Thinking myself happy

Sometimes I wonder if I can truly say I’ve transformed my depression into happiness, especially when I have a week or two when I feel low. At times like that I feel a fraud, and my motivation to write goes way downhill. I had one of those times recently, and thought seriously about throwing in the towel (on my book – not on my life!)

But then I took myself in hand and asked myself two questions. They were:

1. Why do I want to be happy? and

2. What is stopping me from being happy?

The answer to question 1 was pretty easy. I want to be happy because it feels good. I know from the work of Barbara Fredrickson and others that there are lots of positive downstream effects of happiness, like heightened creativity, more success at work and better relationships. But in those moments when I’m experiencing life through a filter of misery and emotional pain, feeling good becomes my overwhelming motivation for taking action.

The answer to the second question was also reasonably obvious. While it’s true that living away from my home town of many years and my close friends means I have less social support than previously, and being chronically ill and on a low income creates a lot of stress, I know that I can still be happy despite these things. What was clear to me from my journaling was that the main thing stopping me from being happy was my thinking.

I did some more journaling and isolated the two major thought patterns that were resulting in misery. They were oldies but baddies! One was about how hard life was. ‘Yes, it is,’ was my response, ‘but it’s even harder when I’m depressed! When I’m happy I can cope with the difficulties life throws at me and still enjoy it.’

Having worked on these thought patterns many times in the past I had some answers to them already. Over the period of a few days I kept jotting them down, looking for the ‘heavy hitters' - the answers that delivered the best payload in terms of making me feel better. Then I did my best to turn them into easy to remember catch phrases. One was ‘life is hard but full of opportunities’, another ‘the steps I’m taking now will make my future a lot easier’. That helped me re-frame my current circumstances.

The effect wasn’t instant, but over time I gradually started to feel better. After a week I was feeling pretty good indeed. I was enjoying my own company again, rather than trying to run away from the painful thoughts by reading, watching TV and working to an unhealthy degree. It gave me a lot of confidence to know I could get on top of painful feelings when they surfaced. It also reinforced my desire to write about how to do this so I can share the message with others who are depressed that it is indeed possible to transform depression into happiness.

Feel good, think better: Using positive experiences to aid cognitive work

A couple of days ago I posted about how positive experiences, including watching DVDs or performances, can lift your mood and help your thinking. Apart from helping you feel good this approach also has another use. Some people I’ve talked to avoid challenging their depressing thinking because focusing on it makes them feel bad. I’ve found one way to get round this is to watch a funny or uplifting movie first or see a friend. Then when I’m feeling better, I’m more able to cope with looking at thoughts I might find distressing, like ‘my life is a mess’ or ‘I can’t get on with other people’. Not only that, but because feeling positive emotions increases the ability to think clearly and creatively, I’m more able to see the holes in my thoughts and challenge them.

‘Why bother looking at your thoughts at all?’ I can hear you asking. ‘If watching a DVD or doing something fun makes you feel better, why not leave it at that?’ My personal reason for continuing to challenge and change my depressing thoughts is that it protects me against future depression. While it’s great that I can feel good when I watch a DVD or live performance, I can’t spend every waking hour doing that. What I know from experience is that if I learn to identify the thoughts that get me down and change them for something that makes me feel better I’m more able to enjoy life even when I’m not able to watch a movie. Working on my thoughts gets at the cause of my bad feelings and helps protect my happiness in times when positive experiences are scarce.