Thank God for Depression: A Conversation with Kyle Nicolaides that will change how you see depression and healing

I recently sat down on the Whale Song podcast with Kyle Nicolaides, my editing client and friend. Our conversation has stayed with me in a deep way. It was one of those dialogues that doesn’t just exchange ideas—it opens something. We talked about depression, spirituality, masculinity, plant medicine, healing, and the subtle but radical shifts that make transformation possible.

Kyle is the author of Thank God for Depression: How to Make Depression the Best Thing to Ever Happen to You, published in 2023. Even the title alone is evocative. Gratitude and depression are not words we often place side by side, and yet that tension is exactly where this conversation lives.

What follows is a condensed, first‑person glimpse into our conversation—the questions I asked, the stories Kyle shared, and the insights that unfolded between us.

If something here resonates, I highly encourage you to listen to the full episode of the Whale Song podcast, where you can hear this exchange in Kyle’s own voice.

From “This Ruined My Life” to “This Brought Me Home”

I opened by asking Kyle about the perceptual shift behind his book. How does someone go from experiencing depression as the worst thing that ever happened to them to calling it one of their greatest teachers—something they could even thank?

Kyle shared that he lived with debilitating depression from his late teens into his late twenties. At the height of it, he was a successful touring rock star—playing festivals, charting records, living what many would call “the dream.” And yet, beneath the surface, anxiety, depression, and deep self‑worth wounds were steadily dismantling his inner world.

Kyle described days when he could barely speak, let alone sing. Moments when he couldn’t even make noise with his mouth. Depression didn’t just affect his career—it hollowed out his sense of self.

“If you had asked me then,” he said, “I would’ve told you I was depression. That it was who I was, and it was never going to get better.”

For years, it felt like a life sentence.

Everything changed during a two‑night ayahuasca ceremony.

In that space, Kyle experienced not just relief from depression, but a revelation about its root. What he saw was that the depression itself wasn’t the core issue—it was a symptom. Beneath it was a profound disconnection from divinity, from Source, from what yogic philosophy calls avidya—spiritual ignorance, or forgetting who we truly are.

The morning after the first ceremony, Kyle woke up in a state of bliss and clarity he had never known. He described walking through a garden, overwhelmed with the realization that he was not who he thought he was—not just a body, not just a mind, not just a story or a past. There was a remembering of something vast and eternal.

And then came the question that unraveled everything he thought he knew:

How did I get here?

The answer was unavoidable. Depression had been the catalyst. The very thing he had been trying to escape was the path that led him home.

“If depression led me to this reunion with God,” he said, “how could it ever be a bad thing?”

The Closed Loop of Suffering—and How Curiosity Breaks It

One of the most powerful frames Kyle offered was the idea of closed loops. When we label depression as bad—something that shouldn’t be happening—it often creates a self‑reinforcing cycle:

Something’s wrong → I’m broken → I’m afraid → I hate myself → Something’s wrong.

This loop feeds panic, anxiety, and despair. But Kyle emphasized that even a small amount of curiosity can interrupt it.

“What if there’s a message here?” he asked. “What if there’s wisdom in this?”

That shift from condemnation to curiosity creates space. And space creates choice. Instead of being trapped in suffering, we begin to sense that there might be a journey unfolding, even an adventure.

This orientation became the backbone of his book. Kyle isn’t trying to convince people to like their depression. He is invites them boldly to carve out enough space within to stop being terrorized by it.

What Was Depression Asking Of You?

At one point, I asked Kyle a question that felt central to everything we were circling:

Looking back now, what do you think depression was asking of you?

He paused—a long, honest pause—and then said something simple and devastatingly clear.

“It was trying to bring me home to myself.”

Depression, for him, was asking for attention. Presence. A willingness to stop running.

For years, Kyle had avoided stillness at all costs—through substances, scrolling, busyness, achievement. Anything to avoid sitting alone with himself. And yet, what he needed most was exactly that presence.

“There’s a really good reason people experience depression and anxiety,” he said. “And 99% of the time, it’s not their fault.”

