Drug-free answers to healing depression

How do you dig yourself out of a dark mental space? Can depression be healed without reliance on drugs? Christian Science practitioner and teacher Janet Kennedy answers listeners’ questions about how to find healing that will provide peace and strength. Janet shares her own and others’ healings of depression and encourages listeners to begin by adopting good habits of thought that include starting the day with gratitude and continuing to feed themselves with spiritual thoughts and prayer. When you do that, says Janet, you’re lifting your thoughts to a different—a spiritual—level, one that sets you on the path to healing.

spirituality.com host: Hello everyone. Welcome to another spirituality.com live question and answer audio event. Our subject today is: “Drug-free answers to treating depression” and our guest is Janet Kennedy, a teacher and practitioner of Christian Science in Cinnaminson, New Jersey, which is near Philadelphia. Janet has been in the public practice of Christian Science for over 35 years, and for many years she gave talks and workshops on practical spirituality and healing.

Janet, do you have some thoughts to get us started?

Janet: Yes, we certainly know that this whole thought of depression is something that wants to, as the word says, just take us down—to give us that sense of loneliness, of tunnel vision, of not being able to see the good that’s present. So one of the things I have just found so helpful is, instead of letting thoughts take us in a downward spiral, to find what can lift thought to a different level of thinking. I understand that Einstein said, you can’t solve a problem on the same level of thinking you were at when you created it. The thought has to go up higher. As we lift thought, not being just positive thinking—it has to be linked to God—there is a way to see something that is good that is present. And that present goodness is the result of God.

In the Christian Science Hymnal there is a hymn that says, “All good, where’er it may be found, Its source doth find in Thee” (No. 224 ). So we’re going to link that goodness to God, God-good, and actually see the results of that. Does it sound simple? Yes. Does it sound easy? Maybe not. But thoughts do make a change. Thoughts change our attitudes, our perspective, our view, and finally, they change our actions. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that Mary Baker Eddy wrote (that this whole website is based on those ideas), was voted among the top 75 books by women whose words have changed the world, some years ago. And I’ve always thought Isn’t that wonderful, “words that have changed the world.” Words change us? How do they do that? It’s only by the assimilation of the ideas they present, and again, they change our attitudes, our perspectives, and finally, our actions, and we become different.

spirituality.com host: And that’s basically how you would find your way out of depression, by taking in those thoughts and letting them lift you higher, then.

Janet: Yes. And the thoughts have to be linked to God.

spirituality.com host: Well, I think we’ve got a couple questions here where we could start to go into that more deeply. Gail from New England has written to say, “I still suffer from a mild depression related to childhood abuse. While I’m grateful for the continued progress it seems like there’s always some new painful stuff surfacing, the latest being the self-rejection I did as a result of the abuse. These seem to hit like a Mack truck. Still, any thoughts to help me not get so mesmerized by all these issues as they surface?”

Janet: One thing that I think would be helpful, is to be sure to start the day by feeding yourself everything that is good. Start the day with gratitude. We hear a lot of people end the day with gratitude and they make a gratitude list before they go to bed. But to actually begin the day with being grateful, and gratitude, to me, is really acknowledging the very presence of good—and that’s God’s goodness.

I was talking to a good friend just the other day who went through years of depression. She said the only thing she could figure out to be grateful for when she was really down was indoor plumbing. And then gradually she started adding things that were a little bit more of the things that are unseen—the gentleness or the presence that she felt of goodness.

At any rate, just finding good and acknowledging that goodness and its source is God really gives us a shield for the day. We get up every morning and we eat and we get washed and we get dressed and we need to be doing that spiritually, feeding ourselves these thoughts of God’s presence, that God is “a very present help in trouble.” The psalms, 150 psalms, are all expressing gratitude, acknowledging God’s presence for us. So we take the bull by the horns, we feed ourselves those truths, those right ideas, so then there isn’t room for the other. And when it does pop up, we can immediately say No, I’m not going there. I’m going to go back and feed myself some more.

spirituality.com host: You can also have all of that big long list saying, Well, excuse me, but all of this is evidence that God is here in the face of that thing talking to you and saying it isn’t.

