The Gift of Depression

Dr. Pinkie Feinstein

Chapter 1:  “If You Don’t Do, You Don’t Exist”

It may seem a little strange that I come here with vibrant energy and even a smile, while creating a course called The Gift of Depression. On the other hand, without this very energy, I wouldn’t be able to offer hope, direction, means, and tools. I need to arrive with surplus energy so that I can lead this healing process, just as I have done with many other programs.

The initial explanation I can give is that the title of the journey that is about to unfold here is The Gift of Depression. During depression, or in its most difficult moments, it is impossible to see it as a gift. Sometimes there is no visible horizon, no sense of hope, and that’s perfectly fine. It is not something one can or should “jump” into, because one simply cannot. But one can slowly cook, within the depression itself, the gift that it carries inside. It can be cooked quietly, slowly, without forcing it to happen immediately. Not by chance, this is a process of thirty six lessons.

“The Gift of Depression”, a phrase that will be repeated many times here, is meant so that depression will not remain merely what it seems to be. Not just a painful phenomenon, but a kind of journey, difficult, yes, but necessary. Unpleasant, yet capable of leading to a meaningful transformation in one’s life. And therefore, if there is the motivation to let it happen, it may truly be called a gift.

I myself have gone through depression several times, and I won’t be surprised if I go through it again in the future. This journey is meant to give birth to the fruits that depression intends to produce, so that it won’t remain in one’s memory merely as trauma, or something to escape from, but as a meaningful part of life. It is especially important for those for whom growth, development, and healing are core values. Sometimes the body and soul make a certain decision, and I’ll speak about that later, a decision that carries great meaning. At first we resist this decision, this change imposed on our daily life, and by doing so we prevent ourselves from entering the process that depression is inviting us into.

If at some point we can, even out of exhaustion, relax and begin to listen to the possibility that this might be a gift, then even in our hardest moments we can begin to build within us a beautiful healing process, one that eventually gives birth to things a person cannot reach in any other way, not through courses, not through books, and not through therapy. Sometimes depression is the only path that can take us to the places we most deeply wish to reach. It is a demanding birth canal, but at its end, birth awaits. This is why this course exists.

The course is built of thirty six chapters and twelve subjects, with three chapters in each subject. The first subject, the first three chapters, asks the question, Why is depression so frightening? It is frightening both on a personal level and on a collective one. In these three chapters, I will focus on three aspects, and the first of them is, If you don’t do, you don’t exist.

This is the message we give ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, our friends, and our partners, the message that a person who exists is a person who does, a productive person. Not necessarily someone doing something meaningful, but still someone measured by action. There are people who, while the world around them is working and striving, do nothing. They sit, lie down, stay silent, “waste time,” don’t contribute to society, don’t work for money, don’t train, don’t study, they simply don’t do. And then arises a certain anxiety, personal, familial, social, even global, around this possibility of existing without doing. As if a meaningful life cannot include moments of non doing.

There is fear in the stillness of non doing. Fear of the unknown waiting inside. Fear of the emotions that may arise when we stop, even for a moment. In the next two chapters, I will speak about the fear of death and the pain of life that awaken within non doing. For now, we will focus only on this mantra, If you don’t do, you don’t exist. It is a mantra rarely spoken out loud, yet deeply active in our culture. It seems “acceptable” to rest when we go to the beach, on weekends, or on vacation, times we have socially permitted ourselves not to act. But when depression arrives, with its drop in energy, physical weakness, loss of appetite or desire to do, and that inner movement that forces us to stop, suddenly, rest loses legitimacy.

Depression forces us to reduce activity, giving, pleasing, effort, and struggle, and it tells us, Stop now. And that is difficult, because everything around us keeps moving to the rhythm of the mantra If you don’t do, you don’t exist. Whoever stops following it seems to lose legitimacy, as if they no longer belong. It is not easy for those immersed in doing to look at someone who isn’t. It is not easy to give legitimacy to that stillness. And it is especially hard for someone within depression to look at the moving world and tell themselves, This is my place right now. It hurts, but this is my place.

And from there, healing can begin. Even if I am not doing, I still exist. I am present. I am engaged in inner work. I have embarked on a journey, and I have inner work to do. It is a journey with no shortcuts, and those that seem to be shortcuts only preserve within us the very problem seeking healing. So we begin here, facing the wound of this experience, the sense of non belonging, of non functioning, of impotence, the feeling that “If you don’t do, you don’t exist.” Sometimes it sounds within us as, If I don’t do, I am not loved, I am not important, I don’t matter, I am not manly enough. And from here the process begins: I may not be doing, but I exist. I have a story to tell, a path to walk, a meaningful journey that others may not yet understand, but I am entering it now, to find my own gift of depression.

Self-Reflection Questions

(It is recommended to answer them in writing)

1. Are there moments when you feel stressed because you are not “productive enough”?

2. Are there moments when it becomes clear that you were actually too productive and did not leave yourself enough time and space for pause and rest?

3. Can you recognize the value of a day, or even a week, in which you do not do anything “special”?

4. When you experience, or have experienced in the past, depression, what happens to your strength and your ability “to do”?

5. Can you see at this moment the possible connection between depression and the psyche’s need for a kind of rest you were not able to give it in any other way?

Chapter 2: Depression Reminds Us of Death

This chapter is the second of three that I dedicate to the question, Why is depression so frightening? I could have devoted many more chapters to this subject, but three will suffice, based on the understanding that depression is a frightening phenomenon, sometimes frightening without justification, and at other times frightening for very real reasons.

Depression represents things we are not happy to encounter or experience. It brings pain, despair, pessimism, a decrease in functioning, and at times even harm to our relationships. Depression can disrupt many areas of life, and this is part of its nature. In my view, this disruption occurs because many things within us were already disrupted for a long time, tensions that accumulated, emotional burdens that piled up, until eventually everything collapses. And when things collapse, it is unpleasant, it is frightening, and it shakes us. There is also an element of destruction. Therefore, there are many reasons to fear depression.

At the same time, depression is sometimes unavoidable. And beyond that, depression symbolizes an inner act that invites us to create a new balance that did not exist before. It is a kind of warning sign, but also an exit from an overly intense space, intended to allow a reorganization that could not occur otherwise.

So yes, it is frightening. But there are things in life that are both frightening and unavoidable, and it is worthwhile for us to befriend them, even a little. Over time we may discover that they can be a type of gift, so that we will not be afraid when they appear again, because they may appear again. So that we do not see them as an enemy, do not feel threatened, and do not think only about how to escape them quickly, but rather understand that they are an integral, essential, and nourishing part of our life journey.

Why is depression so frightening? Because depression reminds us of death.

I believe that the fear of death, the lack of understanding surrounding it, the terror and the myths attached to it, are perhaps the greatest human problem in our time, and certainly in Western culture. A culture that excessively glorifies what can be measured, calculated, and logically proven, and gives far less room to intuitive, spiritual, emotional, and creative realms.

In such a world, death, which can only be approached through tools that are not rational, becomes even more intimidating, more frightening, more denied, and more repressed. And depression contains many elements that bring us closer to this subject.

It is true that in cases of severe depression, which this course does not address, the situation is different. This course speaks mainly to those who suffer from mild or moderate depression, the type most people experience. Severe depression is a condition in which a person may lose their grip on life, harm themselves, or even commit suicide. Someone suffering from severe depression must seek intensive treatment, and this course is not intended for them.

But as long as we are talking about mild or moderate depression, a state in which a person can still be invited to listen to themselves, work with themselves, face their pain, and move through a process, there is real opportunity here. There is a real chance that such a person will not drift into places requiring medical intervention.

And yet, even depression that is not extreme reminds us of death. It raises in us sensations of non life, the absence of vitality, the absence of functioning, the movement inward, the distancing from life, and sometimes a feeling of inner freezing. A person experiencing depression appears as if they have moved, temporarily, into another world. You cannot simply “reach in” and pull them out.

Depression creates an association of emptiness, of desolation. And many see it as a failure, just as our culture tends to see death as a failure, a failure to remain alive longer, to prolong youth longer, to remain more vibrant. In public consciousness, especially in Western medicine, there is an atmosphere of battle against death. And thus there is also a battle against depression, against the content it brings, against the pain it reveals, against the depths it pulls us toward.

But if we look at depression through the lens of the gift of depression, we may begin to see this process as a kind of death and rebirth. When I enter depression, I allow myself, emotionally, to die a little. Not to die in reality, but to let go. To allow things to fall apart. To be in a place where I can listen to my pain, be with it, and dive inward while still holding myself.

In this sense, depression can offer me a gift: the opportunity to meet parts of life that I previously saw only as dark or dead, only to discover that there is life there. There is an entire inner world that I neglected because I was too busy running, doing, carrying responsibility, taking care of others, and holding everything together.

And to reach this inner world, I sometimes need a process that feels like death. I do not truly know what death is, but in my experience as a living human being, the stopping of functioning, the stopping of giving, doing, explaining, and contributing, all of this feels like a kind of death.

What, then, is the gift?

The potential gift is that once I enter that space and allow myself to be in depression without self blame, without excessive self criticism, without labeling myself a failure, and without worrying about what will happen, I open the door to a new experience. One of the greatest gifts that may grow from this is a new, positive, creative, and nourishing relationship with the very concept of death.

That same death we fear so deeply, and therefore fear the depression that resembles it, can become a space of learning. When we learn how to benefit from depression, how to heal ourselves from within it, how to emerge from this “relative death” in which we have lived for some time, we gain two things at once. We gain the emotional healing that occurs when we allow ourselves to sink to the bottom, and we gain the opportunity to reshape our entire relationship with death.

A relationship that does not have to be frightened, disconnected, or denied, but can become a relationship of understanding and continuity, an understanding that life and death are two realms deeply connected to one another. Not every failure is a failure, and not every ending is an ending.

At least as we will experience it here, we may one day look back and say, we were there, we sank, we lived in the conditions that depression demanded, we learned, we opened our eyes, we healed ourselves, and we were born again.

Yes, depression reminds us of death. It is frightening at first, but as the journey continues this inner relationship may transform. And this, too, is part of the gift of depression.

