by guest blogger Dr. Lara Honos-Webb

Depression is nature’s way of pushing you out of your comfort zone

Every time you are faced with a fear, realize that each time you act small because of fear - you are moving toward depression. Each time you act big in spite of fear - you are moving into a new stratosphere.

Think of all the people who are stopped by fear. When you push through fear you have separated yourself from them. You will become a new creature, a different creature, a better creature, a more highly skilled creature, a more resilient creature.

If you take small risks you are like the pioneers, forging new ground - expanding the world as it is currently known.

If you take large risks or consistently take small risks you are like an astronaut, going where few have ever gone before, where almost every aspect of your experience, you will be discovering for the first time.

If you want to heal your depression begin taking a few small risks. A small risk is one where really there is nothing to lose. You might feel rejected, or be embarrassed by taking a small risk but nothing essential is at stake. Maybe that means applying for a job or going back to school. That’s a good place to start.

And when you do heal from depression, it won’t a healing into the land of the lotus eaters, where you feel comfortable, sated and satisfied. Depression is a call to breakthrough into a new life. You will heal from depression into a feeling of being uncomfortable. You will realize that enlightenment is being comfortable with imperfection, not the final attainment of perfection. You will heal from demanding perfection to being accepting of the messiness of your life.

Depression will heal you from a job or career and propel you into a mission. Depression will heal you from being overly conciliatory in your relationships into a broader palette of angry, vulnerable and fearful expressions of your authentic and imperfect self.

The shiny armored self is not the cure of depression it is the cause of depression.

When you take the courage to reject this sanitized, white bread image of mental health, you will be on your way to healing from depression.

Depression offers a gift in that by listening to it, clients can heal their whole lives.  Depression can be seen as a break-down in the service of offering the person an opportunity for a break-through. In this way depression can be a corrective feedback to a life with little reflection.

 We only reflect on those things that break down in our life. For example, if life is going along smoothly a person won’t spend time thinking about the meaning of one’s life. We tend to think deeply about life when something is not working. When we identify a problem, we begin to reflect on what caused the problem and how to fix the problem. If a client is disconnected from his deepest feelings and impulses he may still manage to get through life without realizing he is totally disconnected from himself.

A breakdown can become a gift when it is in the service of increasing reflection on one’s life which will lead a person to ask the fundamentally important questions:

• What is wrong with my life?
  
  
• What can I do to correct the problem?

When clients listen to their depression, they can heal their life.


Sweet Spot Therapy

A person’s sweet spot is where her passion meets her purpose. Sweet Spot therapy includes an effort to help a person find her sweet spot.  A Sweet Spot may be a specialized interest, a vocation, or a relationship. For example, a person with low esteem may realize her passion is for excellence in medicine and decide to go after a medical degree that she believed was unreachable. A workaholic may realize her sweet spot is in intimate relationships and heal depression by devoting more time to her family and friends. My observation is that many symptoms are a cry from a person’s most authentic self to align herself with her sweet spot. I also found that for many symptoms that are biological, hard-wired or otherwise intractable, they will fade into the background of consciousness as a person lives from her sweet spot. The person can be energized by their new found passion and purpose such that pain and symptoms that once dominated his life, no longer create impairments in functioning.

Dr. Lara Honos-Webb is a clinical psychologist and author of Listening to Depression: How Understanding Your Pain Can Heal Your Life, which was selected by Health as one of the best books of 2006, The Gift of ADHD, and The Gift of ADHD Activity Book.  Her website is http://visionarysoul.com.