Two years after completing Lessons from the Porch I found myself back in a psychiatric care unit. My clinical depression took a rapid nose dive. One afternoon in July, 2005, I was teaching a doctoral class at Aurora University. In the middle of this five hour class both my mind and my face went blank. I told my students I just could not continue. They knew about my struggles with clinical depression so they knew why I couldn't go on. I locked my office door and went home. Knowing I would not be able to meet my class the next day, I called and asked my secretary to email the students and tell them class was canceled.

Until my third day in the hospital I did not know why I was there. On that day my fellow patients and I read a powerful, short story by Portia Nelson, titled "There's A Hole in My Sidewalk." The brief passage I read impacted me like few others have in my life.

That day in the hospital, Portia Nelson's story caused my face to turn blank and my eyes to fall toward the floor as a feeling of absolute failure and unrelenting sadness surrounded me. I was absolutely certain I was the hole that I had fallen into again, that I was responsible for my depression's return. I knew then why I was back in the hospital.

After my release I knew I needed to call a time out in my life, just as I did after my first hospitalization, to understand why I had forgotten many of the lessons from my first book and to find the new lessons that were within me. The gift of that retreat time was my second book, Lessons from the Crossroads: Finding My Authentic Path.