Self-Reflection Questions

(It is recommended to answer them in writing)

1. What are the first five associations that arise for you when you hear the word “death”?

2. Why do you think we are so afraid of death, which is actually an inseparable part of our lives?

3. In what ways, in your opinion, is the thought of depression somewhat similar to the thought of death?

4. Is it possible, in your view, that the fear of depression comes from the fact that it stops everything and forces us to think about death as well — something we constantly try to avoid?

5. Do you also see the potential opportunity that may be hidden in this, within depression?

Chapter 3: Depression Floods Us with the Pains of Life

How strange it is to attach these two words together, the gift of depression. Perhaps I myself would have recoiled had I heard this expression for the first time. It may sound a bit cynical, dismissive, or as if it does not understand the difficulty and pain involved in this experience, the despair and pessimism that hover in the background.

(My talented son Ori is playing the piano now. I enjoy recording videos even when there are family sounds. For me, it adds something. It also reflects my worldview. I do not wait for sterile moments. If they come, wonderful. If not, we continue. Like depression, it is simply part of life.)

I want to emphasize again that this course does not diminish the difficulty, the suffering, the pain, the challenges, the damage, or the disruptions that depression brings. Depression is frightening for good reason. It is indeed a kind of illness, a temporary disability, a drastic decline in functioning. It can harm relationships, cause financial strain, and destabilize a person’s ability to hold on to their daily routines. It is not simple.

But I believe that when it arrives, it arrives for a reason. There is a reason we enter, or are pulled, or are dragged into a space where there is pain, where functioning decreases, where control is lost, and where relationships may be strained. There is a reason we are taken there. In many cases the reason is that there is no other choice. The psyche needs to reach this place. And it is good to be prepared for it, and good to know how to live within it, in order to reduce the damage, reduce interpersonal difficulties, and reduce the price we pay.

It is indeed not a simple story, but I believe it is a story a person is meant to experience from time to time in a life filled with stress, pressure, tension, and many reasons to worry. These things accumulate. And eventually, in a natural and even healthy way, everything that has accumulated finds its own path to break down. Not necessarily through a process we choose. Often the process we choose is not truly appropriate, because we tend to avoid our own pain. It is not easy to touch pain. Sometimes it is even impossible. There are pains that are deeply repressed, but they remain there.
They remain as memories, as post trauma, as experiences waiting for the conditions that will allow them to be released. And they consume energy. When they accumulate too much, the psyche has no choice but to collapse, to fall, in order to release, in order to allow growth, in order for us to reconnect with our inner truth. Otherwise, we may excel at ignoring that truth, no matter how heavy it becomes.

And this brings me directly to the third chapter of the question, Why is depression so frightening?
It is frightening because of something that may be the greatest fear of all, even if we do not see it openly or consciously.
Depression floods us with the pains of life.

This may be the most essential story of depression.
If we have a collection of life pains, from the past and from the present, and we somehow manage to set them aside, give them proportion, and continue functioning, still we carry them within us. We continue living alongside these pains, simply without noticing. Much of our struggle and many of our problems are actually fueled by those inner pains, but we tell ourselves we are “fine”. We wake up, go to work, meet obligations, manage pressure like everyone else, function, go on trips, eat, talk, laugh sometimes. Everything seems “fine”.
But the truth is that we are only managing to keep the pains of life dormant, in a place where we will not have to encounter them.

What does depression do?
It opens the doors.
It opens the gates and floods everything outward at once.
A flood of pain.
There is nowhere to run. You cannot drive away from it, you cannot put on music that will replace it, there is no workshop that suddenly cancels it. It is a flood, like an abscess that is draining. It hurts, it smells, but it flows out. It flows and flows and flows, a flood of life pains.

And these pains do not always come with explanations. I do not always know why I hurt or where it comes from. I only feel the pain. A feeling of mourning, a feeling of ending, a feeling of no hope, for no visible reason.
This is what is frightening. This is also what leads some professionals to assume that depression is only a biochemical phenomenon, a “chemical imbalance” that needs fixing.
I do not believe that.

I see depression as part of the natural coping mechanism of the psyche with an overload of accumulated pain. At a certain point the psyche says, enough. If I continue to hold everything inside, the whole system will collapse. So it opens the doors, releases the monsters outward, allows cleansing, allows breathing.

And this is one of the gifts of depression, perhaps the greatest of them all.
It is a painful gift, a complicated gift, a gift that requires the skill of emotional holding, patience, and the ability to be with pain. This is a skill that belongs especially to feminine energy, the capacity to be with pain, not to run from it, not to disappear through medication or distraction, but simply to be present with it without completely falling apart. Falling apart partly, yes, but with the understanding that I am diving to the bottom for a purpose.

It may be the greatest fear because depression is an overflow of the pains of life.
And this is also the reason it is so difficult for people who are not depressed to be around someone who is.
Why? Because when everything is filled with pain, when everything is dark and despairing, when all the pains rise one after another, it is unpleasant. It is threatening also to the one who is currently “fine”. But it is important to remember that the one who is “fine” may one day find themselves in the very same place.

I am not here to teach how to behave toward someone in depression, but to speak to the one who experiences, has experienced, or will experience it themselves, which is almost all of us.
And to view it as a gift, even if its gifts become visible only later.

Depression floods us with the pains of life, not with explanations but simply with the experience of pain itself, in large quantities, from morning until night.
This is why appetite decreases, why desire diminishes, why the ability to enjoy, create, or function is weakened.
We are dealing with emotional pains that are sometimes stronger than physical pains, and it is especially difficult because the environment may not understand. People may look and ask, “What is the problem? Just get up, work, function.”
But you cannot. It is simply not possible in that moment.

To receive the gifts of depression, we must first understand why we fear it, precisely because it floods us with pain.
And when it arrives, we will want to be ready, not just aware but patient, allowing. We will want to let the pains come out, to give ourselves rest, space, time, support.
Only then can we gradually enter the atmosphere of healing. The body cleanses itself, the psyche releases its burdens.

And when we emerge from depression, weeks or months later, new energy appears, a new availability to life, to creation, to joy.
Because all the heavy weights of life pains that were repressed have finally been released.
And when I allow this flood to come, I discover that quietly, within it, the gift of depression is already forming.

Self-Reflection Questions

(It is recommended to answer them in writing)

1. Are you aware that a significant part of our daily life is devoted to a continuous escape from emotional pain?

2. Do you have a sense, on a personal level, of which emotional pains you tend to avoid or run away from?

3. Do you see the possibility that the fear of depression is actually a fear of encountering these very pains?

4. Do you recall a time when you were in a state of low mood or depression, and how you experienced the pains of your life then?

5. Do you see the potential opportunity that depression might offer you if you relate to it in the way that is right for you? Try to elaborate.

Chapter 4: Whoever Does Not Face Their Truth Will Be Chased by It

Chapter 4 opens the second section of the book. Each section contains three chapters.
The first section asked the question, Why is depression so frightening, and I offered three significant answers.
The second section asks, What is the gift that hides behind depression, or within it.

I want to emphasize from the very beginning that when we are in the eye of the storm, when the pain of the soul is too strong, when we are grieving and sometimes do not even know what exactly we are grieving, when depression is at the center of our attention, it is extremely difficult in that moment to see that there may be a gift there. It hurts. It is not for nothing that I said earlier that none of us would willingly choose to enter depression. Even if we were told that an amazing change awaits afterward, a release, a healing or a deep transformation, we still would not agree. The pain is too strong, and it pushes us away. Naturally, we distance ourselves from it, and that is understandable.

We choose, in an unconscious way, what to focus on and how to exist. Excessive focus on pain can paralyze us and block our functioning. But sometimes, because we keep avoiding and distancing ourselves from our pains, we do not notice that they simply accumulate.
Layer upon layer of unprocessed pain begins to pile up, traumas, disappointments, frustrations, long lasting exhaustion, lack of satisfaction, lack of fulfillment, not enough joy. Sometimes this happens because we are too busy, running, handling responsibilities and pressures, not paying attention to the small and truly important things, the people dear to us, the moments that sustain us. All of this accumulates quietly in the background.

And then, it is forced upon us.
The psyche, acting as a self healing mechanism, decides at a certain point to take command. It says to us, “Stop. Now I am the one deciding.” This does not happen through conscious choice, but through a deep internal declaration that the system must stop, must rebalance, must cleanse.

I often record these teachings in the middle of home life, not looking for sterile moments. If the dog barks, if my son plays music, I continue. That is part of life. Depression is the same, it does not arrive at convenient times. It arrives when it must.

And again, we do not enter depression intentionally. We also do not enter grief of our own choosing, even when there is much to grieve.
And when we are inside it, it is very hard to think or hear that there could be a gift behind all of this. Only during recovery, or once we gain some distance, can we begin to understand, and even prepare for the next time, if it comes.

Because when we are prepared, we can extract something beneficial from depression.
We can begin to ask, What am I receiving here, What am I learning.

This is the subject of the next three chapters.
Chapter 4 is titled, Whoever does not face their truth will be chased by it.
(And I will add, sometimes without even knowing that this is what is happening.)

We can distinguish between people based on the level of difficulty they have in facing the truth of their lives. Based on the level of internal denial that they apply to the significant matters that shape their emotional world and their relationships.
Every person has an inner truth. A story, sometimes hidden. There are memories we prefer not to touch, not to talk about, not to think about. There are parts of our truth that remain repressed for emotional survival. We do not remember things that hurt us because the pain is too heavy.
We imagine that we succeeded in eliminating them, calming them, forgetting them, but they are there.
And they influence us.
Even if we are unaware of it, they influence every choice, every thought, every relationship, every success and every failure, every emotional reaction.
All our relationships, the way we see ourselves, the way we see the world, all of these are shaped by the hidden parts of our inner truth.

We do not voluntarily approach those places. We do not choose to dive into the darkness, the cold, the pessimistic or painful landscapes of our inner world.
But when depression arrives, it opens a gate. Even if not everything becomes exposed, some of the repressed pains rise and surface.
And instead of our inner truth quietly chasing us, confusing us, blocking us, delaying us or causing us to fail, now it appears and asks for direct attention.

When depression arrives, the game changes.
Functioning decreases, attention turns inward, and the pain demands listening.
And here we find the first gift, the opportunity to meet our inner truth.