Janet: Yes.

spirituality.com host: This is from Richard in Washington DC, he says, “ I’m taking medicine for depression. I lived a long time without them, but the depression and/or paranoia has almost controlled me at times. I’m afraid of the extremes that I might be capable of going to. There’s only one reason that I stay alive, and that is to help a friend of mine. What steps should I take?”

Janet: Well, my goodness, what a wonderful purpose you have, to help a friend. That’s a lifting of thought right there. Just be sure that you link that desire to help your friend as the fact that you’re really being a Good Samaritan. You’re about your Father’s business, and as you’re about your Father’s business you’re expressing good, and that goodness counters everything else. So nothing can happen to you when you’re about your Father’s business. But make that link to see that you’re fulfilling what God wants us to be doing. “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” And because you are loving your neighbor, that means and that includes the basis and foundation of loving yourself. Because love is the one thing in all the world that nothing can overpower. That love is your protection. And that love is from God. You know, the Bible tells us, “We love him, because he first loved us.” So the love that we share with each other is God’s love. Think of the power of God’s love and it’s active in your life now. So rejoice in that, and let that love keep unfolding, and it’s going to lift you right out of that.

spirituality.com host: That’s such a lovely thought and so true. Deborah from Nebraska says, “I’ve been diagnosed with an incurable disease that can also cause depression. How can I work in Christian Science when the medications seem to help me when I need to work and be a good mom, and when off the medication my family sees me lying in bed and the suffering is horrible?” And then she’s talked about the fact that some practitioners won’t give her treatment while she’s on medication and that she feels stuck by that.

Janet: Yes, it is true that Christian Science treatment does not go with medicine because they’re both going in different directions, and they’re contrary to one another. But that does not preclude you from praying and giving yourself treatment. You can do that yourself. And there are quite a few practitioners who are willing to be, what I would call, a cheerleader. Not give you Christian Science treatment but give you lots of wonderful ideas to work with.

Again, your purpose in helping and taking care of the family, your sense of Love, go back to that sense of Love. There’s a statement in Science and Health where it describes Love as a “universal solvent.” I can remember when I first learned what that meant—that there was no container that could hold that universal solvent of Love. So that love is yours, you can go forward with that, and as you read and study and feed yourself every day, every morning—be sure to feed yourself spiritually. Let yourself start the day with God, that God is omnipresent. You know that wonderful 139th Psalm, “wither shall I flee from thy presence” and it even says, “if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” Sometimes that’s what we feel like where we are. But no matter what the material picture is, no matter what we’re confronted with, there is this presence, and it’s a quiet presence, but it is here. Christ Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within us, the kingdom of heaven, the reign of harmony.

So it isn’t that we need something out there. Everything is within us. As we keep feeding ourselves spiritually, we’re lifting thought to a different level of thinking. So I encourage you, make sure you feed yourself. Start the day with God. You and God are a great team.

spirituality.com host: That was a helpful answer, but I want to go back to the universal solvent. I love that thought. So, basically there’s nothing that can confine the universal solvent, it goes everywhere. Is that what you were saying?

Janet: Yes it is. You know, some things have to be contained in glass and some things cardboard will contain, or paper, and some things I guess they have to have a 10-foot concrete container to hold it. But nothing can contain Love.

spirituality.com host: The universal solvent is everywhere doing its work.

Janet: And it dissolves everything into its own essence.

spirituality.com host: That’s so great. Thank you for bringing that out. Now this individual hasn’t given us a name or a place but he or she is asking, “Can one get to a point of permanent healing of depression?”

