A Confession Tuesday radio segment (Kiss FM) recorded/posted May 3, 2016 where host Big Pop reads an email from a listener describing severe depression and withdrawal and asks local life coach Rebecca Silence for advice. Rebecca—who states she has a master’s in counseling and a life coach certification and has worked in school counseling—validates the writer, discloses her own experience with clinical depression/suicidality, and offers practical, trauma-informed suggestions: allow and process dark emotions, ensure basic self-care (food/sleep), expressive outlets (journaling, art, screaming into a pillow), exercise, schedule small things to look forward to, try new weekly activities, and seek professional support for the sake of the children and recovery. Contact/CTA (cnykiss.com, Facebook: Rebecca Silence/Inspired Results) appear at the close.
Fashion Tuesday. Here's how we roll. You go to cnykiss.com you tell us what's going on in your world, what you would like to accomplish. Rebecca is a life coach. I mean, but you have an education background with this going. Going into the life coaching.
Yes. I have a master's in counseling, and I spent a lot of time doing counseling in schools. And then I have other. A formal life coach certification as well.
So whatever it is that you want to accomplish, she can help you get there. And all you have to do is tell us what you want to accomplish, and we'll handle it here confidentially on the air. So go to cnykiss.com and we'll do that up. All right. You ready?
I'm ready.
Okay. Here is this week's email. Dear Rebecca, obviously you don't know me, but I'm familiar with you through Kiss fm. I. I started following you a while back when I was going through an extremely difficult transition in my life. I'm writing you today because, unfortunately, my situation has gotten much worse. I'm feeling so many emotions, and I'm having a hell of a time trying to get through each day. It has gotten to the point where I have no interest leaving my house. It's been a while. And being. I have no friends or family around. I was just hoping you could give some inspiration. I have two young children who are losing their mother to depression. Any words of inspiration or advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for this brave email. I have chills and it took a lot of courage for you to write in.
Yeah.
And I just want you to consider that you are so not alone in this experience. There are so many people out there struggling with depression, struggling with just lack of looking forward to anything, and I'm just gonna suggest it doesn't have to be that way. So for me, I've been suicidal. I've experienced what I was diagnosed with as clinical depression. I work with clients who are in the same boat, and I want you to consider that there's a way out. It's not easy, and it means feeling all of the emotions that you want to avoid. Right. There's this fork in the road and this inner struggle where I don't want to have to deal with these things because it hurts too much. But then not dealing with is hurting you in a different way called shutdown.
Right.
And shut down never worked or healed anyone's pain. So, you know, my invitation, especially for your children, is to give yourself permission to be where you are first and foremost. What if there's nothing wrong with you? You even being willing to write this email is a huge step towards finding peace again and finding joy again. One of the things I teach around emotion is that those darker emotions of anger, grief and sadness and fear are just as important as the lighter emotions, joy and happiness and excitement. And if you don't let yourself feel the darker emotions, what if you don't have the opportunity to feel the lighter ones? If you're numb, you're numb. So if you're trying to flatline and shut down those darker emotions of anger and sadness and fear, you're not going.
To be able to enjoy the other ones.
You won't be able to experience the other ones at all.
Right.
Even if you wanted to. So it's important to let yourself just be where you are and feel all of it. And blaming other people and taking those emotions out on other people isn't actually expressing the emotion. So a couple of ways that you can deal with your emotions in a healthy way are to journal, are to make sure, first of all, that you're getting enough food and sleep. Because if you're tired and hungry, everything's worse anyway.
Oh, sure.
So that's one of the first things that you can do is Janet knows.
That with me every day, making sure. I really do.
Yeah.
Tired, hungry. Yeah.
It's really real, though, that when you're tired and hungry, things are worse. But you can journal, you can exercise, you can even do art and listen to music. But the point is to get the emotion out of your body somehow. So hitting a pillow, screaming into a pillow, not a bad idea if you need to. Ripping up an old phone book. But you want to get the emotion out of your body. Finding a therapist or a mentor or a coach, I would suggest is critical right now. If you're writing this email, I would suggest that you're ready for that. Find some type of support so that you can get through whatever this dark time in your life is so that you can be there for your children again. Obviously, they're important to you and they're watching how you deal with emotion and figuring out for themselves how to handle emotion by watching the way you do it. So having breakdown is absolutely something that happens to all of us, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. And modeling getting all the way through your emotions and all the way through the breakdowns for your children is an incredible gift that you can give to them.
That's a huge motivation, you know, if you have kids and if you are unhappy or depressed or going through whatever it is that you're going through. If you don't want the feeling that you're having right now, if you don't want your children to have that same feeling, then work on yourself.
They do what does that make sense? They won't do what you tell them.
Right.
Will do what you do.
Right.
So they are watching you, and basically everything you do is gospel to them. So you know these darker emotions, they happen and you have control over whether or not you depress them down or whether or not you're willing to be with them as long as they are there for. And it's like the weather, it's temporary. So what you're experiencing right now won't be forever. But when it gets to the point when you don't want to leave your house, when you don't want to get out of bed, this is a big red flag and a warning and an opportunity to go and get some support. One of the other things besides just letting yourself feel your emotions and getting them out of your body somehow is to make sure you, you have things to look forward to. I have a client who was suicidal and one of the things we did for her is we set up a calendar of, at first, just on a weekly basis, things to look forward to, and then eventually on a daily basis, things to look forward to. And now it's a couple of years later and she's so much happier and doing it on her own still.
What kind of things? What kind of thing? Can you give examples?
Absolutely. So it can be as simple as a yoga class or going out to your favorite restaurant or maybe going in a bath, maybe going on a hike. Absolutely. Going and, you know, meeting friends somewhere, going to a coffee house and listening to an open mic night. Just something. And the way I started with this one particular client was to have her every week try something new that she had never done before and just did it that way. Just trying new experiences to figure out what you like and what you don't. It's amazing how many people come into my office and they don't actually know what they like. They've just done what they've always done, done what they were supposed to do, really considering whether or not they enjoyed the experience. So a great assignment is to just try something new every week that you haven't ever done before to see whether or not you like it.
I think that one, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think that people who like the emailer and they aren't leaving their house and they're depressed and they're in a funk and they just can't seem to get out of it. I think one of the the things with that is feeling alone.
Right.
And the fact is so many people are dealing with the same type thing and it's such a huge step to write that email and to get it out there because there are so many people that are dealing with that inner demon right now. And.
Absolutely. And I would argue that everyone has been where she is at some time or another. And the truth is that we all have pain. And the options are when you have pain, that you can use the pain as an excuse to no longer live your life to its fullest or you can use the pain to grow and be the best you've ever been. Those are your choices. So I'm going to empower you and challenge you to use your pain as an opportunity to get to know yourself better and to have the best life you possibly can instead of using your pain as a reason to shut yourself down.
This is Confession Tuesday with Big Pop and Ben in the morning, Kiss FM and local life coach Rebecca Silence. If you would like to some coaching here on the air Confidentially, go to cnykiss.com Tell your story confidentially and we'll handle it here this time next week.
Thank you so much for reaching out. Your children are lucky to have you. This time is temporary. Find some support.
You do amazing work and you are helping so many people here in central New York.
Thank you.
So if for more with Rebecca, you can like Rebecca Silence of inspired results on Facebook, also go to inspired results coach. Thank you so much.
Thank you everyone. Have a great week and please keep those emails coming.
We're going to break. Come back Big Papa Band in the morning Kiss fm.
