Don't let depression keep you from fulfilling your purpose and mission in life. In this episode, we give you the tools we use to overcome depression in our own lives. Discover the hacks and cheat codes to overcoming depression.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Ep #4: Love Your Family and Choose Your Friends
Ep #9: Growing Pains and Not Growing Feel Good
Ep #10: Your Words Create Your Reality
Ep #12: Yoga For Health Wealth and Happiness
Ep #17: Free Yourself From Struggle
Transcript: (Read Time: 42 Minutes)
Siri Shakti: Welcome to the RockStar in Life Podcast, where you learn the secrets to unleashing your inner RockStar, so you can make the world your stage.
What's up RockStars in Life? It's Siri Shakti and I have my co-host joining me.
Dr. Dan: Dr. Dan's in the house.
Siri Shakti: Well, today we're going to be talking about something that everybody has dealt with at some point in their life, and you know, some of us more than others. We're going to be talking about depression.
Dr. Dan: Yup, the fun, fun parts of depression.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Exciting journey of depression.
Siri Shakti: Absolutely.
Dr. Dan: The ride. I should say the ride, not the journey.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: It is a journey, but it also feels like a ride a lot of times.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, but not a very good ride.
Dr. Dan: No. Not when you're going through it.
Siri Shakti: Exactly.
Dr. Dan: But after the fact.
Siri Shakti: That you look back and you're like, “Wow, look it, I got stronger from that experience.”
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Well, that's what you're supposed to do-
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: But not everybody does that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Let's say most people do not understand that. They look at depression as being some big bad thing that comes after them and just hits them out of nowhere.
Siri Shakti: Yes, that they will have either no control over or no way out of. And we'll talk about this but-
Dr. Dan: Yeah. We'll talk about solutions. We're not just going to talk about like, “Oh, you know depression, it's there.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Deal with it.
Dr. Dan: Deal … No, actually, it's not dealing with it. Right?
Siri Shakti: Yes. Don't deal with it.
Dr. Dan: Deal with not dealing with it. No, we're not going to lay that on. We're not going to say you need to go get medicated or anything like that. But I guess now would be a good time to throw in the disclaimer to seek professional help and/or medical attention and/or help if anyone you know has suicidal thoughts or yourself or that have thoughts that can endanger others around them.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: That's super important.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Yup. So growing up, myself, and I know we recently had a discussion privately, me and you, a couple of days ago where we were talking about depression because it hit me really hard again this week, even knowing what we know and how to deal with things.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: And all of a sudden, it just hit me and I think maybe it wasn't that it was harder or any tougher or anything like that, or a bigger challenge or any different. I mean they're all different, but any different than any other time. I think it was more of, “Hey, let's discuss it because not that it would help me so much,” because I have people I can talk to.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: That have helped me through my life. But because I thought, “Hey, this might actually … Not that it might help you personally, but at least you'll know this about me,” something that we haven't really talked about because I kind of overcame this with my mentors and coaches and people that I've worked with, some I paid, some I hadn't and they helped me through it. So, I don't look it as something that I can't overcome myself but I thought, “Hey, why not talk about it, me and you?” Now we're “Hey, let's talk about it with everybody else.”
Siri Shakti: Exactly, exactly. And you know, that conversation was so cool because I felt like it was kind of a new level of understanding of what you've been through internally that you haven't even really shared with me, past experiences and how depression, I know you're going to talk a little bit about your past growing up, how you dealed with depression as a young person and just understanding that this is something that we all experience.
what we really want to do here is we want to shed light on the subject of depression and we want to give you a new way of looking at it, so that you can find ways to acknowledge it and to work with it in your life and find the way through it.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I remember I had a discussion just a couple of weeks ago. I was talking to my business partner and we were talking about them like, “I was watching a show where she's actually bipolar and has manic episodes.” I told him I was like, “I bet I could be diagnosed as bipolar especially when I was younger.” He was like, “No, that's way different. That's way more extreme and this is not.” I'm like, “Yeah, I don't tell people.” Not that I'm trying to label myself anything, but I have a hard time seeing how it could be even more extreme than I had had in my past. I just got really good at learning how to deal with it and how to overcome it and I was very fortunate to be awoken.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dan: Awakened where I realized in my early 20s that I wasn't just dealt this deck of cards that I had to just live through. Like, “OH, here's your cards and this is what you get to play with for the rest of your life” and that's it. You're stuck with exactly what you got and there's no way around. When you're feeling depressed, you're stuck. Deal with it, man. Don't deal with it. Deal with not dealing with it.
Siri Shakti: Well, I think that's one thing that really, I feel sets you apart is that you're one of those people that would not just settle for like, “Okay, this is just how it's going to be, right?” I mean ever since I've known you, you've always been looking for solutions for knowledge, for answers.
I think that's what you talk about by being awoken, is because of you searching, you would come across teachers and mentors and you've learned from them and those experiences have helped you to be able to overcome the challenges that you've had.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. It's like if you're playing, and I've used this example many times because I love it, it's like playing video games. I don't play a lot of video games now, but it's still the same. Like, we were playing I think Batman, Lego Batman, I think it was, with Bodie, I was playing it. We were like stuck on this … I think you even were stuck on it. He's like, “Me and mom were like trying to figure out how to move on to the next scene to finish this challenge and you guys were like,” and he's like, “Yeah, we spent a while on it and you were like all frustrated and I started too.”