Rather than being a personal failure, depression became a signal—an initiation into a spiritual path he might never have chosen otherwise.

Masculinity, Conditioning, and the Fear of Softness

As the conversation deepened, we began to talk about conditioning—especially masculine conditioning. Kyle spoke candidly about how little space men are given to surrender, soften, or feel.

“If something was wrong,” he said, “I was taught to get hard. To push. To fight.”

Relaxation felt dangerous. Slowing down felt like it would expose something unfixable, something broken. Beneath the armor were tender, wounded parts that simply needed to be seen—but the protectors were terrified of letting that happen.

So Kyle did what many of us do. He tried to fix himself externally. Yoga trainings. Success. Fame. Money. Anything that might fill the emptiness inside.

None of it worked.

The turning point came when he finally spoke the words out loud—to a medical professional who could simply witness him. Saying “I’ve been depressed for ten years, and suicidal for three” and hearing it reflected back shattered the illusion that this was normal or sustainable.

That moment of being witnessed cracked something open.

Depression as Relationship, Not Enemy

One of my favorite threads in Kyle’s book—and in our conversation—is the idea that everything is relationship.

We’re not depressed. We’re in relationship with depression.

Kyle shared a practice from the book: writing a letter to depression, as if it were a living being. This simple shift externalizes the experience and opens dialogue. Instead of being consumed by it, we can speak with it.

“You can’t heal a depressed mind with a depressed mind,” he said. “You need access to other centers of intelligence—body, intuition, spirit.”

From this perspective, depression isn’t an enemy to be destroyed but a messenger inviting a different way of being.

The Power of Witness and Why Silence Keeps Us Stuck

We returned again and again to the theme of witnessing. In ceremony. In therapy. In conversation. In writing.

Kyle named something crucial: many people stay silent not because they don’t want help, but because they’ve spoken before, to people who couldn’t meet them, and been hurt.

Being met with judgment, minimization, or fear teaches us it’s not safe to share. And so the suffering becomes isolated.

“If you’re going to speak,” he said, “find someone who is truly safe—someone who doesn’t have a history with you, someone who won’t make it about themselves.”

Sometimes that’s a therapist. Sometimes a doctor. Sometimes a stranger. But healing doesn’t happen in isolation.

Where to Start When You’re Overwhelmed

I asked Kyle a practical question: If someone is listening and thinking, “This is me—what do I actually do?” where should they start?

“Depression is often stuck energy,” he said. “Sometimes rage. Sometimes grief. Sometimes fear.”

Before trying to think differently, he suggested helping the body release what it’s holding.

Other tools he named include breath work, TRE, emotional release practices, EFT, and shaking—ways of working with the nervous system instead of against it.

Widening the Aperture

Toward the end of our conversation, we talked about gratitude—and the resistance many people feel toward it. Kyle admitted it felt awkward, even fake, at first. But something unexpected happened when he began writing down small, genuine acknowledgments of what was working.

His mood shifted.

Not because gratitude erased the pain—but because it widened the aperture.

Depression narrows perception. Gratitude doesn’t bypass suffering; it allows more of reality to coexist. Pain and beauty. Grief and breath. Darkness and light.

That widening, again and again, is what slowly loosens the loop.

Choosing Slowness in a World That Rewards Speed

As the conversation continued, we moved into something alive for both of us: the pace of modern life, and how deeply it shapes our nervous systems.

Kyle reflected on how much we underestimate the weight of conditioning—personal trauma layered with societal expectations, productivity culture, and constant stimulation. Change, he shared, rarely happens at the surface level. We think we’ve found the root of something, only to discover another layer beneath it. And that, he said, is the healing path.

We talked about how fast everything moves now—reels, short clips, constant input—and how each thing we consume has to be digested. Without space, the system clogs. We get fried. Blitzed out. Disconnected from what we’re actually feeling.

Kyle named a state I know well: when you can’t even tell what emotion is present anymore, only that you’re overstimulated. That energy, when it isn’t met, gets stored in the body.

