In this podcast episode, I share my method for dealing with depression naturally.
You might be depressed right now.
That’s a terrible feeling.
I totally know that because I’m no stranger to that.
I might feel depressed at times, but you know what?
I don’t let myself stay there.
Tune in to learn about the hack that I use for overcoming depression:
If you prefer text, though, just keep reading! 🙂
Engaging emotion for dealing with depression naturally
To fight depression effectively, we need to realize that it’s just a feeling after all.
We have all sorts of emotions during the day.
Depression is just one of them, even though it’s a powerful one.
Tim Matthews, the founder of The Powerful Man, explains how we create it:
When we start to think that we should be farther ahead than who and where we are now, we begin to feel so much pressure which can lead to depression.
Even if we feel depressed, we can switch to another emotion instantly.
For example, I feel love whenever I give a hug to my kid.
Which means I can switch to that emotion voluntarily.
My current emotion is the one that I choose to feel by focusing on it.
Tony Robbins has this concept called the Triad.
Changing our feeling requires changing the following three things:
- physiology: posture and breathing
- focus: what we think about
- language: what we say to ourselves when we think about it
Here I’m talking about the second part: focus.
Let me show how I replace a negative emotion with a positive one using my focus.
Step 1: Have a memory associated with a strong positive emotion
I have this memory of feeling like a winner.
A few years ago, I went to a park on a date with a girl.
We took a walk for about an hour.
When we returned to my car, I pushed the button on the door to unlock it.
But it wouldn’t unlock.
I was confused because my key was supposed to be in my pocket and the car was supposed to unlock.
But what if I didn’t have the key?
I looked around for the key but it was nowhere to be found.
I lost it indeed.
So I called a taxi to take the girl home and grab the second key from my home.
In the morning, I decided to go look for the key.
I thought that would be a waste of time.
I mean: what are the chances to find the key in a huge park where we walked a lot?
But somehow I trusted my intuition.
I drove back to the park and started following our yesterday’s path.
I was 100% sure I had no chance.
A large park, high grass, and a small key.
And sure enough, there it was, lying in the grass, waiting for me.
Man, this looked like a miracle.
I felt ecstatic for so many reasons.
- I don’t like to lose things and I avoided losing the key.
- It was quite expensive to restore and I didn’t want the hassle.
- And most importantly, I couldn’t believe that I actually found it.
It might not sound like a big deal to you.
But it doesn’t matter!
What does matter is that for me it was a miracle.
I couldn’t believe it.
And I committed this feeling to memory.
Step 2: Rely on this memory to recall the emotion
Now I use this memory as a go-to place for things like winter depression or any other negative thoughts really.
See, I noticed that it could help me just a couple of days after finding the key.
I was running and really pushing myself.
It felt hard, but then I suddenly remembered about the key.
And running felt less difficult instantly.
So I said to myself:
“If I can use this memory to change my state when I run, how about other situations?”
So the next time I felt depressed, I replayed that memory.
I recreated the entire experience in my mind as vividly as possible.
- Summer park smells.
- Sounds of the wind in the trees.
- How the morning sun felt on my skin.
- How I noticed the key.
- The unbelievable feeling of victory.
- The gratitude about trusting my intuition.
- And feeling happy telling the girl that I found it.
Replaying that memory took me about two minutes.
And it was already worthwhile because at least in those few minutes, I didn’t feel depressed.
I felt elated.
But it didn’t really last just two minutes.
In fact, I stayed elated.
And I would keep reminding myself of the key from time to time.
That was enough to renew my focus.
And whenever I felt depression coming back strong, I replayed the entire experience again for a stronger effect.
That’s it: dealing with depression naturally is that easy!
Step 3: Keep programming yourself
As I kept using this memory, it worked even more effectively.
The idea is to make it so habitual that it happens automatically.
In fact, we do it with negative emotions all the time.
We keep thinking of something bad and we feel depressed.
That’s because our mind is focused on survival and keeps looking for what is wrong.
But if we can train ourselves to feel negative emotions, we can do the same with the positive ones!
It just takes more practice and patience.
As we practice shifting from negative to positive emotions, we program them into our subconscious mind.
And eventually, we are able to call those positive emotions just as quickly as the negative ones.
Start dealing with depression naturally today
There you go: there is no reason for living with depression when it’s just a matter of focus.
Instead of focusing on what’s bad in your life, you have the power to focus on positive emotion.
- Find a memory when you felt elated. It doesn’t have to be as big as winning a Nobel prize. What matters is how excited you felt at the moment.
- Replay that moment in your mind in detail so that you feel the positive emotions in your body.
- And then keep focusing on those positive emotions to avoid the negative ones.
- When you feel that the negative emotions start creeping back in, replay the moment in detail again.
Get help for beating depression
If you need help dealing with depression naturally, check out my life coaching services.
I’ll be honored to offer you a free clarity session and discuss how I can assist you.
Here’s a link for you to contact me: my contact page.