Depression: Using Positive Thoughts

Dorian Innes, writing at TinyBuddha, talked about ways to push back against anxiety and depression, drawing on his own struggle with both. Several things in his life had piled up at once: he lost his job, his girlfriend, and a good number of his friends. He tried the usual remedies. Books, motivational speakers, long talks with family and friends, exercise, vitamins, pretty much everything short of drugs. None of it worked, and some of it left him feeling worse. So he changed approaches and sat down to write out every reason he could think of why he had no business staying depressed or anxious. That exercise is what finally shifted things, and he credits the following 20 thoughts with pulling him out of it.

1. Good things can't exist without bad ones. In Innes's words, instead of mourning the bad and toasting the good, you can celebrate both: the bad because it will turn into good eventually, the good while it's still good.

2. You will never be perfect, and neither will anyone else. That imperfection is what makes us different from one another, and difference is where great ideas come from. No one expects perfection from you anyway, except maybe you.

3. When people act mean, angry, or sad, they're doing what they need to do in that moment. Emotions are temporary. Anger, anxiety, and sadness arrive and then leave, so there's no reason to grip them. The same goes for happiness and pleasure, which pass just as quickly. Let your feelings be what they are.

4. Too much of a good thing is real. Enjoy what you have all the way, without holding back, and savor it while it lasts.

5. You cannot run everything and everyone. The one thing in your control is yourself. Events happen as they happen; your reaction is yours to choose. Build a little more self-control and you tend to get a little more happiness, and practice letting go of the urge to steer other people, since that only breeds pain for both sides.

6. Money and wealth aren't the same thing. Money buys objects. Wealth lives in your relationships. Love the people around you, and grow richer through meditation, connection, and care.

7. You are where you are because that's where you need to be. The reason usually only makes sense looking back.

8. You don't want to know the future, and you don't need to. Do the right thing in front of you and let the result reveal itself.

9. Nobody is still thinking about the small slip you made at the office or at home. Don't let minor mistakes trip you up. Forgive yourself and move on. Everyone fumbles.

10. Life isn't throwing curveballs at you. You tend to get back what you put out, which is karmic reciprocity at work. Give to others and the general return is kindness and generosity coming back, so the net adds up to something positive for everyone. If pain keeps showing up, check whether your own actions are inviting it.

11. When you dislike someone, or they dislike you, often it's because each of you catches a glimpse of yourself in the other. Ask what trait of your own that person seems to be reflecting back at you. People can work like mirrors. Look closely at your own insecurities and know the same thing happens on their end too.

12. At this exact moment you already have what happiness requires: air in your lungs, blood moving, a mouth that can smile. Be grateful for what's here now. Don't get swallowed by fear about the past or the future. Stay present.

13. When something breaks and needs fixing, that gives you something to do. Problems aren't the monsters they appear to be. They're chances to grow into a stronger, smarter version of yourself. Treat each one as a solution waiting to be found through your own resolve and self-knowledge.

14. Everyone makes mistakes, and mistakes are part of how we grow. Learn to forgive your own and other people's. Then decide on a positive next step and take it.

15. Success has no single definition. Set your own terms for it, and remember that your personal, professional, and social success can take a shape no one else's does.

16. Life is simple. We're the ones who complicate it. Most of us are our own worst enemy.

17. You don't need a thing to be happy. You need a person, and that person is you. You hold the switch on your own mood. Possessions and outside pleasures fade, so they won't carry you to anything lasting. The joy that doesn't go out is already inside you.

18. The way you look up to someone, somebody is looking up to you. Behave like it. Whether or not you rate yourself highly, there's a person out there who values something good in you. You're a role model to somebody, so strengthen your own character for their sake and your own.

19. There's a lesson tucked inside everything. The work is finding it.

20. Other people have faced your problems and come through them, which means you can too. A trouble that feels impossible has already been survived by hundreds or thousands of others. Borrow strength from the ones who got past something like it, or finish what someone else couldn't. You belong to the human race, and we're all heading toward the light. Move yourself forward, and move the rest of us with you. (Attributed to Kim B.)

A closing reflection ran with the piece. Life does feel more open and inviting from a positive vantage point than a negative one. The writer wanted everyone, herself included, to try holding the glass as half full, and admitted that's harder than it sounds, though you can't know until you try. Plenty of so-called experts today push us to notice our habits, the good ones and the not-so-good ones. The common claim is that a habit can be made or broken in 21 days, the idea being that enough repetition turns it into something closer to muscle memory.

Could a cycle of negativity break on that same 21-day clock? Not automatically. If someone has lived negatively for 21 years, the pattern won't dissolve as fast as they'd like. Still, it can happen quicker than expected when the desire is there. Think of a person who has smoked since their teens. Toss the pack and the craving doesn't vanish. Even if you stripped away the chemical dependency entirely, the habit would still be stubborn, because a lot of smoking is social rather than physical.

One company the writer worked for years ago kept a designated smoking area, and people took their breaks there with coworkers until it became a kind of social hour built around a cigarette. Nonsmokers would drift out to the 'smoke hut' too, just for the company. A high school teacher told a similar story. He had served in the Navy before teaching, and he didn't smoke until then. Sailors got assigned duties around the ship, and smokers were handed more frequent breaks from those duties, so he picked up the habit to get the extra time off. Depression and a positive life aren't mutually exclusive. If we can call on the power of positive thinking, we can carry it with us.