How you can stop the Downward Spiral of the Five D’s
Paul White's nationally distributed syndicated column, “How you can stop the Downward Spiral of the Five D’s” is published in 22 publications across seven states. This includes the following newspapers and digital publications: Midland Daily News (MI), SFGate (CA), Seattle PI (WA), Connecticut Post (CT), Laredo Morning Times (TX), Huron Daily Tribune (MI), The Telegraph (IL), and more. In this week's article, Paul breaks down the downward spiral of the five D's and offers insight into how to stop their progressive nature.
A few years ago, I heard a speaker present a thought process I’ve embraced and shared with others.
I’ve come to call it the Downward Spiral of the Five D’s.
The thought process has had a huge positive impact on my consistent daily approach to positive mental health. While I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist, nor licensed therapist, all of which I have the highest regard and respect for, I’d like to share it with you today. It’s what I’ve observed and learned in my own life experiences.
The Five D’s, in order, are Disappointment, Discouragement, Doubt, Depression, and Despair.
The thought process is what I call a “progressive” thought process, meaning one step can lead to the next, and then the next, and the next until we find ourselves in a deep dark hole that we can’t get out of. So, how do we stop the progressive nature of the five D’s? Keep reading (and be sure to read through to the end).
Every one of us experiences disappointment on a regular basis. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the disappointment is with us or someone else, we just don’t like where the situation has placed our emotional thoughts. It’s at this point that we find ourselves facing a fork in the road regarding moving forward. We can either seek to understand the disappointment and develop a plan to learn from it and put it behind us, or we can allow it to shuffle us into the next D which is Discouragement.
We take a big step backwards when we allow discouragement to creep into our mindfulness which seems to keep it at the forefront of our short-term memory. It reduces any confidence we’ve previously created. It’s tougher to recover from discouragement than to recover from disappointment because it requires more of what’s right in the middle of the word…which is courage.
Courage isn’t something you can purchase; it must be developed.
Fortunately, there are plenty of videos and podcasts where you can learn to develop courage. Try searching “developing courage” on YouTube and you’ll be rewarded with a huge number of choices offering opportunities to find something that can specifically work for you. Then you’ll be prepared to face that next fork in the road regarding moving forward. If you’re unwilling to choose that path to recovery, unfortunately, you’ll find yourself walking down the path to Doubt.
Doubt is dangerous. It erodes our confidence and presents the thought process we’ve utilized as flawed. It can become a foundation upon which we build stress and anxiety, especially when we allow it to dance around the playground of our mind. Doubt can quickly remove us from successfully making positive decisions in every area of our life. Doubt can also open us up to be influenced by outside negativity leading us to potentially making “fight or flight” responses unnecessarily. Whenever we encounter doubt in ourselves, we need to perform a quick self-assessment to determine how we landed in this place. Did we sabotage our thought process? Do we need to go back to the beginning and think about what we’re doubting from a different perspective? Doubt tends to thrive when we are looking from inside the situation. Sometimes we’re so close to what’s causing doubt that we can’t evaluate with fairness. Placing ourselves outside the situation and examining it as someone mentoring us would, provides an opportunity for us to lead ourselves back to a positive perspective giving us a path that eliminates doubt. If that’s not the path we choose when we hit the fork in the doubt road, the alternate path can quickly lead us downhill to depression.
Depression is real and impacts a large percentage of our society. If you ever feel that you’re suffering depression, PLEASE TAKE ACTION AND SEEK HELP. Regardless of what’s causing you to feel depressed, there are licensed professionals that have successfully helped others who feel just like you. And realize that you’re not alone. People who’ve battled depression successfully include Abraham Lincoln (President), J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter Author), Vincent Van Gogh (Artist), Marie Osmond (Singer, Actress), and Charles M. Schulz (Peanuts Cartoonist). Your life matters, not just to yourself but to ALL of us. So please… PLEASE, be kind to yourself. Seek support and get help right away. Every community in our country offers several levels of help, even if you can’t afford it. It’s worth a small effort from you to eliminate the possibility of dipping into despair.
A wise person once asked me what I thought would result if God granted me everything I asked for. Unable to come up with a sensible answer, I asked him what HE thought the answer was. He shared that it would create total despair, the worst possible scenario. When I asked why total despair was the worst possible scenario, he said that total despair is equivalent to hopelessness and when you remove any chance of any kind of hope, you find yourself trapped with no clear path forward. He explained further that HOPE provides all of us with a powerful life tool and that hope is the antidote to despair. If we have something to hope for, we need not give despair any of our mental energy. All our mental energy can be wrapped around some form of hope. It seems quite logical. A great book that dives deep into this is “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl.
Back to the downward spiral. How can we eliminate each of its successive steps? ROADBLOCKS! That’s how. It’s worth our time to create a roadblock (or defensive strategy), specific to our own life, that prevents disappointment from reaching discouragement, doubt, depression, and despair. Personally, as soon as I sense disappointment, I begin a process of creating proper perspective to prevent disappointment moving to discouragement. The proper perspective involves assessing an accurate impact of what the disappointment could (and should) mean to the big picture of my life. This leads to a belief that the disappointments impact to my life is insignificant, and I focus on that. Since whatever you focus upon increases, this perspective eliminates the disappointments value. This provides a path upward and forward rather than falling into the downward spiral.
While I have developed roadblocks that works for me, they may not work for you…but something can and will if you have it at the ready, for utilization whenever needed. Believe me when I share with you that taking time to find personal roadblocks that prevent ANY progress in the downward spiral is powerful in eliminating the entire downward progression in my life and I believe it can be for your life too.
I’ve attempted to plant some seeds and help you navigate a positive direction for yourself and people you care about. I just want to emphasize that if you’re experiencing the downward spiral, you’re not required to solve it on your own. Be willing to ask for help and/or help yourself by taking some form of action. Invest time learning what can work as a defensive strategy for each step of the downward spiral. Take advantage of what you can learn from the Internet, from books and articles, and by engaging with someone who is a trained professional before your downward spiral goes too far.
Remember, I Believe in You and I Care about You! GiddyUp!
In addition to being a nationally syndicated columnist, Paul White is an author, motivational and inspirational speaker, entrepreneur, podcaster, and life coach located in Midland, Michigan. He offers self-help and culture development to start your journey towards consistent growth and joy. If you’re interested in getting in touch with Paul, please submit an inquiry via our Contact Page.