This is one of the deepest gifts of depression.
The ability to meet the painful truth without running away.
It is hard, but it is also an opportunity.

When a person experiences mild or moderate depression (not a dangerous state), they can say to themselves:
I am currently meeting my truth. I will try to hold it. I will stay with it. If needed, I will cry. If needed, I will stay in bed for a few more hours. I am going to meet myself. I am going to meet pains I could never meet any other way.

This is a gift, eventually. Because such a statement changes the entire resistance pattern.
Instead of fighting, I allow.
I let the tears come. I let myself fold. I take care of myself. I allow myself to work less, handle less, save fewer people. I allow myself to grieve, even if I do not know exactly what for.
I allow myself to stop being responsible for things I do not need to be responsible for.
Because now is the time to meet my truth.

If I do not make space for this during depression, depression crushes me, and I suffer for nothing.
And when the suffering is meaningless, it leaves a scar, and I continue to fear depression.
And when that happens, I also lose the lesson and the gift that depression carries.

So this is the first gift, the gift of inner truth.
And for this, we can thank depression,
because it brings us closer to parts of ourselves that we have distanced ourselves from, parts that influence us more than we realize.
And when we come close to them, learn them, listen, stop running,
we begin to heal.

When we emerge from depression, these parts will be less repressed and less controlling from behind the scenes.
On the contrary, they will become engines of growth, change and creativity.
Because at last, we will want to treat those stuck places directly, rather than continue running from them.

Self-Reflection Questions

(It is recommended to answer them in writing)

1. What kind of “truth” returns to you again and again throughout your life, even when you try to run away from it?

2. What do you think about the possibility that your depression might actually help you stop running away from your truth?

3. Is it possible that you are afraid to release certain stories from your personal history, and therefore you are also afraid to “pause” with depression?

4. Depression invites you into a new “contract” with yourself — to become the one who courageously chases her truth, instead of the truth chasing her. What do you think about this possibility?

5. What do you think will happen when there is nothing left inside you to run away from?

Chapter 5: The Gift of Death and Rebirth

I want to begin with a clarification. There is something slightly confusing in this whole topic, and it will probably always remain a little confusing. It is something that requires patience, spaciousness, and a certain amount of trust in the process. What do I mean by that?

When we are already inside depression, when we are at the lowest point, when we are facing the pain and submerged in it, it is very difficult to see what I call here the gift of depression or the gifts of depression. When despair dominates, when pessimism takes over, when we cannot sense any light within ourselves or at the end of the tunnel, when both body and mind are heavy, it becomes almost impossible to recognize any gift.

It is much easier to understand these ideas from outside the depression. Of course, these teachings can support us even when we are inside it, but we should not expect immediate change. This is not magic. It is not a miracle potion. The true “magic” of life rarely happens in a single moment. It is the result of processes, and only at their end we may witness moments that feel magical. But they are always the outcome of work, movement, and time.

This is why there is great value in learning these ideas during calmer periods. When we are not submerged in pain, we have more capacity to understand, integrate, and prepare. Then, when we eventually return to those difficult places, we will arrive more ready, less frightened, and less resistant. This knowledge becomes valuable precisely for the darker moments, even though in those moments it is hardest to absorb anything new. So if you are reading this now while you are not in a particularly low state, that is wonderful. It helps you understand what you went through before, and it helps you prepare for the next time.

Because when we are inside depression, we cannot speak about gifts or about “things getting better.” We are inside the pain, and we need to be there. But even within the pain it is essential to remember something: this is temporary. And this is one of the greatest gifts of this course, the understanding that depression, like any intense emotional experience, creates an illusion of permanence. It makes us believe that it will never end, that nothing will change, that this is how things will remain forever. But it is an illusion. Everything passes. And time, when we learn to work with it in harmony, works in our favor.

In this part of the course we ask: what is the gift that hides within depression? I speak here of three major gifts, and Chapter Five focuses on one of the most central among them: the gift of death and rebirth.

This is a deeply significant gift. I truly believe that a person cannot grow, cannot change for the better, cannot realize themselves or reach meaningful places without passing through phases of falling, of depression, of crisis. This is part of the design. Part of the path. Sometimes we need a crisis in order to recharge, to transform, to gain new tools. And those tools cannot be acquired without a breakdown.

There are many psychological reasons for this. At times a person simply cannot change unless the older parts of themselves “die.” If we can understand, at least in the moments when we are not drowning in depression, that every crisis carries value, that there is meaning behind it, that it holds potential for inner contribution, then when we experience the crisis itself, it will still be painful, but less threatening. We may even feel a sense of meaning within it, a feeling that something important is happening, that there is inherent value in the moment. Not only collapse, but transformation.

The gift of death and rebirth is a beautiful expression of this reality. Deep processes of transformation, genuine processes of change, often look and feel like death. Something inside us breaks down. The personality itself undergoes a kind of dismantling, and it hurts. Yet in that dismantling there is also cleansing. There is a letting go of patterns, masks, and internal structures that no longer serve us.

Every meaningful change includes moments that feel like death: loss, endings, and farewells. And indeed, it is an ending. It is a symbolic death of what is no longer needed. Things that once defined us, habits that shaped us, strategies that once protected us but have long stopped helping us, all of these must “die” so that something new can emerge.

There is no way to bypass this. Not only is there no way to bypass it, but once we complete this phase of death and rebirth, a sense of gain appears. A feeling of gratitude. A feeling that real positive change occurred. The inner image of ourselves becomes renewed, strengthened. We become less afraid of depression because we can see, through our own experience, how much we grew. How we rose. How insights and capacities appeared that we did not have before. We realize that all of this had value, that it was a process of healing and renewal.

Yes, renewal sometimes includes collapse. It is necessary in order to release what has been attached to us for far too long. The process of releasing, breaking down, and cleansing often feels like death. Those parts of us that once defined our identity, those that operated from fear, from pleasing others, from the need to be “good,” begin to fall away. We fear that without them we will not be loved, that we will not be ourselves. It feels tragic, but it is part of the path of growth. They have simply completed their role.

A large part of depression is the resistance to this change. We hold tightly to what is trying to be released, and the pain is the signal of this holding. When we learn to loosen our grip, not to fight the process, not to panic, we discover that inside the pain something is already being born.

Yes, it hurts. But it also gives birth.

When we allow ourselves to rest, to cry, to pause, to understand that we are in the tunnel of this birth, we can pass through it. At the beginning there is a kind of “death” there, but it is symbolic, emotional, and spiritual. And at its end, we emerge into something new.

Into a place where we no longer need what once burdened us.
Into a place where we are lighter, clearer, and sometimes simply more whole.

What we experience as depression is often exactly this: an internal transition of transformation. And when we go through it, we have given ourselves a gift.

And who gave us this gift?
In truth, the depression itself.

Even more than that, there are people who struggle to enter depression at all. It is very hard for them to “die” and be reborn. They hold on, resist, and prevent themselves from undergoing the process. But those who do go through it, although they suffer greatly, also experience release, cleansing, and healing.

And in the end, it is worth everything, especially if we learn to treat ourselves with love, compassion, and patience. If we understand that depression is not an enemy but a doorway, a doorway through which we release, cleanse, and are born again.

Self-Reflection Questions 

(It is recommended to answer them in writing)

1. How do you feel about the expression “death and rebirth”?

2. Does it seem reasonable to you that depression might lead you into such a dramatic inner process?

3. Have you ever experienced, on a psychological level, processes that felt similar to “death and rebirth”?

4. Which aspects of your life do you find difficult to release, to let “die,” so that you may become lighter and more vital?

5. Birth is usually associated with pain of some sort. Are you willing to move through your authentic pains in order to be reborn through them?

Chapter 6: Reaching a State Where the Pains of Life Become Less Frightening and More Instructive

Before I begin, it is important for me to emphasize the deeper significance of this process, both personally and collectively. Depression is one of the most threatening experiences for individuals, personally, within families, and in society as a whole. We have already discussed why it is so frightening, mainly because it evokes an association with something we fear deeply and with something we do not address sufficiently as a culture, the fear of death.

One of the great benefits of shifting our understanding of depression, especially in most cases of mild or moderate depression, which are the types most people experience, is a gift that creates a bridge between the experience of life and the fear of death. It invites us to see death as part of the continuum of life, of growth, and of our existence, rather than as a frightening and disconnected component.

When a person is less afraid of death, they can begin to explore the conflicts connected to it, to reflect, to ask questions, and to approach their pain. They can grow from it and benefit from it. Otherwise, they remain chased by it, contracted, unable to expand. Quite often, the very places that seem “dark”, “final”, or “anti life” are actually the parts that are missing from the puzzle of living a fuller, more joyful, healthier life. And precisely there, depression can be a gift.

From here we move to the core of this chapter, reaching a state where the pains of life are less frightening and more instructive.
The instinctive reaction to pain, both animalistic and childlike, is avoidance. This makes sense and is part of our survival, pain marks a boundary, a signal of “not there”. On another level, pain represents unresolved trauma and emotional residues, experiences we could not bear in the past, which remained imprinted in us and accumulated into a series of quiet traumas. There is fear in approaching them, because it hurts, and the evolutionary avoidance mechanism operates here as well.

But for a person who is growing and developing, this avoidance can shift from being a useful boundary into becoming an obstacle. It becomes a limitation on growth, a cause of larger pains, addictions, stagnation, difficulties in self fulfillment, and interpersonal and relational problems. What was once appropriate to avoid is now the very thing we must approach, break down, and dissolve, because we are no longer who we were. In the places where we seek freedom, independence, creativity, and fulfillment, we must touch the pain. We must see that it is no longer what it used to be, and discover that we are fully capable of moving through it.

When we do this, our confidence in our ability to cope grows. We separate from chronic conflicts and begin to live in a space where the possibility of depression, or in some sense “death”, becomes less frightening and less dominant. This opens more room for us to achieve more, both spiritually and practically, because there are fewer weights we continue to carry.

The gift of depression here is the ability to reach a state where the pains of life are less frightening and more instructive. We not only stop fearing pain, we learn to seek it, transform it, and grow from it. Pain becomes the “organic compost” that enriches our soil, without it, we cannot grow.

