 If you followed me for a while, man, I've been talking about depression, it's near and dear to my heart. I've been talking about that for about 10 years. And I can only speak about it because I know the darkness. I know the hopelessness. I know the despair. I know the feeling that nothing is good, that nothing ever will be good. That you sit there and think, was I ever happy? Nothing ever was good. Nothing will be good. I will never get through this. How could I possibly get through anything so terrifying and terrible? It doesn't make sense that you could move through something so thick and so dark. How could you move through it? You just get stuck in it. There's no way out. I've been at the end of my rope on this channel. You've seen me. I've hit record in my dark moments. When I can't see the light, I'm going to tell you five things that helped me. And I hope they're helpful to you that give you options. You don't need to feel the hope, but just look at this as a scientist right now if you can. Be the observer here and be like, okay, here are five options here for me. Here are five things that I can do. Two of them I haven't even tried yet. There we go. So if you can, look at this just as something completely logical. Write down these five things for yourself. Okay. I know a lot of them are simple, but some of the best things that work are and we over complicate things when we're dealing with depression in that state. We are actually a very overactive brain in a state of depression because that anxiety sometimes comes with that, right? So listen, if you're in a rough spot, hold on, man. Hold on. Don't let go. Don't let go. You on video you watching me right now? Don't let go. Did I ever let go? I know, but I don't have your life. I know. But I wanted your life probably when I was in the dark. I wanted anybody else's life, not my own. You did nothing wrong. I hope you know that. I hope you also know it's not your fault. All right. We'll get to the five in a second. Sorry. I'm just thinking of, I always think of what I would want somebody to say to me. My mind always goes to comparison. Like I'm this guy in his 30s and I'm dealing with this. Meanwhile, people are out living their lives having fun enjoying the fruits of life. I have to deal with this and I can't pull it together. That's where my mind goes. And walking in light, no matter how blissful and no matter how close to God I can become, I can almost say like, fuck them to a degree. Like this isn't about them. It was never about them. Maybe being closer to God in these moments, then I finally realized that it was right. It was between me and him the whole time. That's not about them. It's about your journey right now and you taking care of yourself right now. I wonder if you can offer yourself a little bit, just a little bit of understanding, just a little bit of compassion for how hard things are. And that maybe you clicked on the podcast, clicked on this video because it's a sign that you do love yourself. If you didn't love yourself, would you really want to weigh out? There's a very large part that maybe we can't even see right now that really is trying. And you know it. You know you're really, really trying. You know you're really, really giving it all you got. And you know that people don't see it. That you might go into work. You might hang out with family. You might text. You might have a phone call. And this stuff is 100% effort. And nobody knows the battle within. Yeah, it's hard. It's okay that it's hard right now. I wonder who I'm talking to. Gotta be talking to someone out there. Okay. You ready? Take a deep breath. Inhale through the nose. Remember where your feet are. Exhale through the mouth. Where are your feet? Ground yourself. Whoops. Ground yourself. Notice your feet. Notice your sit bones. Notice your hips and your pelvic floor. Come up to the diaphragm. Notice that. All these horizontal planes, right? And now notice your throat and tongue. Maybe swallow. Come into your body. I'm going to make these five things very simple for you. Because I want simple things for me. And I want things slow when I'm in a state of depression. And I've told everyone this before. The internet somehow something clicked. And I realized that it makes me sick. I can't scroll through YouTube anymore. All the thumbnails. All the clickbait. All the fast-paced multimedia. It's disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting. And if you feel that, man, you're in the right place, okay? So we're going to go through these nice and slow, gentle for you. And you don't need to do any of these things. You don't need to do anything right now that you don't want to do right now. I'm not forcing you. No one's putting pressure on you right now. These are things to let float, to marinate. And then you can make the decision when you want to make the decision. And I know that the decision you make will come out of love for yourself. And not hate. That you're moving in the direction of climbing that ladder to see the light. Because you really do love yourself. I know it's hard to see. Okay. So maybe there's going to be more than five. But I'll make them as simple as I can. Number one. A support group. Friends. Friends. People who understand. People who get it. The science of loneliness. When we feel like we belong. Our physiology changes. Our arresting heart rate decreases. Our blood pressure decreases. Cortisol levels decrease. When we feel like we belong and we're part of a community and something. And we feel understood. We feel like we care. We feel like we're cared for. We're not just, we just don't have the need to be needed. We have the want to be wanted. And it feels good to be wanted. Feels good to be useful. I told people on the email list. Because I sent out emails and I told them on our Saturday chats that my trigger. Like I get triggered. Now this isn't a trigger warning. And I don't, there's probably a better word for it. But when I feel like I'm invisible. Like nobody cares. Like I'm not understood. Yeah. I feel, feel kind of gross. I don't feel like myself. I feel like I got to get out. And it can be a trigger to be panic and anxiety. So it's very important for me to have peace. So it's very important for me to have people in my life. That understand, that support me. And I have to reach out myself and I have to put out effort to find those people. And sometimes they're far between, but that helps a lot. This is one of the reasons why I put together the Patreon again. Patreon.com slash Scott St. Marie. And we get together once a week. And it's people that understand depression. People that understand anxiety and we support each other. And it's a community of belonging. And I'm giving it a shot to see if people enjoy. That link's in the description. But finding people that really can understand what you're going