Magic

 

“If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to”

Anna Nalick Breathe (2am)

What do you call your higher power?  I call him God, Lord, or Heavenly Father. Perhaps you call your higher power by a different name.  If so, please feel free to substitute that name as I share my experience with you.  If you don’t have a higher power, maybe it is time for you to find one.

That night, I left my sister-in-law’s house with something new to try. 

Andrew and I helped the children into their pajamas, offered an evening prayer, and tucked them into bed. Finding a few quiet moments to myself, I thought I’d give Mandy-Marie’s suggestion a try. Switching on the overhead light to my bedroom, I quietly shut the door. I walked over to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out the pen and notebook I kept tucked inside. I sat down on the floor, opened the notebook to the first blank page and started writing.

Perhaps the tears came before I started writing.  Perhaps they waited until the first thought found its way to the paper. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is this: I took the burdens from inside my head and transferred them to the paper. Everything that popped into my head, I wrote down.  I just let the words flow through the pen until nothing was left. And then I waited, pen still on the paper. It seemed my brain got stuck for a moment, pausing. I waited for a minute or two, until another flood of thoughts found its way to the tip of my pen. All of the worries, heart-aches, and stress, turned into words, I copied into the notebook.

I had tried similar techniques when I had gone to therapy. There seemed to be magic in writing down plaguing thoughts, transferring the negative 'junk' I held inside to something tangible outside: words on paper.

The next step was new to me, though. I looked at the pages I had written, spread them open on my bed and knelt down. I folded my hands over the paper and commenced a sincere, heart-felt prayer.

 “Dear Heavenly Father,” I began. “Thank you for Mandy-Marie.  Thank you for something new to try. Tonight I have written down all of the burdens I am carrying.  I am struggling with depression.  I can’t do it on my own.  It is too hard.  Will You please take this burden from me?  I don’t want it anymore. I will give it to you, if you will take it.”

As I closed the prayer, I felt a sense of peace.  My heart still ached, but my mind felt calm.  Then, I did the last thing Mandy-Marie had instructed me to do: I took the pages on which I had written all of the burdens, ripped them out of the notebook, and tore them into hundreds of little pieces.  Oh, it felt good! As if I was saying, “So long!” to all of those heavy burdens forever.

After chucking the paper pieces into the trash can, I climbed into bed and turned out the light.

The next morning, as I woke up, I listened to the birds chirping outside. I enthusiastically thought about jumping out of bed and making breakfast for my children.  I felt happy.  The depression was gone. The sad, achy, dragging, tired feelings I had been experiencing, had simply disappeared. My heart felt light. I felt energetic again. God had taken the burden from me! Mandy-Marie’s advice had worked.

It wasn’t the end of my battle with depression, but it proved to be the end of that episode.

I now had a new tool to use to fight the depression monster: writing down the negative thoughts in my head, taking them to God in prayer, and shredding them. How simple, yet how effective!

“Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.”

                                                                        James 3:4

 “By small means the Lord can bring about great things.”

                                                            1 Nephi 16:29