I think I spent maybe 5, 10 minutes on it. I'm like I'm not going to spend the next two hours. How am I going to enjoy spending the next two to six hours trying to figure out something that I could just look up online? There's somebody smarter than me at playing those games or somebody found how to get past that level and I just search it. I just searched, “How to get past this level, how to find this on this level?” Sure enough, somebody did either a game walkthrough where they're actually playing the game and recording it while they do it and I was able to get past it.
Now, did I watch the entire thing? No. I didn't watch like all the other scenes. No, I tried to figure out as much as I can, but I got a rule man. If I can't figure it out in a certain set amount of time, then I'm going to talk to somebody or I'm going to search or I'm going to find the answer, the cheat code, the cheat code to life.
Me and my business partner, Ben, we have this rule as well because a while back, we were trying to figure something out and … Was it me or was it him that got stuck? I think it was me. No, I think both of us have done it. After that, we figured it out. He called me and he's like, “Yeah, I spent the last like six hours figuring out how to fix this piece of code,” or something that broke or a workaround to something. I was like, “Oh man, I should have told you,” or “You should have told me because I had figured that out like a month ago.” I didn't know that we're going to have to go through that as well and he didn't know for me as well, so we set a rule.
If you can't figure something out after 20 or 30 minutes then email or call or text and say, “Hey, do you know how to do this, because I'm stuck?” One of us might have already overcame that one little thing. It's so random too. You just don't realize it. You're like, “What?” Sometimes we're just on the phone and he's like, “Hey, I can't figure out how to get this to work” and I'll just Google it and I'll find it. Even though he's Googled it and he didn't find it, but then I found it. Just takes a fresh set of eyes.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Growing up, so I don't want to make this into a boohoo session about me or look for sympathy, because you all have your own stories, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: You have your own experiences. You have things that you had to overcome. You have things that you're dealing with right now and it's not about oh, my problem or my challenge… I call them challenges, but it's not about your challenge being bigger than mine or mine being bigger than yours. Right?
Siri Shakti: That's right, yeah.
Dr. Dan: Or you trying to relate to something I've had to overcome and vice versa.
Siri Shakti: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Dan: It doesn't really matter. It's all about the tools and working through it.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: First off, being aware and knowing that this is not something you have to just live through without being able to push through it. Without finding… I don't even want to say push through, but part of it is push. The other part of it is skill, right? It's sharpening your skills and learning how to … I think one of the greatest examples I love to hear is like the sailing, even though we're not sailors. We've been sailing and it sucks. It's not for us. Give me a regular boat that's really nice and I'm cool. I don't like the whole tilting ship to the side …
Siri Shakti: No, thanks.
Dr. Dan: … and wondering how far it needs to go until it tips over. I think that's great, is when you're out there and you open your sails and all of a sudden, the wind stops or not that it stops, but you stop moving. Sometimes it's just repositioning that sail, where that wind is coming from because if you put the sails against that wind then, it's going to push you backwards. I don't even know what would happen. It would be bad probably.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: I'm guessing. I'm assuming it would be very bad, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: You don't want to be pushed backwards. But it's about angling that sail and finding that angle to make it through.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Instead of just dropping your sail and just going boohoo, I'm stuck.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. It's actually learning to utilize the winds for your benefit instead of pushing or fighting against it. Another thing is also becoming really good at listening, and I will get into this more, but listening to yourself and what's really going on inside of you. Because I know many of us will keep ourself busy by avoiding the depression or whatever's the feeling-
Dr. Dan: The feeling, the emotion.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. By distraction-
Dr. Dan: Numbing it. It could be a glass of wine. It could be some drugs like weed, marijuana. It could be…
Siri Shakti: Watching too much TV, flipping the channels incessantly.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Could be a lot of different things or it could be prescribed medicine.
Siri Shakti: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Dan: Medication.
Siri Shakti: Yup.
Dr. Dan: I don't want to call it medicine because some of that stuff shouldn't even be considered medicine. Bottom-line is I grew up with a lot of depression, right? Some really hard moments in my life, and once I learned that I didn't need to be a victim anymore and there was solutions through it. I found those angles and I found how to position my sails so I could use that to catapult me, to push me forward. Right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: To flow forward, be like water, flow. Flow through. Don't try to be water to push a rock. Flow around it. It's effortless.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: It won't feel effortless at first but it's so much easier than just dropping your sail and crying and not going anywhere in life. Right?
Siri Shakti: It is. Yes.
Dr. Dan: Another one that we've mentioned in one of our episodes, I think it was … Was it episode 13, Love Your Haters, we talked about the pushback. We talked about Newton's third law which is for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: To give you an example of that, when a bird is in the air, and they're flapping their wings, what is the bird doing? The bird's wings is pushing against that wind, against that resistance. It's creating like a resistance. It's pushing against that wind from their wingspan, so when it's hitting the air, the air is like going down, right? It's pushing the air down …
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: … which is bringing the bird up. Right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: It's not like nothing's happening around that bird, right? If you were like a little teeny bug and you just happen to be underneath near the bird's wings, you would get pushed out because that bird is pushing the wind down in order to go up.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. You would be pushed with quite a bit of force actually.
Newtons Third Law of Motion
Dr. Dan: Yeah. It's like those … I did this once and I hated it, but those … I don't even remember what they're called but they're … What were they called? Where you have like those jets on your back and it's the water and you do have the water?
Siri Shakti: I don't remember it.
Dr. Dan: I can't remember what it's called.
Siri Shakti: It's like a jetpack and you're in the water.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, like a jetpack. Yeah, so you can fly with a water jetpack in the air and I really hated it because I thought it was going to be one thing, but it was not. It was different. Basically, you've got to be okay with drowning, if you can do that, right?
