There is nothing wrong with you, you are not “broken” and you do not need to be “fixed”. Believe in your capacity to heal.
In our culture we rely heavily on the use of pharmaceutical interventions to address mental health challenges. While this approach may appear useful, it is not the solution. We are putting a bandaid on the problem rather than addressing source of the problem. In this article I will discuss an alternative approach to mental health struggles, specifically depression.
Depression can be described in the following ways. If you have experience with depression yourself, notice what resonates with you. Keep in mind that no case is alike.
Deep inner sadness
A buildup of repressed emotions causing conflict between body and mind
Living in the past constantly and have difficulty getting out of it
Feeling miserable, less than nothing
Feeling useless
A decisive stage in my life. One is forced to question themselves and their life. Feeling a gap between what is and what is desired (ideals vs reality)
Losing the taste for living
Laughter is no longer part of one’s life
In order to heal depression, it is important to understand the source.
Antidepressants will not make it go away.
If you are experiencing depression, there are things that you can do to understand its origin:
Surrender to it
If and when you can afford to, lie down and give into the experience. Allow yourself to feel all that you need to feel. Set an intention to feel better and have clarity, then surrender and trust that it will pass and clarity will come. When you feel better, you can re-engage with life. You will not regret waiting to interact with others and make decisions until you feel centered and connected to your heart.
Reiki
Reiki is a Japanese healing modality that harmonizes the chakra system and restores balance in the energy body. Energetic blockages can contribute to or exacerbate depressive symptoms. A Reiki treatment will remove these blockages and increase one’s vital energy, which is likely to dramatically improve how one feels about themselves and about life.
Breathe
In the yogic tradition, it is well understood that the mind follows the breath and the breath follows the mind. If you want to experience a change in either, you can exercise control over the other. Because it is easier to control the breath than the mind, it is recommended to control your breath to experience a change in quality at the level of the mind. In the case of depression, take very deep, energized breaths, expanding the ribcage. In the case of anxiety, take slow, calm breaths with long exhales.
Journal
Pose questions that encourage you to understand the origins of how you are feeling.
Did I experience pressure when I was young?
What are the significant events I experienced in my childhood that made my life seem so insignificant?
Is it the loss of a loved one, my reason for living or the direction of my life that I can no longer see?
Talk About It
Share your experience with depression with people you feel safe with. It is important that you trust that they will receive you without judgment and with care and compassion. If someone holds space for you to be vulnerable and speak openly about your emotions, you may find that this conversation brings a lot of clarity and helps you to better understand what has brought on your depression. When you better understand the source of the depression, you will feel more empowered to make changes and take responsibility for your life.
“Sometimes during times of transformation, it can seem as if nothing is happening from the outside, yet under the surface, we are hard at work.”― Laurie E. Smith, Leap With Me: A Creative Path to Finding and Following Your True Voice
Simplify Your Life
If we are not feeling centered and well, we are much less likely to have clarity, and without this clarity we cannot make decisions that are likely to bring the change that we desire. This clarity comes when our emotions are less extreme and when our minds are quiet. It is in the silence and stillness that wisdom surfaces.
Simplify your life by assessing what your true priorities are and eliminating what you can afford to eliminate. Make room for stillness and silence, for time alone with yourself. Aim to do so regularly and communicate boundaries as needed to ensure this. This alone time can look different for everyone: doing a guided meditation or visualization, lying down and doing a yoga nidra, taking a bubble bath- anything that allows you to come closer to yourself and take a break from the stressors of life. Clarity and peace will surface if you are patient.
Reframe Your Experience
Everyone can relate to the full range of human emotions. Some of us may be more vulnerable than others to experience certain emotions, but there is no need to compare. We all have our personal challenges and lessons- focus on yourself and your growth. To the best of your ability, maintain a growth mindset and remain curious. The best case scenario is that you come to understand what your emotions are communicating to you.
Your Emotional Guidance System
Your emotions can otherwise be described as a guidance system available to you by your higher self- that is, the part of you that you have forgotten. This is the part of you that has the answers to everything, the part of yourself that you can connect to in your dream state, in a trance state, in a deep meditative state for any clarity and answers that you need. Your emotional guidance system is informing you of whether you are in alignment with your true self.
“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Are you in alignment? If you can answer yes to the following non-exhaustive list of questions, congratulations: you are embodying the highest potential in this moment:
I am at peace
I am feeling open-hearted
I have complete compassion for myself and therefore for others
I accept myself completely and I accept others
I accept where I am in life and I have no judgment for others, only compassion
I feel responsible for my own happiness and well-being
If someone offends me, I do not take it personally
I have no fear. I feel above fear
I love live and I feel grateful to be alive
You might relate to the following if you are not in alignment:
I am not at peace
I feel abandoned
I feel betrayed
I am angry
I am afraid
I have hatred towards myself or others
I do not accept myself
I do not have compassion for myself
I do not accept others
I do not have compassion for others
I feel unsafe
You get the idea.
When we are feeling out of alignment with our higher consciousness, with our true selves (which is love), the last thing we want to do is judge ourselves. Many, if not most of us do not learn how to process emotions. Instead, we are encouraged to suppress them, deny them, and tell ourselves and others that we are “fine”. This is certainly inconvenient and problematic. How are we to understand the reason for our emotional experience if we deny our experience?
Feel
Unfortunately, the only way out is through. If we want to heal, we have to allow ourselves to feel what their is to feel. It is only through feeling that we can transcend these seemingly heavy emotions and elevate ourselves to a higher level of understanding. This is, in fact, a beautiful process. If we stop at the emotions themselves, we do not get past them. This is resistance. We all know what this is like- we avoid feeling in a variety of ways: food, alcohol, coffee, overwork, media, and more.
The Sedona Method
The Sedona Method is one of many resources revealing how to face our emotions rather than escape them. Emotions are energy in motion, and when we resist their motion, they cannot move. When we relax and surrender to them, they can release. The Sedona Method suggests 5 different ways to let go of unwanted emotions.
The first way is by choosing to let go of the unwanted feeling.
The second way is to welcome the feeling, to allow the emotion just to be.
The third way is to dive into the very core of the emotion.
The fourth way is by dissolving the opposing polarities we all carry.
The fifth way is by seeing through the feeling to the effortless awareness that is right behind it.
This book will support you to practice any of the above approaches that appeal to you most.
Self-Compassion
Experiencing strong emotions (and strong contrast) is part of the human experience. Acknowledge that these emotions are serving you well on the course of your growth and development. If you surrender to your emotional experience, have compassion and patience for yourself, and maintain a growth mindset, you will experience a beautiful transformation. You will also set an example for others, demonstrating a better way to face life’s trials. So cry all you need to, allow the emotions to be, communicate boundaries as you need to, and be kind to yourself. It will pass and not only this, but you will feel transformed. Life’s greatest battles are only preparing you to level up. Let them!