Find Peace ... One POP at a Time

by Roland Griffith

If you have tendencies toward depression—frequent moodiness and feelings that life is too hard and there’s nothing to live for—Roland wrote this book for you. His is a remarkable story, told frankly and simply. He tells about his restrictive childhood, his move away from the hellfire and damnation religion in which he was raised, and the guilt that accompanied his expanding awareness of the world.

Although he became a successful businessman and attained financial and material success, Roland was plagued by internal doubts, fears, and depression. Medicated and miserable, he began a long search for a way out of the darkness that haunted him. A failed attempt at suicide in 2000 convinced him to increase his efforts to find a way out.

He discovered that his mind was constantly feeding him negative chatter, causing him distress and unhappiness. He developed a technique to turn down the volume of that chatter that enabled him—finally—to emerge from depression. He has been practicing it every day since then, and now he looks forward to waking up every morning. His life is full of hope and joy.

In this book, he shares his technique—called POPS—with the hope that others will find the same relief from depression and experience the joy he has found.

158 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 13, 2015

About the author

I didn’t intend to write a book.

That might sound strange coming from an author, but it’s true. To know me, you have to know the titles I’ve held through the years: husband, father, and grandfather top the list. Auto dealership owner, past chairman of the Iowa Auto Dealers Association, and past chairman of the Midwest Ford Dealer Advertising Association give you a clear picture of the industry I forged a career in in my earlier years. Third fastest half-mile runner in the state of Iowa in my high school years, and captain of the track team are titles that might seem an odd choice to share here, but I do so because all were a big deals for me at the time, but now…not so much.

I’m like you in so many respects: I’m one person with a lifetime of experiences. And I’m determined to share what I’ve learned along the way because I understand how difficult it is to struggle with depression, with fear, and uncertainty. I know how it feels when it seems there’s nowhere to turn.

I’ve been there: depressed, miserable, and convinced I’d never be happy again. I lived with depression and moodiness for decades. What I’ve come to understand is that I wasn’t flawed, or abnormal, or wrong for feeling the way I did. My diagnosis with severe depression in 1985 was a personal breakthrough for me: it was the beginning of my mission to learn how our emotions keep us in a negative place and how to turn those thoughts, that mindset, around. My research led to a personal breakthrough, one that’s allowed me to live a depression-free, joyful, full life, without medication.

That’s what my book, Find Peace…One POP at a Time, is all about. I wrote it for you, for the people you love, for everyone who is stuck in the muck and wants to find their own joy, whatever form that takes. That’s what I speak to groups, large and small, about: our innate ability to master our own thoughts by reversing our tendency to linger in our negative mind and instead find higher ground. I’m living proof it can be done, and I want to teach you—and those you love—how to do it, too.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Effective techniques to mitigate depression and anxiety. The key is to maximize living in the moment to avoid the mental “chatter” that preoccupies many of us, stressing about past events and worrying about the future.
Perspicacious readers will see the influence of stoic and Buddhist thought upon the author’s approach.