Janet: Oh yes. They certainly can. I myself went through, and to many people this is very slight, but I went through four or five months of depression quite a number of years ago. So I have experienced that sense of tunnel vision, of being problem-oriented, of not being able to see anything. I’m usually a very smiley person, I was not smiley. I didn’t talk. And very interesting, after being on a panel discussion, there was a psychiatrist there and he spoke of depression as anger. And I thought that was very interesting, because I looked back and I was angry. And what lifted me out of it was this wonderful power of gratitude, of starting with something very small. One person I know who had been in an institution for years finally got where there was a more spiritual view in her caretaking, and one of the nurses who was taking care of her, who was a Christian Science nurse, said to this woman who had not spoken for over two years, and said, “Why aren’t you grateful? Just be grateful.” And the woman actually spoke and said, “I have nothing to be grateful for.” And the nurse said, “Well, why don’t you be grateful for the door knob.” I thought, The door knob? But yes, the door knob—look at what it does. It closes the door, it gives you privacy and security, it opens the door and gives you freedom and openness. And that small sense of gratitude was a turning point for that woman. And she was able to walk out of that institution and become an active member in society.

As I had heard this, I was just down in the pits, and I didn’t want to be grateful. I was just stuck there and I was waiting for something out there to change. And it took a lot of humility and prayer to know that I was raised with this concept of God’s power, God’s presence, and to really be willing to accept that at that particular moment. It’s like having blinders on and you just can’t see beyond. So, I finally became willing to express gratitude—starting with small things and then adding to them over the days, over weeks of being more grateful. And once you start being grateful you see more to be grateful for. It’s a change of thought, like Einstein said, you can’t solve a problem on the same level of thinking. The level of thinking has to change. And the good that I was grateful for I linked to showing me God’s presence, God’s presence right where I was. The whole sense of depression dissipated for me. It was healed. I have had…oh, one or two instances over the past five years when it was trying to come back again, but I made a conscious choice not to go there, but to stay with God’s presence. That was my experience.

I talked with a dear friend who went through years of very heavy depression, and she is completely free. And she has said, when it’s looking bleak, keep going. When it looks terrible, keep going. Stay with God, and yes, permanent healing is certainly possible, and people are experiencing that.

spirituality.com host: Now this one is form Bobbie in Indiana, who is asking, “Is depression more of a special tool of mortal mind, the devil, than other temptations and attacks to get mortals to falter? If so, what is a stepped-up approach to banishing it?”

Janet: Sure, all of these things, anything that’s not good, we could label as something evil, something of the devil. It certainly isn’t from God. But then, how we banish it is by going back to the one diagnosis in the Bible that I love. Chapter 1 of Genesis, verse 31 where it says, “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold it was very good.” So there’s that goodness again. The antidote for anything that takes us down has to be good. And you know, in the Bible, in Philippians it talks about the “whatsoevers.” And it says, “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” They’re wonderful ideas, you know, the honesty, living that honesty—we can do that. But the important operative word there is think. Think on these things. That’s the antidote, that’s what turns it around, is to keep putting ourselves on the right side of the scale, on the side of the truth of what God’s creation is all about, of God’s presence. As we work at that—it’s not hard, but it is work—it takes focus, concentration, and that means many times we have to come back to it, over and over again. And that’s okay. But that’s the work that brings about the change.

spirituality.com host: One of the things that’s occurring to me as we’re talking here is that after awhile, let’s say the depression is there and it tends to cause you to think negative thoughts and maybe sadness and loneliness. Whatever the particular angle is that it comes at you, to defeat it totally really does demand establishing habits of thought; where it’s natural and normal to be grateful and to ward off those negative things by virtue of the fact that you’ve so naturally adopted the habit of thinking in terms of God’s presence and in terms of His goodness and rejoicing in that. Gradually the darkness simply doesn’t have a place because the light in your thought is outshining it. Is that what we’re trying to do to some extent?

Janet: It certainly is. That’s an excellent point. You know, we talk about having bad habits and we can break habits and we can create habits. It is necessary for us to create, and to work at creating, those good habits of turning thought all the time, over and over again, back to that goodness that is derived from God.

spirituality.com host: One other side of this that I wanted to ask about is: suppose that something really crummy happens, there’s something that is very distressing or whatever, and even under normal circumstances someone would feel very challenged by what one is experiencing, how does this gratitude method help us through those kind of experiences?

