There are basic 2 levels of being diverted in life. Firstly there is the simple diversion where attention is needed elsewhere and everyone has to deal with this. This diversion is easy to recover from and is often something that is very much needed for you to have your eyes opened or to get a job finished or purely dedicate time to something valuable to your life purpose. These simple diversions are mere distractions and they just happen as lives intertwine, touch, clash, brush against and the catch is not to fall into the trap of getting absorbed in them and letting what is something minor become something major.

The second diversion is a little more severe and sometimes more worrying. Depression or as some people say “going off the rails” is more common today than ever before and is often challenging to recover from and sometimes very the reason you go off the rails or you become depressed or the situation needs to be understood before recovery can begin, a step backwards is perhaps needed to begin going forward. The reasons for depression are varied, every person in the depressed state has a different set of circumstances, a different life and their own problems… or so they believe.

Depression is a recoverable situation and just knowing this, getting this under the skin of the person is where things start. Hope, it is said, is the last to die and as long as there is hope either in the person themselves or through encouragement from others then there is a reason to be alive and happiness is available. Finding happiness after depression is easier than imagined once started and even just knowing and believing you can have it starts a tingling inside, that spark, very feint spark of what you as a human being know you can have.
Happiness after depression is inside us all, it’s sometimes just bottled up and waiting for us to unscrew the cap or pop the cork and from a depressed state getting to this point of realization is at first the hardest part. The first step is to realize that you are not going to be depressed permanently, the circumstances no matter how bad they may seem are not that bad because you are living and breathing and this means you have a purpose. It’s not important what that purpose is at first but you have to accept it.

Then comes the journey towards happiness with your purpose becoming the destination or at least a station on your journey to happiness. It’s easy to imagine, just like a train on the rails heading from a Smokey industrial city with gloomy grey clouds heading out to the country or perhaps the seaside where the air is fresh and the sky is blue. That’s all happiness is, it is a destination and at the same time a journey.

It’s time to get that clickety clack of the journey to begin, a sound that is a happy sound and sound of movement that only stops when you arrive when your smile says more and drowns out the noise. The clickety clack will fluctuate in volume and tempo and in the dark places will echo just to show it this and all is ok. Your journey towards happiness after depression will be emotional, the sound the train reflecting these emotions.

Having being on the outside of depression, having seen the pain inside and having seen a person very dear to me I know where that Clickety Clack begins, I even know what made it stop as the train crashed of the rails taking the engine and carriages with it. Depression to the point where a suicidal cry for help was the last resort, coming close to destroying my family and so much more, that is how I know. Depression may feel lonely, in fact the loneliness is selfish when you look back from the happy space you will soon be in, but it need not be and knowing who you can trust and who will lift you up is essential to begin with and remember it may well be who you least expect it to be – in my case I was the ex-husband!

Rushing into finding happiness after depression is not going to help, don’t be afraid to take your time and take baby steps. It does mean reaching out and asking for help and the sooner this can be done the better. Finding someone, ideally not a specialist but someone that understands you, will listen to you and not take sides is vital and the other part is to start documenting how you feel. Writing is known to create a mental and even physical link between feelings and even outcomes.

Don’t so much focus on what is making you or keeping you depressed because that keeps you where you are and the wheels on your train remain static, stuck magnetically to the railway track. By all means write down where you are and how you feel as a point of reference, those feelings are your station and your point of departure but what it is important is your imagination, the thing that most specialists will say got you to where you are now if you are depressed. Using your imagination in a positive way, dreaming a little is where happiness after depression begins.

Documenting what you feel makes you happy, writing about it as if it is happening; even just a small sentence or just a single word every day helps.

Depression blinkers a person, energy levels drop, routine becomes either humdrum or pointless or there is no routine at all and changing this is another part of finding happiness. Draw up a list of all things you are grateful for, there are some motivational speakers around the world that have lists of over one thousand things they are grateful for. It doesn’t matter how small the things are, sunshine, the roof over your head, the colour of your eyes; anything that you are grateful for this changes your outlook on life and these positive affirmations about yourself can be read daily or more frequently. Positivity leads to a change in thinking and begins your journey to happiness.

There is a lot of depression around money and finance, don’t focus on this if this is your reason for depression. Look at what you are grateful for in your life and you will soon see that there are more things that money cannot buy or that have no financial value at all than there are things that have a monetary, or perceived monetary cost applied.

Don’t worry about what you don’t have be thankful for what you do have and what you can have. Inside as you begin to list the things that make you happy you will feel your wheels beginning to turn, and as you write down these things share them with someone you can trust. Sharing and seeing the smile on the other person’s face brings a smile to your face.

You will find your journey has begun in your head, so what is stopping you going ahead and daring to do a few things that make you happy rather than just write about them or talk about them? Depression places people in a slumber so snap out of it, set yourself an agenda if you like and even some goals, again keep them small if you must and keep repeating the stuff that is positive. Around you in your small moves you will see other things you never noticed, a cloud in the sky, a bird on a wire, the smell of good coffee you will begin to slowly come alive.

Those you trusted will not leave your side, instinctively you will know who your friends are and those you can or cannot trust will become clear in your mind in ways you never saw before.
Your small spurts of happiness, even just five minutes a day will grow and your blinkered views will slowly be altered and listen, listen carefully and you will begin to hear the chuff, chuff, chuff of your train taking up the strain and pulling out of the station. Gaining a little momentum until a gentle clickety clack begins to tickle inside you. Slowly, bit by gentle bit your smile will appear as you begin to think more of what you can do rather than what you can’t.

It’s a not a painful process in finding happiness after depression, the pain is the depression being left behind and its deep, dark blackness doesn’t like being left behind. Happiness after depression comes from the small things, the flower in spring, the purr of a kitten and it comes when you begin to notice and be thankful and grateful for the small things. Your process of finding one thousand things becomes an almost obsession, naturally you enjoy the buzz of being happy and you will crave for this buzz even as much as right now you perhaps need the medication.

Doctors will focus on keeping you negative, yes they want you to recover but they are being paid and want you to come back to see them, buy more drugs. The truth is happiness after depression is found in you, found in a bunch small things, things you used to take for granted but now appreciate and finding these in small ways, piece by piece because it is the sum of all the small things that makes you and keeps you happy.

I stood by my ex-wife, I have supported her and my son. I have been the silent witness on the side of her life, I have been there when needed and known when to let go when she had to learn to stand on her own.

I have seen how the appreciation of small things, the separation of the right and wrong people and the acceptance that happiness is a choice that can be made have changed a life that is now slowly beginning to blossom with a smile having taken that first step to believe, accept, appreciate and journal. The journals started in a very dark, even life threatening place are now a source of inspiration. Happiness after depression has been found and is being maintained. You can have it too as long as you know happiness after depression is available for everyone every day and that happiness is free.

— Matt Newnham is a British Born writer and marketing consultant living in Cape Town, South Africa.  Matt spent over 20 years in Sales and Marketing before becoming a full time writer and uses his work experience as well as the challenging move from the UK to South Africa and a life changing event to help others succeed and find contentment in life and business.  Matt has had his work published internationally, he is a frequent contributor to many publications and TV Shows as well as an accomplished fiction writer with his first novel “The Seed Shepherds” soon to be published.