The real work with pain is not about “removing” it. That was, for many years, a mistaken assumption in various therapeutic approaches, to “eliminate the pain”. If we want to connect spirit and matter and find deeper meaning, we must see pain as a guide for transformation, a tool for development, a learning challenge. When I go through the pain, study it, recognize the place of the burn, and precisely there choose to create, act courageously, initiate something new, then I have earned the pain, and that is the correct way to heal it. Any other approach will eventually bring the pain back.

Pain waits for us inside. It waits for us to approach, to experience it bravely, and to hold ourselves there. Not to panic when it arrives, but to stay with it, to listen, to speak, to comfort ourselves, to give space and patience. Then, slowly, we begin to feel how the energy inside the pain is inviting us to rise and do something with it, to earn the pain, to write a poem or a book from within it, to go for a walk, to initiate something new, to meet people, to open a brave conversation. This is the essential thing to do with pain. Then it does not chase us, because it has fulfilled its purpose, and we do not fear it, because we understand that when it arrives, we have received an invitation to grow.

Instead of the initial avoidance, or after it, we pause and say, I enter. I open the door to the place I was afraid of, and I walk in, equipped with the tools of self love, creativity, courage, hope, support, maturity, and readiness. I invite the pain for a while, not as an act of masochism or self sacrifice, but so that I can hold, listen, embrace with courage, and ask it, what do you want me to do, new, different, initiatory?

When such a dialogue forms, when a new contract with pain takes shape, it begins to dissolve. And quietly, very quietly, it also ushers us toward a more mature relationship between our life and the reality of death. We will speak about that later. For now, the seeds have been planted for another one of the gifts of depression.

Self-Reflection Questions 

(preferably answer in writing)

1. What are the first five associations that come to your mind when you hear the expression “emotional pain”?
2. What do you think will happen when the pains of life shift, for you, from something threatening into something that invites work and healing?
3. Do you have an example of a pain from your past that you managed to release in a real and meaningful way?
4. Can you name a pain that, for you, has not yet transformed into a “beneficial learning process”?
5. Do you agree that your next depressive episode may allow you to meet pains that you have not yet been able to dissolve and release? What do you think will happen afterward?

Chapter 7: Depression Is Not Only an Invitation, It Is Also a Form of Inner Command

We are progressing slowly, step by step.
The concept at the center of this chapter is a challenging one, and it is especially difficult to accept it when we are inside the experience of depression itself. Yet this concept continues to appear here, it continues to seep in, it continues to be expressed from different angles, so that at least part of the experience that accompanies depression, which is mostly painful and frustrating, may include even a small point of light. A single spark within the darkness, within the heaviness, within the hopelessness and discouragement. A spark that ensures that depression is not everything we experience in that moment.

When I speak about optimism, I do not mean a worldview that insists that everything is fine or that everything will be fine. For me, optimism means something else entirely, an honest recognition of difficulties, darkness, danger and the possibility of future failure, alongside the ability to see even tiny points of light. The ability to acknowledge that there are also good scenarios, even if they are not the dominant ones. This is what optimism means to me.

The purpose of this course is to give us tools that allow us to see those points of light even within the space of depression. Because I believe that depression, when approached correctly, is actually a kind of birth canal. And like many birth canals, it contains pain, effort, resistance, grief and a sense of parting. All of these are present and none of them can be bypassed. We undergo a powerful inner cleansing process. Many pains that were held inside and kept sealed for years suddenly rise to the surface at once. It is painful, intense and not simple at all. But it has purpose. This purpose is what I call the gift of depression.

However, this purpose remains hidden from us if we only feel bad about being depressed. If we fail to sense that there is meaning inside the process. If we do not notice the spark of possibility that says, there is a gift here, and I can learn how to receive it. This is why we are here. We are not here to generate the gift, the gift already exists. The question is whether we are willing to receive it, and whether we adapt ourselves to the way in which depression can become a gift. If instead we resist, fight and immediately demand relief, if we look for a magic solution that will instantly eliminate the pain, we may unintentionally interrupt the deeper process, the internal transformation that depression is trying to initiate.

Chapter Seven opens the third part of the book, which asks the question, is depression an invitation to a new and different healing journey? I can say yes two hundred times, but the real goal is not to hear it, but to experience it. And this does indeed happen by itself, if we allow it to happen and if we do not interfere with the process. This is the skill. And it is not a simple skill. It is not simple to move through layers of exaggerated self criticism, self disappointment, shame, frustration, losses and fear. It is not simple to cope with the less pleasant reactions of people around us. It is not simple to see all of this as a gift. This is the challenge.

But anyone who can absorb even a small part of the tools presented here, and allow them to slowly become part of them, will be able to let their depression turn into a gift.

Chapter Seven states the following: depression is not only an invitation, it is also a form of inner command.

We know this very well. We do not want depression. We do not want interruption in our life routine. We do not want reduced functioning. We do not want heaviness, pessimism or despair. We do not want to lose our sense of enjoyment. We do not want to burden those we love. We do not want any of it. When depression arrives, it comes against our will. It is imposed on us.

But by whom is it imposed?
By us.
By our own inner system.
The same system that manages our internal world and has been trying for a long time to guide us toward change through gentler methods, through hints, signals, subtle invitations and small shifts. It tried to get us to pause for a moment, to look inside, to notice what needed to change. But we did not listen. We managed to suppress it. We ignored it.

And when the gentle methods stop working, the inner system uses its stronger tool. It says, this cannot continue. I am stopping the system. I am bringing everything down so that it can be rebuilt. This is not punishment. It is an internal act of restoration.

This is why depression is not only an invitation, it is also a form of inner command. It comes at the point when our avoidance has become too strong, and the inner system must use its most powerful tool in order to protect us.

When we respond to this command with anger, resistance or denial, when we try to fight it, run away from it, or end it as quickly as possible, the command becomes heavier. The internal system will continue its work, but in a more difficult way, because we are resisting the very process meant to help us.

But when we understand that this command is an expression of inner necessity, and that it exists for our benefit, something else becomes possible, we can listen. We can understand that this moment is here in order to force us to stop, to rest, to cry, to reduce effort, to step back from things that exhausted us, to look honestly at our fears, at our relationships, at our habits, at the places in our life that have been weighing us down. The inner system has decided that the old way is no longer viable.

So this is not only an invitation, or not solely an invitation, it is also a command.

Our task is not to meet that command with defiance or rage. Because in truth, we are the ones who brought ourselves to this point. And within that realization is a great deal of wisdom.

Our task is to listen to the command, to ask ourselves why we needed such a powerful message, and to begin to discover how we can assist this inner command in becoming, with time, a meaningful and transformative gift.

Self-Reflection Questions  

(preferably answer in writing)

1. Does the expression “inner command” evoke in you a sense of discomfort at first thought?
2. Can the expression “inner command” also evoke pleasant or expansive feelings when you think about it a second time?
3. Are you comfortable with the possibility that your psyche has “plans” you are not fully aware of?
4. Are you willing to rebuild your relationship with the deeper parts of yourself, even when it means they may guide you toward places that initially feel difficult or unpleasant? Please elaborate.
5. What, in your opinion, is your depression inviting you to change in your life?

Chapter 8: The Journey Begins with Recognizing Accumulated Fatigue and Exhaustion

Chapter Eight is the second chapter in Part Three, a section that asks whether depression can be an invitation to a new and different healing journey. Anyone who has been following this material already knows that I believe the answer is yes. Yet saying that depression is an invitation is not enough. Many people do not experience depression as any kind of journey at all. They experience it only as a period of pain, heaviness and disruption, and all they want is for it to end so they can return to how things were before. At the same time there are people perhaps some of them are watching this material right now who are open to considering a different possibility. They understand that depression is indeed difficult, painful and often agonizing, and that it comes with losses and with a price, yet they can also recognize that it holds the possibility of change. It holds the possibility of transformation. It holds the possibility of healing parts of the self that were stuck for a long time.

The way we choose to relate to this period, if and when we enter it, determines much of its meaning. Within the complexity of feelings and interpretations, within the heaviness and the emotional reactions, we can keep a small place inside us that remembers there is also a gift here. It is not a simple gift and it is not a pleasant one, yet it is still a gift. The ability to remember this is an inner point of choice, and it is for this point of choice that I created this program, so that people may see that even inside depression they still retain a measure of inner agency, even if very small.

The previous chapter explored the idea that depression is not only an invitation but also a kind of inner command. It is as if the deeper system within us reaches the conclusion that there is no other option and that it must intervene. Chapter Eight adds another dimension. It presents an idea that should be almost self-evident, almost banal, yet in practice most people fail to connect it to their lived experience and therefore do not grasp its importance. Without understanding this, depression can hardly ever become a gift.

The idea is simple: the journey begins with recognizing accumulated fatigue and exhaustion.

Human beings are capable, over many years and in many contexts, of doing things that do not truly serve them. We are capable of exhausting ourselves far beyond what is necessary or healthy. We are capable of tiring ourselves day after day and of ignoring it completely. This can happen because of social norms, pressures, expectations, misunderstandings, low self-love or cultural ideas about what a “proper” life should look like. We have the capacity to stretch our emotional and physical system to its limits and sometimes beyond them.

This is one of the paradoxes of being human: the same intelligence that allows us to create and evolve can also lead us toward our own deterioration. The potential exists in both directions.

One of the most essential responsibilities a person has toward themselves is the ability to regulate their efforts, to reduce involvement in situations that do not nourish or support them, and to shape a life built on relationships, environments and tasks that strengthen and balance them rather than drain them.

When depression appears in a significant way, when it shows up as a collapse, a fall, a breakdown of functioning, a loss of motivation, a loss of joy, a drop in appetite, sleep disturbances, pessimism or crying spells, it is almost always a direct result of a long period of accumulated fatigue and accumulated exhaustion. These were present long before the depression arrived. They built up slowly and quietly. Sometimes the person has no awareness of them at all.

It is not necessarily related to the number of hours worked. A person might not work excessive hours, yet they might work in a job that fundamentally does not suit them. The emotional effort required to pretend, to force the self to adjust to something that is not aligned with them, creates deep exhaustion. In other situations the exhaustion is not related to work at all but to ongoing internal or familial tension which remains unspoken, unaddressed and therefore unchanged. Such situations create emotional friction that becomes chronic.