Siri Shakti: Lovely.
Dr. Dan: I was going to wait for the technology to get better, because when you bob on those, when you're in the water, your chin is in the water. Your nose is just an inch from the water if it's still. As soon as the jetpack goes on, sometimes your face goes under water and it feels like you can't hold yourself up. It's pretty scary, so I didn't like it. I was like, “This is not for me.”
That's what it's doing is it's this long hose that's like in the water that's sucking in the water that's pushing it out that jetpack into the water and pushing you up, so that resistance. The water is pushing you up in the air. If you put your hand underneath that jetpack, it's going to really hurt because that's some high-pressure water. It's enough to lift somebody over 200 pounds into the air. That's a lot of freaking pressure.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: So how does that work?
Siri Shakti: Well you know, I mean the way I always think of it in terms of the pushback is that I mean you have equal and opposite … Like for instance, I love the quote, you can judge the strength of your opposition by your own, by your strength. I know in my life that when I'm doing really good and I just feel like I'm on fire and on point.
Dr. Dan: Top of the world.
Siri Shakti: Yes, that I know soon is coming a day or two or maybe three where I'm going to get that equal pushback. I was in it this morning, actually.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Doing that pushback but I identified it because I knew I had had a few really strong days like just super inspired. I knew in the back of my head, I'm like I know I'm going to be getting that pushback.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I don't think of it until after it happens.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: I'm really good at just not even thinking about it. Then when it happens, you want to build up your reflexes, right?
Siri Shakti: Be able to bounce back.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, to be able to bounce back. It's not always going to be like you can just bounce back. There's many times like this week like I've had a really tough week, it felt like, and I was feeling a lot of the pushback. Yeah, the week prior, I was on fire in a good way. I was like, “Whoa, everything's going, I'm so inspired. I'm feeling so great.” Then it hits you.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: That's the example I was giving, right? It's like the bird's wings. In order to fly and go up, you're pushing the air down.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: If you stop flapping your wings, then you're going to drop. Now, obviously, a bird can't flap its wings forever. It's going to have to go perch itself. It's going to go have to rest on a roof or in our case, in our grotto, in our pool. Right? They go down there and they built a little nest down there in our drapes outside.
Siri Shakti: For the second time.
Dr. Dan: In the cabana area. They go under there and they chill under there. Right?
Siri Shakti: So, is that our solution? Everyone should go sit in the grotto?
Dr. Dan: Well, everybody should have. That would be one of the solutions we'll talk about, is everybody needs to know when to go to your own grotto, when to go to your cave, when to pull yourself out of whatever's going on and a lot of times that requires going into a quiet space, doing a meditation, doing some yoga, watching a comedy.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I mean I love that you brought this up because the way that I love to view depression is that the depression is almost inviting you to go inside, similar to what you were saying, right? You said, “Go to the grotto.”
Dr. Dan: It is an invitation but unless you recognize the invitation, then you're not going to know what is.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: It's like if somebody left an envelope on the ground and you've never been given an envelope, you don't know what that is. You might think it's just like garbage, a piece of paper that's garbage, or maybe it's written in a different language that you don't know how to speak. Then you're going to be like, “Oh, this is just chicken scratch. I don't really understand it. This isn't anything.” Right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: You have to recognize it.
Siri Shakti: You're going to have to recognize it. I mean when it comes up in your life, you have to understand that depression is a messenger and it's really calling you to … I mean it's basically saying, “Okay, enough is enough.” Like something in your external world is not right or your internal world, internal/external, all the same. It's telling you to come inside, to go within yourself. The thing is, is that what we do is we cling on to things. We cling on to things from our past. We hold on to experiences, to behaviors, to ways of attitudes, our ways of thinking way too long.
A lot of times, these are the sources of our depression. When you're going through this depression, it should be a time for you to turn off the TV, turn off the internet. I like to sit down, meditate, and just ask myself what is it that I need to know or what is it that I need to let go off? At first, the answer may not be very clear but the more that you do this, it will get easier to hear what your intuition or what it is that your internal self is trying to tell you.
Sometimes it comes up really quickly. You'll get an image in your mind and you know that's what I need to let go off. Sometimes, it could even be a person in your life. I've met people that have been so depressed and they discovered it was like a relationship or a friendship that was causing a lot of challenge for them and so they had to either fix that friendship or that relationship or let go of it, and that's the biggest thing. I mean depression is definitely a messenger that has something very important to tell you.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Well, first off, and hopefully, you can get this from this. I took a note here to remind everybody that you can't eliminate depression forever.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: It's necessary.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Just like the air, like we talked about, just like the wind, just like everything else, it's necessary. It's not something that you can just say, “Oh, I'll never be depressed again. This is great.” No, it's not going to happen. It's part of that music of life.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Just like music has its ups and downs and all-arounds. It'd be really boring if it was just one note all through, right? Again, it's like what you said is it's like a guide. It gives you direction. Right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: When you feel depressed, it means you need something. You need to take a look at something, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: You need to change something in your life. Use it to guide you. Right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah, absolutely. It's a messenger.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Another thing I want to mention too is you can't ignore it, right, because it's like sweeping dirt under the rug. I don't know. Have you ever done that?
Siri Shakti: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Dan: I know that expression, but have you ever actually swept dirt under a rug?
Siri Shakti: No. I mean if you have the broom out anyways, why don't you just throw it away?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Just dust it out. I don't know. You know what I mean it's like … I like to use the example junk drawer, right?
Siri Shakti: Okay.