Janet: Because it’s a change of thought. Because it’s getting us to look deeper. It’s not the surface again, the material picture, what’s gone wrong. That’s the problem that wants to pull us in to be problem-oriented. We know there are solutions for everything. That’s one of my favorite things to talk about, is that there’s always a solution, there’s always an answer. So it does take our own willingness to search for that answer, to reverse, to change, to be determined to see beyond. And we’ve had wonderful examples, even in the news there was a GI who came back from the war and all of the problems that he has had, and how he is surmounting every single one of them. So we know it’s possible. People are doing it all the time. And we just have to make sure that we are consciously making that choice to go forward.

spirituality.com host: And also, even in the midst of a really terrible situation, gratitude is another way of affirming that God is present, isn’t it?

Janet: Yes. Gratitude is always linking it to God. Linking anything good to God and that presence.

spirituality.com host: And with God present there, even in the midst of that difficult thing then, with God would be things that sustain, like strength and wisdom.

Janet: Yes.

spirituality.com host: Rebecca from Connecticut says, “My husband is overwhelmed and overstressed by a new job, owning a house in New York that isn’t selling, and our three children all four and under. He is very defeated, withdrawn, and turning to alcohol and TV instead of looking for the good in things. I’m new to Christian Science and my husband is not a Christian Scientist, although we are Messianic Jews and he does believe in God and Christ. How can I be the best support to him, helping him to see himself as whole and complete in God? And also not allowing his depression to infect me and the children?”

Janet: Depression is downward. Depression is being impressed with all of the problems. And that sounds exactly like what you’ve just described. What’s the opposite of depression? Expression. One of the things we love in Mrs. Eddy’s ideas that she has shared with the world is that “Man is the expression of God’s being.” That’s an outward thing. So as you just rejoice in “man”—and that means everyone, yourself, your husband, the children, the neighbors—everyone in all of creation is the very expression of God. And that means that’s really the proof of God’s presence, just like the sunbeam is the proof of the presence of God. The sunbeam doesn’t do it on its own. The sun is sending out the sunbeam, the same with you and all of your family as being God’s expression. So appreciate, and that’s another way to be grateful for, appreciate the way that God is expressing His love and caring as you—as you go about loving your husband, the family, and caring for all of them, you are the very expression of God’s presence. Enjoy that, enjoy each of the children and the things that they do. Link what they do that’s good and joyful, and their curiosity and activity—link all of those back as God’s very present expression. And find different qualities or things that your husband, even in the situation that’s going on, that he is expressing that are good. Be verbal about that, and also quietly express gratitude yourself for the expression of God that you see. Even in the house, you know, it’s fun to think of different things like the roof over your head—it’s God’s expression of protection, the furniture—it’s God’s expression of comfort, the food that’s in the refrigerator—it’s an expression of God’s supply and sustenance for His loved child. As you just fill yourself up with this, fill yourself up so full that it just spills over. You know, they’ve said many times it only takes one person to go into a dark room and turn the light on and everyone in the room sees by it. Your presence, your expression of God’s love and caring is that light. So appreciate that, love it, and keep letting your light shine.

spirituality.com host: That’s so nice. This is from Vickie in England, it’s a little bit different from the other questions we’ve been answering, she says, “I’m stuck in a pattern of smoking cigarettes and giving up for a few days to a week. It seems never-ending. What can I do?” In a way, it’s part of that habitual thing we’ve been talking about although it’s a bit off the subject. Do you feel you have something you’d like to say?

