Being Hard On Yourself
If you struggle with depression, it is not just about the feelings of depression; it is also about the thoughts you have that can keep you depressed. For people with depression, there is the tendency to be harsh and judgmental about the thoughts and feelings that you are struggling with. You have thoughts of wanting to fight the depression because you know how it feels when you get caught up it. You start to get mad at yourself and judging yourself for letting the depression win again. You wonder what is wrong with you; why you are so weak that you can’t overcome these feelings.
You really can’t make these thoughts go away or keep them at bay. You mind is doing what it always does…trying to figure out the depression so you can get rid of it. The problem is not with these thoughts; the problem is with your attachment to these thoughts. If you are able to see them for what they are—thoughts that are coming from your mind—you can develop a different relationship with them. This involves the practice of nonjudgmental acceptance. Practicing this kind of acceptance allows these mental experiences to be there, without struggle or evaluation.
Why is this kind of acceptance important?
How does it help you with your depression? Nonjudgmental acceptance can minimize the impact of negative emotions. When the negative emotions are not in control, you have more emotional resilience. This resilience gives you the freedom to respond from a place that is more in line with what you value.
You may be struggling with the idea of letting negative thoughts and feelings just be there; that struggle may come from some misunderstandings about acceptance. For example, acceptance does not mean that you give up and give in to the suffering you are experiencing. You aren’t giving up hope for yourself. In fact, some of your suffering may come from the fact that you see events in your life as unchangeable. You have lost a job. You have lost a spouse through death or divorce; it seems like all you can do is see these events as fixtures in your life that will always impact you But accepting these events in a nonjudgmental way can open up the possibility of trying something different, something better.
Acceptance is not just tolerating something for as long as you can.
Nonjudgmental acceptance is a choice to make room in your life for whatever happens. You have already tried other responses—fighting it, avoiding it, trying to figure it out. None of these have really worked for any length of time; acceptance gives you the chance to develop a different relationship with the depression.
One of the most meaningful things this nonjudgmental acceptance can do is to help you see more clearly the things that can and cannot be changed in your life. Think about any significant situation in life. Within this situation, almost always there is a mixture of things that can and cannot be changed. Your job is to sort these things out; nonjudgmental acceptance gives you the emotional flexibility to do that.
Take chronic pain, for example. Within that situation are things you can change and things you cannot. You can’t change the situation that led to your chronic pain or the loss of a job it may have caused. You can change your response to the anger and resentment that well up inside of you when you look at what is happening in your life. You can spend a great deal of time on events in your life and the feelings you have about them, but doing so doesn’t really work or get your life moving in the direction you want it to. Nonjudgmental acceptance won’t make these go away, but they will give you the space you need to see them and respond to them differently.
There is something disempowering about being caught up in situations and thoughts and feelings that you can’t control or change. And while the situations and thoughts and feelings will still be present, there is something empowering about moving beyond them to choices that are expressions of what you value and what gives you meaning. Nonjudgmental acceptance allows you to do that.
For more information about depression treatment, click here.