Depression and Self-Talk – What Really Works!

When you are feeling hopeless or depressed it is often very difficult to think clearly or find anything to make yourself feel better. Life can feel pointless. Getting out of bed in the morning may as well be running a marathon. You just don’t have anything to give.

Sometimes the only thing you can do to get yourself through an especially tough day is to talk to yourself.

The type of self-talk I’m referring to is not about repeating affirmations or using positive thinking. Instead, supportive self-talk is a self-leadership skill that brings new balance to your thoughts and actions. Let me explain.

Beyond Affirmations

Both affirmations and traditional positive thinking involve seeing yourself as self-assured and confident. The goal is to make yourself feel good by focusing on what can be done and then doing it. Positive thinking is a mental attitude that expects success and favorable results.

If you are depressed you clearly do not yet live in a “can do” and “will do” place just yet. Therefore, positive thinking at this point isn’t going to be motivating because it’s false. Repeating, “I can get through this!” when you really don’t know if you can, or reciting affirmations of “I love life!” when in reality you are thinking about quitting life are both examples of being false or lying to yourself.  

To illustrate this point, imagine being in a closed-door room quickly filling up with toxic fumes. Now shut your eyes and tell yourself, “The air is filled with invigorating sweetness.” Yes, you might succeed in telling yourself that the fatal gas somehow miraculously changed into a healthy delicate sweet scent, but that type of mental activity will not keep you alive.

When Going Through Hell – Don’t Stop

Depression is a life experience, not a problem that can be logically or mentally solved. In fact, any depressed person knows that thinking positive thoughts will not dissolve depression. That’s because in depression, all hope and joy is gone and unreachable.

There’s an old saying about when you are going through hell, don’t stop. When you are depressed, you need more than thinking “happy thoughts” to get yourself through an especially tough day, hour, or moment. What you need right now is a way to talk to yourself that is not about healing or trying to make yourself feel cheerful, but rather the type of talk that will help connect you with your spirit and keep you MOVING forward.

So what does effective self-talk look like?

Effective self-talk first allows you to face reality, and validate the current state of your feelings, thoughts, and emotions. In no uncertain terms, things are the way they are, and you feel the way you feel. In all likelihood, your pain has begun to exceed your current knowledge or ability to move beyond it. You don’t know ― yet ― how you are going to get through this. The skill, awareness, insight, or wisdom necessary to escape the misery, regroup, recover, and move on is not currently available to you. You’ve reached the end of your rope in terms of knowing what to do next.

It may sound strange and counterproductive, but being able to accept the reality of your situation allows you to stop struggling. The pain of depression hurts enough without adding the suffering of whether this is fair or unfair. Once acceptance of the situation is achieved, you can take a breath and look at it from a different perspective.

And that brings us to the second aspect of effective self-talk. Although you don’t know how to handle this extremely difficult life experience, in truth you ARE dealing with your experience. If you are still alive then you are still coping. Sure, you’re not rapidly flying out of depression on the autobahn of higher healing, but give yourself credit. You are doing the best you can and you are surviving.

When you adopt a truly self-supporting way of talking to yourself, you let yourself know that even though you are suffering, and even though you don’t know how to move beyond all of this, here you are still here ― courageous and coping. 

Here’s a quick summary of Self-Supporting Self-Talk For Depression:

1)   Acknowledge the truth of how things are for you right now.

2)   Validate your thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

3)   Take a breath and acknowledge the truth about how well you really are handling this difficult situation.

4)   Keep it believable.

Examples of empowered self-talk include:

• I feel unable to step out of this depression, and yet somehow I am getting through each day.   
• Because I’m depressed, I want to run and hide, and sometimes I do that. I’m realizing that hiding is an option, but it doesn’t always help. 
• I’m so discouraged that I don’t have a clue what to do. Ok, I’m dispirited. Take a deep breath… Take another breath… Take another breath. 
• I acknowledge that I don’t want to be here, feeling this, living this nightmare, but I accept this is what is going on right now.  
• There’s doesn’t seem to be any point to getting up in the morning. But I choose to get up this morning anyway. 
• I believe that I’m too weak and helpless to overcome this depression, but despite those feelings, I’m still here and giving it my best shot.  
• I believe I’m a victim and that my efforts won’t amount to anything. Yet despite my overwhelming sense of helplessness, there is a part of me that still is doing its best to move through this situation.  

I wish I could tell you that learning self-supportive self-talk is the “simple, easy” answer to overcoming your depression. It isn’t. But changing the way you talk to yourself can bring your divine spirit into the darkness of your depression. And with spirit, all things become possible.