When the Problem Is in Your Mind

When Depression Hits, Affirmations Return to Wholeness

Healing affirmations often work well on physical conditions. Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, the Unity founders, both used words of Truth to heal their various ailments, invoking the power of mind over body.

But what about mental or emotional disease such as depression? How do you use your mind to assist in healing—by affirming, feeling, and believing in a cure—when the problem is what’s in your mind?

How Affirmations Impact Depression

It’s a conundrum. I have experienced a lifetime of symptoms stemming from depression and a mood disorder. They sometimes manifest as an inability to engage fully with others and enjoy the benefits of a Spirit-filled life, like laughter, healthy self-esteem, and the boundless energy to cocreate with God.

I discovered Unity during my struggles with depression and found a little book in a Unity church bookstore called Scientific Healing Affirmations by Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian yogi who lived about the same time as the Fillmores, and was instrumental in bringing Eastern spiritual teachings to the United States.

He wrote about how to use affirmations in a prescribed method, just as the Fillmores had successfully used them. I began to practice these simple healing affirmations every morning at a specific time and place in my home. Gradually, ever so gradually, I began to discover energy and a zeal for life.

What Depression Had to Teach Me

Had I been set free from the prison of a disease that seemed so relentless and unapologetic? I learned that when I stopped practicing these affirmations, the symptoms returned. Was I healed or not?

I began to view my low moods as a teacher. I would ask my low energy level or disinterest and discouragement, What can you teach me this time? Then I began to listen.

I started to see how the darkness contrasts with the light, how by remaining still, a low mood would pass, and the light would come out again. I began to see that in facing my low mood, it was not the dreaded disease I feared it might be.

I also sought out a spiritual counselor who helped me see that the healing I wanted would eventually come from within me. God loved me in my depression. It was not something I was doing wrong.

“I Am Whole”

Today I don’t pretend I am totally healed from depression. Rather I try to embrace all of me as a whole person, with my low moods at times and with all the other experiences as well. The truth is that my journey has included these symptoms, and healing for me means reframing how I see it.

This inspiring passage is from Paramahansa with my notations: “I am whole, I am healthy; in the temple of consciousness (my mind), there was the Light (God’s Light). I saw it not, now I see, the (body) temple is light; the (body) temple is whole. I slept and dreamt that the temple broke, but Thou hast wakened me (from a state of fear and worry), I am whole, I am whole, I am whole.”