Over time these patterns place a person in a state of ongoing inner damage, even if they do not recognize it as such. Fatigue accumulates. Exhaustion accumulates. If this is not noticed or tended to, the deeper system will activate an emergency mechanism.

One of those mechanisms is depression.

Depression stops or reduces engagement with the very things that create exhaustion. In this sense it is indeed a gift. But it is not an easy gift to accept.

A person may feel angry that their ability to “continue” has been taken from them. Yet often they do not realize what they are continuing. In many cases they are continuing to harm themselves. They have become accustomed to it. It has become part of their identity. They do not see that the inner system is trying to protect them.

Depression says: this cannot go on. For your sake. We stop now.

This sudden stop may lead to an inability to work, to create or to communicate as before. The shift is sharp and sometimes painful, but it emerges from a simple truth: the inner reserves have run out.

When depression arrives there is not enough energy left to keep adjusting to environments that do not fit the person. There is no strength left for inner or outer performance. There is no energy to rise above a reality that is not good for them. In that sense depression is a release.

But for that release to become a gift we must be willing to see what came before the depression: the accumulated fatigue, the deepening exhaustion, the intuition that we ignored, the places where we abandoned ourselves.

Depression functions as a pause. It creates a kind of unplanned vacation. Not a chosen one, but still a vacation.

Suddenly there is time to reflect.

This is the time to ask what was excessive, what was unsuitable, what was exaggerated, where we allowed pain to continue, where we lived in environments that drained us, and what excuses we told ourselves in order to keep going.

Depression invites us to conduct an inner review.

It tells us to rest, to stop, to lie down, to cry if needed, to spend more time in nature, to watch quiet films, to lower demands, to stop pleasing, to stop impressing, to stop pushing.

It tells us to return inward.

Because the psyche is tired. Deeply tired. It needs a quiet space.

That space can be a place of suffering, but it can also be the place where we begin to realize that something good is happening beneath the surface. Something meaningful is being prepared. Perhaps a gift is forming. Perhaps it is time to listen.

Self-reflection questions

(preferably answered in writing)

1. Which areas in your life currently serve as primary sources of fatigue and exhaustion?

2. To what extent do you give regular attention to signs of exhaustion and weariness in your life?

3. What do you think causes you, at times, to ignore early signals of fatigue or emotional overload?

4. What might you need to let go of, or what might be wise for you to reduce, in order to lessen emotional exhaustion and inner fatigue?

5. And once again, the question that needs to be asked many times…
   What do you believe your depression is inviting you to change in your life?

Chapter 9: The Journey Contains Change, and a Person Must Make a Choice

Chapter 9 concludes Part Three, which centers on a difficult question. It is a question that may sound rhetorical, yet becomes anything but simple when someone is inside a depressive episode. Even if we intellectually understand, or at least suspect, that depression may contain a gift, this understanding does not make the experience any easier or lighter. Nothing about depression is obvious or effortless. To transform it into something meaningful demands inner work, patience and courage.

The process described in this program does not assume that people will listen to the lessons and immediately turn their depression into a gift. The process offers a possibility, a chance to meet the cascade of pain that depression brings and still derive something positive from it. But for this possibility to unfold, one must choose to walk through the difficult path rather than reach for quick fixes. There are no shortcuts. There are no magical solutions. What allows depression to become a birth canal rather than a point of collapse is the willingness to go through it, to listen deeply and to stay with what the psyche is asking for, even when it is challenging.

If the journey truly contains a gift, then it also contains change. This is a critical element. When something in our lives keeps appearing in a heavy, recurring and distressing form, it signals that something fundamental within us is not flowing well. If depression is the outcome of accumulated strain, long-term neglect, chronic misalignment or emotional exhaustion, then coming out of it will require a real change. Genuine change, internal change, not cosmetic adjustments.

The idea of change can sound inspiring and inviting from a distance. But in practice, meaningful change is hard. It requires leaving behind habits, comfort zones and familiar identities. The box we live in may be constricting, yet it is familiar, safe in its own way, and tied deeply to our sense of self. Stepping outside it asks for strength that cannot always be summoned immediately.

Depression is not the problem, it is the result of the problem. It is the product of emotional neglect, of ignoring our inner needs, of living patterns that no longer serve us, of too little self-love, and of carrying burdens we were never meant to carry for so long. At some point, the psyche says enough. It refuses to keep holding everything together with the same failing strategies. It collapses the system not to punish us, but to stop us, because something essential cannot continue this way.

Here lies the gift. Depression provides access to an inner space we could not reach earlier. It brings us directly to the pattern we repeatedly fall into, the same pattern that eventually results in breakdown. Once we reach this core place, we gain the rare opportunity to choose differently.

Choice is not easy. Change is not simple. Often, real change does not begin with knowing what will come next. It begins with recognizing what must end. Sometimes our first clarity is not about the new direction, but about what we can no longer tolerate: a certain behavior, a certain role, a draining relationship, a familiar dynamic of silence, self-sacrifice or emotional overextension. We do not have to know the next step yet. It is enough to know what must be released.

For many people, this is the hardest part. It asks us to stop organizing our lives around the fear of disappointing others. It asks us to stop choosing discomfort for ourselves so that others will remain comfortable. And when we do not stop, the price becomes high. The psyche collapses under the weight. Depression becomes the predictable outcome.

The invitation of depression is to identify the places where we repeatedly bent ourselves, cooperated against our truth, silenced our voice or tolerated what harmed us. These places are the root. They are where the most necessary change will begin.

Every major change begins with the courage to say no. No to what hurts. No to what drains. No to the roles we perform only out of guilt or habit. No to the social scripts that ask us to be endlessly strong or endlessly available. It may be uncomfortable. It may cause reactions among others. But the alternative is living in a cycle that leads again and again to collapse.

This is the moment of choice. Depression places it before us with clarity. The question becomes, do I continue the path that leads me repeatedly into exhaustion and breakdown, or do I choose a path that may be unfamiliar, but is healthier, truer and more aligned with who I am becoming. This is not a theoretical choice. It appears in the lived experience of a person who realizes they cannot continue as before.

In this ninth chapter, one message becomes clear: the journey contains change, and a person must make that choice. It is not an easy choice. It may be painful, complex and disruptive. But it is the choice that allows depression to transform from an emotional collapse into a meaningful turning point. It is the choice that enables healing.

A person who begins to choose this new direction, even in small steps, even slowly, will gradually discover that depression is not only a fall but also a pivot. They will see that the people who can walk with them through the change are the ones who belong in their life, while those who cannot may need to be given more distance. Because to continue giving to others in a healthy way, one must first ensure psychological wellbeing. Without it, we cannot truly contribute or be present for anyone.

In the deepest sense, this is one of the most profound gifts that depression can ultimately bring: the possibility to build a life with less depression in the future, and with more growth, more authenticity and more inner truth.

Reflective Questions
(preferably answered in writing)

1. What is the most significant inner change you have experienced recently?

2. What is one change you truly hope will take place in your life in the coming months?

3. What is one change you truly hope will take place in your life in the coming years?

4. Which changes have tried to enter your life, yet you were unable to fully allow them to happen?

5. Are you aware that the main force that will lead you toward positive change is your own choice, and that many times it is not easy at all to make the right choice? Please elaborate.

Chapter 22: Depression is the result of our escape from ourselves

Chapter 22 opens Part 8, which includes Chapters 22, 23, and 24. This part explores the question of whether we have been putting on an act for too long until depression finally arrives. In my view, the answer is yes. I will expand on this, but we can already say that a significant portion of our lifestyle is based on a considerable degree of pretending, on pushing aside essential parts of who we are. It is no coincidence that many people are drawn to workshops, retreats, and tools that allow them, even for a short while, to be more authentic and more honest with themselves, to live in closer alignment between who they are and what they actually feel. This is not simple, yet when the gap becomes too wide, an inner imbalance begins to build and grow until it demands to break through. At a certain point, when the body and the psyche feel that there is no other choice, depression becomes a tool that tries to restore a lost balance.

When we understand this, it becomes easier to see depression as a mirror of the way we have been living our lives. It is a sign, a signal, a warning that points to a possible deeper deterioration if we do not pay attention to the places where we have drifted away from ourselves. Depression is not a failure. It is a warning light that says it is time to stop pretending. Depression, which at first appears inside, eventually insists on being seen on the outside as well. It forces us to be real, to reveal what can no longer remain behind the scenes. This moment of exposure can also become a moment of healing. This too is part of the gift of depression.

The central idea of Chapter 22 is that depression is born out of excessive escape from ourselves. Many times we fantasize about freedom, about a break from pressure, about getting away from the system, from the “matrix,” from burdens and obligations. We long to escape to quiet, to a holiday, to a workshop, to the desert, to some pause in which we can take off our masks and feel, even for a moment, who we truly are. We believe we are doing this in order to be free. Yet the paradox is that in our daily life we are already in a state of ongoing escape. In fact, when we ask for “a bit of freedom,” we are often asking for a short break from our own pattern of running away.

It is worth noticing the subtle connection between the words “escape” and “choice.” The choices we make, the ones that later lead us into depression, are often not genuine choices that express our healthy desires or our inner truth. They are choices of escape. We escape from facing pain, from post traumatic residues, from pressures, anxieties, conflicts, and disharmonies we do not know how to handle. Since we do not know how to treat them, we flee. Slowly, a convincing routine is built, a routine that looks “reasonable.” We fulfill expectations, compare ourselves to others, speak their language, but in practice we distance ourselves from our own being.

On the social level, much of the communication between people happens on this ground of escape. Many use patterns of hiding and putting on masks. Those who seem to truly choose, who are connected to themselves and dare to follow their inner voice, are often seen as strange, eccentric, different. Not “normal.” Yet what is normality if not following the norm, the majority.

Here we can ask: do we really want to be like the majority. A majority that may be moving through life on automatic pilot, carried by a current of overload, pretense, and escape from truth. A majority that approaches its own life with deep and often unconscious fatigue. It is worth asking whether we truly wish to live this way.

