The Oxford Dictionary defines liberation as:
‘the act of setting someone free from slavery, imprisonment or oppression’.

Liberation, therefore, has both inner and outer dimensions which are intrinsically inter-related because if we are not free inside ourselves, it will inevitably limit our ability to live a liberated outer life, even if the society we live in is a relatively free one. The same can hold true the other way around as well.

Many of us, therefore, need liberating not only from what oppresses us internally and which prevents us realising who we really are, but also from a society where economic, religious, societal and cultural forces oppress us. It is just as incarcerating to being a slave to negative habits, restrictive thoughts and tendencies to feel paranoid and depressed, as it is to live in countries with regimes that spy on us all the time, or where societal fault lines means we have to devote so much effort simply to survive that we are allowed no space to be creative or time to experience enjoyment.

I see one of the great problems of the world today is that too many of us are enchained both ways and the result is a huge amount of unhappiness all around. In many Western nations, fault lines in society may activate predispositions inside many of us to feel soulless and empty resulting is us having hearts full of greed, aggression, insecurity, pain, fear and resentment as opposed to love, compassion, altruism and wisdom. And this huguely weighs us down.

In my last book, Gateways to the Soul, I explored certain societal conditions required that I felt would encourage external liberation and in so doing, create a context favourable for possible internal liberation. Here are a few of the most relevant ones…

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Depression is a terribly debilitating condition and in this chaotic world of ours with its topsy-turvy values, lifestyles that have become increasingly inorganic and artificial and a media constantly feeding us doses of gloom and doom, it is, very sadly, on the increase.  How does it affect us? It drains us of our life force. It makes us feel bad about ourselves and dislike ourselves. When depression comes over us, we live in a world where the glass is always half empty. If severe, it can compel us to hide away from life and many depressed people drink or take drugs to try to numb the pain.

We need to know that there are many different kinds of depression and they occupy many different levels on the spectrum. For me, they fall into five main categories:

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A few years ago, I used to feel there was a dichotomy between my roles as psychotherapist and social activist. Increasingly, I am coming to see where they converge, as many of our personal difficulties mirror social problems and many social and economic problems are reflected in our emotional symptoms.

Interestingly, what I have also found with my clients, is that those people heal their emotional wounds much more quickly to the extent that they are willing to stand up for social values they believe in and see their lives not solely from a personal viewpoint – what do I want; what’s in it for me? – but who also experience being part of a larger whole and needing in some way, to live in a way that contributes to this larger whole of life. In other words, if many of our personal problems revolve around our not experiencing enough “meaning” in our lives (as when we subscribe to society’s diminishing description of us as mere “consumers” (Yuk!), I have found that the more we commit ourselves to, as Gandhi would put it, being “the change we want to see happen”, i.e., trying to actually embody the values we believe in in how we live our daily lives, the happier we feel.

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