Act Your Way Out of the Depression Trap
We don’t just have thinking traps—we also have acting traps. To give you an idea of how acting habits are embedded into your life just outside of your awareness, the next time you shower, deliberately do your routine out of order. If you shampoo first, do that later. If you lather up your body starting with your neck, begin at your toes. If you brush your teeth with your right hand, use your left. Our habit of doing it a certain way comes under inspection only when we change it. We might not even be aware we are in an acting trap until we challenge our actions by doing something deliberately different.
What are “negative acting traps” and how are they harmful?
Negative acting traps (or NATs, as I like to call them) are the routines of behavior we slip into that are unhealthy for us. We are usually only marginally aware of these routines, yet they keep us stuck in a pattern of behavior that maintains depression. Often these acting traps work hand in hand with thoughts to keep us stuck. We’ll eat dinner in front of the TV rather than take a walk—and then convince ourselves we need to rest. The acting traps are the dark side of the “as if” principle. If we act as if we are tired and have no interest, that is exactly what will happen. In this way, we can “fake it ’til we break it.”
The acting cure uses enactment and role-playing to explore, or transform. It works in a way similar to the adage “move a muscle, change a thought.” It helps undo acting traps by using positive enactments to change thought patterns. The words you think and your actions are linked. When your thoughts are stuck, so is your body.
When you embody an aspect of yourself, you can enhance your experience, get a different perspective, and shift your point of view. This will happen whenever you play a role, because it liberates you from being stuck in how you are and gives you the opportunity to try on other ways of being.
When we are repeating negative thoughts and ruminating about our misfortunes, it is difficult to recall and reflect on the transformations we’ve had that were beneficial. Just like doing the shower routine differently, this exercise changes our perspective, and in doing so highlights the way we’ve been doing things well. Looking at your past through the lens of what worked can support you and highlight what you could also do in the present.
Once you’ve seen for yourself how things have changed, you have powerful evidence that you can draw on at any time. Anytime you make a decision about how to respond to a situation, feeling, or event, you are choosing between a high-hope response, a thinking trap, an acting trap, or a negative interpretation.
Taking actions that can move us toward hope
In this article, I am empowering you to make early adjustments to your thinking so your decisions and actions move you toward hope. Intervening in this way—early on—will give you the greatest amount of control. This is not an effort to avoid pain, but rather a direct attempt to not let it dominate your well-being. Once you’ve gotten out of a depression hole, this is the skill that will keep you from relapsing.
Role-playing and acting “as if”: rehearsals for life
When all is said and done, role-playing and acting “as if” are rehearsals for life. When we begin to consider our purpose in life, acting “as if” becomes really important. How do we get to our purpose, or our “why”? By what means can you mold purpose into your life, so that you feel pulled by something greater?
Thinking alone won’t do this. It is through action that our purpose becomes auspicious. Hope is a verb. Through action, our purpose reveals itself.
EXERCISE: Moving from the Present into a Future You Are Meant to Live
Arrange your middle chair (present) so it is facing the back of the front chair (your future—the self you are meant to be). The future chair should be facing away from the present. Pick how far in the future you are. Two years? Five? For this exercise, keep it less than ten years. However far in the future it is, move your chair that distance from the present (if it is one year, it would be closer to the present chair than five years would be).
Step 1:
Sit in the future chair, and write down, as if you were already living it, what your life is like. Keep in mind our earlier exercise of your biography of how you’d like to be remembered. You can list as many things as you wish about your future self. All that is required is that you believe they might possibly happen in the time you’ve determined.
For example, you wouldn’t create a future self where you’ve lost a hundred pounds in a month. Some examples are: “I’m sitting on the dock looking at the lake in my new home, enjoying the view and having my morning coffee.” “I’m graduating with my degree in accounting and have been offered a good job.” “I’m being invited to a party with people I admire.”
Step 2:
Once you’ve done this, turn the future chair to face your present and continue sitting in the future chair. Talk to your present self and “remind” the present-you how you got to become the future self you wanted to be. Talk to your present self and ask as many of the following questions as possible:
What did you do that allowed you to get to the future?
What did you take control of to make it happen?
How did you take control?
What resources did you draw on?
What risks did you let yourself take?
Who did you rely on for support?
How did you modify your goals?
What successes opened up more doors and possibilities to you?
What kind of thoughts, people, or actions did you have to replace?
Be sure to write down this review as if it were a summary you are giving to “remind” the present. Then, once you’ve shared how you arrived at who you were meant to be, feel what it’s like to have this future.
Step 3:
Sit in the future chair “as if” it is happening now. What got you to living a life of purpose? Pay particularly close attention to your body and what it feels like to be doing what you were meant to do. How do you breathe when you are as you were meant to be? How do you sit? Where do you feel the power in your body? What are you most aware of as this sense of purpose and meaning are awakened?