When we keep running away again and again, another force eventually awakens inside us, a healing force. It rises from within and says “enough.” Enough with running away. There are too many pains that were never attended to, too many struggles that did not receive a place. The body and the psyche understand that we cannot keep going like this, and at times depression is the mechanism that initiates the necessary stop. It is a kind of opportunity that cannot be avoided.

It is true that even when depression arrives, we can still try to escape. Many rush to look for a quick solution, a pill or method that will erase the pain so that they can “get back to normal.” Sometimes that is indeed necessary and understandable, yet it is important to see the price. Every immediate attempt to make depression disappear is, at some level, a continuation of the same movement of escape, a continuation of ignoring the signals that the psyche is sending.

Depression invites us to stop. It invites us to cry, to feel, to connect with the pain, to stop chasing. It also reminds us that even if we try to run away, the pain travels with us. No matter where we go, it is there, because it is part of us. It is not an enemy or a foreign body. It is part of our story, part of our history, part of who we are.

When we recognize that escape is woven into our way of life, we can begin to work differently. We can start to bring more true choice and less escape. This is real inner work and requires courage. Sometimes depression is the initial push that helps us move toward a life with more awareness, more choice, more truth. Yet all of this begins with an honest recognition: escape was there, and it can no longer be allowed to rule us.

If depression has arrived, it has come to teach, to guide, to focus, and to heal. It can be a gift, for those who are willing to see it that way.

Questions for self-reflection
It is recommended to answer in writing:

1. What are you running away from too much lately, in your view.

2. What did you used to run away from in the past until you learned to face it in a better way.

3. If you were forced to slow down the pace of your life significantly, what are you afraid might happen.

4. What is currently the most neglected area in your life. This is not a judgmental question, it is an invitation to examine.

5. Why do you think you tend to neglect this area or similar areas in your life.

Chapter 23: Even if we do not yet know what truth was hidden – we are on our way to it

Chapter 23 is one of the tender and profound chapters in this journey. It creates a subtle link between emotional reflection, spiritual reflection, and the gift of depression. It brings the concept of choice back to the center of the stage. In the previous chapter I spoke about the distinction between escape and choice, and here choice becomes tangible, alive, and felt.

The gift of depression is not received passively. We choose it. In order to receive the gift of depression we need to be willing to pass through the pain, to stay with it, to feel it, and not to immediately flee from it. We are asked not to turn ourselves into victims, not to create from within the pain a constant identity of a miserable or pitiful person, but rather to hold the pain gently and responsibly. This is a courageous choice. It is a choice to see depression as a journey, as a path, as a process. It can be experienced as an inner workshop, a retreat, a demanding yet meaningful trip toward a new and better place, without any guarantee in advance where exactly we will arrive. It is a spiritual choice that involves trust, intuition, and the ability to walk on a path that is not fully clear. Often this choice appears only after a few rounds in which we tried shorter or easier routes and discovered that they do not work.

The central message of Chapter 23 is that even if we do not yet know what truth has been hidden inside us, just walking through the process of depression is already a movement in its direction. In this part, Part 8, we are asking whether we put on an act for too long until depression arrives. The underlying assumption is that we often do. Every returning depression tells us that a certain emotional truth inside us is significant and cannot be safely buried any longer. It is too important. It is crucial to our development and to the continuation of our path. It is like a large roadblock that will not allow us to pass until we face it. As long as we do not deal with it, we cannot truly move forward. We try to go around it, to avoid it, to ignore it, to fight it, to dig under it, yet it remains. It belongs to us, and therefore only intimacy with it can begin to dissolve it.

To pass through this inner barrier we have to approach it. We need to come close, to touch it, to listen, to ask why it is there. Only from genuine closeness and gentle contact does the block start to soften. This is one of the places where the gift of depression appears in full force. If we agree to walk the way it offers us, there is a truth waiting ahead. A truth we spent a long time pushing back, concealing, holding behind the scenes from shame, fear, social conventions, or lack of honesty with ourselves. This truth is seeking release. When it finally comes out, we discover that it is not as terrifying as we imagined. The sky does not fall, and there is no earthquake. On the contrary, there is healing. There is creation. There is a deep sense of relief.

Often, the fear of truth is actually the fear of the change that this truth is asking for. The psyche needs that change, yet we hold it inside out of fear. Deep down we know what that change is. We feel it on an inner, spiritual level even if we do not define it intellectually. At the same time we continue to put on an act, to run, to swirl inside the social race, to behave “like everyone else.” We buy, we participate, we go to all the “musts.” We obey habits, expectations, and norms until we lose our inner uniqueness. At some point we forget that we are in flight.

Then depression comes. On the emotional level it does not allow us to continue being like everyone else. It weighs us down, reduces desire, and takes away motivations that previously seemed obvious. It disrupts our participation in collective enthusiasm that is not really ours. It blocks action that is driven by surrender or an urge to please. It neutralizes our ability to keep putting on a show. It pulls us aside and grants us a forced break from the social performance in which most of us usually take part.

And sometimes we do not even know what our psyche actually wants. We do not know which situations would suit us, which relationships would nourish us, or which choices would take us to more alive places. All of that remains hidden because we joined the stream. Depression forces us out of that stream, asks us to stop identifying with it blindly, and guides us back toward ourselves.

In such a place we can allow the gift of depression to act as a guide. It can lead us along a path that is not easy, yet is full of honesty. Even if it makes us appear different, less productive, less “nice,” and less “involved.” These are natural prices of this process.

Beyond all that, however, a truth is waiting. A truth that has been hidden for a long time. A sweet truth. A truth that releases the heavy burden of having to hold, suppress, and deny. A truth that lets us say to ourselves and to the world who we really are. A truth that frees us from the fear of being exposed. Even if we do not yet know exactly what this truth is, approaching it is part of the journey. And this is a precious gift.

Only those who are willing to see depression as a gift, and who are willing to keep going, will be able to reach this truth.

Questions for self-reflection
It is recommended to answer in writing:

1. Are you willing to meet quiet, authentic pains that you have always tended to run away from.

2. Are you willing to stay with your pain and give yourself a hand without going anywhere, at least for a while.

3. Are you willing to listen to the truth that will arise from within, without rushing to fix anything or to do anything, simply to listen.

4. Has it ever happened that a crisis or a forced pause in your life helped you understand something important about yourself.

5. In which areas of your life do you still feel that you must put on an act more than you would like, in your view.

Chapter 24: Discovering our pretence is a painful and difficult process – yet it is possible

Chapter 24 is the third chapter in Part 8, the part that asks whether we have been putting on an act for too long until depression arrives. In my view the answer is yes. This is an energetic process that is almost unavoidable. In one person it may lead to depression, in another to a different kind of crisis, in family life, at work, in relationships, finances, or health. Every person, from time to time, goes through some crisis whose role is to stop everything, open matters anew, and show us that something in our life has been unfolding for a long time in a way that does not match our true needs for growth and development.

I believe that ongoing pretence creates a deep lack of harmony. We become disconnected from our important feelings, sometimes without even noticing. For good reasons, from a survival standpoint, we had to push parts of ourselves away, to hide them, and even to forget them. Depression comes to help us see this. It invites us to corrections, to refinement, to peeling away masks, so that we can heal ourselves and return to a warmer, more honest connection with our own essence. This is a significant part of the gift of depression. It is a gift that stabilizes us, a gift that allows growth, a gift that broadens our sense of satisfaction and clarifies our priorities.

Chapter 24 states: discovering our pretence is a painful and difficult process, yet it is possible. If it had been easy, we would have done it on our own long ago. We would get up in the morning and take off our masks. We would walk the world as we truly are. However, our masks were built over years for deep, legitimate, and sometimes vital reasons. We needed them. We needed to hide from parts of ourselves. We needed to lie to ourselves a little in order to keep functioning. We needed to please in places where we should not necessarily have done so. We needed to let go of authentic impulses and genuine desires because we thought they were not important enough, not practical enough, not acceptable enough, or that we were simply not worthy of them.

Over the years, inner decisions formed within us, some conscious and some not, and together they became an entire inner system of pretence. They include decisions about who we are, what “the right way” to live is, and how we are supposed to appear in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. Under these decisions lie deep pains that we did not have the strength to carry. They were too hard, too traumatic, too confusing, and so we moved them aside. When depression arrives, it invites us to see all that was pushed away. It is clear that this is painful.

It is a process of meeting the “monsters” within us, those inner pains that we locked behind the door. This is why the pain of depression matters, because it points exactly to the places we need to touch. There is a big difference between experiencing pain as a stage on which we display a performance of helplessness and despair, and experiencing it from a place of responsibility. I may share my pain with close people, but I do not throw it on them to carry for me. It is mine. It is part of my story. I meet it not in order to receive pity, but in order to come closer to myself.

When I am able to remain within my pain without judging it, without apologizing for its existence, and without trying to persuade it to disappear quickly, an internal cleansing process begins. The locked inner “demons” start rising to the surface, not necessarily in clear words, but through waves of sadness, tears, fatigue, and changing inner states. Sometimes entire systems of beliefs and illusions begin to break apart. Sometimes we suddenly see clearly things that were easier to repress.

During such times, regret can arise, longing, new insights. At times there is a deep sense of sorrow. At times there is no clear conclusion, only a general feeling of heaviness. Yet all of this is part of the process. The masks begin to crumble. The things we held behind the scenes are exposed. We can no longer run away from them. This is good. This is necessary.

Within this process we must remember not to panic. Not to be terrified when the pain becomes intense. The pain is strong, therefore the body asks for rest, lying down, quiet, music, simple presence. These are simple yet wise tools for staying with the pain instead of escaping from it. Sometimes we try to move the pain quickly onto others through constant conversations or emotional dramas, but this can be another escape. The pain of depression is ours. We created it and accumulated it, and now it asks us to deal with it from within.

Then something very beautiful can happen. When a person allows themselves to be inside the pain, to breathe into it, to listen to it and give it time, the pain passes. It always passes for a while, and perhaps returns, and then passes again. This movement is a movement of healing, just like waves of the sea.

When we practice staying with the pain, we cultivate a kind of courage that is among the most important in human life, the emotional courage to be with ourselves. This kind of courage leads to change. When the pain recedes, not only has it passed, something in us has changed. A part inside us begins to be born again. As with any birth, there is pain.

