Speaker 1: It's almost impossible. So you come out of your ruminating
Speaker 1: mind and you smell this beautiful smell. It's a different experience.
Speaker 1: You give your brain a holiday. You give other parts
Speaker 1: of your brain, which are healthy, a chance to sort
Speaker 1: of come alive. And and that's so important, and you
Speaker 1: need to you need to build that. By building that,
Speaker 1: you actually strengthen they healthy parts of your brain that
Speaker 1: have all this ability to see beauty and to engage,
Speaker 1: to be mindful, and inevitably other things start building on
Speaker 1: that ability to find self, to find compassion and kindness
Speaker 1: towards yourself, Because if you're ruminating about a whole lot
Speaker 1: of negative things, things you've done, your regrets in life,
Speaker 1: that's inevitably you're you're beating yourself up, and it's it's
Speaker 1: really just making you feel bad, making you more depressed,
Speaker 1: keeping you trapped. Whereas you use your sense us through
Speaker 1: mindfulness to see to snow to feel you're having quite
Speaker 1: a different experience. One of the things about depression is
Speaker 1: that we tend to think of healing and I guess
Speaker 1: from depression or any number of things, we tend to
Speaker 1: think of it as sort of a linear thing. We
Speaker 1: just sort of get better, get better, get better, right,
Speaker 1: And in your case, that was not the way it worked.
Speaker 1: There was up there, down, there was up, there was down.
Speaker 1: The overall trend line over a long period of time
Speaker 1: might have appeared to be upwards, but in the midst
Speaker 1: of it, there was lots of up and down. There
Speaker 1: was a real roller coaster. And that's why it was
Speaker 1: really helpful for me to keep a mood chart. It's
Speaker 1: just no one told me to. I just had this
Speaker 1: idea that I wanted to know what was going on,
Speaker 1: what was what was behind these what was I doing
Speaker 1: when I feel a bit better, and what the doing
Speaker 1: I didn't, So I plot a little mood chat of
Speaker 1: how I felt during the day, and then I would
Speaker 1: write notes and it was really interesting to go back
Speaker 1: and see those. You see a pattern that you can't
Speaker 1: see at the time, and you think, oh, it's a
Speaker 1: consistent thing. When I'm with good people, good friends that
Speaker 1: actually made me, support me, listen to me, or just
Speaker 1: do something I don't know, watch a fun movie with me,
Speaker 1: or going to walk with me. I'm feeling better. And
Speaker 1: when I'm on my own, when I'm isolated, or when
Speaker 1: I'm saying no to people because I'm feeling too an
Speaker 1: you sort of lethargic and depressed, I'm feeling worse. So
Speaker 1: you suddenly get the pattern. Okay, it's really important too
Speaker 1: to get out and be with people and then you
Speaker 1: so you see that reflected back to you, and then
Speaker 1: you can build on that and build that into your
Speaker 1: life and make that more of your routine. So it's
Speaker 1: a very good way of monitoring, working out what's what's working,
Speaker 1: what's not, and strengthening those good things. And it's a
Speaker 1: process and the more you do them, the more your
Speaker 1: brain adapts to them in good ways, and the more
Speaker 1: you find your behaviors changing. And it's it's the upward
Speaker 1: spiral out of depression. Just little things like that make
Speaker 1: the difference. And so for you, what's it like now?
Speaker 1: You know, would you consider yourself as somebody who has
Speaker 1: recovered from depression? Is it still something that makes periodic
Speaker 1: appearances in your life, like what's your relationship to it now?
Speaker 1: I definitely feel like recovered from depression. I would never
Speaker 1: say that I won't get depressed again. I think they
Speaker 1: would be foolish. It doesn't worry me, it doesn't keep
Speaker 1: me up at night, but it's it's there. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was such a shake up of my life. It's now.
