About Kelly Brogan

KELLY BROGAN, MD, is a holistic psychiatrist, author of the New York Times Bestselling book, A Mind of Your Own, Own Your Self, the children’s book, A Time For Rain, and co-editor of the landmark textbook Integrative Therapies for Depression.

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“Tears are a river that take you somewhere. Weeping creates a river around the boat that carries your soul-life. Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace new, someplace better.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estés

What if depression is an almost essential part of the process of awakening to yourself, to your wildness?

Understand me when I tell you, depression is a gift. Thank yourself and your body for sending you the message rather than complacently agreeing to make room for toxicity.

Resist the temptation to roll your eyes at what I'm saying. Don’t dismiss the possibility that depression is here to serve you, because yours is real and it's a problem. Yours is chemical. Yours is a disease. Sit with a new perspective on depression for a moment...

This perspective tells us that depression is your portal to you. Open the door, look inside, and gather up every fragmented piece of your starving, wasted, lost self, and walk. Through. It. Sit in it. Be with it. Accept it. Allow it.

Move through every excruciating minute of it and do it because the birth canal of your transformation is meant to hurt in all the ways that are necessary. In fact, from now on, I want you to think about hurt and feel something deep inside that says “ooooh...what’s on the other side of this!” because awe-inspiring shedding happens when we choose not to suppress it, fight it, or simply keep punching the clock.

We have been taught that tears are wrong. That wanting to be alone is concerning. That shutting down and saying no to life is a sign of illness. We have been taught these things because a woman’s awakening and transformation put her in deep union with her wild self – a wild self our culture cannot accommodate. When your ego runs out of ways to fix, bandage, and paper over the hurt of your felt experience, you know that your journey is about to begin and you cannot even imagine where it will take you.

Depression is asking you to check out how wrong things are – how wrong is your diet? How wrong is your house? How wrong is your marriage? How wrong is your job? How wrong is that medication you’re taking?

If it’s all wrong, or just one thing is, once you fix the one thing, many others may be reframed as needing attention. Attend to what is wrong. I guide you through how to do this in A Mind of Your Own and the 44 day experiential Vital Mind Reset, but all you have to do is commit. Choose to find your wildness. Simply begin, because if you don’t walk through the door now, you may be begging to pry it open later.

“When it’s time, it’s time. Even if you’re not ready, even if things are undone, even if today your ship is coming in. When it’s time, it’s time. The seal woman returns to the sea, not because she just feels like it, not because today is a good day to go, not because her life is all nice and tidy - there is no nice and tidy time for anyone. She goes because it is time, and therefore she must.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estés

As one Vital Minder said:

Find out just what she means...

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