When Overwhelm Strikes, There’s Hope

How to Handle Sadness and Depression Without Medication

As a musician, my role is to explore the deepest emotions within music and bring them to life for my audience—even when those emotions are sadness or depression. I’ve been honing this skill since childhood, and it has given me insights into how to handle sadness and depression without medication. Many classical musicians can play the notes, but what truly makes a performance convincing is the disciplined exploration of emotional meaning within the music and conveying that to listeners.

Little did I know that this musical practice would become invaluable in my personal life. Life has thrown its share of challenges at me: the suicide of a lifelong friend, the loss of both my parents, two divorces, guiding my children and stepchildren through their formative years, and confronting my own chronic depression and suicidal thoughts. Through all of this, I found that the emotional insights I cultivated through music could also apply to real-life struggles.

I hope that sharing my journey will help you, too.

Lesson 1: Don’t Run Away from Difficult Emotions

I admire those who seem to never feel sadness or depression. The “stiff upper lip” approach that I learned growing up in the Midwest seemed to work for many of my relatives. However, the fact that my paternal grandfather committed suicide—a truth I only learned in my thirties—suggests otherwise. My family buried that reality deep inside.

One uncle, who served as a bomber pilot in Vietnam, had a different perspective. His experience with tragedy gave him the ability to candidly discuss how his father had taken his own life. That conversation sparked a realization: my musical practice of exploring emotions wasn’t separate from my life—it was connected. I had been allowing myself to feel deeply at the piano but suppressing emotions in my day-to-day existence.

By acknowledging the “bad stuff” in life, I took the first step toward dealing with my sadness and depression. Although it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar, this shift in awareness helped me develop the emotional resilience I rely on today—and you can do it too.

Lesson 2: Face Your Emotions Head-On

Facing sadness and depression is hard. Playing sad, emotional music is something I’ve become quite good at, but what about when these feelings hit me outside of music, in real life? How do I cope without the comfort of a piano?

The answer lies in the practice of acceptance. Accepting sadness and depression as natural parts of the human experience was transformative for me. These emotions no longer felt overwhelming when I acknowledged that

Sadness and depression, like all emotions, are necessary parts of being human.

Feelings are like guardrails that keep us moving forward. Initially, I felt like I was bouncing off those guardrails, struggling to stay on course. But over time, I realized that by not fighting my emotions—whether sadness, anger, fear, or even joy—I could navigate life more smoothly. By paying attention to what my emotions were telling me, I spent less time battling depression, and more time living a richer, fuller life.

Lesson 3: Surrender to Your Emotions

These days, “mindset” is a buzzword, but there’s more to emotions than just our thoughts. Whether the thought triggers the feeling or vice versa is still debated, but the key is to identify the emotion and surrender to it—fully.

At first, it sounds counter-intuitive to surrender to unwanted emotions like sadness and depression. But I can say with certainty that trying to control or suppress them never worked for me. In fact, resisting these feelings only trapped them inside me, making things worse. Growing up in a religious family, I struggled to reconcile the depth of emotion I found in music with the tension of resisting those same feelings in real life.

The Serenity Prayer teaches us to recognize the difference between what we can and can’t control. When I stopped resisting and started surrendering to my emotions, they became guides rather than obstacles. Sadness and depression were no longer adversaries; they were teachers.

The Bottom Line: There is Hope

Instead of investing time and energy in avoiding sadness and depression, I found that welcoming and accepting these emotions is a far healthier approach. Rather than running from them, I face my emotions head-on, surrender to them, and allow them to pass. As a result, they move through me more quickly and with less distress.

This practice has drastically reduced my anxiety and stress levels. Life still brings challenges, but meeting them with acceptance and surrender gives me hope. Even modern science supports this practice. Studies on “post-traumatic growth” suggest that the tools artists and musicians use to navigate emotions can help anyone deal with sadness and depression.

Perhaps this is how humans are meant to face adversity—with open hearts and full awareness. This approach has worked for me, and I believe it can work for you too.

Learn to Cope Without Medication

Think about it: you may already have the tools to deal with sadness and depression without a prescription. These skills are innate, and they improve with practice. Want to enhance your process? We’re here to help. Contact us to learn more.

For additional inspiration, check out 7 Comforting Quotes to Deal with Sadness.

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Over the course of more than 40 years of paying attention to how music works on us, Bill Protzmann has rediscovered the fundamental nature and purpose of music and accumulated a vast awareness of anthropology and sociology, as well as the effects of music, the arts, and information technology on human beings. Bill has experimented with what he has learned through performing concerts, giving lectures, facilitating workshops, and teaching classes. He first published on the powerful extensibility of music into the business realm in 2006 (here and abstract here). Ten years later, in 2016, he consolidated his work into the Musimorphic Quest. In this guided, gamified, experiential environment, participants discover and remember their innate connection to this ancient transformative technology. Also, The National Council for Behavioral Healthcare recognized Bill in 2014 with an Inspiring Hope award for Artistic Expression, the industry equivalent of winning an Oscar.

Musimorphic programs support wellness for businesses, NPOs and at-risk populations, and individuals.