Janet: Sure. With that, it’s kind of fighting the impulse that wants to say that we are not in control. It’s trying to say that God didn’t give us dominion, that God gave cigarettes and tobacco dominion. So, do go back to that first chapter of Genesis where it says that God gave man dominion. And love that fact. And love the fact of God’s power. As you go in and out of this, if that’s the pattern at the moment, don’t give it a lot of thought as to the pattern or the habit. Instead, give your thought and attention to God’s power and your own God-given dominion. Keep switching. And that’s what you’ve been saying has gone on, you’re switching back and forth. Well, keep switching to acknowledging God’s power.

spirituality.com host: That’s helpful. Ruth from Edmonton in Canada has written us a longish message. “At the start of the chapter on ‘Creation’ in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes: ‘Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. ‘Let there be light,’ is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.’ I found this citation helpful to think about when feeling discouraged or limited relative to opportunities to express abilities or talents, to realize that expression comes from God and is not limited to a mortal sense of circumstances or mind. Can you speak more about how we can identify ourselves as ideas or reflections of God, living in God as Mind, rather than separated and limited to our own efforts at self-discipline, or to circumstances that might claim to limit expression or fulfillment?”

Janet: One of my favorite prayers is when Jesus said, “I can of mine own self do nothing.” And then further on he said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” And that certainly is a wonderful Biblical foundation for Mrs. Eddy sharing the concept of man as being God’s reflection. When we go to the mirror and look in the mirror the reflection can’t do anything of itself. It only copies what the origin, what the person in front of the mirror does. If the person in front of the mirror is holding a dollar bill, the person in the mirror can’t lose it. Can’t rip it up. Can’t have it stolen. Because it owns it by reflection. And so, yes, as God’s ideas we are the result of God’s thinking. So it is the activity of infinite divine Mind that brings out all of the beautiful hues, like the rainbow of qualities of God’s goodness and the joy, the creativity, the intelligence, the honesty, all those things of God are expressed as man. Again, as you take the sunbeam and the sun, it’s impossible to remove the sunbeam from the sun. The sunbeam is the proof of the presence of the sun. So each of us, as we go about our Father’s business, as we strive to be honest, or like a previous listener who is living to help a friend, all these things are the action and activity of God made manifest as us. We are absolutely inseparable from God. God is our very life.

spirituality.com host: We have another question from Bobbie in Indiana who is following up with something you said earlier, who asks: “What is the difference between a practitioner treating a patient who is on medicine and the patient giving himself treatment? If it is harmful for the patient to get treatment from a practitioner, why would it not be harmful for the patient to treat himself?”

Janet: Well that does get to be kind of a technical question. A Christian Science Journal-listed practitioner has the ethics of the practice to uphold. But certainly we know that a person who is praying for themselves, knows the power and presence of God, and I just think that’s a completely different situation when it’s between one single individual and God. It’s what they are led to do through their own prayer, and I think it’s just between them and God.

spirituality.com host: Could I offer a thought?

Janet: Yes, of course.

spirituality.com host: One of the things, in terms of people I’ve known who’ve sort of had to work their way out of dependence on a medication for example, is that basically, even while you’re taking the medication, if you’re knowing your own spirituality and that this medication is simply a kind of a step on the way to that point where you will really know your full spirituality, it helps to lessen the medication’s impact on you. Because you’re recognizing that this thing is not going to be permanent. It’s just a step on the way.

Gradually, the more that God becomes dominant in your thoughts, the less the medication has an effect on you, the less you need it. Then you begin to forget to take it because it’s irrelevant, your thoughts are now filled with God’s presence, and gradually you may not be taking the medication for several weeks and suddenly realize, Ah, I’m not taking it.

So it’s really a matter that you’re working within your own thought to more and more have God be the presence that controls and governs your actions and thoughts. And as your thought becomes more spiritualized, the reliance on the material method of healing becomes less and less even a factor. You are also learning more about your spiritual nature in relation to whatever the problem is that you’re dealing with. And as you’re seeing yourself in those spiritual terms you’re sort of growing out of the problem, and as you grow out of the problem, spiritually that is, then all of the material circumstances relating to it, including the medication, no longer have any influence on you because you’re not there anymore mentally. Gradually, neither is the problem. So it’s really something where you’re working within your own thought rather than asking someone to be giving you treatment externally, in a way.

Janet: That’s excellent. Right on the mark.

spirituality.com host: Great. Holly from West Tisbury is asking, “How can you maintain your spirituality while taking medication if someone you love wants you to take it?”

