Beating Depression

Depression is a terrible condition that brings suffering to the lives of millions and yet it seems that most of the people who suffer from it do not have effective tools to combat it. Much of what is offered to meet this need seems to be either ineffectual or inaccessible. I’d like to share some of the techniques that I have used to successfully overcome depression in the hopes that others might find them as helpful as I have. These techniques can be used by anyone and are both effective and accessible. I believe that using anti-depressants or other forms of immediate gratification to combat feelings of unhappiness is an ineffective approach. They are at best a temporary fix because they attack the symptoms rather than the root of the problem. The root cause of depression is not the chemical imbalance that anti-depressants seek to correct, but rather the pattern of thinking that creates that imbalance. Depression is caused by a pattern of thinking in which we choose to see ourselves as the victim. It is this pattern of thinking that must be changed to pull ourselves out of depression in an enduring fashion. More so, self-pity is extremely disempowering and quick-fix solutions like drugs do nothing to help to overcome this pattern of thinking that disempowers us. It merely creates legions of disempowered but sedated individuals. rnI believe that Eckart Tolle got it right when he said “Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind.” It is not what happens to us that causes us to feel unhappy but rather how we choose to think about what happens to us. The good news is that because we get ourselves into this mess by choosing to think of ourselves as victims, we can also choose to get ourselves out by choosing to think about the situation differently. I, for example, have had the experience of having to deal with the infidelity of a partner that I loved with all of my heart on more than one occasion, with more than one partner. The first time that it happened, I was devastated and completely incapacitated for an extended period of time. I promised myself then, that if such a thing ever happened again that I would choose to re-act differently. When it did happen again (with a different partner) I was very conscious of the fact that I had the power to choose how I was going to let this affect me. And I am happy to say that although the experience was still very painful, I did not allow it to drag me down into deep depression. Here are some of the techniques that I have found effective in keeping myself out of depression: 1: Commit to making a conscious and determined effort to control your thoughts. As Anthony Robbins says, the three most important decisions that we make are … (1) What to focus on? (2) What meaning to give to what we focus on? (3) What we choose to do about it? When something bad happens to us, perhaps the best thing we can do is to not allow it to dominate our focus to the point of becoming all-consuming. We can choose instead to focus on other aspects of our lives which continue to bring us joy. This is not so much about avoiding the problem as it is about gathering the strength to tackle the problem with a clear mind and a joyous heart. When we do choose to focus our thoughts on the event, the meaning that we choose to give to it is key. And the critical question we should ask ourselves is: “Am I going to allow myself to think of myself as a victim here?” We may be super justified in doing so, but the point is that we have the power to *choose* and there are real consequences to choosing to indulge in the downward spiral of self-pity. When we make this choice, we are choosing to disempower ourselves. We are choosing to create a powerful emotionally charged self-image of ourselves as a powerless victim at the mercy of the world who needs to be sheltered and protected. The long term effect of this type of self-talk is to turn ourselves into very fearful people who are unable to take the risks that we need to take in order to grow our self-confidence and self-esteem. Napoleon Hill once said “Every adversity contains within it the seeds of an equal or greater opportunity to those with a positive mental attitude.” This is something that I truly believe. More so, I believe that the greater the adversity, the greater the potential opportunity for personal growth. So instead of choosing to think of myself as a victim when bad things happen to me, I always ask myself “What is the opportunity in this adversity?” One opportunity that you might choose to see is the opportunity to test your ability to recondition your mind to permanently change the patterns of thinking that create chronic unhappiness. Another opportunity that you might choose to see is the opportunity to test your ability to retain unconditional love for the person who has hurt you and prevent yourself from being overcome by destructive emotions to the point where you lash out and do something that you’ll later regret. Controlling our thoughts is not something that is easy to do. We may find that we can do it for a while with a conscious and concerted effort, but eventually drift back to our old patterns of thinking. Habits can be hard to break but the rewards are well worth the effort. If we are kind to ourselves, highly motivated and determined to persist it can be done and there are techniques to help us do it … 2: Don’t resist. Detach. “What you resist persists, and what you welcome has a tendency to let go and release”. ~Stephan Bodian It is the resistance to the pain that amplifies the pain. Endeavoring to fool the world by wearing a fake smile when we are writhing in pain only succeeds in making the pain worse. When we surrender the battle and allow ourselves to be consumed by the pain we find that the pain magically melts away. Our fear of pain made the situation worse and hints at the truth that all such non-physical pain is entirely our own creation. Mindfulness meditation techniques encourage us to surrender to the negative emotion while sitting quietly and choose to detach by (1)naming the emotion, (2) focusing our mind on the physical sensations in the body associated with the emotion and (3) the thought that triggered the emotion. 