Therefore it is worth asking ourselves whether we are willing to see depression as an invitation to a process of birth. If our answer is yes, it can become a profound gift that reshapes our life.

Questions for self-reflection
It is recommended to answer in writing:

1. How do you feel about the sentence “the time has come to take off my masks.”

2. Do you feel ready to take off masks that in the past you did not even dare to admit existed.

3. Look as deeply as you can inside yourself. Which areas in your life already feel too exhausting for you.

4. If you had to choose one thing in your life to release in the near future, what would it be, and why.

5. Complete the sentence: “On the day I learn to stop running away from my own truth, I will probably discover that…”.

Chapter 25: Depression has a significant role in relationships

Chapter 25 opens Part 9. This part contains three chapters and deals with a very sensitive topic: the fears that people around you have about depression, and the simple fact that these are, first of all, their fears, not necessarily the truth about you or about your experience. This is a critical part of understanding depression, perhaps one of the most critical of all. It is not only about what I feel, but also about how others respond to me, and how I feel in relation to them.

Many people who go through depression feel very uncomfortable in relation to their surroundings. There is often shame, embarrassment, difficulty talking about what is happening, difficulty explaining it, difficulty being inside this experience when the people around you are not in the same place. On top of that, the person in depression has to deal not only with what they feel, but also with other people’s fears about depression itself. You could say, and this connects to what I spoke about earlier in the course, that a large part of the public fear of depression is actually connected to fear of death. There is fear of a state where there is no functioning, where things stop, where something falls apart and it is not clear if and how it will return to what it was. There is quite a lot of social and environmental anxiety around depression, and this makes it harder for the person who is in the process, precisely at a time when they most need more space, more understanding, and at least a basic sense of belonging.

If a person has a physical illness, or has been in a car accident and is going through a period of physical rehabilitation, as long as the issue is “only the body”, there is usually not the same emotional weight of shame and stigma. People come to visit, bring flowers, ask how they are, offer some support, and then go back to their lives. When it comes to depression, it is often much harder for people to come visit, sit quietly, hold a hand or offer a hug. Not because it is impossible to do these things, but because encountering someone else’s depression forces them to meet their own fears. Something similar often happens with cancer, and with other conditions that are hard for society to digest. In many other situations, as long as there is no visible threat to life or to mental stability, communication can continue “as usual” and the person is still seen as a natural part of the social space. When the issue is depression, or cancer, or another deep emotional struggle, something in social acceptance begins to crack, and a problem appears.

We want to work with this problem, because depression is potentially a gift, and if we do not manage to relate to it as a gift, it can remain mainly as a painful damage. The gift of depression does not stop with the person who is going through it. It can become a gift for the people around them, for the family, for a couple relationship, for a circle of friends, for close social systems. This is where Chapter 25 comes in. It looks at the significant role that depression can play within relationships.

Depression can distance people from one another and in some cases even break relationships apart. It can intensify problems that were already present in the relationship, and it can bring to the surface cracks that used to be hidden and are now exposed in a sharper and more painful way. At the same time, depression can also reveal depth, loyalty and a capacity to hold and contain that were not fully visible before. In other words, depression can act as a mirror that shows us what is really happening in the relationship.

The central question here is: what does it say about a relationship if, within reasonable limits, it is able to contain the depression of one of its members. And what does it say about a relationship if it cannot contain it at all. This is not a moral judgment, and I am not saying that a relationship that cannot make room for depression is “bad”. I am suggesting that this is information. It tells us something important about the structure of the relationship, about its boundaries and about its depth.

The person who is in depression is indeed in a very particular inner landscape. This is their emotional world, their inner atmosphere, their current life journey. Inside that journey, they still very much want to feel that they belong. They want to feel like a friend, a partner, a family member, a colleague. They want to know that even if they can now give less, function less or participate less, they are still part of the circle. At the same time, it is understandable that the people around them also struggle. Suddenly a friend, a partner, a family member, or someone at work is immersed in sadness, pain, reduced functioning, crying, pessimism, loss of appetite, sleep difficulties. It is not easy to be near that. Sometimes they feel they are being “pulled” into something they do not understand, or they find that they are now standing face to face with their own small depressions, the ones they usually push aside.

This creates a potential crisis. And this crisis has a role. Out of this crisis, growth and closeness can emerge, even if at first things look like they are only falling apart. The crisis can bring a renewed understanding of what this relationship truly is. Are we really able to be there for one another in difficult times, or was our sense of closeness perhaps a kind of illusion. We may discover that the relationship is not as deep or as committed as we believed. As painful as that is, it is still important information. It may be that, before the depression, we lived inside this relationship with a lot of pretending, hiding and running away. Depression sometimes “forces” us to remove these masks, to stop denying what is not working, and to stop agreeing to compromises that are not right for us. The body and the psyche say: enough, we have accumulated too much pain, we cannot continue like this, we are shutting the system down.

If depression also reveals that we were not really as close and in tune as we had told ourselves, that too is part of its function. It tells us that we have been living inside a kind of inner lie, accumulating tensions that harmed us, and that this is part of what the depression is now bringing up to be seen.

On the other hand, there are relationships in which the depression of one person leads to a deepening of closeness. When one person is in intense and prolonged pain, and the other is willing to change together with them, to look for new ways to approach, to stay present and witness, sometimes whole new levels of intimacy and loyalty appear.

At the same time, it is important to say clearly: both sides have responsibility. The person in depression is not exempt from their part in the relationship. Depression does not give a license to behave in ways that make it almost impossible for a partner, a friend or a family member to stay in connection. If someone becomes very aggressive, very harsh, constantly impatient, or refuses any form of communication, they are also putting the relationship itself into question. This too is information, because it shows us what is truly happening in the connection.

For this reason, I do not suggest relating to the period of depression as a time in which you must “save relationships at any price”. Rather, I suggest seeing it as a time of observation. A time to ask honestly: who am I really in this relationship, and who is the other side. If we manage to go through the period together, the person who is not in depression also goes through a process of learning and healing in relation to their own pain. If we do not manage to go through it together, maybe that is a sign, a story that says something about us, about our limits and about what we are able, or not able, to give and receive.

This can be painful, frustrating and disappointing. And still, from a wider perspective, depression as a gift can give us knowledge we did not have before. Knowledge about the quality of our relationships, about the places where we were living in a lie, about the connections worth nurturing and those that perhaps need to be released. If an important relationship in your life enters into a period of depression, it is helpful to remember that the relationship itself is now entering a process. If it goes through it, it may become stronger and more authentic. If it does not, that too may be part of the gift of depression, showing us where it is time to say goodbye.

In any case, depression has a significant role in relationships. It is understandable that this possibility is frightening. Yet life, in its generosity, continues to give us opportunities to open our eyes, to wake up, to meet ourselves and others more deeply, and to make changes that may look very difficult at first, but later can be seen as another form of blessing.

Reflection questions
Preferably answer in writing:

1. How do people usually relate to you when you are in a low mood.

2. Are there people in your life who cannot bear to see you at a low point. Why do you think that is.

3. Are you aware that sometimes good relationships need periods of “energy drop” and quiet that did not exist before.

4. Do you feel afraid that if you become less active and less “functional”, important relationships in your life might be damaged.

5. Can you now imagine a scenario in which nothing bad happens to your relationships if you go through a depression, except in places where there was already a problem that needs to be addressed.

Chapter 26: Your depression is not a failure in family or social functioning, but a necessary balancing move

Before entering the body of this chapter, I want to emphasize two points. The first is that depression is not something that must be eradicated, eliminated or prevented at all costs. In many cases, depression is a balancing move that the psyche uses. When we relate to it properly, it can also become a gift.

The entire process of this course is meant to help you feel better in your relationship with depression. Whether you are currently going through it, whether you have been through it in the past, or whether you are afraid it may appear again in the future. The goal is not to promise that depression will never return. In the way we live today, it is quite likely that there will be periods in the future in which the psyche will again want to stop everything, to do a kind of reset, to lower the main switch, to halt the race and begin something anew. This is not a war to the death against depression. It is a path of learning how to live with the phenomenon, how to understand it, and how to see in it a doorway to something larger and more accurate in our lives.

What this process can give you for the future is the knowledge that depression is a natural phenomenon that can occur, and that when it does occur, you have mental and emotional tools that can help you work with it. You can pass through it, listen to it, understand what it is asking for, and grow with it.

This brings us to Chapter 26. This is the second chapter in Part 9, the part that deals with the fears that the environment has about depression. It is important to remember that these fears belong to the environment. They are not an ultimate truth. It will not always be helpful for someone who is in depression to try hard to calm everyone else, to satisfy their expectations, or to behave according to what others think “must” be done. Their fears are theirs. They are allowed to be afraid, yet it is crucial to keep things in proportion: the depression is yours, the fears are theirs. We do not want other people’s fears to run your healing process.

The title of Chapter 26 is: your depression is not a failure in family or social functioning, but a necessary balancing move. For many people, the main difficulty in dealing with depression comes from feelings of guilt and from a sense of failure. An inner voice says “something is wrong with me”, “something is wrong with my family”, “something here is damaged”. On one level, it is true that depression comes to show that something is out of balance, that there is overload, congestion or lack of harmony. Yet if we stay only with the language of “something is wrong here”, we miss the opportunity hidden in the experience.

If we want to benefit from this process, to renew ourselves, to feel refreshed and even reborn, it is important not to focus too much on the sentence “something here is wrong with me or with my family”. It may well be that there are family pressures, unresolved conflicts, issues that are not being addressed. They may have contributed to the arrival of depression. However, in many cases, the depression itself is the movement that comes to restore order. It stops everything, calls for reexamination, invites us to pause and look. It challenges the person going through it as well as the people living close to them to meet pain, to meet questions, and to reopen matters that have long been closed.

When depression appears in a family, a couple relationship, a circle of friends or a work team, it is almost never “one person’s private problem”. It touches the whole field. In my view, it does not arrive only for the sake of the one who is depressed, but also for the sake of those who are close to them. For them too, this is a challenge that asks for change, softening, growth or a fresh evaluation of old patterns.

