In an article entitled “You Are What You Think” I wrote about a form of psychotherapy called cognitive therapy. The premise of cognitive therapy is that our thoughts are quite powerful and if we habitually think in a negative way our mood will follow our thoughts causing feelings of depression. Defeating depression thus becomes a matter of recognizing these faulty thoughts and replacing them with more truthful, positive thoughts.
If our thoughts are powerful enough to influence how we feel, it stands to reason that how good or bad our reality is is simply a function of how we wish to perceive it; and, not surprisingly, some of our greatest, most respected thinkers have stated this same concept in their own words:
“I saw all things that I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them.”
–Benedict de Spinoza
“People and things do not upset us, rather we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us.”
–Albert Ellis
“We become what we think about all day long.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
–William Shakespeare
“People are about as happy as they make up their mind to be.”
–Abraham Lincoln
“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”
–Norman Vincent Peale
“As you think, so shall you be.”
–Jesus Christ
What do you think? Is it possible to think ourselves into feeling depressed? Do our thoughts really create our reality? Or are all these men wrong?
depression.about.com
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