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RE: Dealing with seasonal/recurring depression... What tips & tricks do you have?

in #healing6 years ago (edited)

I think I've mentioned before in response to one of your posts about your childhood that you and I had a lot of common patterns. No spontaneous physical abuse in my household (just beatings as punishment) but other than that we had a lot in common. I think these patterns in childhood train our nervous systems in a way that makes our neurochemical composition prone to things like depressions, anxiety, hypervigilance, etc. So we have to do things to both address the psychological aspects but also the physical aspects.

There is also a justified rage that gets created by being the victim of repeated violence coming from someone you love, who supposedly loves you more than anyone else does, and upon whom you are completely dependent. This rage must be suppressed because it is unsafe to express it. This habit of suppression of that one emotion becomes a habit of depression of ALL emotions.

In general I lean toward eco-alex's admonition to avoid substances because they are just bandaids. I say that with the caveat that of course, sometimes one really needs a bandaid to get them through. For me I found that St. John's Wort helped me enough for me to function through the depression/anxiety while I was unable to change my situation.

Once I hit a wall and was ready to do ANYTHING to improve how I felt each day, I sold everything I owned and moved to Bali. I was blessed to find a house to rent in the ricefields just 3 days after I arrived, and in that house I was transformed.

First, all the food available to me came fresh out of the fields each day. I had a household helper and she insisted on shopping on her way in each day. This was incredibly good for me. I also cut out all alcohol (which I had kind of done a few years before, but now went to zero) and mostly eliminated meet and animal products. I'd sometimes have chicken or seafood or cheese on a pizza, but very rarely. So this very chemical change caused by food and lack of alcohol was very important. It sounds like you're already doing all of that, so nothing new there. I was able to stop the St. John's Wort doing just that, so whether that herb is strong enough for you is questionable too.

Second, I spent hours each day meditating on the sky, writing in my journal about my spiritual experience (never about anything negative or what I did not like), and practicing my verbal channeling with a tape recorder. I believe that it was this practice of focusing my life on my connection with the expanse of being that made the biggest difference. This is almost all I did each day for the first 4 months.

Third, I was living in a rice field surrounded by forest on a tropical island. I was really out in nature even when in my house. I also went to bed just a couple hours after sunset and got up at sunrise each day. I spent most of my time sitting out on the deck, getting lots of filtered sun. If you're in a place that's cold, and you really have a reason you must stay there through these cold, dark months that force you inside so many hours a day, then it may actually be worth buying sunlamps and paying the extra electric costs for having them on from sunup to late afternoon. This is another chemical issue. The sunlight produces chemicals our bodies may have been trained by trauma to produce in lower supply. Similarly, if you can't go out into a forest for long enough each day, fill your space with plants. They are natural healers. Their vibration will attune yours to health.

Which brings me to, energyfield attunement. Now in my case, I've had actual attunements/empowerments done repeatedly. I've had Reiki and also Medicine Buddha, White, Green and Red Tara, Amitabha, Manjushri, Vajrayogini, Chakrasamvara, and probably a few others I forget. Each time it brings my energyfield back into a balance that was lost to me as a child due to all the fear, worry and sadness that was normalized in my environment.

If you can't find people to give you these attunements, or just don't like the idea of having someone intentionally alter your energyfield, then even just listening to recordings on Youtube of spiritual channels/teachers for hours each day will help. And I do mean for hours each day. You don't have to be sitting focused on them, listening to and intepreting everything they say. Just having them playing in the background as the volume of everyday conversation will be enough to passively attune you. So you're looking for people who feel good when you hear them, not where you necessarily agree with the ideas they're expressing. Ideas don't matter.

Which brings me to my final point. Others have already hit on this one, but I will repeat it to add my emphasis too. The most important mantra I repeat to myself each day is, "What if the contents of my mind don't matter?"

Well what if they don't? What if ideas don't matter? What if there is no such thing as being right? What if we're all generating infinite universes, with each of us the god of only our own, making only the rules that we personally must live by?

The freedom from believing one's own thoughts is the most important freedom to gain.