A Contemplative Guide Through Depression Using LMCI
Published: March 21, 2025
When life feels heavy, flat, or unbearable, we often lose touch with the very qualities that once gave us light, purpose, or direction. This guide offers gentle reflections using the six dimensions of the Love, Meaning, and Connection Index (LMCI)—a holistic framework for understanding human flourishing.
This is not a checklist or cure, but a quiet companion for those walking through the fog of depression. You are not broken. These qualities may seem lost, but they often remain—hidden, hushed, waiting.
💗 Love
The gentle presence that reminds you—you are worthy, even now.
Depression can feel like the absence of love, including self-love. A deep inner voice may whisper that you are undeserving of care.
What would it feel like to receive love—even a flicker—from yourself or another?
Can you recall a moment when someone truly saw you? Even briefly?
Start small. A soft blanket. A warm drink. A kind tone of voice to yourself.
You do not need to earn love. It is still yours.
🌟 Meaning
The quiet spark that says: this matters.
In depression, life can seem void of purpose, as if everything has lost its glow. But meaning doesn’t always shout. Sometimes, it whispers.
What has mattered to you before? A person, a project, a cause, a sunset?
If anything were worth protecting—even just a little—what might it be?
Meaning can return not in grand quests, but in small acts: watering a plant, humming a melody, caring for something fragile.
🤝 Connection
The invisible threads that remind us—we are not alone.
Depression isolates. It tells us we are different, separate, unreachable.
Is there someone, somewhere, you feel even slightly safe with?
Could connection come through music, nature, silence shared with a pet?
Connection doesn’t have to be loud or immediate. Even a sense of contact with the ground, the air, your breath—counts. You are not as alone as you feel.
🎨 Playfulness
The spark of lightness that reminds you—you are more than your pain.
In the grip of depression, life can become all effort, all seriousness. Play feels impossible, pointless.
What made you smile or laugh once—even faintly?
Can you imagine something slightly absurd, weird, or silly… just for a moment?
Playfulness might be as simple as watching a nostalgic cartoon, doodling nonsense, or wearing mismatched socks. It’s not about joy—it’s about breathing room.
🕊️ Freedom
The gentle truth that—even now—you have some choice.
Depression can feel like entrapment. The future seems locked, the present unbearable.
Where do you still have choice, even a small one?
Can you shift your posture, decide what to eat, speak kindly to yourself?
Even micro-acts of freedom—standing outside for 30 seconds, pausing before a decision—are acts of reclaiming self.
You are not powerless.
🌱 Resilience
Not bouncing back, but staying—softly—with what is.
In depression, the word “resilience” can feel like pressure. But true resilience is not about performance—it is about presence.
Have you endured something before that once felt impossible?
What carried you—grace, grit, others, time, mystery?
To be here, now, reading this—is already a form of resilience.
You don’t have to “bounce back.” You just have to breathe, rest, and not give up on yourself.
✨ Final Reflection
What if these six qualities—love, meaning, connection, playfulness, freedom, and resilience—aren’t things you have to build from scratch… but things already within you, dimmed, yet intact?
What if they’re not tasks, but companions—waiting for you at the edge of the fog?
Depression is real. These contemplations won’t fix it—but they can offer a gentle mirror, reflecting what is still yours, even when it feels lost.
Please, if you’re struggling, reach out. You deserve help. You deserve love.
Let these words be a soft hand on your shoulder.
🌠 A Soft Invitation to Dream Again
You don’t have to feel hopeful right now.
But if a tiny part of you still believes in something—a value, a vision, a gentler world—you might start there.
“What would a more beautiful future feel like—not just for you, but for others, for the Earth, for life?”
Maybe you believe in kindness.
Maybe you imagine a world where people care more than compete.
Maybe you still carry a vision that things could change—slowly, imperfectly, but meaningfully.
That dream doesn’t have to be clear. It doesn’t have to be big.
It just has to be yours.
🌍 You Are Not Alone in This Web
Depression doesn’t live in a vacuum.
It’s often entangled with the state of our culture, our communities, our world.
If you feel disconnected, numb, or lost—maybe you’re not failing.
Maybe you are feeling what the world has forgotten how to feel.
You are still part of the web.
And your healing—however slow—matters to the whole.
With care,
Björn Kenneth Holmström and ChatGPT
You can explore more about LMCI and the book behind this framework here:
👉 Love, Meaning, Connection: A New Index for Measuring What Matters