I just watched the movie A Night in the Museum (with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson) over the weekend and woke to the sad news that Owen had apparently tried to commit suicide over the weekend.

In my post about mindfulness yesterday, I had mentioned the value of meditation in calming our minds and helping us focus on just this moment. One of the effects of this slowing down & observing our thoughts is developing the ability to let go of judging ourselves. We learn to stop comparing how we feel on the inside to how we imagine others are by viewing their outside.

You may not think that becoming more aware of your thoughts is a good thing. The black dog makes sure that you’re painfully aware of the thoughts racing around your head and the last thing you want to do is pay more attention to them. What I have found though is that the understandable tendency we have to avoid unpleasantness, whether it’s thoughts or situations, actually causes our anxiety to grow. With more anxiety comes deeper despair and even more desire to run away from what’s bothering us. Like a child afraid of what’s in their closet at bedtime. The fear will remain until the light is turned on and mom, dad or the child opens the door all the way and plainly sees what they thought was a monster is really just shadows of some clothes or a toy or a product of their imagination.

Here’s a great little site where you can mix a relaxing, sleep inducing soundtrack of your own.

Think you’re all alone when you toss and turn? Guess again. Over 50 million sleepless…

We’re all experts at tension.

Everyone reading this is old enough to be a ‘black belt’ in their body’s use . . . so why aren’t we? Why aren’t we smarter about how our bodies and minds work? We go about our day thinking that we’re relaxed but if we really paid attention we’d realize we’re not. Maybe we hold our shoulders a little high, hunch our back or slump a little in our chair. We wonder why we have a knot in our back, a stiff neck or get headaches. Why are we constantly rewinding and replaying events in our mind or fast forwarding to what we hope is a better future? We’re black belts all right . . . at tension.

I’ve been working on getting outside at least twice a day, usually in the morning before work and again in the evening when I get home. I don’t have a huge back yard and given the extreme heat lately, it’s not the most well-kept yard in the neighborhood either! After all who wants to weed or mow when it’s 102?

Several studies show long term benefits for beating depression with aerobic workouts.

When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
COULD IT BE WORSE?Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

At one time or another everyone gets the blues. We feel sad when a lover leaves us, there’s trouble at work, a friend or family member dies, we’re lonely, etc. In other words life happens. Unpleasant feelings are part of our natural condition and can be an effective tool in motivating us to change. But when these feelings linger on and become more severe they start to affect every aspect of our lives and even the lives of people we know.

One of the unfortunate byproducts of modern life is depression. It has become an epidemic affecting about 121 million people worldwide and is among the the leading causes of disability.