New Book Wrestles With Depression

Struggling with Depression?

New Book Talks Honestly about How Not to Lose Faith

As a magna-cum-laude Harvard grad, tenured professor, in-demand preacher, and author of popular as well as academic books and blogs, Monica A. Coleman is what most people would call “a success.” Behind her impressive achievements, however, is a story that many of her friends and colleagues knew nothing about—her ongoing struggle with severe depression.

In Not Alone: Reflections on Faith and Depression – a 40-Day Devotional, ($14.95 Inner Prizes Inc, 2012) she opens up her life to offer the hard-won wisdom that she’s obtained as she’s wrestled with God and depression. While avoiding easy answers, she shares the struggles she has faced, in order to give hope to those who deal with similar challenges, so that they will be better equipped to explore and reflect on their own experiences and faith. Above all, she writes to let them know that they are not alone.

Not Alone takes the form of 40 days of meditations in six sections:

Breaking the Silence is about coming to one’s own terms with a depressive condition. It’s about shirking shame, telling the truth, naming yourself and singing your own song.

Feeling It Deeply discusses the experience of living with depression. It’s about feeling impatient, broken, empty, lost, quiet and desperate. It’s also about feeling full, heroic and grounded. Sometimes it’s about not feeling anything at all.

Letting Others In is about looking, walking, moving, eating, connecting, communicating, creating and even resting with others–and inviting them to do the same with us.

Touching Love, Beauty and Joy is a reminder that living with a depressive condition is not all sadness. In the ordinary moments of our lives, there can be joy, laughter, happiness and gratitude.

Knowing Yourself as Complete and Whole talks about how messy wellness really is. We heal as we amble through desire, rest, memory, medication, affirmation, new skills and new rituals.

Embracing Death as a New Beginning grapples with the tension between looking back and moving forward as we search for peace and comfort. It ends with an epilogue on why the resurrection matters in the encounter of depression and faith.

“As a minister and a professor of religion, I know a lot of ideas about God and suffering,” says Coleman. “I also know there are no easy answers for why or how. And I’m honest about that. Sometimes I feel God’s presence. Sometimes I’m angry. I think that’s okay. It’s all part of the journey.”

Monica A. Coleman is Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religions and Co-Director of the Center for Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology in southern California. An ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Coleman has earned degrees at Harvard University, Vanderbilt University and Claremont Graduate University. The interdenominational preaching magazine The African American Pulpit named Coleman one of the “Top 20 to Watch” – The New Generation of Leading Clergy: Preachers under 40. She has been featured as an expert in religion and mental health on NPR, blogtalkradio, Huffington Post and Huffington Post Live. She blogs on faith and depression at www.BeautifulMindBlog.com.

Not Alone: Reflections on Faith and Depression – a 40-Day Devotional (Inner Prizes, Inc., $14.95, 208 pages, 5 ½ x 8, paperback, ISBN: 0985140208) is available in paper and eBook format at online booksellers. For press kit and book excerpts, click here.