Dr. Dan: Because I think everybody has a junk drawer or junk closet. They just throw stuff in a closet.
Siri Shakti: Or a junk garage.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, or a junk garage but you can only do that for so long until you have to deal with it because you can only jam so many things in there and then it gets to a point where you just … I had a family member that almost every drawer in their kitchen was a junk drawer.
Siri Shakti: Wow.
Dr. Dan: You can open up the silverware drawer and there was like weird random stuff in there like pens and matches and whatever else, right? It was just like every drawer was a junk drawer and it was just so weird because I guess, they didn't want to organize. They want to deal with it. It's okay to have one or two junk drawers which to me is just more of an okay, well, this is random stuff that I can't figure out where else it would go so it goes in there. You got to deal with it at some point and that's the same thing in your life.
Siri Shakti: It's very clear too, obviously, when you don't deal with your garbage, right? When you're not taking out the garbage, then it's just going to pile up and pile up. That depression, that need inside of you is going to get your attention one way or another. If it has to just tell you gently, it will tell you gently. If it needs to scream at you, it's going to scream at you.
Dr. Dan: Well, it gets worse the longer you ignore it and don't do anything about it. It's like if you take … I'm sure you've done this or either you've dropped a can of soda or a bottle of soda, like a plastic bottle of soda, or you shook it on purpose because you wanted to see it explode in somebody's face. Have you ever done that to somebody?
Siri Shakti: I'm not like you, so I haven't.
Dr. Dan: I've done it so many times.
Siri Shakti: I'm just assuming that that's something you've done.
Dr. Dan: Have you ever had it done to you though?
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: Seriously?
Siri Shakti: I have nice friends.
Dr. Dan: Well, you don't drink carbonated drinks, so I can't really. Maybe I'll figure something out.
Siri Shakti: Is this something that you have done at present or in the past?
Dr. Dan: I don't know. I know there's got to be some. I'll have to think. I'll have to think of a way of showing you this example by surprise.
Siri Shakti: In other words, next time you're drinking one of those healthy sodas you like, what is that called?
Dr. Dan: I don't think they're carbonated though.
Siri Shakti: Well, if it is, I'm staying away from you.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, they're not carbonated, so that doesn't happen. Yeah, so you shake a can of soda or a bottle, and if you were to open it right away, what happens?
Siri Shakti: It would just foam out.
Dr. Dan: No, it explodes like in your face.
Siri Shakti: I guess I haven't really had experience with this.
Dr. Dan: Not like a bomb but yeah, it overflows. It will just … all over depending on how much and how quick you open it. If you decide to leave it alone, at some point … I mean I've never tested it to see how long it takes to be able to open it, but if you left it alone long enough, then those bubbles will go down on their own.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: You've got a choice, right? Either you deal with it right away by just opening it and just letting it flow out and realize it then you can get a little messy. It's going to be a little sticky and it's going to suck but it's going to be right away. You could be over this challenge within minutes.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, by dealing with it immediately and letting the pressure.
Dr. Dan: Or the same day.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Or a day or two versus a year.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Two years or weeks or months or days or whatever, however long you decide to like hold it off and feel miserable about it. Just deal with it, release it. Let it happen.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Right?
Siri Shakti: That's right. Yeah, because the thing is, is when we're talking about depression. Depression, many people end up identifying with it and it becomes their identity. That's where we have these experiences of people taking prescription drugs for depression for a long time, going to counseling like incessantly with no results.
If you would just, like what I had talked about, learn to go within yourself and discover what is the root of the depression and like you were saying, that is the quickest way to removing it. This is all energy we're talking about. It's going to move on immediately once you discover the source and you fix it. You will experience that energy shift, that shift of this depression that's within you very quickly.
Dr. Dan: Yeah and life is awesome when you learn these tools. Right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, there's going to be ups and downs. It happens to us.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: It happens to everybody. If you're thinking like oh, I wish I was like the Dalai Lama or Gandhi or Deepak Chopra or whoever else you might imagine would be like the happiest person on earth that never has any problems, that never feels depressed or anything like that, you're crazy.
I've heard people talk about … I guess, yeah, I'll just say this, yeah. I've heard people and ourselves included, when we listen to Tony Robbins and we went through his courses, we've been to his live events and like in one year I did 13 events in one year of his. Traveled around, went to Fiji three times in that same year, hung out with him, had lunch, dinner, breakfast, and it was amazing. Right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: I'd already learned this early on, but at first, I was thinking, “Oh, it must be amazing.” We talked about this like, “Oh, they are never stressed. He's never depressed. He is always feeling good. He never has any problems and he's always looking for solutions and never gets mad at anybody,” right? Then all of a sudden as we started going to events and talking to people that worked at the events or volunteered, we started hearing different stories. So and so came out, I won't say who, but so and so came out and started yelling at everybody or something like that or they were getting angry and we're like, “What? They get angry?” How does Tony get angry? What? How does that even work?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: He's different. Right?
Siri Shakti: He's a human being.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. We're all human and never said you can never be angry or depressed or get mad at somebody or anything like that. You recognize it and you look for the solutions, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes. This is needed so much right now especially because a human life on this planet is intense. We've talked about this many times and I'll say over and over again, but there's an extreme amount expected of us and we're bombarded with not only responsibilities, but information on a level that humanity has never experienced before. The tendency to have these experiences of depression is going to be increased.
This is something that is going to be extremely important for you to master and for you to understand that it's not about trying to be perfect. Like we were saying Tony Robbins, he's human, he has human experiences. He has his up and downs as well, but what's going to make all the difference is by you taking back your own personal power. Oh, look at that, I said personal power like Tony Robbins, oh boy. It's funny.
