Overcoming Depression Through Inner Dialogue

How do you help yourself get up when your mind keeps telling you you can’t? What kind of help can you give yourself when it seems as if even your own mind has given up on you? This is what it feels like for people who are suffering from depression. It seems there is nothing they can do about their lives because of what their mind tells them. 

Has it become hard for you to get out of bed to go to work? You once thought it was all laziness, but then you realized, either through self-reflection or through visiting a therapist, that it might actually be depression keeping you down. You don’t have the energy to do things, and you don’t feel like doing anything at all because your brain tells you that you can’t do it or that you are not good enough. 

If you keep hearing voices in your head telling you that you can’t do something, how will you ever begin to fight it?

What Does It Mean To Battle With Depression?

Fighting depression is not a matter of saying things to yourself. Some may say that taking on a more spiritual path will help you deal with it. But in truth, when you are depressed, you feel helpless. Even though people are there to help you, it seems there is nothing they can really do. 

Battling with depression is like fighting yourself. It can manifest itself in various ways. 

For example, you might blame your laziness for all the pending tasks that you have. You procrastinated, and you ended up with more work than you can handle. But if you stop to ask yourself why you are procrastinating, you will realize that there is more to it than laziness. 

You might have put off doing the task because you were scared of failing. You thought that you couldn’t do it. At some point, you told yourself that you are not good enough for it, and so you put off doing it until it absolutely needed to be done. Now, you don’t have the confidence or the energy to do it. 

There are days when it seems your whole life is a mess. You have personal plans, but you don’t know what to do first. You lack the focus even though you know very well what it is that you want in life. 

You begin to hear voices inside your head that tell you all the many reasons why you cannot have what you want. You start to doubt if it is what you want really. 

Sometimes, battling with depression could be procrastinating. It could manifest itself in your lack of confidence to do things. You may try to find the reason why you ended up with a lot on your plate, feeling miserable because you have failed yourself too many times. But you end up empty. 

At the end of the day, battling with depression can eat you from the inside. There is that desire to learn how to stop voices in your head that say you can’t do it. But you don’t. 

In truth, that is where the solution actually begins. You need to learn to talk to yourself. 

How Do You Have A Dialogue With Yourself?

What is the first thing that you would like to tell yourself? When battling with depression, it seems all that you can say to yourself is that you have failed miserably, no matter how hard you tried. But then again, that inner voice in you also wants to congratulate you for just trying. 

Instead of paying attention to the larger, more negative voices, try to listen to that smaller, more positive voice. That little voice is what you actually need to hear right now. How do you begin a dialogue with yourself that will get you out of your depressive state? Here are some tips that might help:

Tip 1: Fill yourself with positive thoughts

While this may seem impossible when you are in a depressive mode, it is something that you can do. Whenever the negative thoughts begin to fill your head, find that little voice of hope that will tell you how good you have been. Tell yourself that you might not have completed the task yet, but you have started working on it, and that’s the best part. 

Tip 2: Take a moment to breathe

Whenever bad thoughts seem to overcome you, stop and take a moment to breathe. Taking a pause will help you gather yourself together. This should be the wakeup call that you need to channel your thoughts into something else.

Tip 3: Meditate

Did you know that mindfulness meditation helps you find your inner focus? This is the voice inside you that will tell you how good you are. More than that, it is the part of yourself that believes that you can do anything if you put your heart and soul to it. 

The Beauty Of Overcoming Depression

The beauty of overcoming depression does not lie in what others think of you. Their opinion of you does not really matter at this point. In truth, overcoming depression is not about the search on how to get rid of voices in your head. 

Rather, it is about finding that inner voice that will remind you of the beautiful person that you are. It is about knowing that you can trust yourself to do the things that you want to do. Dealing with depression is developing that voice inside of you that will snap you back to reality whenever it feels like you are falling in the pit of depression. It is not about denying the existence of the problem or the lack of self-trust. 

Properly dealing with depression is about learning to trust yourself and what you can do. It is about finding the beauty in life that you have forgotten about for so long. 

Talking to yourself is like going through therapy. Only this time, you are the one actually helping yourself find the right process that will work for you.