When a new, inspired thought comes into your mind on how to achieve something you want, what is your next thought? Is it, “Wow! That’s fantastic! I’m on it!”? Or is it something like this, with a dejected look, “That’ll never work. I’m too [ugly/short/fat/stupid/lazy/broke/tall/skinny]. That’s just not me.”

Don’t answer. I know what you’ll probably say, if you’re being truthful.

Don’t you think it’s time to get past that?

My challenge to you: when a new idea pops in, immediately write down 10 ways that you can get it done, or reasons why you can do it. Brainstorm a little. Give yourself a little credit, eh? You’re resourceful. Use your resourcefulness to come up with a bunch of reasons. Then write them down. That’s important.

Your knight in tarnished armor

There’s always going to be the little guy on your shoulder telling you all the reasons why you shouldn’t try something. That’s ok. He’s there to protect you. He just doesn’t know that while he may be protecting your ego, he’s hurting you in ways he doesn’t know. So–tell him to be quiet. Say, “Thanks for your concern, but it’s time to go back to your hole now.”

One more word of advice on the little guy: don’t hold conversations with him. Tell him to go away, then give no more attention to him, at all. Giving him attention makes him stronger. Withhold your attention, and his voice will diminish. It will get so soft and squeaky that when you hear it, you’ll laugh. You can thank him for his efforts, and put him back in the closet.

Give your attention to what you want

Back to the positive. When you’ve finished writing your list of reasons, don’t throw them away! Keep them in front of you, and add to them. Give attention to this list of why you can. Concentrate your thinking there. Write more reasons down when you think of them–and think of them you will, when your attention is on why you can.

I suppose it’s not really the Law of Attraction, but a law of consequences. Still–a particular consequence doesn’t actually have to take place, does it? So that does make it the Law of Attraction at work, doesn’t it?

So a long time ago, I had a filling fall out of a tooth. I didn’t take care of it like I should’ve. A dentist visit for me is a traumatic experience–sweats, nausea, dizzyness. Yeah, I know it’s all in my head. But I haven’t been able to shake it as yet.

Friday afternoon I notice this tooth feeling a little funny. “I need to get that taken care of,” I think to myself. “Soon.”

Soon came Sunday morning about 5am. Through Friday night and all day Saturday, it had been getting worse. Swelling, with some pain. Whoops. Abscess. I did what I could from home, with some herbs and such, but it wasn’t even holding it at bay. So when I woke Sunday morning about 4:30 and my face was so swollen one of my eyes was shut, I knew there was no waiting until Monday.

Turns out I was right. The doc said that had I not come in when I did, the infection likely would have entered my main sinus cavity and that would have been bad news. So I got a very painful antibiotic shot in the butt (still hurts on Monday afternoon, 36 hours later), along with a prescription for horse-pill-sized Augmentin. Isn’t there anything a little less expensive? Whew!

So the swelling is going down, but the infection opened up a hole in my gums where half of the stuff is now draining. Geez. Saltwater mouthwashes every 20 minutes or so–more if I could stand it. And the nausea of the potent antibiotic isn’t helping much.

Still, the sun is shining, it’s 60+ degrees, and I’m still breathing. That’s something, isn’t it?

For ‘deliberate creators’, or those who aspire to be, depression can be like one of those things with spikes the police put down to catch runaway cars. It can stop you dead in your tracks.

Why?

Intention/manifestation, or the Law of Attraction, says in a nutshell that what you think about you will get. So what are the predominate thoughts of a depressed person like? Exactly.

Depression can so get in the way of you realizing your desires–because for a large part of the day, if not all of it, you’re hardly the cheerful, optimistic, enthusiastic person you need to be in order to deliberately attract what you want into your life–the good things. When you’re depressed, I believe you’re actually attracting more depression into your life.

If that isn’t a good reason to come to grips with and battle depression, I don’t know what is.

This article is the fourth in a series about depression: how it can affect you, ways you can recognize it, and some things you can do about it.