Habits

You have been depressed for so long that you are sick and tired of being depressed. You want your life back! You desire to feel happy, confident, successful, valued, connected, interested and interesting. ‘If only I can break the cycle of this depression and set myself free to LIVE the rest of my life!’

The truth is: it’s hard to break free from depression. It’s almost impossible to talk yourself out of it (Would be nice to hear from people who succeeded this way!) It’s also unlikely that a person, who has been crippled by depression, would find strength, discipline and motivation to do and act differently from one particular moment forward.

Gwyneth Lewis in her book ‘Sunbathing in the rain’, which describes her experience of depression, writes ”Depression itself can’t harm you, only what you do about it can”.

Way too often we choose behaviours to harm ourselves when we feel depressed. Here are a few examples how you might be hurting yourself:

Six weeks ago, I started my decluttering experiment. Although I made some progress, the results that excite me most lay not in the renewed order of my personal environment but the knowledge I gained during these past weeks.

Allow me to share this knowledge with you, as some of my insights may be of value to your life too.

Lesson #1: Knowing what and how to do is not enough. Nothing gets done without taking action.

I’ve decided to dedicate a few posts to evaluating and promoting some good-mood food.

Are you are familiar with caterpillars and their eating habits or at least Eric Carle’s classic book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”? They are very fussy and picky in what they eat, but once they find the 'good stuff', they eat loads and at an amazing rate!

Today’s good stuff for you to consider is:

Did you know that in olden days soups were prescribed to you if you were unwell? In many cultures, it is still the first food served to a person recovering from an illness, especially a long one.

Soups are made all over the world, hence the endless types, varieties and flavours. Making soups is a very old tradition. It is said that restaurants were originally created to serve soups (restoratifs) in 18th century Paris.

What makes soup so special?

Do you wake up each and every morning totally exhausted and feeling much worse that the night before?

When I was depressed I used to hope every night that in the morning I would wake up refreshed, eager to jump out of bed and face the new day. I was frustrated and disappointed that no miracles had happened overnight. I would open my eyes, assess my feelings and declare: ‘Yep, depressed today…as usual!’ Then I would have to drag myself out of bed, feeling extremely tired, acutely miserable and totally helpless for most of the day.

Giving sincere compliments is a hard task for a lot of people suffering and recovering from depression. Coming out of depression involves a process of rediscovering and re-learning the powerful and vital social skill of giving compliments.

When I was wrapped in my own depression, my inner suffering locked me away in some kind of socially-isolated cocoon. Before long, I formed a habit of not noticing the good and the positive about others and myself. I stopped giving complements to people. Why should I, when my own happiness and optimism had vanished?