Fighting Depression and Anxiety: Taking Responsibility For Your Mood

As the economy tanks and our lives become increasingly stressful, it is easy to blame anxiety and depression on outside forces acting on you. It feels as though external events are controlling your mood. Even the weather seems to impact your anxious and depressed mood on a dreary day.

By giving control to outside forces three things happen:

1. You are released from responsibility for your mood.
2. You cannot be judged for your mood.
3. Your mood cannot be expected to change unless circumstances change.

The problem is that such beliefs create helplessness. Helplessness then leads to passivity. No battle is won when we believe that the outcome is out of our control. Even under overwhelming circumstance, we need to believe that we can affect the outcome.

By taking responsibility for your mood,

1. you improve your mood by using active problem solving, even when a solution is not easily had.
2. you build hope for a brighter future by believing your circumstance can change in the future.
3. you tell yourself that you are a warrior who will do all you can to survive any circumstance and come out a happier person.

Helplessness and hopelessness presume that the outcome is going to be negative. Remind yourself daily that no outcome is known until it arrives.