Reversing Depression

Before we begin this meditation on reversing depression,

I invite you to take a few deep breaths with me.

And as you do,

I invite you to visualize yourself walking in a beautiful place.

Perhaps you can experience the ground beneath your feet with every step that you take,

Imagining that this is such a great place to walk.

And perhaps after a while of walking,

You come across a very inviting looking chair that almost seems to call your name as you approach.

And as you sit down on this chair,

You might consider that this is a perfect place to rest and enjoy your surroundings and really feel a complete sense of relaxation and comfort.

And relaxing now,

Just starting at the top of your head,

Begin to feel a deep sense of relaxation moving down from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.

And this relaxation moves down the sides and the back of your head now,

All of the muscles in your head letting go.

And the relaxation goes down your forehead to your eyes.

And your forehead and your eyes are relaxing too,

Just letting go of tension.

And your cheeks and your jaw muscles are relaxing deeper and deeper.

And your eyes and all around to the back of your head and to the top of your spine,

All your muscles letting go.

And this wonderful feeling of relaxation continues to release and relax all the muscles in your neck and your shoulders and your upper back.

And as you just relax deeper and deeper,

You can feel yourself sinking down,

Relaxing deeper down until relaxation is flowing down your arms and out of your fingertips.

And your chest is relaxing now and just allow all of the muscles in your stomach to release any tension.

And you're just letting go and relaxing more and more as you feel your whole body completely enjoying these wonderful sensations of peace and serenity.

And you can move your awareness now to your hips and your lower back,

Feeling those muscles just releasing and letting go as you breathe easily,

Your body just relaxing deeper and deeper,

More and more.

And you're feeling so good and so comfortable and so relaxed now.

And the relaxation flows down your legs,

Down your thighs to your knees and your calf muscles.

And they're all letting go into deep relaxation.

And your ankles are relaxed and your feet are just totally relaxed and comfortable.

And this deep relaxation now envelops your whole body.

And just remember feeling more relaxed than you ever have before.

And as you sit on your amazingly comfortable chair,

Just imagine that you are walking towards a beautiful building now that seems to be inviting you inside.

And as you enter this amazing structure,

You feel safe and secure and comfortable.

And once inside,

You see an elevator and you push the arrow down and the elevator door opens and it invites you in.

It is warm and safe and comfortable.

And as you enter,

You feel as though you somehow belong in this building and in this elevator.

And when you push the button down,

The door closes and the elevator begins to move smoothly down into your deeper subconscious mind.

And as the numbers above the door change,

The elevator moves down deeply and the elevator is taking you down into your subconscious mind.

And you can count the numbers as you relax more and more,

Allowing yourself to go deeper and deeper as you watch those numbers go down.

7.

Going deeper down 9.

Continuing to feel more and more relaxed 8.

You know somehow when you reach the bottom,

You will be inside your subconscious mind 7.

You watch the numbers as they go down 6.

Going down,

You are going down even deeper 5.

Feeling more and more relaxed as the elevator goes deeper down 4.

Relaxed 3.

When you reach the bottom floor,

You will be in your subconscious mind 2.

You're almost there,

Feeling more relaxed than you've ever felt before 1.

You are now deep in your subconscious mind and you feel safe and secure as the elevator door opens.

And now as you've drifted into this comfortable and relaxed feeling,

In the deeper recesses of your subconscious mind,

You can invite the deeper part of yourself to bring up a difficult experience that you've had in the past that may be contributing to current feelings of depression.

So there's no need to think logically,

Just let something bubble up from your subconscious mind.

And I'll just wait a few moments until something bubbles up.

And as you contemplate whatever has bubbled up from your subconscious mind,

You already know that there are better ways of thinking and feeling about this difficult event.

But because this difficult experience is coming up in your subconscious mind today,

Just sense into what it is here to show you.

Perhaps something you need to know for your healing today.

Because depression can feel like a downward spiral that revolves down and around,

And it can seem like so much effort to break free of sad,

Ashamed,

Guilty,

Frustrated,

Fearful or angry feelings.

And yet instinctively,

You probably know that life is a series of ups and downs.

And like that downward spiral,

You can go either way.

You can go down,

Or you can go up.

You have a choice.

And so making that choice to go up the spiral requires a determined effort to change your direction.

You can actually choose your direction because one of the universal laws of life is that you have free choice to climb up the spiral into positive feelings.

And sometimes you can change your thoughts and you can change your behaviors.

You can change your mind about how you want to think about things.

And you can even change your life direction.

You can ascend up the spiral and feel elevated again by your own choice.

But there are other things in life that you cannot change.

And when you encounter these obstacles,

For example,

Losing someone that you love,

You just have to find a way to accept such a difficult situation.

And so when you choose to focus on a difficult life event that is causing your depression,

It can be truly exciting to consider that you can learn to live again.

You can learn to love again.

And you can be totally free of the depression that has caused you to lose hope.

You can begin to enjoy the anticipation that good things will happen in your life again.

And so choice after choice,

You can reach even greater heights and fulfill your true potential,

The potential to live a full,

Happy and productive life simply by knowing that depression is never permanent and you do not have to go down the depression spiral for the rest of your life.

