I was 29 years old and I had never known why I had dealt with depression for most of those years. I knew that it would come upon me like a dark heavy cloud that seemed to paralyze me and cause me to want to withdraw from everything around me. I never knew when it would appear, I only knew that it would show up almost every day and sometimes more than once in a day and seem to linger for what seemed like several hours.
I was at Western Institute For Group And Family Therapy in Carmel, California in 1973 training as a Transactional Analysis Therapist with a group of 32 other trainees. The leader, Bob Goulding, during one of our general group discussions asked me how long I had been dealing with depression. He asked if I wanted to change the depression and no longer have it consistently trouble me. I replied that I did but had no idea how to do it. One of the 32 individuals training was chosen to facilitate my desire to change, which was part of our training to become TA Therapists.
The person in training followed the TA procedure that we had been learning from our instructors, Bob and Mary Goulding, and asked several key questions including what I thought I would be like once the depression was no longer troubling me. I answered that I would feel lighter and able to look forward to each new day without the feeling of dreading that depression and sadness would suddenly re-appear
She then asked me to become aware of how it had felt whenever I was depressed and the dark cloud would appear. She also asked me to stay with the feeling and close my eyes, allowing my mind to go back to being a child, to the earliest memory that would come to mind, and describe what was happening in the scene.
To my amazement my mind went to a scene when I was about seven or eight years old with my father sitting in a chair about six or so feet in front of me, looking at me without any expression as I was walking past him. When asked which parent I would choose to talk to about the scene I decided I wanted to talk to my father. She told me to open my eyes and she placed an empty chair in front of me telling me to imagine my father sitting there so that she could help me become more aware of the unconscious conversation I was consistently having with him in my head.
Imagining my father sitting in the chair in front of me I began to be aware of the conversation that I had been unconsciously having with him in my head. She asked me what I wanted to say to him, and because I was unsure, she suggested I try asking him whether or not he loved me. The moment I began to ask the question I became aware of strong emotion that began to fill my chest.
At one point she asked me to tell my father, just to see if it seemed be true, that I was going to say depressed and sad until my dream would come true that he could see how much I needed him to change and tell me that he loved me. When I made the statement, it was a light bulb of truth and self-awareness turning on inside. She asked me if I wanted to stay with the past childhood decision of waiting for him to change, if indeed I now perceived it may be true, and I replied that I did not.
She continued to help me move toward making a new decision by talking to my father in the chair and tell him about the decision I had unconsciously made in childhood, letting him know that I was releasing the depression and the subsequent dream that he might see my depression and change. At this moment I felt the sense of loss of that I had been running away from and allowed the flood of tears that I had been holding inside to flow freely. I was gradually becoming aware, in this process, that releasing the dream was an important part of deepening forgiveness.
From that day forward I can honestly say that I have never again experienced that un-controable cloud of depression. Whenever it seemed that the sadness leading up to the depression was anywhere near I have simply needed to re-affirm my new decision in my mind that I have chosen to release the dream to change dad, no longer expect him to change, and I am not going to stay depressed waiting for him to change.
I can honestly say that this moment in my life was an epiphany of self-awareness and a new sense of being empowered to move forward. It has been my privilege since that day in 1973 to experience many other significant such moments of new self-awareness and re-decision. Since that day, as a Christian counselor and therapist, I have also been allowed the privilege of facilitating many others in their similar journey. I am eternally grateful that my heavenly Father has given me a wonderful tool to help others grow in experiencing His unconditional love.
I have come to know that whenever an individual begins to buy into such self-awareness, from that moment forward, they can begin to move forward on a new journey, increasingly empowered to change!
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