Depression

In modern society the word depression is used to describe experiences ranging from low mood and sadness to a complete inability to function. Depression can manifest as extreme fatigue, cognitive dysfunction and suicidal thoughts.

Statistics tell us that one in six to a quarter of us will suffer from mild to severe depression at some point in our lives. Mild to severe depression can last from a few days to many years. Often there are no clear-cut manifestations of the depression that outsiders can observe, and this compounds the problem because people don’t understand what you are experiencing.

No two people’s experience of depression is exactly the same, and it can be very difficult to understand why the symptoms are even present much less what to do about it. Having experienced depression first hand, I know what the experience is like and how debilitating it can be. I have now successfully treated sufferers of depression for over 12 years and have drawn heavily on my personal experience and the lessons it taught me.

Depression symptoms can manifest themselves in many different ways and can also increase gradually over time making them harder to detect in the early stages. The symptoms can be wide-ranging and the symptoms can appear to be constant and relentless. Your symptom experiences may well include:

• low mood
• hopelessness
• lack of motivation
• confusion and a sense of being lost or stuck
• loss of appetite, weight loss, or weight gain
• cognitive dysfunction – ‘brain fog’, inability to concentrate and memory loss
• sleep disturbance
• loss of pleasure and interest in life
• agitation
• fatigue and lack of energy
• suicidal thoughts
• weakness
• aches and pains
• Loss of libido

I’d like to be very clear, we often think that when we experience symptoms there is something wrong with our body. While this can be the case, a more useful way of looking at symptoms for the condition of depression, is that your body is seeking to get your attention, to let you know that something is not quite right. You are NOT broken, your body is working perfectly normally, it is simply alerting you to the fact that you’ve become disconnected from YOU and something needs to change. Opening up to a new understanding and making that change is well within your own capability.  

The simple answer to this question is no. Even though the pharmaceutical industry propagates the theory that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, all the scientific evidence refutes this claim. In some cases of depression symptoms may coexist with brain chemical changes or alterations, however, this brain chemistry make-up is an effect of depression not the cause.

The conventional approach to treating depression is through medication.  However, scientific research tells us that medication is unlikely to offer any significant relief for mild to moderate depression- and only minor relief for severe depression. The other concern is that medication deemed to be having a positive effect, has benefits tending to last a year at most. This means that eventually medication either needs to be changed or dosages increased.

For those who do take medication, the policy of most primary care doctors is to keep the symptoms at bay with ongoing prescription medication, rather than finding the reasons for the symptoms in the first place.

Depression is such a common condition there is a plethora of information about how to manage it. Much of the information is good and offers useful insights on treating depression. Some of the suggestions include:

• Where possible, exposing oneself to adequate and daily levels of sunlight;
• Supplementation: taking Omega 3 oils and high doses of vitamins B & C;
• Taking some form of regular exercise;
• Socialising with friends.

While there is nothing wrong with this advice as such, it does fail to address the fundamental cause of depression and chronic pain and also assumes that you need to do something to get over depression. As with all symptoms, there is an underlying purpose to the depression – a cause – and it is this cause that we need to effectively address.

It is interesting in our culture how often we use adversarial language for describing a process we go through. The idea of “fighting” or “combating” symptoms seems a little strange when we understand that symptoms are our body’s way of trying to get our attention to alert us that something is not right.

In addition to medication, the other conventional focus for treating depression tends to be cognitive in orientation, i.e changing thinking patterns. Destructive or dysfunctional thinking patterns can exacerbate symptoms of depression, they are not the cause of depression.

Leading edge scientific evidence tells us that emotion comes before thinking and not the other way around.  Research also tells us that when emotion is triggered this leads to an increase in the activity within the thinking centres of the brain. From this we can conclude that at the very least we need to address emotions first  – not the thinking.

Emotion is not something imaginary or all in the mind as is often thought. Emotion is a complex physiological process that affects the functioning of the cells of your body and even your DNA. Emotion is a call to action, its purpose is to help you navigate through your day-to-day life. When it becomes blocked or out of balance problems ensue in the form of physical and mental symptoms.

As a human being, you have an energy or essence that flows as you express yourself and experience life. Simply put, this flow of energy that is uniquely you. If this energy becomes blocked or trapped, like emotion, problems ensue and depression symptoms can manifest themselves.

We understand how you are feeling and we know the route from depression to feeling connected, at peace and motivated to re-engage with life.

energy-flow coaching™ will show you:

• the real cause of your depression
• the true nature of emotion and intuition and their powerful connection to depression and health
• how to overcome the obstacles to recovery from depression
• the limitations of changing through patterns
• how to unlock your sense of purpose and meaning, reigniting your motivation for life
• how to tap into your natural reserves of emotional resilience so you don’t get stressed-out or suffer from burn-out.

If you would like to talk to us about whether energy-flow coaching™ is right for you, complete the form below and we will be in touch with you straight away.