Renewing Our Minds, Bodies, and Spirits Week Four: Depression
Welcome back to our Renewing Our Minds, Bodies, and Spirits study!
We have been using Romans 12:1-2 as our guiding scripture:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
As we continue our study where we are continually renewing our minds, bodies, and spirits, today we will turn our focus towards sadness.
What do you do when you feel very low, hopeless, or even find yourself in a season of what would be considered clinical depression?
Whether it is a part of your makeup, a genetic or chemical or hormonal predisposition towards depression, that makes it difficult to find the joy in life; or whether you simply are in a difficult chapter and feeling low, there is hope!
As always, we will look at the topic through the lenses of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, as well as scripture and what we can learn from the Bible.
First, what are we talking about when we say sadness and depression?
Maybe you’re intimately connected with the term depression. Maybe depression has been a consistent companion in the landscape of your lifetime.
If that’s the case, you know- it feels like a loss of hope, a loss of motivation, a struggle to see the good in life, difficulty in finding joy in things that you believe should bring you joy, or that have in the past.
You may not want to eat, or mindlessly overeat. You may struggle to sleep, or want to sleep all the time and struggle to get out of bed.
There are many more symptoms that accompany depression, but for today, we’ll simply recognize that feeling low, sad, hopeless, or depressed is hard.
Whatever the feelings might be, the bottom line is that it’s hard to find your way through, to the other side.
And whether it’s a clinical diagnosis with a genetic predisposition, or you have just hit a difficult chapter that has left you feeling hopeless, it is a hard place to find yourself.
But there is hope. There are tools, and there is God, and we will lean on and rely on both!
First let’s look at ACT for depression
We have been discussing ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, here for the past year or so, so there are tons of resources here on this site to check out. But because we want anyone to be able to join us at any time, we will always offer a quick overview refresher! If you want more info, please browse the blog for deeper dives!
What makes ACT special is its emphasis on psychological flexibility. The main idea is that most of our psychological suffering comes from wanting things to be different than they are, and then trying to make those hard feelings go away. Whether it is escaping through unhealthy coping mechanisms like substances or a Netflix binge, or healthy coping mechanisms like going for a walk or talking to a friend the bottom line is that escaping does not work. The difficult situation is still there, and you have simply lost time wanting that to not be true.
Instead, ACT encourages practicing tools in order to ride the waves of those challenging feelings and experiences.
The steps we take in ACT therapy are:
Acceptance
In ACT, acceptance means that we recognize the situation for what it is, without trying to place judgment or change it.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the next step, which is all about dropping into the present moment, getting grounded, and creating a psychological space where you have the presence to make a conscious step forward.
Commitment
Commitment is the final step, and it is that step forward! When we say commitment, we mean taking an action that is based upon your values and moves you towards the person you want to be.
Now let’s dive a little deeper on acceptance
Let’s be honest- when you’re really hurting, whether that’s from depression and sadness or any challenging feelings- acceptance is not the natural first response!
And that is part of what makes ACT so different, and also what makes it so powerful.
Today we are going to talk about the four A’s of acceptance, to give acceptance a little more structure, and to ideally help you walk through the levels of acceptance towards greater psychological flexibility.
The four A’s of acceptance
Acknowledge: Notice and mentally name the uncomfortable thought, feeling, or sensation without trying to push it away or judge it..
Allow: Let the emotion or experience simply be present. Stop fighting, struggling, or trying to force it to go away, giving it room to exist naturally.
Accommodate: Open up and make physical or mental space for the discomfort. Instead of tightening up or contracting around the pain, soften your stance and breathe into it.
Appreciate: Recognize that the painful emotion serves a purpose. Emotions act as internal allies that provide vital information through motivation, illumination, and communication.
Acknowledging
When it can be difficult to accept your situation or feelings, a good place to start is simply acknowledging them.
Think of this as naming your situation or feelings.
“I am noticing that…”
“I am having the thought that…”
“I am feeling a flood of memories from…”
Allowing
After you acknowledge your feelings or situation, you can then allow it to be what it is.
Allow those thoughts and feelings to be present.
Normalize and validate your thoughts and feelings. Perhaps you may say something like, “given what I’ve been through, it makes sense that I’d be feeling this right now.”
You can still recognize that you don’t want the feelings and thoughts to be present, but you are allowing them to happen rather than fighting them.
Accommodating
Accommodating your thoughts and feelings is going beyond allowing them, and making room for them.
Think about a house guest you aren’t excited to have staying with you! Just like your thoughts and feelings, you can recognize you may not want them here right now, but you can still help make a space for them to exist.
Accommodating can be thought of as expanding, making room, or making space.
And then, much like an unwanted houseguest, you can consider the idea of letting them come and stay and go in their own good time rather than trying to get them to go away.
Appreciating
The fourth step in acceptance is appreciating your difficult thoughts and feelings.
Again, as with so much of ACT, it feels counterintuitive, but once you embrace it, it is transformative!
When it comes to appreciating your difficult thoughts and feelings, the underlying idea that may help you is:
“These thoughts and feelings exist to teach me something. I am doing good work to move through this experience, and I can allow and accommodate and even appreciate that I will find myself in a different place with a new set of skills and experiences because of them.”