For him, the medicine has been radically simple—and difficult: choosing slowness. Sitting on the grass. Being with flowers. Walking instead of scrolling. Choosing stillness even when fast, shiny stimulation feels far more seductive.

What he’s learning—and what resonated deeply for me—is that the benefits of downregulating the nervous system outweigh the temporary hit of stimulation. Stillness gives something back. Speed just takes.

As someone with a sensitive system myself, I shared how much I’m reckoning with technology’s impact on my body—how to stay engaged with the world while also honoring a psyche and body that need spaciousness. We named how intentional that choice has to be, how it becomes a reclamation of sovereignty.

There Is No Finish Line

From there, we moved into a question that lives close to my heart: if healing never really ends, how do we relate to that without despair or spiritual bypassing?

Kyle’s answer surprised me.

Rather than seeing healing as something we accumulate, he experiences it as something that happens through removal. Less noise. Less fragmentation. Less nervous system overwhelm. More space.

He shared that the clearest sign of healing for him isn’t a dramatic breakthrough moment—it’s subtle. Almost quiet. A growing capacity for presence. The ability to be with plants, with life, without his system being constantly shattered.

He shared a line from a teacher that landed powerfully between us: all stories start in the middle. We don’t know the true beginning, and we don’t know the end. That realization, he said, can either terrify us—or liberate us.

Perfection, we agreed, isn’t the point. If anything were perfect, it wouldn’t exist on this plane.

Learning to Meet Yourself

Later, I asked Kyle how he meets himself differently now.

He offered a metaphor: learning to play guitar. At first, it’s broad strokes—basic chords, clumsy fingers, repetition. Over time, subtlety emerges. Muscle memory. Nuance. Responsiveness.

Self-awareness works the same way.

With intention, prayer, and practice, we strengthen the witness consciousness—the part of us that can observe without collapsing. Kyle spoke passionately about the power of simply asking for help, even when we don’t know how healing will happen.

Over time, awareness sharpens. Practices begin to support each other. Meditation affects relationships. Yoga impacts finances. Nothing exists in isolation.

He shared his mindset now: whenever an obstructed emotion appears, there’s wisdom behind it. A trail to follow. Modalities like EFT have helped him trace emotions back to their roots—but more than any single tool, it’s the willingness to stay curious that matters.

“There’s an art to knowing yourself,” he said. “And like any art, you get better with practice.”

We laughed about perfectionism—how easy it is to expect mastery immediately, whether in music or healing. The invitation instead is progress over perfection. Poco a poco. Little by little.

Grace Is the Beginning

As we came toward the end, I asked what he would say to someone who’s struggling—someone who can’t yet imagine being grateful for where they are.

Kyle was careful here. He didn’t want to offer platitudes. No spiritual gaslighting. No “everything happens for a reason” in the face of real suffering.

What he offered instead was simple: Grace.

Whatever you’re feeling is allowed. Rage, despair, self-hatred, exhaustion. Give it space. Let it speak.

He was clear that while he doesn’t pretend to understand everyone’s suffering, he does know—deeply—that there are modalities that can help. Depression and anxiety, he said, are forms of conditioning. And just like a math problem, there are ways to work with them.

Then comes the mystery—the shamanic, the spiritual, the part we can’t map in advance. That’s where surrender enters. Where spirit guides. Where the journey reveals itself step by step.

Before we closed, I shared how much I believe in his book, Thank God for Depression—how beautifully it bridges the mystical and the practical, the cosmic and the nightstand rituals before sleep.

Kyle shared that people can find him at his website, www.KyleNico.com, and hinted at stepping away from social media—a choice that felt perfectly aligned with everything we’d been discussing.

We ended with gratitude. Mutual respect. And the shared sense that this conversation could have gone on for hours.

If any part of this resonated with you, I invite you to listen to the full podcast episode (links above). This piece is just a glimpse into a much deeper, living conversation.

Thank you for being here—and for walking your own unfolding path.