Dr. Susan Biali, a health and wellness expert, life coach and flamenco enthusiast, once suffered from chronic depression that tempted her to end her own life. Thankfully, instead, she decided to find a new path. Dr. Biali is the author of a new book, Live a Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Happier, Healthier, More Passionate You, and here she answers questions and shares tips about turning your life around.

Q: Several years ago, you suffered from depression. Tell me a bit about that experience.

A: I suspect that I was mildly chronically depressed (a condition called "dysthymia" in medical circles) for most of my life, which I can trace back to when I gave up my dream of dancing as a little girl (my parents wouldn't enroll me in classes) and was pushed instead to focus on academic achievement.

My depression deepened during my medical training, as we moved from learning about health and the body (which I loved) to working on the wards with patients (which I was dismayed to find I didn't enjoy). The sleep deprivation, constant work and unrelenting stress made things worse. By the time I was into the second year of my Emergency Medicine Residency, working round the clock in the Cardiac Care Unit, I reached a point one night where I began to contemplate ending my life.

Q: How did you overcome it?

A: At that very moment, I received an amazingly timely phone call from one of the senior residents, telling me that the department was worried about me, particularly because another female resident had taken her life during the same Cardiac Care Unit rotation. She told me that I could take a seven-week stress leave and think about what I really wanted to do with my life. She also said that I could leave the residency program if I decided to, since I had enough credits to qualify for a license as a GP.

I took a solo trip to Cuba during that leave, and when I saw a spectacular Cuban salsa dance team performing on stage I remembered that I'd dreamed of becoming a dancer when I was a little girl. I also wrote in my journal that I wanted to become a writer.

I went home, resigned from my residency and signed up for my first salsa dance class. I also began writing and submitting queries to magazines. Over the nine years that have passed since, I have danced more and more, and experienced success after success with my writing goals. I turned my life around from one that was lived based on the well-meaning but erroneous advice and expectations of others, and designed a life that fulfilled me – all of me. I took unconventional risks based on gut instinct (such as moving my base to Mexico for several years and starting a flamenco dance company in Cabo!) I also began studying happiness and well-being, to understand how to preserve my positive mental state and how to pick myself up if I felt myself starting to slip down again. I haven't taken antidepressants in many years now, and though I still have bad days like everyone else, life feels absolutely different.

Q: What commonly bogs us down in life?

A: I think one of the biggest stresses that the majority of people experience is the pressure to live "like everyone else," to do what everyone else is doing and to have the things that everyone else has. We look outside for guidance with respect to how to live, and as a result often make choices that cause us to abandon who we truly are or what matters most. Most of us do this automatically, without realizing what we're sacrificing, and wonder why we're not happy or fulfilled.

Also, most of us tend to be reactive with respect to planning our schedules and priorities. We say yes to too many things, without stopping to consider whether or not they're in line with what truly matters most to us. We go through our days defensively, "putting out fires" that come along rather than stopping to contemplate our goals and dreams and most precious values and jealously protecting the time we need to give attention to these important areas.

The way that most people eat and treat their bodies also bogs them down – they treat their bodies in a way that decreases their energy and vitality (by eating the wrong foods, and ignoring their bodies' attempts to communicate with them) rather than giving them a boost.

Q: What is your prescription for life and how did you come up with it?

A: My prescription for life is based on seven essential steps that I came up with as a result of my personal and professional experiences, the patterns I've observed in my coaching clients, and through research in various fields of health and wellness. To live a healthy, happy, fulfilled life, it's not enough just to eat healthy or balance your life – in my opinion you need to pay careful attention to each of these seven areas in order to have the best possible experience of life in your lifetime.

The steps are as follows:

1. Allow yourself to be you.

2. Learn to love yourself.

3. Honour your body (by learning to listen to it, and treating it properly through good health practices and nutrition).

4. Rescue and revitalize your relationships.

5. Get a life (through creativity, living your dreams, and life balance).

6. Make room for the divine (spirituality and religious practices have been shown in many studies to have a profound effect on health and happiness).

7. Make someday today (e.g. start taking action!).

Q: What's the most important thing someone can do to increase their quality of life?

I made "Allow yourself to be you" the first step in my book because I consider it to be the most important. Slowing down, disconnecting, and getting in touch with who you really are and how you really feel about things is such an important place to start. When you do this, you might be surprised by what you discover. Many people realize they've been spending tons of energy on things that don't truly have meaning to them (and thus negatively affecting their health and happiness). As an example, they might realize that the "real" version of themselves is someone who loves to be active and feel great, not someone who's overweight and downs a litre of Haagen-Dazs every night in front of the TV. Stopping to ask yourself who you truly are, what matters to you most, and how you'd like to feel and be can be a real wake-up call that provides fuel for real change in your life and dramatic improvements in its quality.

Q: Do you have any concrete daily tips for how to improve one's life and attitude?

The best advice I can give for navigating life's ups and downs is to adopt the attitude that "everything happens for a reason." It might sound Polyanna-ish and trite, but I've found that it works to dramatically lighten the blow of virtually every unwanted event that shows up in your life. I've been watching this phenomenon for years in my life and in the lives of others, and unfailingly whenever anything doesn't go your way or doesn't go as expected, there's a hidden gift that emerges later that proves to be more valuable than you would ever have imagined. Train yourself to look for the good in the bad – you'll eventually come to expect it.