Taking back your own power to realize that the answers are always going to be within you, we've talked about this before. I absolutely am a firm believer that the problem and the solution always come hand in hand. That's one of the laws of the universe. You can't have a problem without a solution and that goes with depression as well. When we're feeling depressed, when we're feeling even like suicidal, let's go extreme, there is a solution for that pain and a way through it.
Dr. Dan: I don't know about you but I've … we never really talked about this, but I've had plenty of suicidal thoughts especially growing up.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Oh, in high school I went through a really hard time feeling that way.
Dr. Dan: I had friends and I also had family that had actually done it and because of this topic I remember hearing about it, a story where they interviewed so I actually looked it up because I remember that story. I'm like, “Oh, what was the number” instead of just saying, “Oh I heard.” The number I think it was 2010, it was an interview and they had interviewed 29 survivors of people that attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Siri Shakti: Wow!
Dr. Dan: Out of those 29 survivors I think I already told you the answer but you listening, how many do you think of those 29 regretted doing that?
Siri Shakti: Before I even read it I was already thinking all of them.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, no, all of 29 of the survivors said they regretted it as soon as they jumped. Not after they hurt and when they were in the water and like, “Oh, this sucks. I didn't die, I wish I didn't do that.” No, they wished right from the beginning that they wish they didn't do that.
There was a story, I actually read this one, this is more recent by Kevin Hines, he was 19 at that time and he actually was quoted saying, and he jumped off the bridge, he's one of them that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and he said he had instant regret and powerful and overwhelming is what he said. As I fell, all I wanted to do was reach back to grab the rail but it was gone. The thought in those four seconds, it was what have I just done, I don't want to die. God, please save me and then boom! He fell 223 feet, hit the water in a seated position around 75 miles an hour they guestimate and he said he'd never felt so much pain and disoriented under the water. He couldn't tell which way was up or down and his back was broken.
He had some severe injuries. I guess he shattered his T12, L1-L2 lover vertebrae and he missed severing his spine cord by just 2 millimeters. That was one of the survivors. The point is, is that that's not the answer.
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: What we've been taught is that when you commit suicide …
Siri Shakti: Do you want me touch on this?
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. This is … I've learned this through my yoga, my yoga teachings and learning but this isn't just something that's understood within a yoga practice. I know there's many other traditions and like Buddhist and things like that believe this as well that because we believe in reincarnation and so what happens is when you kill yourself, all those pains don't just go away. You actually have to … You're basically going back and starting at the beginning of your lives again and you have to go through all those lessons over again.
Dr. Dan: It's not starting over with a fresh start.
Siri Shakti: No, no, no.
Dr. Dan: You're going to go through everything again so unless you want to go through it all over again master it now.
Siri Shakti: Master it, master it. I just wanted to throw this out there not for any sympathy or anything, but I just wanted to relate to you because I've had many people over the years say to me, “Siri Shakti, you're so calm, you're so centered. Are you ever upset? Are you ever mad?” Oh my god. I always tell my girlfriends, I'm like, “Well, you don't see me at home.” I'm a human being, right, but the thing is, is this past year I went through a really hard time. I'm still going through it, I'm still figuring it all out to do with my vision, with my eyes, and I've had moments that were so painful, so uncertain because I didn't know what was happening that believe me in the back of my head, that chatter of the mind, there was a little part of me that thought, oh wow, I can't live through this.
Dr. Dan: How can I live through this?
Siri Shakti: How can I live through this? If it was the old version of myself years ago I would have been like, “Oh my God, I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to be through with this.” I probably wouldn't even do it, but I'm just saying that would be my thinking. I know in my core, in my heart that that is not the solution. Not only do I not want to start all over again and have to go through all of my lessons again, but I know, like I said before, that there's a solution to what I'm going through.
I tell you this because I know that most of you listening have had experiences whether it be recent or past or maybe in the future where you're going to have some heightened experience that's really painful and you're going to feel that feeling of like I can't live like this. I don't want you to feel like you're alone by any means and I want you to know that if myself and Dan, yourself, and so many other people can find a way through it. I'm trying to think of the right words but find a way to become stronger through the experience so can you.
Dr. Dan: Well, there's plenty examples of that and man, we can go on for an hour just on that alone and the examples that you look at someone in your life, whoa, that person has no arms or legs and they're like so powerful in their life and they're an inspiration. They're born with some rare disease, or they had a limited life, they didn't live as long, but they were so happy and so powerful. Here I am stressing I don't have enough money or I have a crappy car and I want like nice stuff, things like that.
Siri Shakti: Oh yes, yes.
Dr. Dan: Let's get into some solutions and some prescriptions to overcome this depression and when I say prescriptions I don't mean like some kind of chemical drug to affect you brain.
Siri Shakti: We're prescribing healthy stuff.
Dr. Dan: Yes. That's actually one thing I would like to mention. Now again, I'm not saying to cold turkey stop like any antidepressants or anything that you're taking, but I do recommend finding a doctor that understands how to like … We have a great doctor that understands that there is a time for medicine, to prescribe drugs and there's a time that you can do this naturally and there's a way to balance it out to where you're not relying on those because I've heard this so many times talking about like some troubled teens and these mass shootings and things where they talk about like it's a mental health issue where these people many times, I won't say every time because every time I've read or looked into it deeper that they were all on some kind of prescribed medication for antidepressants.
