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Mindfulness

Is There a Link Between Mindfulness and Hypnosis?

by John Folk-Williams 14 Comments

focus for mindfulness and hypnosis

In looking for ideas about the power of the mind in healing, I’ve never thought about a possible link between mindfulness and hypnosis. Until now. Michael Yapko claims there is a close connection between the two in his latest book, Mindfulness and Hypnosis. I’ve learned a lot from his well-known self-help books on depression (Breaking […]

Filed Under: Mindfulness, Psychotherapy Tagged With: awareness, dissociation, hypnosis, meditation, mind, therapy

Mind Over Pit Bull and Depression

by John Folk-Williams 11 Comments

powerful dog

After a family-rich Thanksgiving week, I was hard at work Sunday morning writing a post on the placebo effect when my wife and I decided to take a refreshing walk with our two dogs. We didn’t know it, but we were on our way this foggy morning to a head-to-head confrontation with a stray pit […]

Filed Under: Mindfulness Tagged With: attention, brain, fear, mind, stress

If You Can’t Escape Depression, You Can Try Making Do

by John Folk-Williams 143 Comments

Inability to Escape Depression

It’s hard to escape depression when it dominates your mind. The illness has many faces, but its most visible one is your own. You see it everywhere because you can’t stop thinking about what’s wrong with you.

The illness is filtering out everything that would disturb your isolation – like brighter feelings, hope, the reaching out of a loved one, self-confidence, the energy to connect with people. It keeps your mind roiling with your flops, dumb mistakes, broken relationships, and acid self-contempt.

When you’re well, you can lose yourself in the daily flow of living, but when you’re depressed you never lose yourself.

Filed Under: Depression Symptoms, Mindfulness Tagged With: awareness, coping, self

Delay, Fear and Perfectionism Out – Recover Life Unlocked

by John Folk-Williams 7 Comments

As you may have figured out by now, I’ve had a hard time launching Recover Life from Depression, but I’ve finally opened it up. “Unlocking” seems like a better word since I’ve struggled for months to break through a hard resistance to getting it done. I was slow to grasp what was going on, but […]

Filed Under: Depression Symptoms, Mindfulness, Writing Tagged With: belief, relapse, resilience, thinking

Why Therapy Can Work: Ideas from Brain Research

by John Folk-Williams 4 Comments

Brain research is one of those many scientific fields that I’ll never know much about, but I find it important to get even a limited understanding of the direction of recent findings. It helps me to know, for example, that emotions are generated unconsciously through multiple brain systems before anything gets to awareness. As I […]

Filed Under: Depression Treatments, Mindfulness, Psychotherapy Tagged With: brain, cognitive therapy, emotion, feelings, memory

Meditation and a Prayer for Healing

by John Folk-Williams 5 Comments

This is an edited and shortened version of a post on meditation I did some time ago. The prayer at the end remains important to me, so I thought I’d put it up again. I hope it makes some sense to you. Here are a few journal excerpts from many years ago about early experience […]

Filed Under: Mindfulness, Spirituality Tagged With: depression, emotion, fear, meditation, peace, prayer

Getting Ready to Recover

by John Folk-Williams 7 Comments

In thinking about how I managed to rid myself of depression, I’ve realized the importance of getting ready to recover. This idea never occurred to me during many failed attempts to find a way out of the underworld of living. I had hoped there would be a quick, linear pathway to feeling fully alive again, […]

Filed Under: Mindfulness, Self-Help Tagged With: depression, detachment, meditation, symptoms, treatment

The Problem of Now in Recovery from Depression

by John Folk-Williams 16 Comments

Some Rights Reserved by monkeytime at Flickr For a long time, I found it hard to relate to the idea of living in the present moment as a method of recovery from depression. The present never seemed all that attractive when I felt smothered by its darkness. That’s the way it had been in the […]

Filed Under: Mindfulness Tagged With: awareness, consciousness, detachment, identity

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Surviving Depression Together Now Available at Major Retailers

Surviving Depression Together


Surviving Depression Together

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A Mind for Life Ebook Now Available at Major Retailers

A Mind for Life: From Depression to Living Well

A Mind for Life Ebook

The inner work of getting your life back from depression. This ebook is now available in most common ebook formats at major retailers.

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Living Depressed

Depression affects emotions, mental abilities, self-concept, behavior, relationships and the entire body. These core posts describe the full range of symptoms affecting daily life. Read More.

Choices in Healing

Hoping for recovery gives you a motive but not a method for getting there. This section has posts about therapies and healing methods you can work with either on your own or with professional guidance. Read more.

Living Well

If you've learned how to manage your depression, you'll want a fulfilling life rather than one dominated by fear that the illness might return. In this section, you'll find posts about how to work toward that goal. Read More

Relationships in Crisis

One of the hardest challenges of living with depression is holding onto your closest relationships. This section features posts on how to help a relationship survive. Read More.

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