I had a terrible bought of depression in the early 2000s, which went on for years. My mind got stuck in a loop of ruminating about the past, going over and over my bad decisions, right back to my choices of A levels at school, the university I chose to go to, where I chose to live in my early 20s, the girlfriend I dumped that I should have stayed with… Sleepless nights, going on and on to friends about all this stuff.  Sound familiar to anyone?

CBT helped me get out of this useless cycle by posing some good questions:

Question 1: Think how many decisions you make every day, starting with your choice of breakfast and ending with deciding what time to go to bed. What does this tell you?

Answer: I make a large numbers of decisions every day -  it would be amazing if I never made any wrong choices.

Question 2: have you ever made any really good big decisions?

Answer: Of course I had. To name a few: cutting off from some seriously toxic friends in my early 20s; all of my house/flat purchases; a couple of excellent jobs; the town I moved to 30+ years ago (I’m still there). I could go on.

Puts the bad decisions in context, doesn’t it?  

So – what really good decisions have YOU made in your life?”

Oldie but Goldie

A Moodscope member