In our last article on depression we discussed the need to: 1) Work on your self image; 2) Work on creating a good social life; and 3) Find the core problem and work to correct it. This article is the first of three on dealing with your self image. At first I thought to do it in one article, but that would be impossible. About your self image you might say, Im depressed, not ugly. What does depression have to do with my self image? I would remind you that we are talking about the roots of the problem of depression, not the outgrowth. If you are feeling alone, if you are not connecting with the right people, or if you are not striving for what you want anymore, its very likely that you have given up because you think that you cant do it. Thats where the self image comes in. Your self image is one of a person who has been defeated, (like the dog in our first article) but the truth is that is not who you are. Think for a moment. Who do you think you are? What makes you feel good about yourself? If you are anything like me or several other people in western society; it will be helpful to look at your past experiences with family, friends, and in school, to answer this question. Lets explore what it was like when you started school. School is an institution that shapes your self image, and helps you decide who you are in the world. Other institutions do, but school is one whose affects follow you for many yearsprobably a lifetime. I remember when I went to school. I was much younger than anyone else. I was born late in the year, skipped kindergarten, and went straight to first grade. I wasnt used to, or interested in, being there. I remember working on workbooks matching pictures with words. We would write our answers on green pieces of paper with very wide spaces between the lines, print our names on top, and then pass them in. I remember getting a paper back once with a big golden star on the top, and with a one hundred and excellent written on it. I smiled. It made me feel good. I also noticed someone next to me with a paper with a big red F on their paper, circled. We used to call them flagpoles. At that time I didnt know what it was. As time went on we learned that people with Fs were stupid. The ones with the As and the stars were smarter and better. We also learned, eventually, that it was all right to make fun of the people with the Fs. When they got angry for being made fun of and started fights, we learned that stupid, violent, people often got the Fs. The attacks just confirmed it. So a lot of my esteem was based on how I performed. If I could remember what the teacher told me and parrot it back better than anyone else, I was a good person. When it came to playing sports, I discovered that it was the same. If I could perform better, people liked me, and patted me on the back. If I missed the ball too many times, people seemed to hate me. This is a very simple example of what happens during our lives. We are often judged on how we perform. It happens so much that we internalize these judgments. We begin to base our worth and value, our self esteem, on how well we perform. If we cannot perform as well as we like, we consider ourselves worthless failures, on a subconscious level. After that we withdraw from a world that we arent worthy of, and give up on our hopes, dreams and goals until we end up with nothing. This having nothing, especially no hope, is depression. It is horrible to be depressed, but one thing that depression does is bring us to a state where we can look at the world and see that a lot of the things that we have learned most of our lives just arent true. We have all been sold a dead elephant that we cant talk about, and we have learned to keep beating on that dead elephant trying to get it to move. This realization is dangerous if we do not take it a step farther and realize that not being able to conform to the lie is what is causing us grief. This realization is a launching pad for another realization that will bring us a happy, more fulfilling life: How we perform is not most important, how we are is. Are you working from a strategy of performing, or being? The artist is an artist whether he can paint like Picasso or not, because something inside of him cries out to express his inner beauty through painting. If he ignores it and becomes a computer programmer, that part of him is still fighting to be fulfilled. Your depression may just be the part of you that needs to be expressed. The practical thing that comes out of this article: judge yourself and your worth based on how you are, not on what you can do. Begin to do the things for which you have been called. This is the first step at dealing with depression. Do your life calling. There are thousands of books available that can help you do the inner work, unfortunately some are much better than others. I would suggest that you purchase one after reading these articles on self esteem, but if you would like to purchase one now please explore my website for recommendations and other articles. I look forward to talking with you in the next article. In the meantime begin to do what your heart is telling you, even if it is in your own closet. You might be surprised at how your mood lightens, and how you will look forward to getting better at what youve always wanted to do, one day at a time. |