Janet: Well, that’s very much along the same lines as you have just said. It is being so aware of who we are ourselves and keeping our thought there, that sometimes people have been coerced against their will and then it is knowing your own identity. I always think of Christ Jesus when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane and he said three different times, “not my will, but thine, be done.” And then of course, the next day he went through the crucifixion. So he was preparing thought, he was knowing his own spiritual identity so clearly that he was able to go through that and prove the unreality and that it could not touch his true identity. It is–know who you are, love who you are, make that a habit in the morning, of starting your day with knowing who God is, and your relationship, your inseparability from God, and then you can find, too, that it’s just forgotten, it’s not necessary. But you can maintain your spiritual individuality.

spirituality.com host: Thank you. This one doesn’t have the name or place, and it’s sort of touching on some of the things we’ve been talking about, but the person is asking: “How can we help someone we love who is clearly suffering from depression?”

Janet: Oh, most of the time it’s to be a presence. To love. To share time, even if it’s just quiet time, sitting with them. Take those kinds of footsteps of taking flowers, making a casserole, all those loving human footsteps and then just keep maintaining, in your thought, that you know how God made man. God made one kind of man, His image and likeness. God didn’t make good people and bad people, sick people and well people. God made man His image and likeness, so hold that uppermost in your thought and then share love, patient love.

spirituality.com host: Richard from Washington, DC has sent us a follow-up. He says: “You talked about loving yourself first. I find that so difficult to do.”

Janet: Yes, many people do. And I think, generally, we are raised to think of others and not be egotistical and it ends up many times in putting oneself down. But Christ Jesus did tell us to love our neighbor as our self. So we can’t leave anyone out. We can’t allow ourselves to be left out, especially if we’re God’s child, we have to love God’s child. If we’re God’s expression we have to acknowledge that we belong to God. And so we must love what God has made. It’s interesting, too, because this can be almost egotistical. In focusing on self and putting down self is just the opposite of putting self up too high. We’ve got to get right there in the middle with God. We have to keep ourselves as God’s child, God’s image, God’s likeness, and that helps.

spirituality.com host: And from that standpoint of perfection that we talk about when we talk about God’s child being perfect, that isn’t human perfectionism, but the spiritual nature that God gives us, right?

Janet: Yes, it certainly is.

spirituality.com host: But the perfectionism can sometimes be pretty tempting. Now our other Richard from Philadelphia has also sent a follow-up and he says, “I experienced very difficult depression for years and much of it I see now was that mortal mind punished everything I did, thought, or said. Love, as I learned and experienced first through AA, and then Christian Science, has completely cured me. At the smallest sign of any punishment now I affirm the reality of Life, Love, and Truth. Could you comment please on the punishment aspect?”

Janet: Certainly, there is a tenet in Science and Health where it says, “The belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.” And so, if we are doing something wrong, we many times feel uncomfortable about it. And we should. That ends when we turn things around. But we certainly know God is not a God of punishment. God is a God of love. God gave us Christ Jesus to be the Wayshower, to show us the way out or way of salvation, so that we can see clearly what the answers are.

Punishment is what we happen to get ourselves into, what we think it is, and we need to supplant that with reformation, reforming thought. We don’t want to stay in punishment. Punishment is not helpful unless it just takes us and says, okay, there’s something here that needs correcting. Then we go on to the reformation which, obviously you have been through, and reforming thought, taking it right back to God, to find that sense of freedom and wholeness that is in God and what we really always have had. We find that by leaving that old thought.

spirituality.com host: This is from “Wondering in Eugene” and the question is, “Many of the healings of depression seem to indicate that this problem needs time to heal. Can it be healed in one treatment?”

Janet: Nothing is impossible to God. Certainly, as I had said earlier, by going through quite a few months of depression, and then it attempting to come back again, and nipping it in the bud, it certainly was healed in one treatment. Yes, it certainly can be. And that’s what we are expectant of.

spirituality.com host: This is from Hulet who says, “I live in a group home for the disabled. It is extremely medical. I love Christian Science. How can I rise above these thoughts? I am a Christian Scientist in my room but when I open my door I’m sucked into the mortal picture.”

