By D Paul Reilly

Whilst watching a most inspiring show on television on CNN a couple of weeks ago, one of Larry King's guests, Author, Counselor, and Therapist, Jayne Payne, said that research shows that 'Depression is anger turned inside'. I thought what she said was indeed most revealing, to say the least. When she said that on the Larry King show, it reminded me of a particular student I had at one of my seminars many years ago.

She stated that on some days she had no difficulty whatsoever in being positive in outlook, whilst on other days, she was consumed with depression. I endeavored to get her to understand the concept, that all emotions are in fact preceded by thoughts. This of course meant in essence that she had the power to make a conscious decision not to be depressed, if she so desired. Unfortunately, this lady did not buy into this concept, thus she continued to experience long periods of depression, and did in fact die quite young.

About eight years ago, when I experienced a most traumatic event in my life, the break up of a seventeen month old marriage, which I thought would last for the rest of my life; I experienced a period of deep depression. I remember well one particular Sunday morning when I was very low indeed. I was simply lying in bed flipping through the various channels on my TV set. I stopped on a particular religious channel and heard larger than life TV Evangelist John Hagee state that his topic for the day was 'How to get rid of depression'.

I immediately perked up and got a pad of paper and a pen to take notes, whilst I thanked God for directing me to this particular program, which I felt I really needed at the time. And then Pastor John Hagee said one of the most important phrases I've ever heard, which actually catapulted me into recovery from my 'Self-induced' depression. John Hagee said "You can get rid of your depression the moment you decide to". Wow! What a moment of truth that was!

Now, lest I get some Medical Doctors, some Psychiatrists e-mailing me about my comments here today, let me add that there are indeed some people who may have inborn chemical deficiencies in the brain which can cause depression. These types of individuals do perhaps need medication to replace the chemicals which they are lacking. However, in the majority of cases, it really is a matter of 'Mind over matter'. Whether we realize it at the time, because of some traumatic event in our life, we became very angry. We then turned that anger inward, which manifested itself in the outer world as depression.

But as Pastor John Hagee so correctly said "We can get rid of depression the moment we decide to". Of course, God will assist us tremendously with the process, once we have made the conscious decision to be happy once again. Professional Counseling can also be beneficial when we are experiencing depression.

Think About It!

dpr@humanRI.com