5 Tips to Overcome Being Miserable

My husband as a director has won many awards including a British Academy Award and a few years ago he won a BBC Grierson award for the ‘Most Entertaining Documentary’, on a film that he did on depression called ‘Bye Bye Happiness’. (His competitors were programs like Hells Kitchen and The Apprentice.)

Anyway, recently I found myself watching a clip from this incredibly insightful BBC film, and decided that my tips this week would be about being miserable. I am not qualified to talk about full clinical depression, as I have not suffered from it before, however, I have had a few times in my adult life where I have really felt depressed, but they have been circumstantial. One of them was a particularly trying time when both my parents had cancer at the same time, I split up from my long term boyfriend of three years, my lead character on a television series that I was on (Gideon’s Crossing) died after 13 episodes and I was suffering from my own health issues. The other time is when my baby died inside of me at 20 weeks pregnant and she was left inside of me dead for a week, as there was no appointment available to take her out.

In those particular instances all I knew was how to do a few things to get me through those tough times and these are the five tips that I am about to give you. I don’t know that these tips help depression go away, but they may just help soften the ride.

Tip 1: Look At Where Your Feet Are. When you feel you are falling in to a depression, try to stay in the present moment as much as you can and aim to put one foot in front of the other. Become much more aware of your surroundings, your breath and where you are right now. Life is made up of a series of moments anyway. So if you feel yourself drifting off, look down at your feet, as where your feet are, is where you are.

Tip 2: Go along for the ride. This time will pass, it always does. Feelings and thoughts come and go all the time and in a few weeks, months, or years this will be a memory. So try to let these feelings wash over you, without holding on to anything. Maybe one moment you feel low and the next you are fine. Let it be whatever it is. This is a growing experience and a time of deep fundamental change, which may seem hard now, but these times often take you unknowingly to a new level of consciousness. When I lost my baby at 20 weeks, it was a hard time, but I let all the negative feelings and thoughts come in and go out of me, without holding on to any of them. Looking back it was a time of exceptional growth.

Tip 3: Start something new. Take up something that you’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t yet had the guts to start. Maybe it is a new hobby or something you have always wanted to study. Bringing a fresh activity in to your life will help you to divert your attention and help you to get excited about something different. When my character died on the TV show, I immediately signed up to do a second intense training in Feng Shui, which really helped me to stay grounded and not go too far off in to my feelings of despair at the time.

Tip 4: Take the focus away from yourself. A good way to get through this period is to make a difference in other people’s lives. You want to be able to focus outwards and move out of your own way. I am not saying not to get to the root of why you feel the way you do and to work through it, but I have always found at times when I am low that when I help others or someone else, I start to feel a bit better. It really helps to have a wider vision of your place in the world.

Tip 5: A growing experience. No doubt when you emerge out of this experience you will be a very different person and would have learnt a lot about yourself. You will have changed and grown and when that happens your life does get better as you have shifted to a new level of consciousness. Often to move to a new level, you have to go underground first, in order to rise up like a phoenix out of the fire, so to speak. If you need to seek help, don’t be afraid to do that, often an external guide or coach can be very helpful at this time.