Meet Mark
Mark was used to avoiding or ridiculing the feelings engendered by his insecure and abusive childhood, mainly through alcohol abuse or large amounts of time spent on video games. Counselling has helped him start to acknowledge and deal with his feelings when they occur... more >>
This Tackling Depression section of the site has given a long list of positive actions that can be taken to start turning the depression spiral around. Many of these strategies head in the direction of healthy, positive habits that anyone would find helpful in supporting a full, rich life. They are worth doing in themselves.
However, for you to be truly free from the effects of depression in the long run your choices need to be supported by more than a desire to resist depression. You need to make conscious decisions about the values you want your life to be guided by - you need to know where you want your life to be headed...
If you have read the Depression in Context section you will have seen that many of the newer therapeutic approaches to depression emphasise the need for an accepting and self-compassionate attitude towards life's full range of feelings and challenges. Are you willing to learn to live mindfully, engaging with life in all its richness?
Whether you are currently aware of it or not, you probably have some fairly specific underlying ideas about what would make your life feel like it was being lived meaningfully - in other words, your values. Living according to your values is one of the key things that makes life feel meaningful.
So, how do you go about clarifying what those values are? One of the well-known ways in which you can make a start with this is to imagine what you would like said about you at your funeral by those who know you best. You might want to look back at the exercise you did in Finding What Works For You, imagining what your depression-free life might look like.
This is not an opportunity to focus on how far short of this picture you feel you are currently falling! The idea is to let yourself get in touch with what really matters to you in life so that you can start to look at how you might start - little by little - to commit yourself to actions and habits guided by these values.
In order to do this, you need to remember the approach of accepting what we cannot change about life - amongst many things, the inevitable pain and suffering that will be part of a rich, full life. We need to commit ourselves to the challenge of living out our values within this context of uncertainty and lack of control.
For a more complete framework for clarifying your values use this free worksheet accompanying The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris, a book which gives an excellent, readable explanation of these ideas. More extensive exercises can be found in The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Depression by Kirk D. Strosahl and Patricia J. Robinson (see Books and Other Inspirations for more details).
Much of what has been covered in this section will take practice and repetition to reinforce and there are now many online resources which can help. The next page introduces some recommended resources and more can be found on the Other Useful Links page.