The Psychology Myth That Keeps You Stuck

I have depression…

At least, that’s what I tell myself most mornings. It doesn’t feel like a bad mood. It feels serious. C-L-I-N-I-C-A-L depression.

The symptoms check every box:

• The low hum of anxiety.
• That sinking dread of the day ahead.
• The inability to feel joy, no matter how hard I try.
• The sluggishness that makes everything feel like so much effort.

And yet…

I drag myself out of bed, lace up my shoes, and head outside.

Then a cheeky little sparrow greets me from the rooftop with a chirp far too optimistic for the state of the world or my soul.

But something happens.
The sun kisses my face.
The air brushes my skin.
And just like that, abracadabra, the fog lifts.

I smile.
My step gets lighter.
I remember who I am.

This happens so often, it’s become almost suspicious.

What psychology got wrong

If I could get a refund for anything I learned while studying psychology, it would be for this one big, fat lie:

“Grown-ups have stable emotions.”

According to my professors, children are labile (that’s psych-speak for “emotionally all over the place”), but adults are steady and predictable. Feelings, we were taught, settle into personality patterns over time. If you’re anxious now, you’re likely to be anxious forever.

What an utter load of nonsense.

My moods are still as mercurial as a toddler denied a snack.

And honestly? That’s the best news ever.

Once I saw that emotions are simply vibrations in the body created by thought, and that they can pass through in as little as 90 seconds, everything changed.

I stopped treating my moods like permanent states.
I stopped believing that every feeling needed to be analyzed or fixed.
I stopped giving power to every scary story my mind told me.

Thoughts are like passing clouds. Some dramatic, some repetitive, some downright ridiculous and utterly random. But most of them? Just weather.

And feelings? They’re just the body’s response to the weather in your mind.

What emotions really tell you

Yes, even heavy feelings like depression and dread have something to say. But often, what they’re saying is simply this:

“Hey… you’re using your mind in a way that’s not helpful right now.”

That’s it.

They’re feedback. Not facts.
They’re signals. Not sentences.

Once I stopped resisting them and just let them rise and fall like waves, I started to hear something else underneath the noise:

A deeper, quieter feeling.
One that doesn’t need fixing.
One that’s always been there, waiting.

And from that peaceful, grounded place, real-time wisdom starts to rise. You see things clearly. You know what to do next. You remember who you are, without all the static.

This is possible for you, too.

You don’t need to chase every thought. You don’t need to obey every feeling.
You just need to see them for what they are: temporary weather systems passing through.

And when you do, life becomes a lot less heavy and far more beautiful.