Janet: Okay, well then, while you’re in your room, just keep filling yourself up full and overflowing so that when you go out, you can go out with an abundance of goodness, of light. You know, if it’s all dark at night, pitch dark in the woods and there’s a little house, and there’s a light on in the little house, the light shines out into the darkness and dispels it. The darkness does not come into the house. Think of yourself as that light. Christ Jesus said he was the “light of the world.” Well, we are to follow his footsteps and to be Christlike. So see yourself as the light of the Christ, and be willing to share that light and know the power of that light. Light cannot be extinguished. You are that light.

spirituality.com host: This is from Linda in San Antonio. She says, “I’ve been burdened with the illusion of depression several times in my life. Using Christian Science I have conquered this illusion several times. However, I seem to have to constantly battle with this belief. Can you give me some points of clarification to allay this belief permanently?”

Janet: Yes, and that is where I would go back to really being preoccupied with expression. To be a witness to God’s expression everywhere. I’ve had fun with children in Sunday School and my own children and others through the years of being outside and driving down the street, and being so grateful for the traffic lights, because they are an expression of God’s caring and safety and justice. Everybody gets to take turns, and it keeps us safe. Anything around you can translate. There’s something in Science and Health where it says, “Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul,” we could say, for the expression of Soul. As we are more aware, as we acknowledge the expression of God everywhere, then the depression cannot come in, because we’re too busy being and seeing God’s action and activity. So it’s being God-centered. But that expression of God everywhere, that counters it.

spirituality.com host: Janet, we had a question from Nikki in California which I think is a clarification we need to make. I’m not sure what Nikki’s background is but it’s about the things we’ve been saying about letting go of medicine. This person is saying that there’s a difference between mild depression and severe clinical depression and that we shouldn’t be advising people to drop medication in those more serious circumstances. And I wanted to clarify that at no point are we advising anyone in this chat to drop medication. Each individual has their own circumstances and what we’re doing here is sharing ideas that are meant to be healing ideas. But each individual really needs to make their own decisions and let God and their own thoughts guide them. Wouldn’t you say that’s true?

Janet: Absolutely, it is very different for every person. We certainly don’t know the circumstances of most all of these things. So it is just sharing ideas that have been helpful and that people have used for healing and help.

spirituality.com host: This is Betsy from Minnesota. She says, “How do I help a depressed sister who has rejected Christian Science and God? God-talk will not work with her or her husband and son.”

Janet: Well, good will though. And we know that good is the result of God. But everyone appreciates what’s good. Be focused on the good and just share goodness that you know has that foundation; goodness is always accepted and gratitude is always accepted. So just being grateful, sharing that gratitude, and encouraging her to be grateful for the good that’s right there with her—you can certainly do all those things. As I said earlier, keep sharing the love. Just be that presence of love. If it’s going and sitting down and watching television with her, you know, just share the love. Because that love, again, it’s the universal solvent, it will dissolve it.

spirituality.com host: Well, I think, Janet, this is probably going to be our last question. The person hasn’t given us a name or a place. And there are two parts to this question. The first part is, “How does one handle the claim that one is genetically predisposed to certain forms of mental illness, or unable to escape bad habits of thought or distraction because of learning style or medical and popular beliefs as to how the brain is ‘hard wired.’”

Janet: That thought about the brain being “hard-wired” goes along with a genetic concept of man. You know, they’ve done lots and lots of research on the brain and they know the brain sends out electrical impulses and chemicals. They’ve never been able to figure out how the brain sends out a thought though or an idea. So you can continually go back to see that in the first chapter of Genesis it talks about God creating man in His image and likeness. The Bible tells us that God is Love and God is Mind and God is Spirit. And it gives a totally different view of man. When we think about what God is, based on the Scriptures, as opposed to thinking about genes and heredity and brain, blood, bones. The body, it’s made up of atoms and protons and neutrons. Well, the table is made up of atoms, and protons, and neutrons.

