“For four months, I meditated at least twice a day. For four months, every single day. I made that commitment to myself. And I think that's what made the biggest difference to me.”

Ilse remembers her first encounter with depression. She was seven years old, and had just lost her father to a sudden heart attack. For nearly four decades, she struggled with feelings of hopelessness and despair. Therapy and medication brought temporary relief, but Ilse was never out of the shadow of depression.

After finding Dr Joe’s work through a podcast and “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself,” Ilse made two life-changing decisions. The first was to gradually stop taking the medication she’d been on for 20 years. The second was a commitment to heal. “I went all in,” she says today.

Just nine months after beginning the work, Ilse found herself at a Progressive Retreat, reflecting on her healing. It wasn’t a sudden breakthrough; it was more of a gradual unfolding. “One day I felt that the hopelessness was gone,” Ilse says now. “My constant companion was now gone. And it felt really liberating to know that I could enjoy life again.” 

Recorded at the Basel Progressive Retreat in May 2024