1. The Power of a “Circle of support”
At Cotswold Natural Mindfulness we know all about and promote the power of community. When you surround yourself with a circle of support, like friends,family members and health professionals, depression gets nervous. Reaching out to others means you are not isolating yourself. This in turn makes my depression weaker and reduces its control over your thinking..
2. Talk Therapy/Positive Conversations
When you talk to a health professional or have a conversation with a positive person and engage in talk-therapy, particularly cognitive behavioural therapy to address your feelings, you cause depression to lose its grip. Choosing to bravely work through your feelings is one of the things depression fears most!
3. Physical Activity
When you embark on any form of regular exercise like our Natural Mindfulness walks, or involve yourself with other forms of physical activity, you prevent depression from taking a hold of your body and mind. One of the things that repels depression most is your commitment to self-care, particularly during stressful times.
4. Mindfulness
If you engage in living your life mindfully, depression doesn’t have the ability to sneak into your mind and make you dwell on the past or get anxious about the future. Mindfulness robs depression of its most powerful weapons; guilt, shame worry and fear!
5. Acceptance
When you embrace the various parts of your life, including the presence of depression, you paradoxically make it less powerful. That which you fear controls you but that which you confront, you begin to control.
6. Happiness
When you make the conscious choice to have a happy day, you seriously mess with depression’s plans to wreck your day. Simply put, when you decide to choose how your day will be, depression starts to melt away like snow in the sunshine.
7. Laughter
Depression can’t get a look in when you laugh! Any time you seek out forms of humour, see the funny side or engage in things that are fun, depression starts to shake in its boots! Watching a funny movie or making light of something that is supposed to be serious really gets under depression’s skin so do it as often as you can.
8. Healthy Diet
Depression feeds off the times you stress eat and gobble down junk food mindlessly. On the flip-side, depression absolutely hates it when you choose to eat healthy meals in a mindful way knowing that it is nourishing your mind, body and spirit. Making the deliberate choice to care about what you put into your body sends depression running for the hills!
9. Know Your Brain
When you learn about your brain and know your own mind, I call this MINDSIGHT, depression gets really freaked out. Learning to rewire your brain so that you control the depression rather than the depression control you eventually destroys it. If you want to learn more about developing your MINDSIGHTÂ register below
10. Patterns of time
When you recognise that depression often visit you on a seasonal basis, or on the anniversary of particularly challenging times in the past, you start become empowered with knowledge. Depression particularly despises it when you are aware that it is a temporary presence in your life. Oh how it hates it when you say to yourself: this too will pass. Your ability to rationally look at who depression is and it’s patterns, really dis-empowers it.
I hope you have found the 10 Things Depression Doesn’t Want You To Know interesting and useful. If you have, please share them with others on social media that you feel could benefit using the tabs below this post. If you would like to talk to me about how “Natural Mindfulness” can help you or someone you care about overcome depression contact me or join me on a walk click here for details
Ian Banyard – Author & Guide
Ian Banyard is a Nature Connection Guide and author of Natural Mindfulness – your personal guide to the healing power of nature connection. He is passionate about exploring nature and empowering people. Ian combines a wealth of knowledge and experience from his personal and corporate life with intuitive and instinctive insights from his own inner journey, to guide others.
Ian lives in Gloucestershire, UK where he guides Natural Mindfulness Walks and provides coaching, courses, gatherings and retreats, for others who want to deepen their connection with nature and their true nature.
To attend a Natural Mindfulness Walk or event, visit Natural Mindfulness Walks
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Natural Mindfulness – your personal guide to the healing power of nature connection, is AVAILABLE NOW.
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