We need to lift thought to a different level. Again, as Einstein said, if you want to solve a problem, you have to go to a different level of thinking. And this is the whole point thatScience and Health gives us—a different perspective on life, on man. It’s beyond the limited, material concept of man. I mean, think about it, you can have your thoughts travel. Perhaps if you’ve ever been overseas, in your thoughts you know what it looks like over there. You’re not limited in your thinking. That’s so different than what the body is telling us. So we have a choice to make. We can be governed just by the matter body. You know, and I think well, Jeepers, do I wake up in the morning and my body gets up and walks in the kitchen and I say, well, I guess since I’m here I might as well eat. No. It’s the result of thought. So let’s just keep taking our concept of who we are above, lifting it higher than just matter, and thinking of it in a mental way, in a spiritual way.

One of the things that I love where Mary Baker Eddy answers the question, What is man?She says, “He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas.” That’s what we are. And so, as “all right ideas,” there’s a freedom beyond habits, beyond the brain, beyond genetics. And we have the opportunity to see that, to witness it, and to live it, and many, many people have done that.

spirituality.com host: That lovely answer might answer part two of this individual’s question which is, “How do we expand the concept of mind and being from one of a mortal brain as the source and tool for expressing intelligence, to discerning individual consciousness, and being as not material, but spiritual with its roots and source in God?” I think you’ve answered that to some extent by what you were just saying.

Janet: Yes, I think so. It is to see things on a different level and to lift above it. One of the things that Science and Health says is, “Whatever guides thought spiritually benefits mind and body.” That’s what we want to do. We want to guide thought spiritually, feed ourselves in the morning knowing God’s presence and God’s power, knowing we are the very expression, the proof of that presence, like the sunbeam is to the sun. And to have a greater sense of freedom that does lift it up and out of that material concept.

spirituality.com host: We have a few more questions but there’s just time for one more. We won’t be able to go into a whole lot of depth but it seems like it’s one we should try to answer. Again, no name or place, “I have a wonderful daughter who was raised in Christian Science and she loves this religion. But she does not seem to realize when she needs to ask for spiritual help with a problem. She is attending a college out of state and is now living back home due to what seems a depression. She’s not asking for help, nor does she seem to understand that she is in a situation that needs to be treated. Could you please provide some ideas I could work with in this situation?”

Janet: That is such a wonderful, caring thought for you to have about your daughter. And you know we have to heal our own thought. What is the picture being presented to us? The picture being presented to us is some other creation than what God made. What you can do is to take yourself frequently to God’s creation. God is the only cause. God is the only creator. Everything created is the result of God’s power and God’s presence. Christ Jesus said once in the Bible in talking to his disciples, “No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.” And this strong man, Mary Baker Eddy says, is mortal mind, which controls the body. That’s where we need to do our work, to control, to see the dominion, to see the very power and presence of God’s love that binds the strong man. The strong man is the picture being presented in front of you. [The work is ] for you daily to disagree with the picture, to look beyond what the picture says, to know your daughter’s true identity, appreciate the qualities that she expresses, whether it’s a sense of harmony with music, or whether she’s very neat, something that you can very clearly identify that that is her true being. And you can make a list of what her true being is, and then be sure that you’re focused on that, and don’t allow yourself to be pulled into the problem. Don’t dream the dream with her, as they say. You stay very clear on the reality of her individuality.

spirituality.com host: Thank you. That’s a wonderful way to end. But I do want to ask you if you had some final comments before we close, Janet.

Janet: Well, just a couple. We did talk quite a bit about gratitude. Gratitude is a wonderful vehicle for lifting thought. And that’s what all of this is about. It’s lifting thought to a different level. It’s changing thought and then we have to have it as the very presence of God’s love. Every little bit of goodness that we see around we must acknowledge and admit that it’s the actual expression of God’s presence. So as we keep focusing on the expression of God’s presence, that’s an antidote to depression.