3: Teach yourself to quickly detect the physical manifestation of depression. The more in-touch we are with our own emotions, the faster we can catch ourselves slipping back into depression and the quicker we can self-correct before we get too deep to pull ourselves out again. The next time that you feel deep sadness you might wish to try focusing your mind on how your body feels differently in that state than you normally do. I, for example, feel a pain in my chest area that spreads down my arms to my hands as the intensity of the feeling increases. I suspect that other people’s physiology is similar. This feels very much like a “broken heart”. The more familiar you are with how your own body feels when you are experiencing this emotion, the more easy you will find it to train yourself to be on guard for that physical sensation so that when you detect it, you can take immediate action to control your thoughts. 4: Breathe deeply. One thing that all destructive emotions (fear, anger, self-pity) seem to have in common is the fact that they trigger a build up in the stress hormone cortisol in our system. I suspect that the intensity of the feeling of heart-break is highly correlated to the level of cortisol being generated. In his book “Emotional Intelligence”, Daniel Goleman refers to this process of escalating negativity as “flooding”. Conversely, the more relaxed you are the greater your ability to reduce the level of cortisol in your system. The goal of many of these techniques is to calm ourselves down before the flooding pushes us to the breaking point (where the fight or flight response is triggered), to continue to calm ourselves down until we reach a deep state of relaxation and to keep us in this state. One of the most effective techniques to help accomplish this is to simply breathe deeply. The influx of oxygen in the blood stream seems to aid in the neuro-chemical process which reduces the level of cortisol in our system. 5: Use affirmations An affirmation is a short statement which you may commit to memory and recite back to yourself when needed to condition your mind appropriately. Here are some examples that you may find empowering. “I am finding the gift in all experiences”. “Whatever happens to me, in any given situation, I can handle it.” “No one can affect my emotional well being in any fashion unless I choose to allow them to do so.” “I choose how I will react to anything and everything that happens to me.” “I stand tall and take responsibility for my life.” 6: Use visualizations Visualizations can be a very effective technique for controlling one’s thoughts. You may wish to choose to visualize a physical location that inspires a deep sense of relaxation in you. i.e. Go to your happy place. It can be even more effective if your visualization fully engages all of your senses. You might, for example, imagine yourself overlooking a mountain lake whose surface is so still that it perfectly reflects the mountain landscape that surrounds it. Imagine the feeling of a gentle breeze against your skin, or the rough bark of the tree you are leaning up against the palm of your hand. Imagine the smell of the pine trees and the sounds of birds chirping in the distance in an otherwise silent forest. 7: Forgiveness Forgiving the people who hurt us can be very difficult. But as is the case with so much in life, the greater the difficulty, the greater the reward. Is it not the case that until we do genuinely forgive them we will continue to find ourselves being driven back into a disempowering state of self-pity and depression as we re-live the experience and re-inflict pain on ourselves? Is not forgiveness essential to our own mental health? When I want to forgive someone, an effective technique that I use is to strive to have empathy for them. If we can summon the courage to connect with them and truly understand why they did what they did, we will invariably discover that they too were driven by pain. This is always the case because we human beings are physiologically incapable of hurting others unless our empathy has been switched off and the only force on earth with the power to do that is fear. Every self-absorbed person who has ever hurt you was afraid. It is this epiphany that enables us to temper our negative emotions with compassion for our attackers. The resulting boost in empathy can stop and reverse the process of being overcome by fear. I always make my best effort to avoid allowing myself to feel negative emotions towards self-absorbed people who hurt me by choosing instead to ask and answer the question: “What is the pain behind this behavior?” 8: Reward yourself Each time that you detect the physiological signs of sadness and use these or other techniques to successfully roll them back, stop and reward yourself. You have just proved to yourself that you have the power to control your destructive emotions. Choose to focus your thoughts on your victory and keep doing it. Notice how you feel more empowered and self-confident when you do so. It is a great feeling. If you occasionally do fail, do not beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself and turn your inner critic into an inner coach. If there is a lesson to be learned, learn it and move on. Focus on your victories and stick with it. You can do it. More so imagine for a moment what it will be like if you continue along this path. How many of the fears we have that hold us back are rooted in our victimhood stories of our past experiences? When we cease to see ourselves as a victim, will not these fears melt away into nothingness? One day you will reach a level of fearlessness where you feel that you can handle anything that comes your way. Imagine how that would enable you to pursue your dreams without fear. Over time can you see yourself not fearing adversity but actually welcoming and embracing it for the opportunity for personal growth that it offers? Would it surprise you to know that this is exactly what many of the most successful individuals in our world do? Consciously endeavoring to recondition our mind can not only help us to overcome depression. Over time it can help us to develop into empowered individuals who pursue their wildest dreams without fear and succeed.