Beyond Blue

Cicero said that “gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” The English preacher John Henry Jowett wrote that “every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.” And according to Aseop Fables, “gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” A dear professor of…

Continuing the conversation from last week about being highly sensitive … Here’s an excerpt from Aron’s book, which helps to lay out the pros and cons of a being a person who should stay away from Disney World and Toys-R-Us (as usual my comments are in brackets…I rarely can keep my mouth shut anymore when…

Albert Camus once wrote, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Carl Jung’s version: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” During the two years of my severe depression, I would have replied, “Please shoot me then, because I never asked to be alert.” Yet I do believe I’m a stronger person today than…

In my video post I mentioned Elaine Aron’s book, “The Highly Sensitive Person.” I advise all depressives to read it, because most of you are going to be highly sensitive (which is not a bad thing at all). I was explaining to this older man I met in a coffee shop about how I get…

If I had to name two things from my childhood that have helped me in my recovery from depression and anxiety more than any others, it would be these: my faith and the discipline I practiced in learning how to play Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C-Sharp Minor” on the baby grand piano my grandmother left to…

I’ve been gradually learning something about myself: I want to be perfect. And the fact that I’m not causes me suffering. All of the major world religions teach this lesson upfront: you’re not perfect, and the sooner you accept that fact, the less agony you’ll put yourself through trying to prove otherwise. In his book,…

One of the most hurtful comments made to me during the worst of my depression was this: “You must not want to get better.” I know that person didn’t intend to be spiteful or mean. She’s just plain ignorant regarding mental health issues. (But I still haven’t let it go, obviously.) Comments like that are…

Thanks to Beyond Blue reader Peg for directing me on the combox to my post “12 Ways to Overcome Jealousy and Envy” to Elizabeth Scott’s review of “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. As I mentioned on other posts, I constantly refer to this book and I was relieved, like Peg, by this summary…

In “Cutting Loose: An Adult’s Guide to Coming to Terms with Your Parents” Howard M. Halpern calls the interactions that develop between the inner child in us and the inner child in our parents “songs and dances” because, he explains, they have a “repetitious, almost rhythmic, pattern. The same words, the same music and the…

Thomas Craughwell has compiled a beautiful gallery of seven patron saints for healing and comfort. You can get to it by clicking here. I’ve included the first three.   St. Anne: Patron Saint of Infertility According to a second-century apocryphal work called The Protoevangelium of James, Anne lived with her husband Joachim for many years…

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