[sg516]

LD I have a psych degree. i used to work in a residential facility for adolescents with behavioral and emotional diagnoses. when i read your post it made me think about a lot of the kids i had the most progress with. One of my professors used to always talk about the "doing is being effect." I used to try to instill this in my patients. But very often it is a hurdle that most people can't leap. years of being caught in a cycle of depression is a hard thing to just change. the thing that helped with a lot of them was what the same prof called "the saying is believeing effect" basically you say something enough you can internalize it and from there you can "do" it and then you can "be" it. if that makes sense.

well to get to the point, it worked and you are on the money for the most part. barring serious psychological impairment, or physiological imbalance most people can over come sadness by making the conscious decision to be happy. if i could get a patient to actually start their day and say something like "its going to be a good day" or start their day and say i am going to be happy" and when they met difficulty in the day just say to themselves "i am going to be happy" eventually you would see many of their dispositions improve and eventually it wasnt something they needed to say that often. bc they actually started being happier. of course this is simply anecdotal. i don't know how much evidence based research their is to support this idea but it is somethign that anybody can try.