How do we get out of depression?

Have you ever had a dream where someone or something is chasing you and you are unable to see what or who it is? We want to run and in those same dreams there are times, we are also unable to move. What is chasing us and what is holding us from moving forward?

There is one monster that chases us and makes us slow or unable to move. That monster is self criticism and self doubt. We are being pursued by a punishment that drains our life and keeps us from moving forward.

If there is no reward for being the type of person we respected when we were young, how will we have the strength to create a better world?

I am sure we have all rewarded ourselves when we accomplished something others admire. How can we reward ourselves for something we are proud of that no one else knows about?

Do we give ourselves the same rewards for loving someone as we do for accomplishing something? Do we reward ourselves for being selfless and kind to people? Do we give ourselves the same rewards for giving special time to someone we care about as the reward we give ourselves for finishing a project?

In the Wizard of Oz the Scarecrow has stopped thinking, the Lion has lost courage, the Tin-man has lost heart and all because they do not know how to reward the child within.

There is a child within all of us. We are that child’s parent now. What is our excuse for not rewarding ourselves for being the person we wanted to become?

How we reward ourselves is automatic, it was something we learned thru affect. Thru affect we learned how to respect ourselves and people that love us. We may have learned to respect authority figures more than ourselves or the people we love.

Do we allow ourselves to feel more alive when we are doing something for someone we do not really know than someone we love? If we feel more alive when a stranger admires what we do, we are admiration based and not love based.

There are exercises on this site to give us the ability to reward ourselves for unconditionally loving ourselves and our family even if we have no idea what that means. We will be able to do that automatically.

It is amazing how much more we are ourselves when the rewards we give ourselves automatically are in sync with who we want to be.

The nucleus accumbens, the brains reward system, as well as the frontal lobe are much less active when we only reward ourselves for being admired. If we reward ourselves for being authentic and loving we have much more activity going on in the reward system of our brain.

If you have known someone that has been inhibited from being who they are without chemicals, it may be that they are not allowing themselves the natural high that removes our inhibitions.

In people that automatically criticize themselves for not being admired, It is as if they are putting a brake on thinking and feeling good.

In experiments it was found that people have a wonderful recovery from depression when they decide to move forward. When people move forward and are happy, activity in the frontal lobe and nucleus accumbens increases.

For most people that become depressed because of self doubt and criticism, moving forward and experiencing happiness is so wonderful and natural, unless they have a relapse, their depression is gone.

Once people learn how to automatically reward themselves throughout the day for becoming the person their inner child wanted them to become, they have the reward center of their brain giving them the high positive affirmations speak of.

Perhaps it is time we remembered the child within us. It is difficult to be who we want to be when we are not capable of automatically rewarding ourselves for being loving.

The same things the Wizard of Oz gave, self confidence, courage and the capacity to love are something we can give ourselves. If we want to become who we were meant to be, we must have the ability to reward ourselves, not look for the Wizard of Oz to do it.