I can't say all of them, I could just say all the ones that I did look at and you got to understand that these affect your brain in a way that no one can really foresee what it's actually doing and it's messing with your brain's chemistry because that's what it does just like aspirin. It affects the brain's chemistry so that way you don't feel that pain, but sometimes, again, like if you take anything from what we just talked about is you need to feel. You need to feel so you know what need to change. You don't want to numb everything.
Siri Shakti: Yeah and I was even reading that there is well-documented proof that oftentimes pharmaceutical antidepressants actually make … Well, first all, that they have really harsh side effects but sometimes even increased, they said, the risk of suicide and this is …
Dr. Dan: Yeah, one could also remove the … I forgot the word to be used. When I say like that numb part, that's the part like things, what's right from wrong, like the sympathy or the other word where it's like, “Well, if I shoot somebody then …”
Siri Shakti: Like the rational minds?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, like if I shoot somebody I don't want to hurt them but instead all of a sudden, you're numb to that and you don't even think about that. Instead you're just thinking like, oh, I want to end this or do this or do that. Again, this could be a whole another topic and subject and deserves its own, but going back to just the straight depression we're not seeing to cold turkey off these drugs. These drugs are dangerous and not a lot is known about most of them. They haven't been around as long. Even 10, 15, 20, 30 years whatever, that's not a long time. We don't know what the effects are going to be yet. I highly recommend that you find a doctor that understands and is not just going to like say, “Oh, here's some drugs, take them and there you go.”
Siri Shakti: A really … What you were saying is if you're going through depression, before you run out and get pills, there's two things. Number one, look at this from like a spiritual perspective like I talked about which is like finding the roots of your depression.
Dr. Dan: There's a difference between spiritual and religious. When we say religious we're not talk … When we say spiritual we're not talking about a religious way.
Siri Shakti: No, no, not at all.
Dr. Dan: We're not saying like what would Jesus do.
Siri Shakti: What would be a better way of explaining it then?
Dr. Dan: Spiritually is fine but I just wanted to make sure that they understood that you're not putting in Jesus' hand.
Siri Shakti: No, no, no. What I mean is from a real … Basically, like I said taking back your own personal power and looking within yourself first to try to find the root cause but then also, like you were saying, finding a doctor that is knowledgeable in natural ways of treating depression and then also some of the things we're going to cover right now. Do you want to touch on some of the things they can use?
Dr. Dan: Well, look for solutions and not sympathy which is just one thing that we talked about because that's a drug in its own as well, is looking for sympathy. They sit there and constantly complain to people that are willing to just keep hearing you and listen and not willing to offer any solutions or to help support you in any way other than just feeding your addiction of sympathy. If you have someone you can talk to that will not give you sympathy and might feel uncomfortable to talk about this stuff with because they're not willing to listen for an hour of you complain about how your life sucks and everything's against you and so and so keeps messing you over and doing bad things to you without offering solutions, because those are usually people that uncomfortable to talk to.
I know plenty of people that do not want talk to me professionally or personally like people that avoid me because it's uncomfortable because they know if they complain I'm going to give them a solution. I'm not going to let them complain. I'm going to be like, “Dude, do you want to change this or do you just want to keep feeling sorry for yourself?” To a lot of people that don't want to deal with it, they're going to look at that as rude and they're going to look like …
Siri Shakti: Insensitive.
Dr. Dan: … insensitive, I don't care which is the exact opposite. I do care and I care enough to tell you there's a booger around your face.
Siri Shakti: Wait, there's a booger on my face?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, there is, no.
Siri Shakti: I'm joking.
Dr. Dan: I care about you enough to not just pretend like there's nothing on your face, I'm going to tell you. Yeah, it's embarrassing but it's there. Would you rather just keep walking around and every single person at this party knows that there's a booger sitting on your face? No, I'm going to be the guy who says, “Hey,” just tell you, “You might want to go to the restroom. You have something on your face that looks like a booger.”
Siri Shakti: You have a lot of friends with boogers on their faces?
Dr. Dan: Happens all the time. It's actually only happened once and I didn't tell them and this is when I was younger before I understood this and we all laughed about it and made jokes and it was actually at a restaurant. We were joking about it but I should have been the person that got up and said, “Hey, I just want to let you know this, so you knew.”
Talk to somebody, like I said, it can be a friend, it could be a family member, it could be a significant other, it could be a mentor whether paid or free, a coach, an accountability partner or partners or like a mastermind. This is great. We actually did this a lot in the beginning. I still belong to some masterminds but they're mainly for business because at this point, there's not as many people that we can really hang out with that can really bring us to the level we want to bring.
We're all like at the same and we're able to solve a lot of these stuffs ourselves so we don't really need to seek out somebody to be like, “Hey, help me with this.” I mean we have one person that we really go to and that's it and again, it's not for everything. It's just for certain things that we've never had to overcome before. I'm like, “Whoa, this is a new one.” We had to seek out an expert, somebody that has overcame those things or has helped other people with overcoming those things. With accountability partners or masterminds or anything like that it's usually somebody that's either on the same path as you, they're close to where you are or where you want to be and you both support each other or as a group you support each other.
That's great when it can be a family member or your significant other's even better but you need to be willing to go out for help for solutions, but not the sympathy. Also, know when to take time for yourself, right?
Siri Shakti: Oh yeah, big time. [crosstalk 00:46:09]
Dr. Dan: This is super important because a lot of the times I start to feel depressed and if I don't go to my room, to my office or my room or wherever, close the doors, watch a comedy like a movie or a show or something funny then it could get worse. If I'm around like my kids and everybody, obviously, if you're not home and I've got to watch the kids or whatever, then it's a little different but you pull yourself out, you put yourself into another room, you watch something, you recharge. You get that little lone time and recharge and be able to just reflect because not everything requires a let me go to my core and see what's going on because sometimes it's just like man, I'm overwhelmed, I just need a minute. I've been working hard or whatever it might be so you don't allow yourself to get in there.
