A couple of months ago, I started noticing myself slipping into a low place emotionally. I felt discouraged about things that usually didn’t get me down.  My brain was foggy and I had a difficult time making decisions or coming up with new ideas.  I was more irritable with my family.  I was surprised because I haven’t felt this way for a long time.  Depression ebbs and flows—I know that, but sometimes it still takes me off guard.  I had felt so good for so long that I was surprised when I started feeling the symptoms again.   

Blaming Things Outside Myself

Even though I had several tools to deal with these feelings, I temporarily “forgot” them.  Instead of using my tools, I looked outside of myself to figure out why I was feeling this way.  I thought of all the external things that were causing me to feel down: concerning news about a family member, the cold of winter, holiday stress and then post-holiday slump, and even normal day-to-day stresses.   

Having something to blame helped the depression make sense.  But I also felt resentful towards all these external things, as well as hopeless because I knew I couldn’t control them.  

I Made My Depression Mean There Was Something Wrong with Me

I began asking myself questions: “What’s wrong with me?”  “Why can’t I pull myself together?”  “Why am I feeling this way?”  “I should be able to handle this better!”  Being hard on myself caused me to spiral down even more.  I found myself wanting to avoid feeling awful by looking for something to buffer my feelings: eating more candy, watching more TV shows.   But it didn’t help—I just felt worse.

After several weeks, I knelt down and prayed and asked my Heavenly Father how to feel better.  His answer to me was, “You have the tools, use them.”  

I stopped and thought about it.  I did know what to do, but I wasn’t doing it.  Immediately I started thinking about which tools would be helpful in this situation and started applying them.  Here are some of the tools I started using:  

Tool #1: Expect Negative Emotion

Expect that your life will be filled with 50% negative emotions and 50% positive emotions.  It doesn’t matter what our circumstances are, negative emotion is part of the deal. Without negative emotion we wouldn’t be able to recognize positive emotion.  The contrast in our emotions creates meaning for us (see article). When we expect life to be 100% positive, we will always have a gap between our expectations and our reality.   

I reminded myself that depression is a feeling—part of my 50% negative emotion.   Realizing that this was normal and not a problem relieved a little pressure.  

Tool #2: Take Responsibility for Your Feelings

We are always responsible for how we feel—regardless of anything going on outside of us.  Our circumstances don’t have power to make us feel a certain way until we have a thought about it.  Realizing this is empowering—it means that if we know it is our thoughts that make us feel a certain way, we can choose different thoughts.  We have the power to change how we feel.  

I looked at all of the circumstances that I was blaming for my feelings of depression.  I acknowledged that I was choosing the way I felt about them.  I reminded myself I was feeling this way because of my thoughts, not because of the things themselves.  I was choosing this thought, and I could choose something else if I wanted.  I felt hope as I remembered this.  Hope is half the battle.

Tool #3: Be Careful About What You Make Your Feelings Mean

Taking responsibility for your feelings is NOT the same thing as blaming yourself.  We cannot beat ourselves up into being better.  Taking responsibility for our feelings is only a source of empowerment—it should never be used as a weapon against ourselves.  Treating ourselves with curiosity and compassion is essential.  Don’t make depression mean that you have failed in some way.  All that does is dig you deeper into the hole.  

I stopped berating myself for feeling depressed.  I stopped pummeling myself with questions about why I couldn’t pull it together and what was wrong with me.  I reminded myself that this is part of the human experience.  I began to look with curiosity about what I might be thinking and feeling and approached myself with as much compassion as I would feel for a friend going through a difficult time.  This lifted away some of the added layers of emotion, guilt, and confusion I had piled onto the original depression.

Tool #4: Don’t Resist or Avoid It—Accept It

Author Byron Katie says, “When you argue with reality, you lose.  But only every time.”  When we don’t like something, often our first response is to resist or avoid it.  When it comes to emotions, however, the most powerful way to get rid of them is to let them go through us.  Processing an emotion means acknowledging what you’re feeling and opening up to it, noticing how it feels in your body, and allowing it to be there.  Emotions can’t hurt you (see article)

I decided I would just feel depression.  This is different than continuing to dwell on the thoughts that cause depression.  I allowed the feeling of depression.  I noticed how it felt in my body.  I processed it.  As I did, strangely the feeling began to lift a bit.  

Tool #5: Coach Yourself on Your Thoughts

Sometimes our minds fill up with thoughts and feelings, just like a closet gets filled up with junk.  When the closet is full, it’s hard to find what we need.  Every so often—and especially when we’re feeling low—it’s important to look at our thoughts and clear them out so we have space to think.  The best way to do this is with an ordinary pencil and paper (see article)

I wanted to clear my mind, so I took out a piece of paper and did a thought download.  I wrote down all the thoughts in my mind.  Then, I noticed what types of emotions and actions these thoughts were creating.  I asked myself some questions to figure out if I wanted to keep getting the same results.  For the thoughts I wanted to change, I created new thoughts I wanted to think on purpose.  I began re-directing my mind to these new thoughts when the old ones came up.  This has been powerful. 

Busting the Blues 

As I applied these tools, I began to feel a bit better.   Depression sometimes sneaks up on us when we’re not expecting it.  When we realize what’s happening, we can start to apply some of these tools.  It’s important to be patient and allow the feelings to run their course.  Remember: it’s okay to feel some depression.  We just don’t want to prolong it by adding more negative emotions or continuing to dwell on the thoughts causing it.  It will lift.  Hang in there.  

Move Through Depression

When you feel depression use these tools:
1.  Expect it
2.  Take Responsibility for Your Own Emotions 
3.  Be Careful What You Make It Mean That You Have Depression.  
4.  Accept it and process the feeling 
5.  Look at your thoughts and redirect to other thoughts