When you feel depressed, it can be really difficult to know if what you're thinking and feeling is what you really want or if it's your Depression talking to you.

When you have Depression, learning how to trust yourself is really hard.

Depression can be really confusing.

You can have really low energy and low motivation so it's tough to know if your depression is trying to keep you depressed or if your inner voice is trying to peek through.

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Are You Struggling to Find Your Inner Voice?

Here are three simple ways that you can learn how to find your inner voice (even when you feel depressed):

1. Remember A Happy Moment

*or a less depressed time

I don't wanna hear you say that you've never felt happy, or that you've always felt depressed. It can really feel like that sometimes, but I really encourage you to dig deep and figure out when you were happy. In order to know that you feel depressed, you have to know what happiness feels like, too. Otherwise, you would just think that what you're feeling is the norm.

Depression can keep you feeling really stuck. So, I'm gonna share with you some ways on how to remember times that you did feel happy:

• Look at old photos and try to remember what you were doing that was making you smile.

• Ask trusted friends or family members if they remember a time when you seemed happier. Check-in and see if that was true for you or not. Sometimes depression can make you really good at masking how you really feel so it's important not just to go on what your friends and family think but what you feel as well. Ultimately, you know the truth.

• Remember a time you felt less depressed If trying to find a time where you felt happy feels too challenging, just try to set the bar a little lower and imagine or remember a time when you felt less depressed than you currently feel. That can be a nice little jumping point.

What was a factor in making that experience a pleasant one for you or a less depressing one? When you do find a time where you felt happy or less depressed than you currently feel, what were you doing? How were you feeling? Who was around?

An example of this could be dancing in your room. It could be watching a movie. It could be reading a story. Whatever made you feel good and happy at that moment, just take note of it and then you can try to recreate that experience.

Now, of course, no two situations or experiences are gonna be totally identical. Go into it with reasonable expectations that it might not be exactly the same. You are a different person now than you were even 10 minutes ago but learning how to recognize when you feel happy and then starting to recreate it can help you hone in on what your inner voice is trying to tell you, too.

2. What Did You Enjoy As A Kid?

When we're young children, we don't have all this extra programming and awareness of all these things that make life difficult. Most kids are really trusting which means that they're less inhibited.

Did you know that for girls, their self-esteem actually peaks at age nine?

So, I would encourage you to consider anything from age nine or even age seven or younger, that you enjoyed when you were a kid. This is probably something that you very much enjoyed and you didn't really care what anyone else thought or felt about it because you didn't even factor that into why you were doing it.

This could be coloring, it could be doing puzzles, it could be watching cartoons, it could be playing a game, hula hooping, I don't know, whatever you enjoyed as a kid.

And then start to engage in that activity. Not only will it help you remember how you felt as a young child, but it'll also help you hone into what you enjoy in life which will strengthen your inner voice to help pull you out of feeling depressed in those tough moments. What did you enjoy as a young child? Let me know in the comments on the YouTube video here.

3. Who Are You Doing This For? 

Check-in when you have to make a choice and you're starting to do something and ask yourself this question: Am I doing this for me or for someone else? Is this truly what I desire or is this what someone else wants for me? That's a deep question, I know, but it's really helpful to get into your inner voice, your inner guide, your intuition.

Now, even if the answer is that you are doing this for someone else, that's okay, your inner voice may actually tell you that by doing something for someone else it can help create a meaningful relationship with that particular person.

If you wanna know if you can create meaningful relationships when you feel depressed, click this link to watch a great video on this very important topic.

I hope that you found this information valuable and helpful and if you did, let me know in the comments over on my YouTube channel- you can click here to go to this video.

And please be sure to share this video because you never know who you could be helping in the process.

Want even more positive influences in your teen's life? Teen Girls Therapy Group is a weekly space where your teen girl can connect with others dealing with anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem. By talking and learning together, they learn to feel better about the relationships they have with themselves and others.

If you want to secure your teen's spot- schedule your complimentary 15-min parent phone screening by completing the contact form here.

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