After reading about the experiences of Tom Wootton and Will, the author of the great blog, WillSpirit, I’ve been exploring whether I could find a way, as they have, of turning depression into vitality or even bliss, something positive and fulfilling. It’s been a stretch. I’ve usually thought of depression as a force that turns […]

I’ve been working on a new ebook about recovery and came across this early post on lost feelings. It resonated with me so I thought I would post it again in this revised version. A breakthrough to healing can come at the most unexpected time. The other night I was trying to divert myself by […]

Stories about the struggle to recover from depression tell of repeated efforts to find a way to live well despite the recurring burden of illness. For me the key lesson is that each person in these stories keeps trying, despite repeated setbacks. I recently came across a research study that says the same thing in […]

Focusing is one of the few methods that has helped me understand depression as I experience it, well beyond the scope of clinical descriptions. It has also given me an approach to self-compassion that is more effective than the various meditations I have tried. As Eugene Gendlin acknowledges in Focusing, his self-help version of the […]

Sometimes relapse into depression comes on like the weather, suddenly there, a change in the atmosphere you breathe and the temperature and moisture of the air around you. I’ve been feeling that lately and find myself in the midst of a cool and sad stillness that draws my attention in with an almost magnetic force. […]

I remember years ago talking with a friend about his recent divorce and remarriage and mentioning the stressful time my wife and I had been having at that time. He bluntly suggested: Well, why don’t you leave? I told him I wouldn’t do that since I thought the problems were as much on my side […]