through. At least be there for you and care for you. That's huge. It's huge. The loneliness piece can be the cause of depression. Or then depression can then cause us to feel lonely. Because we isolate ourselves. We can find someone. Speak to someone and reach out. That understands. That would be a, that go a long way. The second thing. Exercise. We know this to be just as effective sometimes as antsy depressants. If you can get a push up. If you can walk around the block. If you can walk to your fridge and back. If you can get the heart rate up just a little bit with a few squats. With some stretches, with some yoga. But doing something to increase the heart rate. Would be massive. Massive. Alongside exercise is having structure as well in your day. So if you can get out. For a walk every day at noon. And you know at noon the next day I'm going to be out for a walk. It helps this. Structure and at least we know where we're going to be on certain days at certain times. It releases worry from us. Structure is the most important thing for people with anxiety. We need structure in our day. So exercise. Anything you can do to get the heart rate up. Even a cold shower. Please give that a try. Number three. Medication. Whatever works man. I know people have been suffering from depression for a long time and they've never tried it. Is it stigma? It's they're afraid that it'll change their brain. Medication should be taken with caution. And it should be an informed decision. And it's a big decision. But. We know that people who are in the pit of depression will do anything. To get out. Anything. Pharmaceuticals. Give it to me. I haven't told you guys my whole story and I don't ever want to. But you know the pain that I've experienced the last two years. Give me the painkillers. After a year of pain I'm like okay let's go farm on time now. It's farm after two years. It's farm on time. If you're in pain. And you take an ibuprofen. You're not trying to be a hero against the pain. So if you're hurting right now. You can talk to your doctor about medication. And they can be very effective for people. There's no shame in that. There's no shame in that. The fourth one. Nutrition. We can talk about causes of depression and gut microbiome. Chemical imbalance. What is it actually about? People don't know. If we really really knew. There'd be better treatments out there. Believe me. So we still. Depression is still a very curious thing as to what is actually happening. But as far as nutrition goes. Have you tried an elimination diet? Have you tried getting rid of inflammatory foods? Like gluten? Like dairy? Like nightshades? Like kidney beans? Chickpeas? Corn? Have you tried eliminating coffee? Have you tried not drinking? If you use cannabis. Have you stopped using cannabis? And seen how you do there? So there are lots of things you can do with diet. If there's one thing I would recommend is just try no gluten or dairy for a bit. If depression kind of came upon you out of nowhere and life circumstance was the same. And you just don't know why. Like it just out of the blue. You're like brain fog and you're having trouble with fatigue and getting out of bed. This could be a micro microbiome issue. So there's a lot of resources with nutrition and depression. This is an invitation. Oh, shut up. What's that? This is an invitation. So you don't have to do anything right now. You don't have to say, oh my gosh, now it could be a nutrition thing. Oh, it could be a medication thing. Oh, it could be an exercise thing. Is it because my heart rate's not up or is it because I have inflamed tissue and my leaky guts going on and leaking into my brain? Oh my God. No, no, no. These are just options. You do try one at a time if you haven't tried, right? Try one thing at a time. Maybe it's exercise. Maybe it's the, you know, reaching out for help. And that's really number five is therapy. You'd be amazed at how many people don't go to therapy and there's so many free resources out there for you to talk to people who are professionals. It's amazing how many people don't know about therapy. Oh, you mean I should have talked to someone about this and by talking about it. It can actually help. Yes, it can. The work I do with people dealing with depression and anxiety is, is something called focusing where depression sometimes feels like we're just in a tangle. Like we don't know what's what up and down. We feel so terrible. We don't know why we have so many answered unanswered questions and part of healing is untangling the conscious and unconscious. And just now you get to see these think of a ball of yarn and it's all tangled and then to kind of see it from all different angles. And then we get to untangle it and now it's in these straight lines and in this pattern that you can see and it flows better, right? So we feel like it were an emotional tangles sometimes and different kinds of therapies work at untangling that. But the biggest thing for therapy, my friends is finding someone you trust. Find someone you trust. If you see some snake oil salesman on YouTube saying he'll cure depression and it just takes six sessions and it'll cost $300 each. Do you trust, do you trust that person? Do you really trust that? I know we want an out. I know we want to get healed quick, but is the quick fix too good to be true? What do you feel in your gut with it? The people that have worked with me, they just say, Scott, you've been open about depression and I feel like I can trust you and can we just talk? And I say, sure, let's talk. So if you can find someone you trust, whether that's me, whether that's a psychologist, a psychotherapist, a social worker, I'm going to put down some help lines in the description as well for you. And they're free of charge and you can call if you're in need as well. There's crisis support workers there to help you. So there's so many more options. We're trying to keep it simple here in this episode. I just want people listening. You may feel like you're at the end, but sometimes it's just a bit of a leap to get you to that next set of rope. Like the end is really just the beginning of something new. And if you can just hold on a little longer and check out your options, let this marinate with you. See if you want to talk to a professional. See if you want to join a support group. See if you want to try medication, meditation. See if you want to try nutrition protocols. There's a lot you can do. I know in the meantime, it's hard. Reaching out to somebody who cares, who's there to help you would be a really good first step. Thank you very much for listening. I'd like you to know how strong you are, my friend. How much I admire your ears. How much I admire your soul for continuing on. For fighting the good fight. You got this. Stay strong. I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.