Body & Soul Responses

from Dr. Jeanette, licensed psychologist, alternative approach

practical, psychological, holistic help for emotional, mental, physical, spiritual issues

Question

I am depressed and do not want to take Prozac. What would you suggest? anonymous

Answer

First, depression is not a Prozac deficiency, nor is it a St. John's Wort deficiency. Both of these may alter your mood temporary, but neither of them addresses the cause, the source of the depression. The herb is far superior to the drug because it works naturally with the body to achieve temporary relief. I recommend using anything external that helps you feel more alive, while you begin the process of discovering the cause.

When you are in the middle of depression, it is hard to see anything else. It weighs you down and you cannot move. I know the state, being in bed and not being able to get out and do anything. First I recommend that you fully experience the reality of yourself. Feel the heavy energy, feel your feelings, listen to your thoughts. Fully experience the depressed state, so that you can recognize it.

My approach goes directly to the root of the problem. Depression is a state of mind; it is not a state of feeling. Depression is the result of blocking your natural, normal, real feelings over the course of many, many years.

Imagine if you had your leg in a tight knot for 10 years and you didn't let it move naturally and normally. All of you would have to work hard to keep your foot from kicking, dancing and relaxing. After 10 years it would be stressed and imbalanced at every level, from your bones to your chemistry, from your nerves to your brain cells. It would be useless and feel painful.

It would take great effort, patience, and practice to get your leg back to normal. It would hurt so much you would THINK that it would be impossible to ever have a healthy leg again. Anyone who has ever had a leg, arm, or finger in a cast can quickly understand what that would feel like. It is the same with emotional feelings. After inhibiting your normal feelings for years, it feels as though your normal feelings will never again be normal and healthy and vibrant. But of course they can be. Rare would it be that there has been so much damage that you could not return your leg or your feelings back to normal.

Tightening up our body is what we have all done in order to stop our emotional feelings from being expressed. Imagine what little boys have to tighten up in their brain, lining of their stomach, gonads and muscles to stop themselves from crying when their feelings have been hurt. Imagine how this would affect your chemistry, hormones and nervous system over the course of one year, much less thirty years.

Many people do not put the effort into restoring the health of their casted leg, thus it never returns to normal. Some people do put the effort into moving it, stretching it and building it back up to normal. They go through intense, physical pain and are rewarded with a flexible, moveable leg that is strong.

Our body and emotions will hurt when they are returning to a normal alive state. This is as real as real can get. You will hurt like hell. You are in touch with reality when you feel your body and when you feel your hurt. Emotional hurt is the same as physical hurt; it is telling you something is wrong in the system. So let's go to the direct cause of the problem.

When we stop ourselves from directly experiencing our pain and hurt, we contrive thoughts to focus on, creating an unconscious state that is unnatural and unhealthy. One of these unnatural states is depression. It takes a lot of energy to depress, repress, or avoid feeling our natural, real feelings. We must think thousands of thoughts to inhibit our natural, free-flowing feelings.

We use thoughts to stop our feelings from flowing. We think thoughts that will keep us controlled. These controlling thoughts are judgmental -- right, wrong, good, bad. When we think thoughts over and over again, they become beliefs. These beliefs tie up our natural free-flowing energy so that our energy becomes frozen.

Depression is one type of frozen energy. It is energy that is stagnant, heavy, tense, dark, black and thick. Feel it and begin to recognize it.

Harvard did a study on those wonderful researchable students once again and found that 90% of their thoughts were bad thoughts about themselves. I know you cannot compare these Harvard students to the rest of us, they think much more highly of themselves that we do.!!! But it does give us an idea of what we might be doing!!!

As you become more aware of what you are actually thinking, you will notice that many of the thoughts you have literally scare you to death. That is the reason you keep them in your unconscious; you don't want to know you are scaring yourself to death!! These thoughts create a panic, manic, hysterical or depressed state.

All of these states are thoughts that are exaggerated so that they become bigger than reality, bigger than life. They become unreal. Since they are bigger than life, there is nothing anyone can do about them. Because they are not based on reality, they are impossible to face, resolved or solve. These thoughts paralyze you into stagnant energy so that you become heavy and depressed. My friend Jack Swartz would say you become "like molasses." The result is we think we feel helpless and hopeless. In truth we are not feeling at all. We are encapsulated in our false beliefs.

It is learned helplessness. Martin Seligman created learned helplessness in fish by putting a glass between them and their food. We learn to be helpless in situations as a child, when we are not able to effectively change the things that hurt us or upset us, or when we are not allowed to express our feelings. Anger and hurt take about 15 seconds to express if we were not blocked. Unfortunately we carry this learned helplessness into our adult life. We continue to think that we are not able to do what we need to do to create a more loving and stable environment for ourselves. We are like fish in the tank who think the glass is still there even after it has been removed.

Feeling sorry for yourself is not a real feeling, it is thoughts about something. We feel sorry for ourselves as if we are victims and have no choice to alter something, as if something were wrong with us, as if we were to be pitied. It does not acknowledge our strength and power to create something different for ourselves. We are not fish in a tank. Recognize that it is your thoughts that are depressing you. See if you can tell that you are thinking rather than feeling your body and your emotional pain.

So, depression is caused by avoiding your real authentic feelings of fear, hurt, and anger. It can be fear, hurt or anger at yourself or someone else; it doesn't matter. Rather than feeling your real feelings, you depress yourself with negative thoughts.

After fully experiencing the heavy energy, you must decide to do what is necessary to feel your real feelings rather than controlling your energy. Being out of control with depression is the same thing as being in control with anxiety. Listen to my Feelings tape for more explanation.

It takes an ACE, an Active-Conscious-Effort, to transform this heavy, frozen energy into flowing energy. You can become conscious and decide to move into a feeling state. It takes an Active- Conscious- Effort to move, to heat up, to vibrate, to hum, to excite, to feel.

The thing to remember is to notice if you are thinking or feeling. People think they are feeling and they are not. Depression is created and maintained by thoughts, not feelings. Once you start to feel your real feelings, you will quickly move into the hurt. The direct experience of hurt will naturally lead to your emotional and physical energy flowing. This emotional and physical energy flowing will naturally lead to health and happiness. Welcome the hurt and stay with it until it transforms, just like you would do with a leg that's been hurt.

Once you start to move,-- make a change -- your frozen energy will start to change. Feeling your real hurt, pain or grief will immediately start your energy flowing. This energy is very different from depression. It is light, airy, colorful, flexible, buoyant and fluid. You will know you are really in a feeling state because you will feel this kind of energy. You will feel better after a good cry. Emotions means energy in motion!!!! You will feel all your hurts that you have avoided you whole life. That is the reason it feels so overwhelming. Listen to my tape WHEN YOUR'RE HURTING, for help staying in the hurt.

Feeling these hurts and letting them out of you will totally change your life. You will no longer need to depress yourself. You can embrace your hurt and other feelings, staying open to life and its natural hurts and losses. Life hurts, welcome it ,and take a part in it. Realize that when you block your pain, you are also blocking your joy. Life is full of joy, pleasure and excitement. Welcome it and take a part in it!! Agony and ecstasy are the same vibration. Let them play their music through your body and soul. That is after all, what life is all about. If you are depressing your feelings, you will miss the delicious music.