To Cure Depression, Challenge Your Thoughts, Change the Narrative

Curing depression is about taking back our power.

Taking it back from the thoughts and beliefs that have come to create and perpetuate our negative mindset.

To really understand that let’s look at how depression comes about.

We are not born depressed. Far from it, babies are pure love. They smile without inhibition and laugh without a care. Much like the fragrance of a flower, or the warmth of the sun, they do not smile for anyone. They just are their wonderful little loveable selves, spreading joy and happiness simply by the virtue of their being.

We all started out like that. But this is a short-lived phase.

We quickly start picking up subtle (and not-so-subtle) cues around us. We start developing a sense of self and that of the world around us. Our senses are in overdrive. Our little brains are marvelously sprightly.

There’s so much to explore and to learn. The world is an endlessly fascinating (and at times intimidating) place for little human beings.

Thus begins our conditioning. We seek patterns in things, that’s how we make sense of the world. We are highly influenced by the people immediately surrounding us. We imbibe their vibes. We learn about the world from them. Their word is gospel for us.

And this goes on as we grow. Depending on one’s circumstance, experiences, thinking patterns, and predispositions, one may arrive at any conclusion about the world as they approach adulthood.

What happens with thought patterns that eventually lead to depression is that knowingly or unknowingly we start creating feedback loops in our minds that begin to reinforce our negative views of the world – including ourselves.

Some kind of a feedback loop is inevitable. We live off of it; that’s just the way the mind is wired.

The problem is a mind that is stuck in a loop feeding on negative thoughts. Consider statements like:

• I always have to struggle OR Nothing comes to me easily.
• It’s my fault, I can’t do anything right.
• God, I’m so stupid. And ugly.
• I suck.
• Everyone seems to be doing better than me.
• I just never get lucky.

I am sure you have your reasons for arriving at such observations about life, the world, and your place in it.

The problem is when such an observation does not just remain an observation. It starts assuming a definitive aspect and gradually coalesces into a belief.

Anything will become a belief if you repeat it over to yourself enough times and with enough conviction.

It’s what you think to be true in your heart of hearts that determines your experiences and eventually your reality (or your perception of the reality).

Such is the power of thoughts.

A thought that can convince you that you are worthless, no-good, unlucky, or unloveable, did not come about overnight.

You have entertained that thought (wherever it may have initially popped up from), nurtured it, and strengthened it. That is where that unhelpful thought derives its power from.

It derives its power from YOU.

You have been an accomplice in creating the depressive narrative about your life.

My intention in saying so is not to make you feel bad. But rather to alert you to the power of your own thoughts and how you are actively (though not consciously) creating a mental state of being you want to run away from.

In a state of depression we feel helpless, victimized, and powerless.

And yet, we feed these thoughts by reposing faith in them over and over again.

The good news, of course, is that we can very well reverse this pattern.

We can disempower unhelpful thoughts, old ways of being and doing, by deciding to simply stop entertaining them. It all begins with a decision. (Don’t feed the trolls, as they say on Internet forums.)

How to do it is a whole different post. It won’t be easy and it won’t work at a purely superficial level.

But I want you to see for yourselves that even though you feel powerless against depression, you are not. The ultimate power lies with you (and within you).

This realization alone can get you started on your journey, or reinvigorate the one you are on.

From this realization will spring the cure – that it’s you who holds the power, not your thoughts (about the world, about yourself, about how people treat you, about anything at all). Everything that you believe was made up by you with the help of certain thoughts and feedback mechanisms.

You can take the power away from them and replace them with beliefs that actually serve you well.

Are you ready to do it?

Bring out a pen and paper (or pull up a Word document) and get to work

Jot down your answers to:

• Which thoughts have you given your power away to?
• What do you believe about yourself deep down that is hurting your self-image and as a result actively inhibiting your confidence?
• What is that one belief that you think is making you depressed?

Make a list. Pour your heart out. This is just between you and yourself – no one else needs to see it. So don’t hold yourself back. Let it all come out.

You might get a ton of superficial answers at first. Such as, “I’m not pretty,” or, “I’m a loser.”

I want you to gently question these statements which you seem to be repeating to yourself ad nauseum. For example, let’s go with “I’m not pretty.” (Pretty can be replaced with ‘smart’, ‘worthy’, anything, as long as it applies to you.)

Why do you think you are not pretty?

Because someone said so.

Why does it matter what they said?

Because that someone is a sibling and I care about what my sibling says.

Is this sibling of yours always right?

No, they are often wrong. But it’s what they believe that matters. They believe I am ugly. Others have said that, too.

Do YOU think you are ugly?

I never seem to get any compliments.

Why does it matter to you that you be “pretty” in the first place? And why does it matter to you that others think so, too?

(This is the stage where the insight begins to come in. I want you to keep going, probing further.)

Do you even know what “pretty” is? Do you share those ideals of beauty with everyone – even when you know they are superficial, unfair, even ridiculous?

Do you really think that of all the things a girl can be called, “pretty” is anywhere near the most flattering?

If so, let’s see the problem with that. You are basing your self-worth on an accident of nature. Not even an accident of nature, but an interpretation of an accident of nature. The mind is the best part about a human being, not what they look like. The mind is the reason humanity has evolved and progressed this far. And the mind, also, is the reason so may people don’t seem to have progressed much at all.

Your perceived beauty, or the lack of it, does not define who you are.

Even more problematic is the assumption that what others think of you should influence your own sense of self-worth.

Why does the power to make you feel good or bad lie with those outside of you?

On and on this can go. But I want you to do this with every belief that is fueling negativity and driving you further into depression.

The answers will have to come from a very honest part of you. You would have to truly expand the mind, raise awareness, and challenge existing notions (personal or societal) to understand where the beliefs originate.

I can guarantee you will find that these beliefs do not stem from a good place. They are not the beliefs of an evolved, conscious, even an aware mind. (We pick up a lot of unhealthy beliefs throughout our growing years and even internalize them. Children, after all, are impressionable and lack discretion.)

They come from a place of lack – a place that views this world as inherently unfair and its inhabitants as lowly creatures. A place that pits one against the other, in which you must be a certain way in order to be deemed worthy of anything. A place that judges, not embraces.

These beliefs are not serving anyone. And I want you to call them out into the open so that you can start to dismantle them one by one, eventually building a new belief system and narrative.

It’s a long road to conquering depression but it all starts with monitoring your thoughts.

Thoughts have the power to shape our destiny. They can lower our morale and also boost it. Everything we do has some thought or belief system behind it, which we may or may not grasp initially. We are rarely truly helpless.

If anything, we possess a tremendous source of power – the trained mind. Once you understand this, you will never let your mind run idle. Instead, you will nurture it, guide it, train it, so that it serves you and those around you. You will also become aware of how you create your own reality. And that is the greatest adventure of all.