I found that the beliefs I was choosing had the greatest effect on my depression. So if I were you and those are the things I wanted, I would start saying, "I am healthy," "I present myself well," "I am confident," "I am free from depression," "I'm not worried about money," "I am the best mum I can be," and I would really search my mind for all the ways I am healthy, that I am confident, that I am free of depression, the moments that I'm not worried about money, the ways I am the best mom I can be.

I would make it my personal mission to exercise my capacity for awareness of those things that I really want in my life, because you can't ever have what you aren't used to noticing. I would collect all the evidence I could possibly find for those things, and I would write it down on paper.

And why would you not try it? What could it possibly hurt?

I read this study one time about weight loss. It said that overweight people who held the belief that they were healthy lost a lot more weight over a period of time than overweight people who believed they needed to lose weight. It's because you naturally "act as if." When you believe you're a healthy person, it's much more natural and easy to act as you believe a healthy person acts. And then you naturally get healthier because it just makes sense to you that you'd do healthy things.

If you believe that you are unhealthy, you will never feel healthy, even if you act like a healthy person. You will just believe that you're an unhealthy person that did some things right for awhile. The belief comes first.

And the beauty is that you can believe whatever you choose to believe. There isn't really any truth. It's just our opinion. There's a spectrum of healthy that goes from dead people to the unobtainable ideal. Everyone in the world is just somewhere on that spectrum according to their own perception of themselves and the scale. There are people who you would put higher on the spectrum than yourself who feel extremely unhealthy about themselves, and then there are people who you'd imagine are much lower on the spectrum who feel tons of gratitude because they think they're healthy.

You don't have to suddenly start believing that you're everything you ever wanted, you just start with small baby steps and start by suggesting to yourself that maybe your viewpoint is skewed in some way and being open to accepting evidence of the alternative. And then whenever you see a way that you might be healthy, that you are a good mom, that you are confident, you write it down.

Make it ridiculous even if you want. It kind of makes it fun and lighthearted. "I am healthy because I did not have crack cocaine for breakfast." "I am healthy because my heart, my lungs, and my brain have been working sufficiently every single moment since I was born." "I'm not worried about money, because I'm distracted by worrying about being a good mom." "I'm a good mom because I care about being a good mom so much I'm willing to harm myself with criticism about being a good enough mom!"

And being free of depression, that's such a big thing. But think about it from moment to moment. Everything you already know of depression is a memory of your past. Everything you fear about depression is a projection on the future. You can't ever be free of depression in the past or the future. Being free of depression only ever happens for anyone right now, in the current moment only. And I guarantee there are a thousand moments each day that you are "free of depression." It happens when you're distracted doing something else. It happens when you're falling asleep. It happens when you get wrapped up in a tv show. It happens every single moment that you aren't actively thinking about being depressed. So keep a list. "I was FREE from depression while I was crossing the street." "I was free from depression when I stepped on that Lego in the dark that my kid left in the floor." There are tons of moments. And when you choose to acknowledge them, they grow. And you start feeling that maybe you aren't necessarily a depressed person, all the time. And then you can believe that maybe you don't have to be a depressed person, ever.

The first baby steps to happiness happen in your mind. The belief comes first, and then the actions and good emotions.