Many of us with depression find it easy to go the way of negativity. Our default behavior and way of speech tends to rub people the wrong way. The answer is to live your life on purpose. THINK before you speak. Ask yourself these five questions before you speak:
- Is it True?
- Is is Helpful?
- Is it Inspirational?
- Is it Necessary?
- Is it Kind?
If the answer is No to any of the questions you must remain quiet. You are beginning the journey of putting some control over your behavior. Your speech will begin to diminish in negativity.
Just because something is True does not give you permission to share your opinions. It may be true that most people have poor spelling and grammar but it is not necessary to correct other people. If you, as my friend, ask for feedback on your cover letter and resume it is now necessary for me to respond. But my response needs to be helpful, inspirational and kind.
Once you begin to practice this for a while and you become better at controlling your tongue you will have a personal epiphany – a recovery V-8 moment of Holy Crow I need to apply these questions to my thoughts.
Don’t worry and fret over your negativity. Begin to be aware of how negative you truly are. Begin the process of controlling your speech. Then you will have some control over your thoughts.
Thoughts create feelings. Negative thinking creates negative feelings. The difficulty is that if you try to tackle the negative thoughts immediately you may not be successful. Control your behaviors first. Get some level of control over your behaviors. These successes will give you the strength to fight the real fight of combating your negative thoughts.
Good luck.
Yours in recovery, Bill R