Full Notes:Tuesday,April 7, 2020WhatI’m talking about, self-deception, is not a contributing factor to mentalillness. If it were a contributing factor you could take it away and still havemental illness. No, it is common to all cases. It’s common to us all. Again,it’s like internal combustion in gasoline engines, or lift for something thatflies. There all the time. Therapy is probably great, I guess, but isn’t therapy really hard to do for some people, and maybe less effective for some people?  Wouldn’t some people sooner self-medicate before they go make an appointment to talk to somebody and spill their guts out to a stranger?  Not saying they shouldn’t do therapy, just saying some people find it harder, for one reason or another, and that’s why many people don’t. Even if they “need it.”  Maybe some of those people would listen to a podcast, though, or read a book. Or watch YouTube. Maybe some people would rather do it in private than do it with a therapist. Just a thought. Thursday,April 9, 2020Again,not that more people maybe shouldn’t do therapy. But you might reach morepeople that way. Plus not everybody has an issue at a “clinical level”. Manypeople might struggle with depression or anxiety or whatever, but it might be“sub-clinical”.  Surely this is a spiritual thing. Surely depression is a spiritual sickness. And same with anxiety. May have physical factors, I guess. But surely it’s a spiritual thing. Why do I say that?  I guess for me there is an attitude issue. There is a lack of faith. There’s a gratitude issue. There’s a lack of forgiveness. There’s a lack of hope, which is despair. The lack of faith is doubt. The lack of confidence is fear. Doubt not, fear not. Look into me in every thought. I’m sure I don’t look into the Lord in every thought when I’m struggling with depression and anxiety.  What does LDS social services say about this all?  How do they handle it?  (What are they called now, by the way?)Monday,April 13, 2020Find away to illustrate how sometimes you can't do much in the moment of great alarm,but you can in other moments.  It's true,right?  How do you illustrate that?Tuesday,April 14, 2020Howabout tending to a plant?  Allegory ofthe Lord's olive trees.  ShouldI edit the Spirit episode to nix the unenlightening discussion on Christ andthe legion of spirits, and put in instead how in ways we don't understand weare influenced by both good and evil spirits. I have to imagine that's how we are tempted/influenced to do bad things,and that's how we get stuck in traps of bad behaviors, etc.  Evil spirits don't just help us in thatprocess, they are integral to that process. And also good spirits have their part to play in our protection and whoknows what else.  We are surrounded.  Both by the good and the evil spirits.  And our choices make us subject to the evilspirits, who have the power to captivate as we subject ourselves to them.  This is how I imagine it.  Friday,April 17, 2020Peaceand happiness. Happiness and peace. Don’t those correspond to depression andanxiety?  Those are the two things wewant, right - peace and happiness?  Andthe absence of peace is anxiety, and the absence of happiness is depression?Theopposite of hope is despair (and despair cometh because of iniquity…). Theopposite of faith is fear. What am I getting at, here?  I don’t know. But we all want peace andhappiness. And instead we get anxiety and depression. Depression is misery.It’s not just the absence of feeling. I’ve been wondering if depression doesn’tdescribe more than one thing. Because there’s absence of feeling, and there’smisery. There’s being out of touch with yourself, and there’s acute misery,right?  I don’t know. All I know is Ineed to have more fun in my life. What was that elder describing on mymission?  It was basically depression,