Speaker 1: I won't forget it, and it sits. There's a reminder
Speaker 1: whenever I just just start to forget. Now if I
Speaker 1: go through better forgetting to look after myself in the
Speaker 1: middle ways or something of its saying okay, get back
Speaker 1: on track. Anxiety is different. Anxiety store still is more
Speaker 1: present for me and can rear itself more quickly, and
Speaker 1: because the tour so connected, I focus more on looking
Speaker 1: after myself in the anxiety area arena, if you like,
Speaker 1: because I know that if that gets out of hand,
Speaker 1: then the depression is perhaps more likely to come back
Speaker 1: into my life. So the same things what got me
Speaker 1: out of depression are the certain very same things that
Speaker 1: helped me live life without anxiety. Well that anxiety that
Speaker 1: is intolerable. I'm always trying to figure out, like, what's
Speaker 1: my relationship to depression now? I don't have it like
Speaker 1: I used to have it by any stretch. I am
Speaker 1: not incapacitated by it. However, I still have what I
Speaker 1: would consider you know, sometimes I just think of it
Speaker 1: more as like low mood, and I never know like,
Speaker 1: is that just sort of kind of my sort of
Speaker 1: where my happiness level happens to be, or is it
Speaker 1: just sort of my temperament? Right? People used to talk
Speaker 1: about like a melancholic temperament, and so I I am.
Speaker 1: I find it a very interesting relationship looking at my
Speaker 1: own life like kind of what what's happening here is?
Speaker 1: You know, does depression still come to visit or do
Speaker 1: I just sometimes have low mood because that's sort of
Speaker 1: my temperament? Um, But I know it's not what it
Speaker 1: once was. And I also know that for me that
Speaker 1: the things that I have learned to do to help
Speaker 1: me with um depression are things that I continue to
Speaker 1: do today. I have found that it is a program
Speaker 1: of my recovery is contingent upon my continuing to take
Speaker 1: good care of myself. Yes, And I think the question
Speaker 1: to ask yourself, as are you, because sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: it can creep burn and you can start to change
Speaker 1: your life without knowing really how whether depression is creeping back,
Speaker 1: and are you saying no to people? You are you
Speaker 1: turning down requests to be with people? Are you are
Speaker 1: you saying no, I prefer not to exercise. Are you
Speaker 1: tending to withdraw more? Just be aware of those things,
Speaker 1: and if you are, then you might say, Okay, this
Speaker 1: isn't so good. I need to do something about it.
Speaker 1: I need to get some help. I need to just
Speaker 1: turn those little things around. And I think that's an
Speaker 1: important way to see it, because depression can can easily
Speaker 1: just slip back into people's lives without before they know
Speaker 1: they are back in that back in that place. Um so,
Speaker 1: so that's perhaps aren't how I would see it? And
Speaker 1: when I can can have periods where I feel really
Speaker 1: thethargic and I prefer not to get out and do things,
Speaker 1: but I push myself and whenever I do, I say, okay,
Speaker 1: how is if you're an out way better? I'm so pleased.
Speaker 1: I got out, I got some exercise, and that was
Speaker 1: a really good thing to do. And it proves to
Speaker 1: me that sometimes you do have to just push yourself
Speaker 1: a little bit. I find I have to push myself
Speaker 1: over the hurdle often I guess when I say push,
Speaker 1: it's there's you can you know, there's there's an unhealthy pushing,
Speaker 1: and then there's just sort of what I would consider
Speaker 1: a sort of a healthy like okay, come on, get
Speaker 1: out there. But I like that idea of looking at
Speaker 1: it less from only a mood perspective, but looking at
Speaker 1: from a activity in life perspective. What is my life
Speaker 1: look like? What are the activities that I'm doing? Do
Speaker 1: I appear to still be engaged and read it right
Speaker 1: in the heart of my life? Or am I am
Speaker 1: I slowly withdrawing? I think that's an interesting way to
Speaker 1: look at it. Relationships are often, you know, as I
Speaker 1: see it, they're challenging. And how your relationships are you've
Speaker 1: been open a mindful relationship where you're listening and giving
Speaker 1: and taking and as it will balanced, Or are you
Speaker 1: you know, finding that no one's right for people around you,
Speaker 1: whether it's work relationships or personal relationships. You know you're
Speaker 1: always you know, there's always a problem with somebody you're worth.