Sometimes, out of their own fears, people around the depressed person will look for “who is to blame”. They will ask who did wrong, what was not done, who caused what. They will criticize, pressure, demand. Yet this approach almost never supports healing. It does not cultivate empathy, it does not encourage listening, and it does not help us understand the deeper message of the depression. It only deepens the sense of failure.

There is a very big difference between the sentence “something here is not balanced” and the sentence “there is a failure here, there is guilt, there are guilty people”. When we use the language of failure and guilt, we strengthen one of the hardest components of depression, the feeling that “I am not okay”, that I am not functioning enough, not working enough, not laughing enough, not happy enough, not productive, not creative, not responsive, not pleasant to be with. Around these feelings, a lot of guilt tends to accumulate.

These feelings of guilt often keep us stuck. Instead of moving through the pain towards change, we remain busy blaming ourselves. Instead of asking “what can I learn from this”, we keep asking “what is wrong with me”. Guilt takes the focus away from the deeper, original pain, a wide, existential pain that often began already in childhood, and brings all the attention to a narrow, present time narrative of “I am defective”. It is exactly this deeper pain that depression invites us to approach and to work with.

When guilt takes over, it blocks the gateway to that deeper pain. Instead of drawing closer to it, listening to it and giving it space, we stay stuck inside a story of “I am damaged” or “my family is damaged”. This is a distorted way to see the process. From this place, attempts to “treat the depression” will usually be driven by the desire to end it as fast as possible, rather than by the willingness to see it as a gift, a signal, an inner story, or a necessary balancing move.

I suggest seeing depression as a necessary balancing movement. A movement that arises for the sake of the whole space, for the sake of the person themselves, for the sake of their partner, their children or their friends. When we relate to it correctly, depression lowers the level of energy, sometimes to a lower and quieter place. It invites slowness, listening, and shared presence without constant doing. It softens the noise and inner agitation. It reminds us of very basic things about ourselves, about our priorities and about what truly nourishes us, things we tend to forget in the rush of life and in the obsession to run after the next thing.

For this reason, depression is not a failure in family functioning. It is not proof that you are “not a good enough parent”, “not a good enough partner” or “not a good enough friend”. If the environment sometimes points to someone with depression as if they are now “not a good father” or “not a good friend”, this is an example of how society itself struggles to handle its own issues. The more people are exposed to ideas like the gift of depression, the less social fear will rule the way we respond to it. The less people will turn the depressed person into a scapegoat, and the less families will be quickly labeled as “dysfunctional” just because one of their members went through a period of depression.

The approach I am suggesting is to see depression as a necessary, important and even blessed movement. When possible, it is very helpful if there are people around the depressed person who can support them gently, without pressure, without demanding that they “snap out of it”, without trying to speed everything up. If there is a relationship that can hold this, that is a gift. If there is not, it is still important to remember that even then the person is not completely alone. There are ways to be supported, there are words to meet, there are stories of many others who have gone through depression and are still living, creating and growing.

I myself have been through such waves more than once, and I know that I will go through more. And that is all right. Each wave can become another gift, another opportunity to deepen my relationship with my own psyche, to understand it better, and to honor its deep balancing moves. Many of these gifts may first appear as very big problems, but over time it becomes clear that inside them lies a big opportunity.

Reflection questions
Preferably answer in writing:

1. When a member of your family is depressed, how do you usually feel.

2. When a friend of yours is depressed, what do you usually do, or what do you imagine you would do.

3. Can you see how depression might actually become a blessing for a family or a social space, if it is met in a helpful way.

4. How do you intend to behave differently from the past, with your family and friends, if and when you go through depression again.

5. How do you intend to behave differently from the past, with your family and friends, if and when one of them goes through depression.

Chapter 27: This is the time to meet the guilt that comes with depression, and soften it

I want to open this chapter with an important clarification. The entire process I am suggesting here, which includes positive reflection, a healing perspective and the search for meaning and growth inside the experience of depression, is not meant to make light of the suffering, the pain, the difficulty or the losses that may accompany depression. Depression without pain is not really depression. Depression without a sense of loss is not depression in its full meaning. Depression is a deep and prolonged drop in energy, that is accompanied by a shift of the emotional tone into heavier, slower, more painful and more pessimistic areas. This is part of the picture and part of the truth of depression.

This also means that not every person is ready at every moment for such a process. There are phases, especially at the peak of the crisis, in which a person simply cannot hear anything. They need more time inside the “dark tunnel”, inside the heaviness, without ideas, without processes, only being. Sometimes it is the right time, and sometimes it is not. Some personalities simply do not connect to this kind of approach, and that is perfectly fine. What is offered here is a possibility, not an obligation. It is one path among several, not a mandatory truth. Often it is even better to study this material not during depression, but in a calmer period or after the crisis has passed. Then it is possible to update internal concepts, to expand awareness, and to prepare, at least in consciousness, for the possibility that another depression might appear in the future. This learning can also help us better understand loved ones who have gone through depression, to look at how we responded to them in the past and what that did to us.

Chapter 27 concludes the part that deals with the fears of the environment in relation to depression. It is important to remember that “the environment” is not only “other people”. We ourselves are also part of the environment. We too carry fears, stereotypes and images about depression. When we see someone close to us who is down, sad, low and not “bouncing back”, different feelings arise in us. It is not always immediate compassion. Sometimes we feel fear or resistance. Sometimes we feel distance. It is important to recognize this. The environment is not expected to react in one fixed, perfect way.

The aim of this chapter is not to present a “course for the environment” or a protocol for how people are supposed to behave around someone who is depressed. I am not giving instructions about what exactly to do with a family member or a friend in a difficult episode. What I want here is to widen awareness, to help us see that in many cases depression is part of a natural process, and that in many situations it may actually be a healing movement. There are ways to turn depression into a gift. This message is valuable both for those who are inside the depression and for those who are around them. It is not meant as a tool to pressure someone in depression to “do the work” or “see it differently”. We do not tell someone who is deeply suffering: “your depression is a gift, wake up, smile”. For many people that would be the wrong message at the wrong time and would only deepen the pain.

At the same time, just knowing that depression can be a healing process can soften the fears of the environment, including our own fears of falling into depression. The less society is terrified by depression, the easier it is for the person who is going through it to feel present, belonging and less “abnormal”. In my view, it is often better for a person to have from time to time periods of depression, as long as they learn to work with them, rather than to accumulate huge inner tensions that never get expressed and later explode in more destructive ways.

At this point we arrive at a very central theme: guilt. Chapter 27 says: this is the time to meet the guilt that comes with depression, and to soften it. Feelings of guilt almost always arrive together with depression. They are not a “technical error” in the system, but part of the natural human response. They can appear as part of the general wave of pain, tears and sadness, along with memories, regrets and thoughts about things we did or did not do.

When the energy of doing and moving forward gets weaker, when we are no longer running ahead but stopping and no longer turning our gaze away, guilt is given more room to appear. It can come as part of the depressive pattern itself, and it can also arise as guilt “about being depressed”. Guilt about not functioning, not providing, not being in the “right role” as a parent, a partner, a worker, someone responsible for money, and so on. Thoughts appear such as “because of me things will fall apart”, “I am ruining it for others”, “everything is my fault”.

It is important to say clearly that on one hand it is very natural to feel this way, and on the other hand, if you want to turn depression into a gift, you are invited to take responsibility for softening the guilt. Guilt is not destiny. You can work with it. You can recognize it, bring awareness to it, and gradually reduce the grip it has on you.

When guilt appears, you have a choice. You can remain passive and allow it to strike you again and again from within, or you can stand in front of it and hold a different inner conversation. If you let it take over without any response, its intensity will be higher and its negative influence will be stronger. If you choose to respond, both gently and firmly, something begins to change.

One option is to speak to guilt with a clear inner voice: “I am currently in depression. This is a natural phenomenon. My inner system has chosen this as a way to balance and to heal. I have the right to go through this process. I am not truly guilty.” Another option is to approach it with more softness: “I understand why I feel guilty. I see the fear, the concern for others, the disappointment with myself. But I do not need guilt in order to deal with this. Guilt does not heal. It only adds weight.”

Guilt is often intertwined with feelings of shame and non belonging. Thoughts such as “I am not wanted”, “I do not belong”, “I am not okay”, “I do not deserve a place”. These are painful inner stories that are more connected to our fears than to reality. Sometimes, yes, a particular relationship may not survive a depressive period and may be shaken or even break. In such cases, the depression is not the “villain”, but the trigger that reveals unresolved issues that were there before. This is important information about that specific relationship.

In most cases, however, the intensity of guilt is far greater than the actual situation. This is why your responsibility is to notice it when it appears, not to let it fully merge with your sense of self, and to answer it. Sometimes the answer needs to be very clear and strong: “No, there is no court here. This is a natural process. I am in the middle of a balancing movement. I am learning how to live with this. There is no guilt here.”

When we replace guilt with responsibility, something softens. Responsibility says: “This is happening to me. It is mine. I am learning how to be here in a way that is kinder to myself and to those around me.” Guilt says: “I am wrong at the root of my being.” The difference between these two experiences is very significant. Guilt almost always blocks our ability to benefit from the gift of depression, because it keeps us busy with “who is to blame” instead of “what can I learn” and “where can I grow from here”.

Your task, both inside depression and beyond it, is to notice guilt when it appears, to recognize that it is unnecessary, exaggerated and harmful, and to choose again and again to reduce its presence. The more you repeat this practice, this inner conversation, this refusal to feed the guilty voice, the more its intensity will gradually decrease. Guilt is “used to” being taken as absolute truth. Once you stop giving it that status, it will show up less and will control you less.

In this way, through courageous observation, through softening the judgmental attitude toward yourself, and through the ability to say to yourself “there is no guilt here, there is pain and there is a healing process”, you open a space in which depression can become more and more what it wishes to be for you, a process of correction, renewal and a deep gift.

Reflection questions
Preferably answer in writing:

1. Which situations or topics tend to trigger guilt in you more than anything else.

2. Who are the people in your life toward whom you tend to feel too much guilt or too much responsibility.

3. Are you aware of the excessive guilt that can accompany depression or periods of very low energy.

4. Are you aware of how unhelpful, and even harmful, excessive guilt can be.

5. Next time you feel very guilty, can you imagine stopping everything for a moment, breathing, and hugging yourself with more love than ever before.