Why You Haven't Figured It Out Yet
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I love to think.
To go inside my brain with a problem, and to ask myself why. Why this problem?
And with that question, figuring out the answer to the problem.
I’ve been thinking recently about what keeps us from figuring out what is actually wrong, and fixing it.
These are five of the main themes that I see come up with my clients and on consult calls:
Thoughts are the root of all problems. But when these thoughts feel true, you aren’t able to see them as the actual problem. They simply feel like fact, so you don’t even address them. Or you don’t see another way to look at the situation without feeling like you’re lying to yourself.
We don’t know how to hold space. We are IN our story. We’re living it. Being able to step outside of our life, and view it from a neutral space, is necessary in working through depression. In working through any struggle in life. We continue to believe our thoughts, because it’s what is easiest for our brain – and in continuing to believe these thoughts, we continue to create the exact same life that we have.
We don’t know how to feel our feelings. Like thought work, this can also feel nebulous. It’s a skill to learn what it feels and looks like for YOU. But it’s also one of the most important things that we can do. Learning to just let an emotion be, instead of pushing it away or “doing something” with it. We spend too much time in our heads, spinning on thoughts and not knowing how to stop them. Through processing emotion, we are able to let those thoughts go, and just be.
“You can’t solve the problem with the same brain that created the problem in the first place.” I love this quote. We are the problem, but we are also the solution. We need to address our decision-making processes – the big ones but also the little ones. Our lives are made up of all of the decisions that we make throughout the day. When we decide to eat the cookie, instead of going for a walk – why? What is behind that decision?
Because “This is just who I am.” It’s not true. Our brain is designed to define ourselves by our past. To go to the past to decide who it is that we are. It keeps files of evidence about how true this belief is in ourselves. That’s why it feels true that there’s something wrong with me, that I’m just a mom with depression, that I’m just to complicated to figure out. Simply because of how often you’ve thought those thoughts.
You are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings, and you are not your actions. You, as a human being, are whole and worthy.
Learning to separate who you are from your depression is the first step in healing, and it’s not a complicated or confusing process. It’s a skill that can be learned. That, when learned, will completely change how you experience the rest of your life.
It's learning to hold space for yourself, for your thoughts and your feelings.
It's learning how to let go of thoughts that you don't want, and choose new ones that you do.
It's learning how to feel your feelings, and generate feelings you want more of.
It's working through this, so that the things that you want to be doing, you know will make you feel better, come with less of a fight.
This is the work that we do in our three months together.
This is what creates the life that you want to have.
