From the first day I began placing information in the Health Section of Suite101.com, my plan was to arrive at a point where I would be able to share 'real solutions' for people with depression and hypochondria. Once you experience, for yourself, the life exercises that I share with you for the next few months, you will be able to see why they are being referred to as 'real solutions.'
Along with me today, I bring a wonderful writer, Tamara Dailey-Keur, presenting her personal truth in a poem of why the first exercise, 'the special box' works in her life.
The best way for me to explain 'the special box' to my audience here on Suite101.com is to share the 'how,' 'where,' 'why,' and 'when,' of its birth.
In 1990, while I was in treatment at Rapha (a spiritual treatment center) for suicidal depression, the group was given plain wooden boxes. These boxes looked similar to very small school desks with tiny latches. We were told to paint the boxes. Mine was painted sky blue. Next, each patient was provided a fancy bag of mosaic tiles in which to decorate their box. Tiles of all colors, shapes, and textures spilled everywhere on our table. Each of us began to grab the tiles we wanted.
The goal was to create a cross on 'the box' and detail each cross signifying a person we were having trouble forgiving. Some of the patients used the cross to signify an event in their life that they were having trouble getting over. Whatever the meaning, the cross was created to be a very special significant placement on 'the box.'
What we patients understood at Rapha (meaning God) was that we were turning the person or event absolutely without any reservation, over to God. We were becoming willing to 'let go and let God' remove our sadness, our anger, our obsession, our fear, and especially our hatred of that person or event.
Slowly, daily, for weeks, I methodically picked out the tiles and glued them on my treasure chest. Each finished cross began to heal me. Each cross that I turned over truly took away my troubled heart in the area that I was turning over. Others experienced this healing as well. The group began to heal individually and as a whole. Our 'special boxes' became special treasures and special miracles all rolled into one.
Before I share with you Tamara's piece about what happened for her when I shared with her what she could do with the box idea, I want to share one more piece of my own personal experience.
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