Other ways to appreciate your difficult thoughts and emotions:
“I know that God has put me in this position to grow me.”
“As I get stronger through this experience, I will be better equipped to help others in similar situations.”
And finally, you can appreciate that perhaps God has you in this season to get you to respond a certain way.
- Depression and sadness can teach us to slow down.
- Anxiety can teach us to engage with and practice mindfulness
- All of these can teach us compassion for those who go through something similar.
Now, as always, let’s turn to scripture to see what we can learn from God about how to handle sadness and depression
For today’s study we are going to look at Jeremiah.
This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Jeremiah 29:10-14
What is the context?
Jeremiah was known as “the weeping prophet.” The people of Judah had fallen away from following God and had turned to idols. It was a period of tremendous turmoil and national crisis in Israel.
The Exile: Written after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported a wave of Judean leaders, craftsmen, and elites from Jerusalem.
False Prophets: Prophets like Hananiah, Ahab, and Zedekiah lied to the exiles, claiming God would break Babylon’s power and return them home within two years.
The 70-Year Reality: Jeremiah countered that the exile would last a full 70 years, meaning most living captives would not see Jerusalem again.
What can we take from Jeremiah 29:10-14?
Jeremiah’s message was that there would be hope, that God had a plan for them, but that in the meantime, they had to be patient, and seek Him where they were.
It is a message of waiting on God and remaining faithful and seeking Him even in our hardest situations.
Verse eleven assures the exiles, and us, that God’s thoughts are for welfare, a future, and hope rather than total destruction, no matter how hopeless things may seem in the moment!
Put it into practice
Today we are going to dive deeper on the Four A’s of Acceptance. The goal is to have a practice session at going through each of the A’s, in order that in the future when you’re dealing with something that challenges you, you will be better equipped to tap into the process!
To begin: choose a situation or feeling you want to explore
Maybe you know immediately what you want to work on. If you have a current situation you’re dealing with that is challenging you, consider exploring those feelings. Or think to a feeling that has been ongoing, maybe for weeks or months or even years.
It might be sadness, but it also can be anxiety or overwhelm. To practice the Four A’s, it will be most helpful to simply choose something that you feels real and that you can truly dive deeper into the layers of the feelings that are taking shape.
Write down what you want to explore.
Step One: Acknowledge
As you now know, acknowledging is about naming.
You are going to name the experience. Name the feeling. Label what is showing up, without judgment and without trying to push it away.
Write down what you notice. It could be “I am noticing that I am” or “I am noticing that I feel” or “I am having the thought that.”
As you write it down, you can think of it as data, or information, rather than something that has to take hold of your emotions!
Step Two: Allow
Allowing is about dropping the struggle with the feeling or thought. You are making space for it instead of fighting it, numbing it, or running away from it.
For allowing, we often turn to metaphors or mindfulness practices. Take a few minutes to try one of the following exercises.
Drop the Anchor:
Plant both feet firmly on the floor. Notice the weight of your body in the chair.
Take a slow, deep breath into the area of your body where you feel the emotion (like a tight throat or heavy stomach).
Imagine breathing around the feeling, making a pocket of empty space for it to sit in without trying to shrink it.
The Open-Hands Exercise:
- Cup your hands open in front of you, palms facing up, as if holding an object. Imagine placing the emotion or thought you’re having in your hands.
- Instead of clenching your fists or throwing it away, hold your hands relaxed and still, letting the feeling rest there for 30 seconds as you breathe normally.
Step Three: Accommodate
Now that you’ve acknowledged and allowed the feelings and thoughts to exist, you’re going to make space for them.
You have named the feeling or thought, and you have allowed it. Now imagine it as a house guest that your roommate invited to come stay a few days..
To be a truly gracious host, you might clean up the living area to allow for this guest. You might try to be curious and ask them about their work or family or their interests.
Think about your feelings and thoughts like that house guest.
Where can you release the tension in order to make space for the thought or the feeling?
You don’t have to like it but you can still respect and honor and accommodate it.
Sit with these ideas. Maybe jot some notes you’d like to remember for the next time this thought or feeling tries to tangle you up. What would it look like to allow and accommodate it?
Step Four: Appreciate
Difficult thoughts and feelings are opportunities!
The more that we can choose to accept and make space for the challenges that we face, the more that we can begin to see them as opportunities, and even learn to appreciate that they can teach us, if we let them.
What might you learn from this challenging situation? What have you learned from dealing with it in the past, or from other challenging situations?
Take a moment to write down what good has come or might come from your difficult thoughts or feelings.
And finally, consider adding in an “And”
After acceptance comes mindfulness, and then the commitment to values-based action.
So now that you have moved through the Four A’s, you should be in a better place to choose your next step.
The next time you find yourself entangled in difficult thoughts and feelings, try moving through the A’s and then say to yourself:
“I am feeling (whatever that feeling is) AND I am going to (insert the action you are going to take!)!”
As always, we’d love to hear from you, whether to answer questions that you may have about what we’ve shared here, or if you’d like to join our outpost, or if you just need someone to talk to. Please email us here to reach out!