If the kids come in like sometimes Bodie will come in and start screaming or yelling. I'm just like, “Look, you guys need to deal with this because I need a couple of minutes. Otherwise, I'm going to explode on you. You want me to yell? Do you want me to yell? This is a warning I'm telling you, I'm about to yell.” You go through that and you start to feel better, and you're filling up your tank of life, you're filling yourself .Again, this goes back to like that one episode where we talked about filling yourself up. We've talked about things like earthing. Do you want to add anything to that before I move on to the next one?
Siri Shakti: Earthing, getting your feet on the earth it helps to ground you and that one is huge for me, I know. I do that every day and if I don't I really feel the negative effects of not doing it. It's really important. I would give it a try or …
Dr. Dan: You have earthing mats as well. You shouldn't just do that only, the earthing mats, it plugs into the wall outlet which is the ground thing that actually is part of grounding your house and that's great, a grounding mat, if you sit at a desk, you can get one of those. I know some people sleep on top of them as well but you can just put it underneath your desk and you put your bare feet on it and it has similar effects. You're earthing, you're grounding yourself but you should also do it in the sand, we like to go to the ocean, put our feet in the sand …
Siri Shakti: In the water.
Dr. Dan: … the water, yup, in the water and on top of the rocks and the grass. This is great. You definitely need to do that, but also writing down the challenges that you're having and getting to the root instead of trying to ignore them like we talked about. Write down at least three possible ways out, out of these challenges and the more you write the better. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be like well, this might work, this might not work. No, you just write them out. Whatever comes to you just write them out.
Siri Shakti: One thing that I've done recently because I was trying to change a certain behavior of how I was worrying about like my eyesight is I ended up creating guidelines or I would say like personal rules and I wrote them in my journal. Well, actually no, I printed them out on paper and I put them up but it was like things that I needed to do or not to do to keep me growing in a certain direction. Like, for instance, one of them is not looking on like WebMD which everyone knows not to do but it's so easy to do.
Dr. Dan: Or Googling images of things and …
Siri Shakti: Yeah. That could even be something for you that goes hand in hand with the writing is if there's something that you discovered that you want to change, write down like a few key points of things that you want to make sure you remember every day to keep you on target.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I recommend if when you come up with the solutions, things that you can actually do that you can do repeatedly because as soon as you find something that's like oh, this helps me get out of it whether it be like exercise or something like that, and I'll talk about that in a second, is like Siri Shakti just said, write it down and carry it around with you. In the past we used to actually carry index cards in our pocket. Actually, I put them on business cards, on the back of business card, in my own business card or anybody's. Whatever, it' didn't matter but it was ours in that case and I wrote like three things that … three questions to ask myself or three solutions.
I've done it so many different times. Today, we have our phones, our smartphones. You can put them in a note. I mean heck, you can set a reminder in Google Calendar or on Todoist is another thing I like. It's Todo so T-O-D-O-I-S-T is another app that I love on my phone and you can put like things that you need to do for the day and you can make that a repeat where it repeats every single day.
I put on there wake up, take a cold shower, do yoga meditation sadhana, right? I put all three of those things down there just because it allows me to celebrate my win for the day. It makes me feel accomplished that I have to mark it off like I did that. I did that. I did that.
You could write a reminder of like today ask these three questions or remember this when I'm feeling this way and you can set that reminder at whatever time of the day. If it's like a repeat that you feel like that every time around noon usually or later in the evening when you're home and everything is quiet then you start to feel depressed because you dealt with a lot of negative people or maybe that reminder triggers at 8:00 p.m. when you're home or whatever time that it might be.
If it's not a repeat, just do it in the morning. It's like a 9:00 a.m. reminder, a 10:00 a.m. reminder to do these things and that would be great for you to do. What I started getting to is writing down those three possible ways to get out of that feeling, write down at least three. The more the better because when you have one option you have no options. Two, it's not an option, it's a dilemma. Which one do I choose? Is it going to be the right one? When you have three or more, all of a sudden, you have options like ooh, even if this one doesn't work I can do these other two. That's what's going on in your brain and that's why you want to write down more things. Do things that fill you up.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, like things that you love doing and I know one of them that you were talking about is like being more active. I'd say that's actually a huge one because when you exercise your brain release endorphins, which is the happy chemical.
Dr. Dan: Triggers a positive feeling in the body.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Actually, I was reading that. It's similar to morphine that's why when somebody goes on those running and you run more, you feel that runner's high. I felt that through exercise and when I'm working out with weights I used to always get like this feeling like whoa. You just feel like, especially after heavy squats, you're lightheaded but you feel great, just like, “Whoa, this is amazing.” It's like a drug, again, because it affects the brain chemistry which is all that prescribed medicine is trying to do anyways except for an unhealthy way.
Siri Shakti: Now, I want to go on a run.
Dr. Dan: Just grab the microphone and go run.
Siri Shakti: I'm going.
Dr. Dan: That cable's at least 100 feet long, so go.
Siri Shakti: All right.