You can choose to climb the spiral up,

Up,

Up into better feeling states by saying to yourself,

I want to feel better about my life.

I want to see my difficult situation in a positive light.

I want to make meaning from this loss,

Or I want to grow from this struggle.

And so the depression that you have suffered can be changing for you now,

Because in this wonderful state of tapping into your deeper desire to heal your depression,

You're already beginning to realize that anything is possible within the realms of your subconscious mind.

In the deeper,

More relaxed realms of your subconscious mind,

You can invite your intuition to create new dreams.

You can sort out challenging life issues.

You can make plans for the necessary changes to improve your existing way of life.

Anything is possible,

For everything around you was created in one way or another from your subconscious mind.

And so nothing ever happens without a deeper reason.

And so it is strange to think when you are suffering that on a higher level,

All is in harmony.

Everything is for your higher growth.

All of your life's difficulties can support you to build new strength.

And for every door that closes,

Another door opens.

And so the light can begin to shine through this new door in your imagination,

Imagining that you can feel happier and more content,

Calmer inside,

More able to cope,

Stronger and stronger,

And lighter and lighter.

You can ascend up the spiral of life,

Each step feeling lighter and freer from the heavier feelings down below.

And you could experience these wonderful feelings on a regular basis,

Just by your powerful will to intend to reverse your depression into happiness and hope.

And now I invite you to think back to before your depression began,

Back to a time in your life when you were happier,

And it seemed like your life was more the way you wanted it to be.

Perhaps you were younger,

More hopeful,

More idealistic,

Just filled with possibilities.

And really remember how good those feelings were,

And consider how perhaps you might not have appreciated exactly how good you felt in the past,

Until later when you started to struggle with depression,

Hopelessness,

And grief,

And with such an emotional heaviness that caused you to feel a more narrow sense of not really being able to believe that your life could be better.

So invite those wonderful feelings back from your past when you felt more hopeful,

Excited,

And open to life.

Just invite them to move back into your body,

And perhaps they want to settle into your heart.

Just inviting these good feelings from the past to flow back into your awareness,

And holding them very close and very dear to you,

And just finding a place in your body,

Perhaps it is your heart that just wants to hold a tiny little spark of hope inside that will grow more and more each day,

Reminding you of when you felt younger,

Fresh and hopeful about life,

Idealistic and even inspired.

And notice how you begin to feel lighter,

Even with this tiny little spark of light.

And you can tell yourself,

I feel a little bit happier and stronger in this moment.

And this feeling can grow.

And as you really believe that you can feel passionate and hopeful about life again,

You can envision this little spark of hopeful light growing and spreading throughout your body,

Helping you to feel better and better each day as you practice on what you believe you can achieve.

And you can really believe that you can feel this inspired way again.

You can,

You really can,

Bring a spark of light into your heart and invite it to grow each and every day.

And you can practice these better feeling states more often,

So that whatever is causing your depression will come up to be seen,

To be recognized,

So that you can consciously use the gift of your free will to change it,

To heal it,

And to reverse the fears and weaknesses from your past into strength.

And so the more you practice the will to feel better by focusing on the little spark of light in your heart,

You will become more aware of the negative thoughts that are entering your mind that are showing you why you are depressed.

So be alert and be prepared to look deeply at the thoughts that come up whenever you strongly intend to heal your depression,

And be prepared to decode these thoughts so that you can find the roots and the reasons for your depression.

And once you become conscious of what is causing your depression,

You can reverse your negative thoughts with life-giving,

Hopeful,

And positive thoughts.

And you can touch into this little spark of light as it becomes brighter and brighter,

As it tells you that you can hope again,

That you can dream again,

And that you can be happy again.

And you can grow this little spark of hope day by day,

And you can remember that whatever your mind can believe,

Your mind can achieve,

And you can heal your depression step by step by intending to grow the spark of light within you.

And by letting your thoughts show you what has been holding you down,

Bit by bit,

As you discover the roots and reasons for your depression.

And you will find yourself smiling more,

Feeling happier and calmer and more content.

You can feel a little bit more wonderful each and every day.

Before we end this meditation,

Let's take a short moment to imagine what you would feel like when you are entirely free of depression.

So I invite you to imagine yourself looking up to the light,

And it's such a wonderful healing white light.

And as you see that you're nearing the end of that dark and gloomy tunnel of depression,

You are emerging like a butterfly out of its cocoon.

You are beginning to fly and feel the wonderful freedom of this beautiful world,

Free from depression at last.

And so every day you can practice feeling better and stronger and calmer and happier through this butterfly visualization.

Just imagining yourself as a butterfly flying free in the sunlight,

Flitting from flower to flower with joy in the warm sunlight.

And this alone will help you to heal depression.

And your will to heal depression and your love of existence will grow in proportion to your daily intention to heal depression.

And so as you intend to watch your thoughts for the roots and reasons that are causing your depression,

Just know that whatever you see consciously,

You can change and you can heal for the better.

And so now just imagine that these changes are already beginning to happen in your wonderful subconscious mind.

And they will continue long,

Long after this meditation session is over.

And in a moment,

I'm going to count from one to five.

And at the count of five,

You'll be back to the alert awareness of your conscious mind.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

And five.

Welcome back.