Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

by Julie Smith

The more work we do on building self-awareness and resilience when all is well, the better able we are to face life’s challenges when they come our way.

The tools I have acquired do not stop life throwing stuff at you. They help you to navigate, swerve, take a hit and get back up. They don’t stop you getting lost along the way. They help you to notice when you have lost your way and bravely turn on your heel and head back towards a life that feels meaningful and purposeful to you.

smiling and apparently full of energy. They

you don’t. If we see low mood as purely a fault in the brain, we don’t believe we can change it, so instead we get to work on hiding it. We go about the day, doing all the right things, smiling at all the right people, yet all the time feeling a bit empty and dragged down by that low mood, not enjoying things in the way we are told we should.

When we experience low mood, it may have been influenced by several factors from our internal and external world, but when we understand what those influences are, we can use that knowledge to shift it in the direction we want it to go.

This means we get to start working on our own wellbeing and taking our emotional health into our own hands. It reminds us that our mood is not fixed and it does not define who we are; it is a sensation we experience.

This doesn’t mean we can eradicate low mood or depression. Life still presents us with hardship, pain and loss and that will always be reflected in our mental and physical health. Instead, it means we can build up a toolbox with things that help.

The more we practise using those tools, the more skilled we get at using them. So when life throws us problems that hammer our mood into t...

Not all low mood is unidentified dehydration, but when dealing with mood it is essential to remember that it’s not all in your head. It’s also in your body state, your relationships, your past and present, your living conditions and lifestyle. It’s in everything you do and don’t do, in your diet and your thoughts, your movements and memories. How you feel is not simply a product of your brain.

The way you feel also influences the types of thoughts that can pop into your head, making you more vulnerable to experiencing thoughts that are negative and self-critical.

How we think is not the whole picture. Everything we do and don’t do influences our mood too. When you feel down, all you want to do is hide away. You don’t feel like doing any of the things you normally enjoy, and so you don’t. But disengaging from those things for too long makes you feel even worse.

Mood fluctuation is normal. Nobody is happy all the time. But we don’t have to be at the mercy of it either. There are things we can do that help.

Feeling down is more likely to reflect unmet needs than a brain malfunction.

You might notice that you feel the need for more reassurance from others when your mood is low. If you don’t get that extra reassurance you might automatically assume that they are thinking negatively about you. But that is a bias, and it is quite possible that you are your worst critic.

So during hard times, when you may be feeling low and believe that you are a failure, your mind will act like a sieve, letting go of all the information that suggests otherwise, and holding on to any indication that you have not lived up to expectation.

In evolutionary terms, it makes sense that when you feel vulnerable, you keep an extra lookout for signs of threat.

when you are trying to come back from a dark place, the mental filter is something to be aware of.

All those self-help books that told the world to just think positive didn’t account for the fact that you can’t control the thoughts that arrive in your mind. The part you can control is what you do once they appear.

Lots of people face incredible hardship in their lives. We don’t want to add to that burden by setting the impossible standard of only producing positive thoughts in terrible times.

So, while we cannot transcribe every thought that the mind produces, our power is in how we respond once it arrives.

Given that rumination invites us to swim around in thoughts of our worst

traits and worst moments, and given the physiological implications of that on how we feel, one of the simplest ways to redirect things, when we are not sure of the way out, is a question: ‘What would I do if I was at my best?’ Now, if you are experiencing dark times and depression, you cannot expect yourself to be doing whatever you would be doing at your best. But you can create a mental picture of the direction you want to move in.

The problem with decision-making when you feel down is that low mood gives us the urge to do things that we know will keep us stuck.

When it comes to tackling low mood, we have to focus on making good decisions, not perfect decisions. A good decision is one that moves you in the direction you want to go. It doesn’t have to catapult you there.

What is one thing you could do today that would steer you in the direction of looking after your health in the way you want to?

Slow change is sustainable change.

Self-compassion does not have to be airy-fairy self-indulgence. It is being the voice that you most need to hear, one that

will give you the strength to pull yourself back up rather than drive you further into the ground.

support and kindness. It is the nurturing voice that dusts you off and looks you directly in the eye, telling you to go bac...

also helps you to explore the idea of how life might be improved by starting to make some of those changes now, even with the problems still present.

What we do and how we do it feeds back to our body and brain about how to feel, so shifting direction towards what matters most, and the person we want to be alongside our problems, can bring about big shifts in mood.

Perhaps the key to making exercise a sustainable part of everyday life is to find a form of movement that you can begin even when your motivation is low.

anything more than your usual amount of movement will help boost your willpower

think one of the reasons that some of my clients say they feel so much more motivated after an appointment is because they have spent time reconnecting with their goals. If that thing we are working on is not fresh in our minds we can quickly lose momentum.

We can see that life needs an overhaul and we try to do one big transformation all at once. We expect too much of ourselves and then fall into despair when we burn out or give up. When that happens, we are less likely to try again.

When motivation for a long-term goal dips, it helps to have small rewards along the way. Not so much external rewards, but internal ones. That emotional pat on the back you provide for yourself when you congratulate yourself for your efforts and acknowledge that it has been worth it because you are heading in the right direction.

You only need one bad night’s sleep to struggle with increased stress, trouble concentrating and low mood the next day. Self-control

control takes energy and if you haven’t had enough sleep, your brain has less access to that energy and becomes

more vulnerable to high stress reactions, squashing your capacity to ...

If slipping up and going off track means we engage in vicious self-attack and relentless self-criticism, we are likely to feel ashamed and defeated. If we associate failure with unworthiness, then starting anything new is going to feel overwhelming and procrastination will be front and centre. We protect ourselves from the psychological threat of shame by sabotaging the process before it gets started.

The opposite action skill is the deliberate attempt to take an action that is the opposite of what the emotion is telling you to do. This is especially helpful when your coping strategies tend to cause you harm.

When we are working on long-term goals and making changes that we want to maintain, we have to learn to counter-balance the stress of effort with the replenishment of rest.

we need to recognize that regular rest and replenishment is crucial if we want to persevere at anything for the long-haul.

As motivation rises and falls along the journey of change, returning to your sense of self and the identity you want to create can help you to persist when motivation has disappeared.

Our sense of identity does not have to be entirely fixed by what is laid out for us early in life. We continue to create and build on that identity throughout life with everything we do.

When our goals are underlined by our intention to become the person we want to be, or even better, when we have decided that this is

who we are now, then we can act in line with that even on the days wh...

Sometimes you reach a moment in your life when you realize a change is needed and you know exactly what that change is. But it doesn’t always happen like that. More often than not, we go through a period of strain and discomfort. We start to recognize that things are not as we would like them to be, but we can’t pinpoint exactly why or how we can begin to make it better.

Emotions are your brain’s attempt to explain and attach meaning to what is going on in your world and your body.

Endings that feel significant to us can trigger a grief reaction – even if the ending was not caused by death.