Therapy is an excellent space to explore your depressive symptoms, make connections between your current mood and past experiences and thought patterns and find new ways to help cope and heal from depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms can manifest in many ways; here are just a few examples: ruminating negative thoughts, changes in sleep routine, changes in appetite, withdrawing from family, friends and pleasurable activities, having thoughts that life is not worth living and difficulties focusing and concentrating.
One Effective Method- RAIN
The best way to approach your depressive symptoms is to first notice what you are experiencing. Noticing what you are thinking, feeling physically and experiencing emotionally is not always simple. Tara Brach, a psychologist, and world renowned teacher of meditation, offers the acronym, RAIN, as a method of noticing and responding to our inner experiences. Here is a brief description of what RAIN is all about: R stands for Recognize. Recognize or notice what you feel physically, emotionally and cognitively in a given moment- particularly a moment that is challenging. A stands for allow. Allow the inner experiences- the thoughts, physical sensations and emotions to just simply exist without judgment. (Noticing something without judgment is particularly challenging!) I stands for investigate. Investigate how you feel about your experience in that moment- what emotions emerge?, do these feelings feel familiar? what do you need in this moment? N stands for nurture. Extending nurturance and self- compassion (rather than self judgment) during a challenging moment helps to make that moment and inner experience more tolerable. Below is a brief video clip of Tara Brach leading her RAIN meditation.