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Mental Self Help - The Key To Success In Overcoming Depression And Anxiety |
We all have times when our problems seem to be overwhelming – I know, I’ve faced some tough times in my life. You don’t seem to be able to make any progress, everything seems hopeless, there’s no way out of the mess your in... Maybe you’ve experience this state, or it’s even happening to you now.
Like so many people you end up looking outside yourself for the root cause of the problem. You blame other people, the government, society… the list of people and circumstances at fault can be endless.
The first challenge you face, or are facing, is to realise that the cause is almost always within your mind… How you respond to circumstances is key, the best form of help is mental self help.
Of course bad things happen to you, and people and circumstances beyond your control can contribute to them to some extent – your car could get wrecked as a result of someone else’s actions, or an downturn in the economy could mean that your firm ended up laying you off.
But even in these things you have some element of control… It’s rare for everyone to loose their jobs, and even if they do, some people will have worked at developing skills that they can use to quickly find another job. Or in the case of the car accident, you might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time as a result of some other decision that you made.
… So, to cut a long story short, you’ve got to understand that you are responsible for your circumstances, and you are the best person to do something about it. Very often your problems are greatly magnified in your own mind. Mental self help can assist you in overcoming your problems.
Of course, there are people out there who can help you and if you can find them, you should let them help you. However, their efforts will be tremendously reinforced if you take positive mental self help steps yourself.
Some suggestions for mental self help
Accept that most of the problem is within you. Once you have made this vital step, you need to take ownership for your own results in life and accept the responsibility for changing them.
Accept that while circumstances may look absolutely terrible today, with consistent and persistent effort, little by little you can change them. Ask yourself “how will this all look in 5 year’s time”. Will it really seem as significant as it does today – more often than not, the anwer is no.
All this is to say take the long view – over time your mind has the power to overcome tremendous obstacles. Mental self help is the best form of help you can get. Look at some examples of people who have overcome seemingly overwhelming circumstances to produce outstanding lives.
One example is the astrophysicist Stephen Hawkings, confined in a body wasted by motor neuron disease, yet able to produce amazing discoveries about the fundamental nature of our universe and write books about it!
Realise that you are not alone – no matter how bad your circumstances, it is very unlikely that you are the first person, or even the only person today, who is facing them. Look around you to see how other people have overcome similar problems – you might find some ideas that inspire you!
Although mental self help is very powerful, look for outside help to give you support and encouragement on your journey from where to are today to where you want to be. Make sure that you will also get accountability – don’t mix with others who are “happy being miserable”, only with people who really want to make things better.
Final thoughts
You may be down in the trough of despair today, however, no matter how bad things seem, you have the power to pull yourself out of it and even go on achieve bigger and better things than you ever have before.
The mental self help techniques in this article can help you to put things in to perspective and start the journey away from your present state of hopelessness to one where you are living the life you want and you are in control.
Article source http://w4rum.com/2159.t
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| [By Kimber Fulcher] [05/May/07] |
