A young man once wrote me about negative thoughts and depression overcoming him.
He described his
negative thinking as like an 800-pound gorilla, beating him up with nasty put-downs that told him he was no good, he was ugly, and no matter what he tried he could not change.
In a flash, I saw the similarities in what he wrote to how I imagined myself as a shy teenager.
Back then, I saw myself as a princess trapped in a stone tower, with an evil dragon terrorizing me.
No matter how I much I tried to escape the tower, the dragon was
there. He had fearsome claws and he breathed fire. He was a fearsome sight.
My situation depressed me too. Darkness surrounded me and I could not see the way out.
But one day, I had a startling revelation. That revelation showed me the power that I always had in defeating the dragon: