By Chaitanya Pankhania, Psychotherapist and Hypnotherapist
Although there are many factors and layers that cause depression, the real cure is changing your perception. We all view the world through our own filtered perceptions and the way we view the world is subconsciously influenced by our past experiences. Therefore if we had negative life events, it will shape how we interpret the world now. But we do have a choice to change that. We have a choice to see a particular negative event with the view to learn and grow from it, or to see it as something that has defeated us.
If you experience depression, there may be legitimate reasons for why you feel the way you do and maybe past circumstances have not helped you. However if you want to feel differently, then it means you need to start to look at your life in a different way.
There may be a need to have deeper healing and therapy with depression to to deal with your issues specifically, but I want to share just 3 exercises that you can do, to begin the change in perspectives.
3 Gratefuls
Or what I like to call: 3G’s…In order connect to your positive network, at the end of every day, write down 3 things you are grateful for from that day. The following morning, you need to read the list of 3G’s from the night before and appreciate the good parts of the day before.
Now the things you write may be very small, such as “I’m grateful for the peaceful walk from the station to home” or they may be big, such as a a big achievement.
This exercise will help you to notice the positive moments in your day.
3 Solutions
Write a list of 3 problems you have in your life, either small or big and write down 3 possible solutions for each problem.
Depression has the nature of being stagnant and this exercise can help you move from feeling stuck to seeking solutions.
3 Attributes
Write down as many achievements from you life up until now. And don’t say you don’t have any! Everyone has something, even if they are as small as waking up in the morning. For some, that is an achievement. When you have a list, write down 3 attributes about yourself that enabled you to achieve that thing.
E.g: Achievement: “finishing my degree” 3 attributes: 1. Determination 2. Time management 3. Ability to stay focused for exams.
This will help you to notice your good qualities that you may have not noticed or forgotten you had. Know that if you had them in the past, you still have them within and you can use all those qualities in the future.
When you start to view things differently, the cloud of depression can be lifted. All the best.