National Depresion Awareness Week - By Samantha Weaver

NATIONAL DEPRESSION AWARENESS WEEK
17th APR 2006 – 24th APR 2006

What is National Depression Awareness Week?

National Depression Awareness Week (or NDA) is a key time of the year in event calendars for many charities or campaigners whereby they try to promote awareness of depression. This could be in the form of newsletters, newspapers, articles, campaigns, advertising and fund raising. With depression being such a debilitating condition funds need to be raised to support the work of charities like Depression Alliance to enable them to continue their work long into the future.

It is important to recognise that depression affects approximately 1 in 5 people at any one time. Anyone can suffer from depression at any time in their life. Usually depression affects people after they have gone through a traumatic life experience. Issues build up, problems are not resolved and minds dwell on negative thoughts.

Depression affects people in numerous ways. A person suffering from depression can find it hard to get into the day-to-day activities that life has to offer them. They lack motivation, energy and enthusiasm, relationships can breakdown, jobs can become extremely difficult to do, concentration levels suffer and the isolation felt by a depressive becomes paramount. If left untreated the illness can develop to such a severe extent that a person can consider suicide as their last resort to a way out of he pain they are suffering.

There are many cures and options available to assist a person who may suffering with depression, but these tools need to be made available to people in the first place. So by providing support to the charities that need it the most, you could actually be saving a life.

So how can you help?

You could organise a fundraising event…Whether it be a walking challenge, a party, a month without chocolate, a day without talking (sponsored silence)… use your imagination and come up with something interesting and exciting whereby other people will be happy to sponsor you.
You can then create a sponsorship page at http://www.justgiving.com/depression/raisemoney This is a safe environment. You do not need to worry about cash or cheques as the money is sent electronically.

You could make a donation…Charities are just that, charities. They receive little or no government funding whatsoever and in order to continue to provide their services, they usually rely heavily on membership and donations. Every penny raised will go towards raising awareness of depression and contributing towards the continual service of charities that rely so heavily on people’s generosity.

You could put up posters around your workplace, school or collage… You can be inventive and create your own designs or you could download the poster from depressionalliance.org (available from beginning of march). Either way you will be providing awareness of depression and National Depression Awareness Week.

Go on – do your bit today… you never know, one day it could be you who needs the support!
Author reserves all rights to this article (c) Samantha C Weaver

Samantha Weaver is the Author of Saving Samantha: A Young Woman's Escape from Childhood Hell, due for release 17 Apr-2006. Find out more about Sam and her experience of depression by visiting her website at: http://www.samanthaweaver.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Samantha_Weaver

10 Mistakes That Sabotage Healing - By Mari Moratto

All of us are in need of healing. Perhaps we are mourning the loss of a relationship, or the loss of a loved one (animal or human). Or the loss of our health. Or the loss of a job, or status. Or the loss of a belief, or trust, or faith. Or peace of mind. Any loss will put us in a state of uneasiness or dis-ease.

Dis-ease as the name says is the lack of ease or the absence of well-being, to be more accurate. When we lose our well-being, in any which form it comes, physically, emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually, we grieve. There is loss and we grieve this loss.

Here are the 10 biggest mistakes that sabotage our healing from whatever dis-ease we may be having in life.

1. We don’t acknowledge we are in need of healing
Except for when things are really bad, as with a physical disease that may or may not be fatal, many times, we are not even aware that we need healing. We become the notorious “walking-wounded” hurting everyone else we meet.

2. We don’t take time for ourselves
We pretend that nothing has happened or we suppress our hurt and live life as if nothing happened. We don’t acknowledge that we need time out to recoup and make a plan of action.

3. We don’t make a plan
When we are aware that we need healing, we seek and follow the advice of others and many times we don’t even know exactly what we need to do to feel better. We don’t write our objectives and we plan a strategy to reconnect with our perfection.

4. We don’t live in the present
We regret what we did in the past and become anxious about the future, creating greater stress for our mind and body. We forget to live in the present, not knowing that a good present will determine an outstanding future.

5. We don’t forgive
We hold eternal grudges about people, events, and circumstances, including ourselves, thus preventing peace of mind and freedom.

6. We think in the negative
Our mind chatters negativism, as usual, thus deepening our struggles. We don’t realize the importance of positive thinking to better our life.

7. We don’t shut the nay-sayers
Especially when we have critical or chronic illnesses, we keep hearing from other that we will never get well, and worse, that we will die, and we keep listening to them because we trust they know better than we do, which is a grave mistake.

8. We don’t do spiritual work
Just when we need to go deep into our spirituality, we forgo our evolutionary process and delve into the physicality of life. We pray for the wrong outcomes.

9. We don’t wish for perfection
We wish for everything but not for the perfection of the solution to our problems, thus creating even worse case scenarios for ourselves.

10. We don’t expect miracles
We forget that miracles happen every day and many times we give in just when it is our turn to manifest them. We give up hope.

What will you do to feel better?

About the Author: Come spend one hour in our free teleseminar, learn to feel better and get a free report. Sign up at http://www.rx4bliss.com/healingtelesminar.htm" Dr. Maria Moratto helps you balance your life so that you can have more health, abundance, better relationships, and fun.

Source: www.isnare.com