meditation helps me with this.
“Changing the content of our thoughts is one thing, but we also need to change our relation to our thoughts and feelings. It’s been shown that those most at risk of depression are people who have difficulty in seeing that thoughts and feelings are mental events rather than the self. When we over-identify with our thoughts and feelings, there is a tendency to “feel bad about feeling bad”. Buddhist practice encourages us to develop an attitude of witnessing and observing our mental states, and of ceasing to regard them as “ourselves”.
This does not mean that we should disown our feelings, try to cut off from them, or stop trying to experience them. The feelings that we have are real, and they are part of us. But they do not define us, because we are more than our feelings. And particular feelings come and go, and therefore they can’t be seen as being a fixed and defining part of us.
If we embrace this insight then we’ll feel freer to simply experience uncomfortable emotions and thoughts without being dragged down by them into a depressive state. This insight is probably the single most potent meditative tool that we have in dealing with depression.”
