This is a way of taking back control.

Of your thoughts.

Of your brain.

Of your life.

On a piece of paper, draw an oval–it’s an oval office–and in the oval, write “Me, the conscious self,” because you are the President of Yourself, a nation currently under siege. Now draw a bunch of hallways connected to that oval office. Other people and their opinions travel down those hallways. Most often they arrive at the door to the oval office and they enter. The locks on the doorways into these passages are on the outside, giving the people control over when and how often they visit with their opinions and beliefs.

You want to reverse those locks, so that only you have control over who (or what) visits you, how long, and how often.

If you are in a vulnerable place–feeling like your depression is all your fault, and you are a pathetic human being for not being able to pick yourself up by your bootstraps–you might want to lock the doorway to the librarian woman with the tight bun and high-collared blouse who asks you if you truly WANT to get better, implying, of course, that are willing yourself to stay sick because you’re getting so much attention and because fantasizing about death is so much fun. Yes, the witch who depletes your self-esteem by telling you that your suffering is all in your imagination can stay behind her locked door.

The guy with the long-stem roses? He can come in and visit you all he wants.

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