Depressed? How to 'Just Cheer Up!'

This morning I woke up with a feeling of depression. This is not unusual for me. Perhaps you can relate. I have struggled with depression for my entire life since I was a child. I really don't know why and I sort of don't really care why anymore. Nonetheless, I have had to find a way to work with it because it has bordered on being debilitating at many different points in my life.

The feeling I woke up with was very familiar: A sense of heaviness throughout my body and a sense of being held down by unseen hands pressing on crown, chest and belly. A style of mental activity that no matter where I looked in my life: my work, my relationship, bank account, home, body, the future -- it all looked bleak. Very bleak. When this happens I become anxious and want to dispel this matrix immediately. To do so, I dive into stories about how it got to be this way and how it is all my fault. True stories, I might add. I missed this opportunity. I made that wrong choice. My abilities are limited. Yes, true -- on one hand. And utterly useless on the other.

Fortunately, I am old enough and practiced enough to recognize (at some point... ) that my mind is playing a very unpleasant trick on me. Trying to nail the "story" of my depression does not change my mood. I catch myself. At this point, a number of options are possible. (MORE)

Source: Huffington Post