Dr. Dan: You can make it. Another thing as well is go out, go for a walk, 5, 10 minutes, whatever you can do. It doesn't have to be an hour or half hour. It doesn't have to be perfect. Even out for a couple of minutes like three to five minutes around your court. Listen to some inspiring music or inspiring podcast or an audible book or something like that that's motivational, inspirational or has something, a good message to it. If it's cold, I've heard this excuse, but it's cold, it's snowy, even had somebody make a video. “Hey, it's snowing here. I'm not going to put my feet in here.” I would, I'd put it in the snow.
Siri Shakti: I would too.
Dr. Dan: If it's raining or snowing outside then get a treadmill. You can walk, so you can do it in the house, just throw them in the middle of the room, throw them in front of the TV, throw it in front somewhere so you can do those walks or do some jumping jacks.
Siri Shakti: Or an exercise video. Nowadays there's no excuse. There's even free ones on YouTube.
Dr. Dan: Even then, sometimes when you're feeling depressed or whatever you might feel like oh, it takes too much work or blah, blah, blah. Well, yeah, jumping jacks. It'll take you a minute. You could do a minute of jumping jacks. It doesn't cost you a dime. You don't have to start a video. You don't have to do anything, you just set a timer and go or you just go and you do it until you start feeling good.
For me, I love to jump around, I'll shadow box, I'll joke around, I'll say some random gibberish or start singing a weird song that I made up in my head. You get goofy. For me, that kind of gets me out of that moment. It allows me to start looking at solutions instead of being at that part of me that's depressed and isn't able to really look because you start asking self questions when you're depressed and everything will look like it's your fault. Like oh, it's because you're a loser.
Why am I depressed? Because you're a loser, because you're dumb, because nobody likes you. Opposed to I'm just going to do some jumping jacks, I'm going to goof around, I'm going to do some dancing, I'm going to blast some awesome music, high energy music that's not depressing or negative. I'm going to feel good and now all of a sudden, why am I depressed? Because I've had such some awesome week, it's the pushback. How many you get through it? I'm just going to write down these three things that I can do right now, right?
Siri Shakti: Yup.
Dr. Dan: Also, don't eat junk food. Eat plenty of greens, water-rich foods.
Siri Shakti: Drink lots of water.
Dr. Dan: Yup. Get the audible audio books where you can listen to audio books online and that's great, podcasts like this one and other inspirational ones out there, YouTube videos. I mean music. I mean there's so many ways that you can bring yourself out of it.
Siri Shakti: Of course, my favorite, do some yoga because yoga is so good for this, so good. Just this morning I was doing one yoga set that dealt with depression and like anxiousness. I felt so good. I mean really like while I was doing it I could feel the tension just coming off of me.
Dr. Dan: If I don't do like even this morning I did a little less because I woke up a little later, but if I don't at least do 10, 15, 20 minutes and I usually do between, let's say, about 30 and 40 minutes a day, but if I don't do at least 10, 15 minutes then it's like you're just walking in mud. Dirty, dirty, sticky, hard mud through your day. It is so difficult. It gets harder the longer it goes on.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, so imagine if you didn't do that and you're dealing with depression, that's like double whammy.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, big time, big time. We'll definitely have some links down below and some stuff like that in this episode under the show notes and stuff. They will be there for that but is there anything else you wanted to add before we go into our RockStar mission for today?
Siri Shakti: No, I think we're ready for the RockStar mission. Let's do it.
Dr. Dan: Awesome. All right. Well, don't forget to go to rockstarinlife.com for links to the resources mentioned, this episode's transcript. Download our free books, training, yoga meditation, homeschooling advice and so much more and we're adding this every single week. Go to rockstarinlife.com and join the RockStar in Life Revolution today.
Siri Shakti: Awesome.
Dr. Dan: All right. Today's RockStar mission is going to be simple but it's also going to be very challenging as well. Why, because you do have to take a look at why you're feeling depressed. If this is something you're plagued with, if … I don't even want to say plagued, but if this is something that you're going through, which if you're a human being you're going to go through depression, no matter what, or if you have family members or significant other or friends or anybody else that has challenges with depression, then they need to listen to this episode as well.
Share it with them. That's part of your assignment, the other part is to start using the tools that we've mentioned here, to choose like at least three of these things that we've talked about. Write them on the back of the business card or add it to an app that reminds you constantly of three things that you can either try or do because you've done them and you know they work now and you can always add to it, you can always change it, tweak it, but carry around something with you that will help keep you ahead of it.
That way when you feel the depressed you know the cheat code. You know how you can get through it without struggling through it. If you catch yourself in that hole, stop digging downward as soon as you realize that you're doing it and don't just lay there and cry, instead grab that card or whatever you wrote it on or that app, and actually look at it and follow those things that you wrote down. Do them, get yourself out of it or help somebody else get out of it.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Right?
Siri Shakti: Yes. Beautiful. You said don't just sit there and cry, well sometimes crying can be very cleansing so maybe after you cry then you get started on this.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I didn't even mention it because I don't want somebody to sit there and cry for a couple of days without dealing with it.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, we're referring to long-term crying.
Dr. Dan: You don't like slap yourself across the face and be like “stop crying.” No, if you feel like crying, let that cry out and then get your butt up and start doing some stuff.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: Some people need a nice cry.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Awesome. Anything else you want to add?
Siri Shakti: No, that's it.
Dr. Dan: All right.
Siri Shakti: All right, guys. Well, hey, get out there and don't forget to be a rock star in your life.
Dr. Dan: Make the world your stage.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to RockStar in Life, your source for unleashing your inner rock star. For more tips, training and free stuff, be sure to go to rockstarinlife.com and join the RockStar in Life Revolution today. Thanks again and don't forget to make the world your stage.
Be a RockStar In Your Life.
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