Hating Ourselves

Understand the common triggers. Once you understand which one is behind your depression, you can better learn how to cope with depression.

Feelings of loss, “less than” and “never going to happen” are the major reasons that most people dip into depression. Loss can result from a loved one dying or losing a job; feelings of “less than” can be triggered by comparing yourself to others you view as having more than you and “never” occurs when you start believing that your goals and dreams are completely out of reach. 

Many of those trying to find ways to deal with depression have formed limiting beliefs that negatively affect how they think.

If you come from a family who has never had a member attend college, you might believe that you are not smart enough to achieve your goals. Another common limiting belief is that they are supposed to be sad because depression or anxiety runs in their family. 

Simply stopping negative thoughts in their tracks can be helpful. This is known as "thought-stopping" and can take the form of snapping a rubber band on your wrist, visualizing a stop sign, or simply changing to another thought when a negative train of thought enters your mind.

Telling a trusted friend what you're thinking about can often lead to support or a good laugh when the negative self-talk is ridiculous. Even saying some negative self-talk phrases under your breath can remind you how unreasonable and unrealistic they sound, and remind you to give yourself a break.

Our emotions are always mediated by some form of thinking. 

If our thoughts determine how we feel, that means how we habitually think will determine how we habitually feel.

It happens when we assume we understand what other people are thinking without any real evidence.

It is a failure of imagination because we often only imagine and focus on the negative aspects.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

A mindset is a set of assumptions, methods, or notations that is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within you to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviours, choices, or tools.

It’s so powerful that it affects every decision-making process. It predetermines your responses and interpretations of situations.

Self-destructive behaviors can become habits and can continually undermine your success and happiness.

Self-sabotage is when we want something, but somehow we never accomplish it, because somewhere deep in our subconscious we’re fighting against that goal:

• Our disorganization distracts us.
• We’re constantly overthinking all of our decisions.

• Procrastination. Start setting deadlines and mini-deadlines to work toward your objective.
• Negative self-talk/negative thinking. Be patient with yourself; be kind to yourself. Work to build yourself up.
• Perfectionism. It is an impossible standard that keeps you from moving forward.

Chaos and uncertainty make us want to shut down and become disengaged.

The idea of staying calm and focusing on what you can control keeps us engaged and aimed towards a possible solution.

Acting or responding to a situation is always better than mindless reaction, which itself leads to further chaos.

Taking action, even if it is a small asserting of control, keeps us moving forward.

It happens when other people's bad experience is reimagined by you, sparking memories of your own similar experience, triggering strong reactions.

Deeply buried events that were supposedly forgotten are resurfaced, leading to traumatic feelings that can be hard to understand by others, like grief, frustration, helplessness and agitation.

Anger, surprisingly, can be constructive, an active ingredient to energize and motivate a person. It can be useful and powerful if channelled in the right way. The adrenalin that flows during a fit of anger can blind a person if not handled appropriately.

If left unchecked, anger can lead to nightmares, chronic anxiety, and panic attacks.

Relationships:

• You keep yourself isolated.
• You make so many demands on your partner that he or she feels smothered and ends the relationship.
• You judge everyone you meet as not being good enough for you.

Work:

• You keep putting off looking for the kind of job you want.
• You are able to work, and say you want to, but keep living off other means.
• You stay in a job that you hate.
• You keep yourself uneducated regarding doing what you really want to do.

Talking back to your inner critic is an important part of taking away its power. 

Telling the critic you don’t want to hear what it has to say begins to give you a sense of choice in the matter. 

Self-criticism isn’t innate to us, it’s internalized based on outside influences, such as other people’s criticism, expectations, or standards. It’s a habit that can be unlearned or controlled.

One way to separate yourself from the self-criticism is to give it a name. Doing so, you better positioned to free yourself from its influence.

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."

... you have 2 options:

• You can complain about it and hope it magically changes.
• You can set out to make a change.

If you are unhappy you owe it to yourself to make a change -- life is too short to delay any longer.