A Way Out Of Depression

Jonathan Doyle
Aug 28, 2017 · 3 min read

What a massive trial depression and negative states can be.

So many of us spend years of our lives wrestling with deep, deep wounds and so many of us eventually can give up hope that things can be different.

One of the things I really love about getting older is that you start to live long enough to realise what works and what doesn’t. There are just so many theories about why we can experience depression. It can be so hard to know what is causing your own experience. We can also come to believe that on that magical day when we suddenly uncover the reason for our own negative states then somehow that will magically make it all go away. It doesn’t. Simply knowing why you experience something does not necessarily change it.

I was 42 years of age before I finally got a conceptual tool that fundamentally changed the game for me. I was in Sydney, Australia attending a 2 day masterclass on a new iteration of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy called Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. It was, in hindsight, life-changing. Among the many insights was the simple truth that uncovering a reason for depression does not necessarily change the experience of depression. That was a big deal for me.

So, if knowing why you have depression does not change it, then what does?

What I learned was a very simple thing called behavioural activation. It’s just a fancy term for this one very simple idea:

’Just do stuff.’

Behavioural activation helps us understand that thinking about our problems or pain rarely changes anything. What does change our lived experience is two things. 1. Defining what really matters to us in life — our core values and 2. Acting in congruence with them.

For me, I learned to stop sitting with my negative states and trying to work them out. This is called rumination. I learned that if I simply forced myself up and and out and into activity and action, then things began to shift.

Now, here is a final important point. When you are experiencing depression and negative states then you will pretty much NEVER feel like taking action and being active. You will feel like having another beer, or eating a tub of ice-cream or sleeping more or blaming someone who died years ago. That is what you will feel like doing. The breakthrough for you will come the moment you realise that in this area of life:

Feelings follow actions.

First you take the action and then the feelings catch up. It can be really, really hard. You have to do it over and over again. Eventually, you start to notice that things are shifting.

For many years I thought that taking this kind of action was simply a form of running away from my problems. One day, I just thought, ‘screw it’ — I actually do want to run away from my problems. I don’t want to spend another day sitting in the middle of them. This does not mean I don’t take action on fixing real problems that I can actually fix but I’ve learned that it is much easier to change the issues you face when you are out of a negative state.

So, in summary, if you want to get out of depression…do something! Do anything! Walk the dog, cook a great meal, ring a friend, buy that dress, take that vacation, join that gym, have that long shower. It really does not matter what you do as long as it is congruent with your deep values and gets you moving and active and alive and into the great adventure of life where the world is waiting for the unique gifts and talents that only you can bring.

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Jonathan Doyle

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Global speaker, author, and encourager of anything human.

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