Raising an Optimistic Child: A Proven Plan for Depresion-Proofing Young Children--for Life
(McGraw-Hill, 2006) by Bob Murray and Alicia Fortinberry

Creating Optimism:
A Proven Seven-Step Program for Overcoming Depression
(McGraw-Hill, 2004) by Bob Murray and Alicia Fortinberry

By Bob Murray, PhD and Alicia Fortinberry, MS

Many teachers have said that the secret of happiness and internal harmony lies in the injunction to “just be.” But, you ask, “How can I just be? What is being? What is being apart from being something? Like a flower perhaps, or a tree or a blade of grass? But are they not just being a flower, a tree or a blade of grass? They are still being something.”

So “just be” must mean “just be human.” Just be the creature you are.

Unfortunately our society doesn't allow for humanity. It doesn't allow for the kinds of functional connections that make us human--connection to Nature, other people, our bodies and the Divine. There is a human way with each of these and that way of connection is made more difficult in our dysfunctional society with each passing year.

Deprived of our essential humanity we become more isolated, more depressed, more anxious. Less able to just be.

Look at the tree outside your window. What are the essentials of treeness that allow it to be able to fulfill its mission of being a functional tree? These essentials lie, as with us, in its connections--to the soil, to other trees and to the rest of Nature. A tree cannot be understood without reference to the forest. A tree outside of a forest cannot really connect to Nature as Nature meant it to: to provide shade for creatures and plants that hide from the sun and the elements; to provide a home for birds and insects, to provide food for a multitude of creatures and finally, with its body, to add to the very soil within which other trees will grow.

Scientists tell us that trees communicate with one another through the exchange of chemical messages carried on the wind. For a tree to just be is to be part of a forest. We can only understand any organism as part of something else, something larger than itself.

Natural selection operates at multiple levels of organization--from DNA molecules to cells, to organisms, to groups and regional ecosystems. You can only understand any individual--plant, bird, insect, mammal or planet--in terms of its context, its connections, and its relationships.

The whole of existence is nothing more than a series of connections, a series of relationships within which the individual parts of existence can be understood. Despite what Descartes said we are not just our mind, a mind cannot be understood outside of the context of family and the prevailing beliefs of the society it comes into. Nor, for the same reason are we just our body, or our soul. To be human we must ask first what is the context of humanity. To the extent that we can align with that we can be human.

The unique feature of a human is that he or she can escape from the self and see the connections. He or she can purposefully form relationships that are mutually beneficial. He or she can make a connection to the Divine that will allow for escape from the depressed or anxious self and a connection to Nature that allows us to see ourselves as part of a system so wonderful and marvelous that there is a joy to be a part of it. That's what it is “to be” human.

Only we can ask the question: what is it to be human? Only we are in the predicament of having to.

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• Wisdom: On Life Values
• Wisdom: What is Family?
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• Meditations: Connecting CD Set
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About the Author

Dr Bob Murray is a widely published psychologist and expert on depression, post-traumatic stress and relationships. Together with his wife and long-term collaborator Alicia Fortinberry, he is founder of the highly successful Uplift Program, and author of the new book Creating Optimism: A Proven, 7-Step Program for Overcoming Depression (McGraw-Hill, 2004). They offer seminars, courses and audio-programs teaching people how to beat depression and improve self-esteem by creating healing relationships.