Q: In the last six months I’ve struggled with lots of physical difficulties: pneumonia, a frozen shoulder, and a heavy depression I couldn’t get up from. I want to know what it’s all about.
John: Opportunities for you to be what is just beneath the surface instead of you being the surface: quiet okayness in a frozen shoulder; warmth quietly seeping in, in the midst of depression.
Q: Why do so many people have depression?
John: It doesn’t matter if you’re depressed. It matters if you are nurturefully depressed. A depression offers you a change of space, a different kind of opportunity. Without the depression you might just get on with your life. The depression slows you down and invites you to listen more deeply.
Q: Yes! I thought I lost my way and I want to find it again.
John: You felt like you lost your way. Your way has nothing to do with your usual self. Your real way has to do with your quieted heart.
Q: So I’m changing? Is that the reason I have been through all that?
John: Deep, subtle, nurturing change within. It isn’t about the change of your self. It’s about you being gentled within in the midst of the disturbances in your self.
Q: I had the feeling of a burden on my shoulder. It seemed all the trauma, frustration and burdens I’ve had my whole life suddenly showed up and pressed me down. There was a lot going on in my brain. I felt all these burdens once again and they were there all the time.
John: It’s a little like being really sick, strongly disturbed, and you have a little baby. In the midst of that sickness and the disturbance, you still bring the baby to the breast and you feed it. And you’re giving something more than just milk.
Q: That makes sense. So can you help me let go of of all these worries and burdens?
John: Drink from your heart, regardless of anything that’s going on in your self.
Q: Thank you.
