 One of the stories I talk about and I share the most here is the story of how when I moved back from China I was incredibly depressed. I've been 24 I had the most epic year of my life and I came back home moved back into my parents didn't know my purpose What to do didn't have a job didn't really have any friends because I went to college away from home So I showed back home. I'm back at home Nothing to do all day no purpose and for me. I felt like honestly some days No real reason to be alive But since then thankfully I haven't really ever struggled with depression since and I want to share in this video What I think is the most essential thing you do if you're slogging through crap every day you feel depressed You're going through some difficult life event and you really just want everything to stop for a while in this video I want to share the exact practice. I recommend above all What's up guys? Alex Hein here author of the book master the day now one exercise I did during that depressed period of life has been journaling and I find that journaling is one of the most powerful Exercises to go from confusion to clarity. I've included a free journaling worksheet and free email course It's the first link in the description box So you can click that link get that free journaling e-course and that'll give you some of the beginner exercises and more of my story and how I did that so obviously if you're having like severe depression go see a doctor do What safe talk to people but if you feel like for a prolonged period of time you're going through something and you just hate life This is the one practice above all that I can recommend that has helped me more than anything to keep momentum in my life The practice is very simple and it's just never stop doing the foundational rituals Okay, never stop doing the foundational rituals that keep your life moving forward and let me explain this a bit more So over the last seven or so years about six seven years. I've been into personal development I've had my business for five years and in those years. I've fallen in love. I've been dumped I've gotten to like best relationships and the worst relationships in my life I've been the peak of like my business is actually working and I've been where I thought it was going to fail And I would have to go find a job again. I mean I've been through perfect health health crisis I've seen so much shit in the last six years of my life But here's the thing in those six years The main thing that has gotten me through and has kept me going and most important to me Growing and continually making progress has been that one principle to no matter what happens Every day I get up and I do the same rituals that keep my life together Now in that time period of my life I put together something called the doomsday document the doomsday document is a list of all the aspects of my life Relationships health happiness finances, etc. And in those sections of my life the different facets of life I wrote down what habits I was doing every day to have that part of my life amazing So when I was my fittest, what was I doing every day when I was my happiest? What was I doing every day in the best relationship? I'd ever been in what was I doing every day when I was the most fulfilled And sleeping the best what was I doing every day? So I called the doomsday document because if my life ever goes to hell in that aspect of my life I can just refer back to that and go back to what are those daily rituals? But in this video specifically I want to go more into a tactical process I'd recommend for staying on track or if someone close to you just died You just got dumped and you wonder what the point of life is now without that person if you're going through a health crisis And you don't know how things are going to go forward Do these things every day and I guarantee life will be incredible. So really these four practices It's like a tripod in a sense You have the three pegs and you have the center of it and what I want you to think of as All of these practices are designed to make you feel good. That's it They're designed to make you feel good wake up being a good mood be able to get through the day So the first part of this pyramid is health practices the second part is emotional health practices The third part is contribution and the fourth part is spirituality or deeper meaning. So when I say health practices What I mean is the more depressed you are the more You're hurting because you got dumped the more you feel that loss of your mom or your dad the more that your business or company just failed and you feel like this massive failure the more you need to Religiously exercise five days a week. It doesn't mean that grind it out crazy workouts But if you don't feel well, and you're tired you have to be doing the workouts some kind of exercise just to get circulation going I didn't realize the importance of this until I started studying Chinese medicine because emotions Literally can be moved through exercise Emotions proof that not in your throat than not in your stomach emotions produce sometimes heart attacks or sometimes strokes Insomnia anxiety depression even and exercise can literally physically move the emotion because the emotion gets stuck in the body It's like a somatic memory. So exercise is so essential on a daily basis The obvious of eating well of taking time of not rushing if you can afford to do that for me The emotional practices revolve around first of all getting everyone in your life into two buckets The ones that make you feel good the ones that make you feel bad And then spending more time around the people that make you feel good That is the essence of the feel-good practice, but at the same time it's dealing with whatever emotional beliefs or traumas or Whatever frustrations are coming up that are emotional whether they're rational or irrational So if you have this belief that it's never gonna get better How are you gonna feel better if you tell yourself every day? It's never gonna get better Of course, you're gonna feel like crap if you just got dumped by someone and you're like I'm never gonna find someone that good again Of course, you're gonna feel miserable because you're telling yourself this story that it can only get worse or that my company just failed And I'm gonna like my wife's gonna divorce me my kids are gonna hate me I don't I can't put food on the table that belief of course is gonna produce suffering every single day So quickly going through those beliefs and just catching them right when you see them The third thing is something I reintroduced in the last year and it's contribution Because I find that on the days where my life is the worst and I don't want to do anything One thing that I if I force myself to do it always makes me feel good later because on one level if I'm going through Business stuff relationship stuff life stuff and I'm helping someone else out and I see how grateful they are Number one it reminds me there's more going on in the world besides my own problems And that often one of the problems I have they may have to plus some so I objectively probably have it pretty good I think that just contributing also moves your focus away from like all this stuff inside of you The problem-solving with the anxiety the depression the frustration and now you're putting your energy into problem-solving for somebody else And I find that that's really mutually rewarding So if you haven't already Dedicating some time to contribution which could be with a friend with your parents It could be going to a pet sanctuary to walk the pets It could be volunteering in a soup kitchen, but something that gets you Dedicated to a cause greater than yourself and the last category here is the spirituality or higher meaning category And I think for me why this is so essential to Re-getting back into your body having an amazing day just feeling good is because spiritual practices I think on one level are designed to not only make us present but make us realize there's a greater purpose for us being alive And I think that's why humans always have and I think always will have spiritual or religious beliefs because regardless of what is Objectively true they make us feel good like there's a reason I'm going through this and even if you don't want to believe that or you're not Religious or non spiritual Adopting the belief that let me just see what good can come out of this that will automatically prime your mind to look for What's the good thing that can come out of this? What's the advantage? What's the growth? What's the lesson and I think this is the big difference on one level the difference is that you're trying to find a Purpose and a meaning in the greater part of your life, but also in this current suffering experience So I think if you're going through hell and going through one of the worst times of your life Or maybe you've been kind of going through crap for a long time months to years where you don't like your days you adopt this four-part framework of These are the four habits I do every day related to these big themes And I promise within a day a week a month you will feel so incredibly different And after that you'll start to feel like yourself again And I think at the end of the day when we're going through the crap. We don't feel like ourselves We're kind of dissociated or depersonalized. I think this is ultimately one of those things I can bring you back into your body back into your life and ready to improve it again So I hope that helps. That's a really big topic and a really important one Especially for people that are going through this like in a chronic sense. So again those journaling exercises I mentioned were foundational during those early 20s of period of my life where I was constantly uncertain Frustrated unhappy depressed angry, but really the uncertainties what really got to me about basically everything and It was those journaling exercises the ones I recommended that first link in the description Those are the ones that really helped me refocus and get back on track. Alright guys So we'll take it from there. You can also check out my last related videos there right there