How the LOA can help someone who has depression?

[OmAumOm]

Last year (because as of today it's now 2012! woo!) I went through severe depression and anxiety and was crippled throughout most of the year, and lost people (my ex) in the process and had an unbelievably tough time coping with everything, I was very much so on the verge of suicide. I've been taking antidepressants, something that I was mostly against, because it was a last resort and I couldn't get myself out of it. They have made me feel better, but of course not 100% because a lot of it is internal work... also, there was mostly no cause of the mental illness

I was wondering, how could you use the LOA to mentally heal you? What kind of things should I be doing - affirmations about being happy, etc?
Any help would be much appreciated
And happy new year guys  I wish you all the best for 2012

[Moonpetal]

Here is what Steve Pavlina writes on the subject :

" The solution is to withdraw your attention from what depresses you and place it on what makes you feel really, really good.  If you’re chronically depressed, however, it’s possible that virtually nothing in your life makes you feel good.  Your whole situation may be unpleasant from top to bottom.  So in that case you need to withdraw your attention from your external environment and plug into your imagination.  Within your mind’s eye, you must construct completely imaginary circumstances that make you feel good when you think about them.  Then spend more of your time focusing your attention on your imaginary creations and less of your time observing external reality.

This may sound like escapism, but you’re not trying to escape.  Your goal is to construct new, realistic circumstances within your imagination that are attractive to you.  Picture yourself experiencing financial abundance, loving relationships, good health, a fulfilling career, and more.

At first this may be very difficult, but you’ll improve with practice.  Obviously you’ll still need to attend to your basic needs and deal with certain external problems as best you can, but only devote the bare minimum attention to them.  Give your problems no more attention than is absolutely necessary to keep your head above water.  Then spend the rest of your time withdrawing into your imagination.

Within your imagination you are free to do anything you want.  There are no limitations whatsoever.  Think whatever thoughts make you happy.  Imagine them as real, and enjoy them.  Build your imaginary dream home.  Travel around the world.  Create your ideal friends.  Imagine the perfect relationship for you.  Give yourself superpowers and save the world.

Be patient with yourself.  If you catch yourself worrying about your problems, keep going back to your positive mental creations and expand them.  I find it best to focus on constructing locations first.  The more I think about them, the more detail I add.  I keep modifying them to make improvements.

As you remove your attention from negative external circumstances and refocus it on positive imaginary thoughts, you’ll spend a lot more time feeling good than bad, so your depression will soon lift.  The more you shift your thoughts, the faster your depression will lift.  This is a rather obvious consequence of spending more time thinking about what makes you feel good and less time thinking about what depresses you.

Now it’s nice to feel good again, but what about your negative circumstances?  Even though you’re feeling better, you may still be trapped under a pile of problems.  Don’t worry.  This approach will help you improve your circumstances too.

Your circumstances will improve in two ways.  First, because you’ll be feeling better, you’ll be more motivated to take action to help yourself directly.  Depression is disempowering, but positive emotions are empowering.  So you’re far more likely to take appropriate action to get yourself out of debt when you’re feeling good than when you’re depressed.  Depressed people dwell on their problems, but as your depression lifts, you’ll begin to think about solutions.

Secondly, you will find that when you’re feeling good, through the Law of Attraction you will begin manifesting more positive results in your life almost effortlessly."

In my dealing with anxiety and depression I have found that a lot of physical activity helps such as yoga if you are into it or any kind of sport in combination with meditation, hoponopono, I have worked with Louise Hay's book "You can heal your life" (or something like that, found it on a torrent site along with the video instructions of the exercises), affirmations are very good, yes. Basically, anything that makes you feel better, do it!

Hope this helps a bit

May lots of positive, empowering energy come your way

All the best in 2012

[Grateful Sunshine :)]

I would say THREE things which always work for me whether used alone or in combination :
1. Ho'oponono : Start with this to eliminate the concious or subconcious negative blocks.
2. I AM AFFIRMATIONS : Then this to feel good.
3. Gratitude List : To sustain the good feeling and attract more of it.

[addice]

Hi OmAumOm,

I just wanna say that Moonpetal has basically summed up everything that was needed. (Kudos for Moonpetal!!)

Yes OmAumOm, the law of attraction says that what you focus on it brings about (more), especially when your feelings/ emotions (depression here) is being focused. When depression is focused and felt in every part of your body, then more depression is going to bring to you!

But if you'd like to "heal" yourself, the best thing (again I agree with Moonpetal) is to turn your focus to making yourself HAPPY. Being happy is a CHOICE, as much as being depressed is. But why make yourself feel worse when you could have make yourself feel better?

This is a very common saying for relationship is that, after a breakup, you should promise yourself to live BETTER than your ex, as this is the greatest "revenge" you can give, instead of having the resentment toward him.
While he could not have felt your resentment and bitterness, why make your life miserable? Why not make yourself live to the fullest and make him jealous instead?

I do have some videos that you may wanna watch (I highly recommend it cos it was so good - I watched it when I was feeling down too and it NEVER fail to make me laugh)... Check out Amanda Gore's How to be Happy and How to love people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqRn81WFUr4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQFl4a0xiBE

I'm praying for your healing

[DreamCatcher]

hat

Wow, really wise advice!
Ho'oponopono is perfect especially for highly negative states - as it is very gentle practice that does not require neither much focusing nor effort.
Gratitude and appreciation are very powerful and suitable for almost any state. I found it fun to appreciate "nonsense" like mundane roadsigns, streetlights or passing cars and then shifting to higher level practice by appreciating living beings (animals and people) and anything related.
Once you got out of severed depressive stage - start appreciating yourself, especially looking at yourself in the mirror and saying Ho'oponopono cleaning phrases.

Gleb

[chrissy8907]

Completely. Agree

I would say THREE things which always work for me whether used alone or in combination :
1. Ho'oponono : Start with this to eliminate the concious or subconcious negative blocks.
2. I AM AFFIRMATIONS : Then this to feel good.
3. Gratitude List : To sustain the good feeling and attract more of it.

[jessicasilverman]

I highly recommend Marci Shimoff's Happy for no reason and Love for no reason. Both excellent book, she's also got free stuff on her site. Also Peak Potentials Master your Mind seminar is excellent as well. Also you can always google affirmations for happiness. Good luck