Speaker 1: I mean, that type of thing can be a good
Speaker 1: reality check to say, Okay, well maybe it's me, Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm behaving in ways that it's not right because depression
Speaker 1: comes out in so many ways. It doesn't just you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just the archetypal you're sitting there, your head down,
Speaker 1: your slump, you've got manager you can come out. And
Speaker 1: people can be an agitated form of depression that can
Speaker 1: be very grumpy. Aggressive, can show up as irritability for sure.
Speaker 1: That is a common manifestation, particularly among men. Short temper,
Speaker 1: exploding quickly, all those things. So it's such a complex illness.
Speaker 1: I mean it's got so many and sometimes that polar
Speaker 1: opposites that um you can Yeah, it's just it's quite
Speaker 1: a fascinating thing. And that's why we go to a
Speaker 1: doctor who has got I don't know in New Zealand
Speaker 1: fifteen minute slots, and the doctor is going to diagnose
Speaker 1: you and prescribe you in a fifteen minute slot. It's
Speaker 1: just absurd. I mean, you need fifteen minutes just to
Speaker 1: talk about sleep, how's your sleep going, and how to
Speaker 1: sort the sleep out because sleep is such an important
Speaker 1: thing with depression. If you're constantly tired and not sleeping.
Speaker 1: I mean I could speak to somebody for half an
Speaker 1: hour about good sleep methods and how they can slowly
Speaker 1: change those and improve them. And and it's a complex thing.
Speaker 1: And then there's nutrition, and there's exercise and all those things,
Speaker 1: and then there's the medication thing. I mean, more and
Speaker 1: more we find out that the medication is not a
Speaker 1: one size fits all. People respond differently to two different medications.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's becoming a very interesting science now how
Speaker 1: we're the diagnostic tools have become so much more complex
Speaker 1: and and going to make I think in the future
Speaker 1: that would make these the main medication far more useful.
Speaker 1: It won't just be a trial and era, well let's
Speaker 1: just try this one and let's try this one. They'll
Speaker 1: be be far more accurate and will be far more effective.
Speaker 1: So there will be a good thing, as long as
Speaker 1: we don't get stuck on that thinking that's one day
Speaker 1: there's going to be a silver bullet for depression. I
Speaker 1: don't believe there will be. It's a lifestylelish it's how
Speaker 1: you live your life, and it's way more complex than
Speaker 1: to be solved at the bottom of the cliff with
Speaker 1: any form of medication. The term illness almost makes it
Speaker 1: sound like it is a thing that you can put
Speaker 1: your finger on, like, oh, this cell is growing out
Speaker 1: of control, Like you can find in cancer or there's
Speaker 1: this virus. Right, it's really more, in my mind, it's
Speaker 1: more of a it's more of a syndrome, right, because
Speaker 1: there are so many contributing factors and and they they
Speaker 1: layer on and interweave with each other in incredibly complex ways. Um.
Speaker 1: That said, there does appear to be some protocol holes
Speaker 1: that make sense, right, I think the vast majority of
Speaker 1: our lifestyle based Well, Brett, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to come on the show, for sharing
Speaker 1: your experience, for writing the book. You're going to give
Speaker 1: an offer to our listeners for your book that I
Speaker 1: wanted to give you a chance to mention because you
Speaker 1: told me about it before the show. Yeah, thanks sir.
Speaker 1: I have a website for the book. It's available through
Speaker 1: the usual channels, but I also sell it directly through
Speaker 1: my website out of the Woods, dot code, dot m Z.
Speaker 1: And what I'd like to do for your listeners is
Speaker 1: offer them a deal where if they buy one book
Speaker 1: at the normal price, they get a additional book for free,
Speaker 1: which they can give away to friends or family members
Speaker 1: or to local community center or whatever they feel is appropriate.
Speaker 1: And so, will you just go to that website, whether
Speaker 1: it be a code they use or how will that work? Yes,
Speaker 1: so if they use a code wolf, they can access
Speaker 1: that and it will be seem to them through my
Speaker 1: distributor in the US. All right, and I will put
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes to that. So um,
Speaker 1: thank you so much Brent for taking the time to
Speaker 1: come on. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank
Speaker 1: you it's been to talk to you. Take care bye.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
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