Depression: Why you shouldn't avoid feeling sad.

Those with Depression often feel a strong negative emotions such as sadness, guilt, shame, anger, anxiety or feeling hopeless or even feeling suicidal.

These emotions are can be powerful and feel overwhelming.

However, these emotions are not always the problem. It is the act of trying to prevent or escape these strong emotions which often leads to problems.

The more you try to escape, the more you try to prevent, the stronger and more overwhelming these emotions can feel.

How do people try to prevent their emotions:

People try to avoid negative emotions in all sorts of ways. These strategies normally fit into categories called DOTS which stands for:

D – Distraction - keeping busy or trying to distract yourself in the moment from these emotions.

O – Opting out - the avoidance of people, places, situations, hobbies, or becoming more withdrawn.

T – Thinking strategies - attempts to control your thoughts by positive thinking, challenging thoughts, or becoming highly self critical or minimising your feelings.

S – Substances and other strategies. – some people try to control their emotions with junk foods, drinks, drugs, alcohol, painkillers, etc. Others may try countless strategies such as speaking to multiple therapists or using self-help books. Others may try suicide, self-harm, diet changes, or anything else to control these emotions.

Why this doesn’t work:

Many of these strategies can be some what useful, however, many can be also harmful. The problem is that even when they are helpful, they typically only work in the short term and send you a harmful message about emotions.

The harmful message is that “emotions are bad” and that you need to “remove negative emotions from your life”.

This sets you up for failure as every time you experience one of these negative emotions you feel bad for feeling bad and then want to avoid these negative emotions.

So, what’s the solution?

We need to learn to get through these feelings rather than avoid them.

To achieve this we first need to validate that all emotions have a purpose, even the negative ones. Emotions are an expression of what we are thinking. If you are having sad thoughts, you will feel sad. If you are having angry thoughts, you will feel angry.

We need to learn to validate our feelings and thoughts, while stopping them controlling our actions. Each time we tolerate an emotion, we can learn to cope and calmly get through them. We can learn to cope with uncomfortable feelings without needing to try and control them.

You may be thinking “well that’s good in theory… but how can I tolerate strong emotions. They feel awful”.

How do we tolerate emotions?

We can achieve this in various ways. This blog will focus on one technique called “dropping anchor”. This comes from a type of therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which is highly effective and helping you learn to accept and tolerate uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.

The term “dropping anchor” comes from the idea that feeling strong emotions is like being in a boat during a storm. Trying to escape and outrun the storm is not an option (i.e. avoidance). Neither is trying to argue and debate with the storm (i.e. trying to convince yourself that your emotions are not needed to valid). But what you can do is drop an anchor and wait for the storm to pass with a sense of calm, knowing it will end and that you can get through it.

Dropping anchor is achieved by using something called the ACE method - which stands for Acknowledge, Connect, and Engage. This is a five stage process for getting through difficult emotions.

 1) Acknowledge thoughts and feelings:

First you need to acknowledge what you are feeling. Take a moment to acknowledge and name your emotions. That can be sadness, guilt, shame, anger, anxiety, stress, apprehension or feeling hopeless or even suicidal.

You didn’t ask for these emotions and feelings, but they are here regardless. They are challenging and unwanted, but they are here. Acknowledge and accept their presence. Either in your head or out loud, label the feelings you are having.

Now turn your attention away from these feelings for a moment and into your mind.  Acknowledge your worries and fears going through your mind. Acknowledge any negative thoughts you may be having about yourself, your situation, the fact you are feeling these emotions. Say your thoughts either silently or out loud. Again, you didn’t ask for these uncomfortable thoughts, but here they are. Acknowledge and accept the fact they are there.

2) Connect with the body:

Once you have acknowledged your difficult thoughts and feelings shift your attention towards your body. Recognise all these thoughts and feelings are contained within your body. Try to connect with your body through small movements. Try a gentle stretch, or wiggle your toes, or move your fingers.  Place your hands over the parts of your body you feel tension or stress.

3) Engage in the world:

Now shift your attention away from your body and into the external world. Look around you and name something you can see or hear. Touch an object in your surroundings and really take time to notice how it feels. Try and do something mindful at this point such as eating, drinking or doing something slowly and placing your complete and total focus on it. Try to imagine you are an alien visiting earth and doing this for the first time. Really focus and examine what you are doing with all the curiously you would do if it was your first time. Taking in all the sensations.

If you are unsure on how to do this, you can choose from this list:

• Focus on something you can see - What interesting objects are within view? Can you see any interesting shapes or colours?

• Focus on something you can hear - Try putting on a nice song and focus on a particular instrument, sound, beat or lyrics. Or focus on what can you hear in your room or outside on the street.

• Focus on something you can smell - Feel free to grab an orange, perfume or a nice candle.

• Focus on something you can taste - Grab something tasty. Try getting a single raisin and eating it as slowly as possible. It is surprising how good something that small tastes when you focus your full attention on it.

• Focus on something you can feel - Focus on how your clothes feel against your skin or the sensations of the chair you are sitting on or how the floor beneath your feet feels.

4) Shifting between them:

Now you have done this, shift your focus back to your uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Acknowledge they are still there. The storm is still going on. You are not trying to hide or escape it. Just to get through it. After about half a minute, shift your attention back towards your body. Notice your sensations and gently move. After another 30 seconds, now engage back into the world around you.

Keep alternating between these three tasks.

• Acknowledging your thoughts and feelings.

• Connecting with your body.

• Engaging with the world.

Do this until the storm passes, or when you start to feel you are able to accept and tolerate your uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.

Now the important part!

5) Make a conscious decision on how to act:

Once the storm passes. Decide on how to act. When feeling strong emotions it is easy to make unhelpful actions. It is easy to snap at people, avoid, or withdraw. Now you feel calmer, what actions can you take that help you to get back on with your day with a sense of calm and acceptance or that will improve your life?

 The key message:

Uncomfortable thoughts and feelings are a normal part of life. We don’t need to run from them. We can learn to accept, tolerate and get through them with a sense of calm. During dropping anchor, you were instructed to continue to shift between your thoughts and feelings, connecting with your body and engage in the external world. This was to demonstrate you can get through your feelings without trying to push them away. Once you learn to accept and tolerate uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, you can move past it and make a conscious effort to act and live the life you want without acting on your anxiety.

Cold Water Experiment: If you struggle with dropping anchor try this.

Some people can not see how you can accept feeling uncomfortable. It’s a hard concept. But it’s easy to demonstrate.

• Next time you have a shower, put it on the coldest setting possible. Walk in and feel how awful it feels. Stay there for 10-20 seconds if you can with your face under the water. I can tell you right now, it feels pretty awful and every fibre of your body will want to jump out.

• Now try it again, but don’t fight the cold. Accept it calmly. Breathe through it. Remind yourself it’s only for 10-20 seconds. Stay still and just feel it. Even though you are going through the same experience, it often feels very different. Somehow easier and more tolerable. Taking this approach of tolerance, many people actually realise they can stay in the cold much longer than they expected.

This experiment should demonstrate the benefits of how accepting uncomfortable feelings is possible. Now apply this to your anxiety.

Therapy:

Depression and anxiety is treatable. I recommend reaching out to an accredited CBT therapist or another professionals that can offer support.

Written by David Kaneria - CBT Therapist