Maybe Depression Can Serve Us As a Potential Gateway to Inner Transformation
Here are a few things I've learned about myself from wiser indigenous and mystical teachers
“A Pink Rose.” Image credit: author
What if depression wasn’t just something to fix, but something to listen to? I call it my dark cloud. It comes without explanation and covers any semblance of joy in the moment.
As a child, I could not understand my feelings like this. If I said something to my parents, the answer was typically, “Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Everything will be fine.”
Except when it wasn’t. Heck, being a child on Earth is brutal for all of us. It takes decades for most of us to process what we bury deep inside our psyches. Some of us never wake up from the traumas of the past.
As a kid, I wondered, “How can people be so mean to each other?” Or, “Why am I here?”
Now I understand better without the need to self-medicate. All aspects of my dark existential times helped me find radical acceptance and use it as the springboard to unconditional love and forgiveness.
Before I proceed, I’m not a doctor or psychotherapist. I’m just like the rest of us: a student with a seat and a desk in the school of life. I’m simply sharing what I’ve learned to help myself. Maybe some of what follows will help you.
Western culture took a much different view
It’s abundantly clear how we treat depression and other potential gateways to transformation; we drug and numb the pain. And the medicine always wears off.
However, it wasn’t always this way. In many indigenous cultures around the world, depression and anxiety aren’t treated as diseases. They are seen as signs. Messages from the soul. A calling to stop, listen, and go deeper.
While modern medicine often rushes to treat symptoms, elders, shamans, and healers across Africa, the Americas, Australia, and Asia have long seen emotional pain as an invitation, not a failure.
Let’s take a closer look at more traditional, Old-World views of treating depression and other mental health opportunities to shift into a higher gear of consciousness.
Indigenous Views: A Sacred Pause
Among the Dagara people of Burkina Faso in West Africa, depression is understood as the birth of a healer. In his book Of Water and the Spirit, Dagara elder Malidoma Somé explains that when a person feels lost, sad, or hopeless, the community sees this as a signal that the person’s soul is transforming.
Instead of isolation or medication, the person is surrounded by rituals, nature, and storytelling to guide their spiritual awakening. Imagine that.
In many Native American traditions, like those reflected in the Potawatomi teachings shared by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, depression is not simply a mental illness; it’s often understood as a symptom of disconnection. Disconnection from the land, from the rhythms of nature, from ancestral memory, and one’s sacred purpose.
Kimmerer writes about the healing power of ceremony, gratitude, and the deep intelligence of the natural world, how walking barefoot on the earth, honoring the gifts of plants, and restoring right relationship with the land can bring a person back into balance. These aren’t just poetic ideas but practical, grounded ways indigenous communities help members move through emotional pain into spiritual wholeness.
Vicki Grieves, a Warraimaay woman and scholar, explains that within Aboriginal worldviews, emotional and spiritual well-being is deeply tied to The Dreaming (or Dreamtime), which holds the people's laws, stories, and spiritual identity. Disconnection from land, ancestors, or totemic relationships can result in emotional distress, including what might be labeled in Western terms as depression.
Healing involves spiritual reconnection — often through ceremony, storytelling and land-based practices.
The Christian mystical path is also profound
In Christian mysticism, especially the writings of St. John of the Cross, there is a phrase called “the dark night of the soul.” It describes a time when everything feels empty and dark, and God seems far away. But this isn’t a punishment; it’s a sacred process.
The dark night strips away false beliefs, ego attachments, and illusions, making space for a deeper connection to the Divine. The pain feels like dying, but it’s the death of the false self.
As St. John wrote, “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” In other words, when everything falls apart, the soul wakes up.
By the way, you need not share a Christian worldview to benefit from the profound wisdom found in this book.
Wisdom within suffering: a universal view
Whether you ask an indigenous healer or a Christian mystic, the message is the same: our most challenging times have meaning.
Depression and anxiety may feel like enemies, but they’re messengers. They show up when something in us needs attention: maybe grief, trauma, or the soul’s hunger for truth and purpose.
In many spiritual traditions, the healing journey is not about fixing what’s wrong with you. It’s about finding what’s real. It’s about becoming more human, more awake, more whole.
Maybe it’s time to go back to the future.
How indigenous communities heal
Even though I’m an old, white, bald guy, I’ve always aligned with indigenous wisdom since I was a kid. The older I get, the more sense it makes.
Indigenous wisdom strikes me as common sense in a world lost in darkness. Here are a few common ways communities help people move through their darkness worldwide.
Rituals matter
Malidoma Somé, a Dagara elder from Burkina Faso, describes ritual as essential to healing the soul. In many Indigenous cultures, ritual creates sacred space and marks spiritual transformation. When people experience emotional pain, ritual helps them process grief, call in support, and reconnect with deeper meaning.
Storytelling
Telling stories, especially ancestral or spiritual ones, helps people remember who they are. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer shares how storytelling helps reconnect people to their lineage, land and purpose. Stories are medicine.
Nature Connection
I discovered a body of work that beautifully describes this ritual. Walking barefoot, sitting under a tree, or watching the stars are more than calming acts; they’re sacred practices. Many traditions, from Aboriginal Australians to Native American cultures, see nature as a living relative. Depression is often seen as a call to reconnect with the land.
Community Support
Healing rarely happens in isolation. As Vicki Grieves describes in her work on Aboriginal spirituality through the Lowitja Institute, Indigenous communities often respond to emotional distress by surrounding the person with elders, family, and community. This collective support system helps the person feel seen, reduces shame, and reinforces their sense of belonging and identity.
Listening to the Soul
What if we learn to listen to the soul when darkness creeps in? What Western medicine calls symptoms, like anxiety or depression, many spiritual traditions see as signs from the soul. Mirabai Starr writes in her translation of Dark Night of the Soul that this darkness isn’t punishment, it’s part of the path to spiritual wholeness.
Each of these practices echoes the path of the mystics, who entered the darkness not to escape but to transform.
A modern invitation
It’s easy to label depression and anxiety as disorders. But what if we could see them the way our ancestors did? What if they were signs that we’ve been living too far from our true identity?
The pain you feel might be the beginning of your healing. Your depression might not be the end, but the gateway to your transformation.
I help the next generation of overwhelmed, stressed-out leaders find clarity, purpose, prosperity, and inner peace. If you’re feeling stuck, learn more at www.CliffordJones.com.