I am starting a whole new outlook on life.
I don’t consider it a New Years resolution at all.
I consider it the making of a better me.
This is something I need to do all the year long.
It is harder when you have depression.
Depression likes to lie to you and send self-defeating messages.
Messages that say things like
You’ll never be able to do it
You are not worth doing it
It reminds you of all your past failures
This never works for you, you are pathetic
You always have been and will always be a loser
I have discovered that these thoughts can be cut off at the pass.
I have also discovered there is a point of no return.
What I mean by a point of no return is that once I get to a certain place in my brooding, the depression takes over and I can’t win.
I use to try and fight it after the point was crossed, but I was really fueling it not fighting it.
Once in the depressed state the only weapon you have is guilt and guilt motivated nobody at anytime to make any permanent changes.
I can avoid the brooding if I, like the old timers advice, ‘nip it in the bud.’
When the first thought comes, whether it be panic or just a negative thought about myself, if I am not lazy, I can tell depression that you are lying to me again and I won’t go down that path with you.
I don’t gloss over my mistakes, I acknowledge them, but if they are in the past, then I realize I must leave them there.
If in the present I must think about what I can do to solve those problems.
The concept is self-talk and it does work.
It may sound egotistical, but we really do believe what we tell ourselves a lot more than what others are telling us.
Confident people just accept compliments and reject negatives so they may not understand the concept I am talking about.
Someone cruel says your ugly, you just realize they are full of BS and move on. Never thinking much about it again, because you know that you are a good person, and therefore, not ugly at all.
You tell yourself the truth; only ugly people call other people ugly.
The depressed person is ready to believe any negative heaped on to them and thinks the worst about themselves anyway, so they are already set-up to adopt this.
They tell themselves not once, but many times things like, I am so ugly, if only I could lose weight, be as pretty as her, and so forth and so on.
But, if you can deflect those thoughts as they come in, you may ‘nip it in the bud’
When you hear the depression call your name and say “Rachael, you’ll never be good enough” you can ask yourself, “Good enough for whom?” And tell yourself “I don’t need to impress anyone else.”
This is not a one time deal though, our brains have been programmed by the negative thoughts we allowed to define us so, I won’t lie it is a battle.
If I miss the point of no return I just go with it. I cry if I want to and I try to cope the best I can.
Why? Because fighting it at this point only heaps up more guilt and makes it harder the next time when I am prepared to battle it out.
You can’t take a life time of thought and erase it in one day.
But, you can learn to reprogram those thoughts in time.
Serious Reflections and Random Thoughts. 