Having suffered the dark weight of depression for most of my life I decided to write a collection of reminder notes for myself in an effort to reduce the stress. Eventually this attempt at self-help became the collection of dialogues making up this book. Through years of ruthless self-enquiry coupled with firsthand knowledge of the unwanted side effects occasionally caused by medicine, I began to actually 'see' the lie I was living. When I discovered this prison of separation, limitation and isolation, I pleaded with the universe to tell me how to break free. The flood of knowledge that followed enabled me to understand that I was allowing 'belief' to lay the groundwork for my everyday life and because of this my perceived reality was quite distorted. Of course, these heavily conditioned beliefs came from the society that nurtured me. The relief, as I became enveloped in this truth, felt like a thousand-voice choir singing hallelujah. Here was the key to freedom! I had taken back control! Nevertheless, when accepting this line of thinking it is imperative to understand that we humans are constantly creating our reality, so we need to be very clear about how the power of our conditioning shapes the way we perceive the world around us. I am not claiming my illness has been cured for it would seem that once one's nervous system is damaged there is always a slight chance of a relapse, but at least these days I rarely get pulled into that fearful darkness and when I do usually it only lasts a few minutes, whereas in the past sometimes my depression would haunt me for months before I was able to struggle back to the surface of life. Having successfully used these methods it is my hope that others dealing with the ravages of depression, physical pain, emotional torment and/or chronic illness might also gain some benefit from these dialogues.
