Last edited: 7-11-2006 08:51:29 PM

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Hi Debs,

I am touched by your post as I know how you feel, I felt the same way as you for about 2 years, I don't know why I was so unhappy, I was on medication for depression and went to visit various people to try and get help, but in the end I realised that I was unhappy about myself and not my situation or my environment. I strongly believe that it does not matter what situation you are in or what you are doing if you are happy with yourself and your perception of yourself is a positive one then you feel safe no matter what.

Have you truely looked deep within and asked yourself - what makes me happy? Have you acknowledged your faults and decided to do something about them? I bet you do so much to make others happy and are constantly feeling guilty about thinking about yourself or taking time for yourself? I know that was how I was feeling. Untill I accepted that it was myself who I was unhappy with, the way I acted and behaved and that I was constantly worried about what others thought of me, could I do something to change how I felt inside. It is amazing what a difference it has made to my self esteem when I decided to acknowlege my faults and instead of accepting them I decided to change them, now I am no longer stuck in a vicious circle of feeling sorry for myself, I have more energy and my life pattern has changed immensley. I have straonger feelings for those around me who I took for granted and they react differently towards me too. My new motto is to treat others as you wish to be treated and then you have nothing to feel guilty about, accept who you are and take time for yourself and time to develop yourself personally dont feel guilty about it. The people who are around you, love you, they are not going to go away or be upset with you because you want some alone time - we all need it to reflect, if they do then it was their time to move on and you no longer need them in your life. Thats another thing you should do, reflect on your day and look at the times when you felt happy - what were you doing at this time? Can you do more of it?

It really does sound to me like you have a low self esteem at the moment, you are bored with life you need to do things for yourself to make yourself feel good, you want some personal achievement. Are you tired of doing things for others all of the time?

Everything I have written could be completely wrong, I do think you need more than just a hobbie, you need a purpose and maybe that is what you are lacking at the moment - a purpose?

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong?

L x

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Hi Debs!

Welcome to the forum, there are many people on here who will make you smile and some will even inspire you. Enjoy it! You like me are "developing" spirituality, so its nice to have someone on here, who doesn't know what I don't know.

As regards your request for help.... I work as a therapist and could go on for hours here... but I won't (everyone breaths a sigh of relief). Here are some general tips for you.

First things first - your doctor is right, there is no reason to BELIEVE that you are prone to depressive thoughts. It is your thoughts, conscious or otherwise that are a large factor in determining your state. Find something that can change your focus and also gets you moving - dancing is always good, especially for you!

Another thing is to let go of the past, easier said than done I know. The emotional attachment to the negative past can be destructive, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Learn to manage this with whatever approach you choose to use, hypnosis, NLP, TFT, EFT and so on. It doesn't matter which you choose as the real transformation comes from within you. All you need is the desire to change and let it happen. Deal with the root cause, only you will know what that is.

"there is no emotion without motion" - when you think you may be having a dip, get up, go for a walk, clap your hands really quickly, do "heads shoulders, knees and toes" whatever you want! Me, I just get people to move to create a better state. You cannot feel down when you are jumping around and pulling faces in the mirror, and the flipside is that you cannot feel "up" when you are sat still. The mind are body are one. If one is suffering then the other will invariably be going through the same process.

Do something different everyday - have you ever tried to put your trousers on with the wrong leg going in first? Try it (without falling over), drive a different way to work, walk faster/slower than normal for 5 minutes. Put stuff in the wrong pockets, eat with your knife and fork in the wrong hand ( not at a formal event mind). This reminds you that there is always another way, and fires off charges in your brain that create a new way of thinking and being.

Most of all accept happiness despite the past. Expect the best, expect a healthy, properous, long, fun filled life. And BELIEVE it be happening right NOW!

Good luck and happy hedolism

Asif

Last edited: 2-11-2006 02:00:33 PM

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There you go, someone who has elaborated on what I said, but knows more than me! lol We will look after you here, this site is amazing :O)


L x

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Hi Debs - I am sorry that you feel so unhappy. It is not easy to give advice to people coping with depression as there is a tendancy to use a lot of cliched suggestions (been there, done that) - although given from the heart, but not necessarily relevant to your own psyche.

The only advice I can give - which helped me a great deal as I battled with depression for years - is to not fight it and to go with the flow. We do tend to fight, pulling and pushing against feelings we do not want. The secret is to accept that this is how you feel - but continue the reiki, continue opening up to friends on a real bad day, continue to wrap up warm and go out and soak up the amazing night sky, continue to find a big windy hill to climb sometimes, continue to drink plenty of water and lots of fresh fruit and veggies (without all those nasty pesticides and other chemicals on them) and, if you cant face any of those things on any given day, just pull funny faces in the mirror occasionally - we need to laugh at ourselves every now and then because there is also the tendancy to take ourselves and life so darn seriously sometimes.

Take care,
Tracy.

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I dunno about knowing more than you, I could be better at personal finance!

Debs, take all the advice from different perspectives and find your own truth, Tracy is also right about everything she said. All of those suggestions she made, I will be trying out myself at some point!

A key point from Tracy though was the acceptance of your self and your state. If you fight something, you give it energy! Learn from that, its another thing to put in your new found bag of tricks! Good nutrition and lifestyle are a good place to start also.

Asif

p.s. lay off the diet drinks, they mess with your emotional state (amongst a myriad of other things)

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I agree with both Asif and Tracey - especially the part about trying to fight the negative feelings and fight what we dont want, as soon as you learn to accept them, they kinda drift away. We never forget them, but when more porsitive things start to enter into our lives and the more we notice the simple things in life, their significance becomes less and less and they are easier to push to the back of our mind.

And its true, we DO tend to take ourselves too seriously! Why cant we behave like a kid sometimes? Who said that we are too grown up to pull silly faces in the mirror? Just do it! lol

L x

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Hello Debs, welcome to Holistic Local.

Sorry to hear that you're struggling with depression. This has also been something I've suffered from -- to varying degress -- throughout my entire life, and I know that it can be hard to deal with. First thing I will say is: find another doctor! The one you are currently seeing obviously does not understand the first thing about depression, how and why it can be brought on, or how best to deal with it. The fact that both your father and uncle suffered from severe forms of depression does indicate that you could very well be the victim of hereditary depression, as it can be handed down both genetically and energetically from one generation to the next. The depression that you are suffering may not be your own, but knowing this doesn't make it easier to deal with.

Various things seem to trigger depression for me, some related to physical life activites, and some that I can only describe as having a non-physical origin. For the physical causes, loneliness tends to be the biggest culprit, followed by stress-related depression coming from either my work or personal life, followed by levels of low energy caused by a general dissatisfaction with the direction of my life. For the non-physical causes, I can only describe this as extreme sadness caused by a feeling of complete and total separation -- and/or isolation -- from "God" (or First Source, or Prime Creator, or whatever you choose to call it).

I am still working on dealing with this "illness" myself, but have found some level of therapy in re-connecting with the natural world. Getting away from the stresses of modern city life, and back out into nature, seems to work wonders in all cases. Simply sitting on a hill and watching the sun set can have a profound impact on my emotions. So can walking along a beach. So can hiking through woodland and forest trails. Another cure that works for me is to be around people with very positive and/or uplifting energies. Likewise, people with very negative energies can drag you further down, so be mindful as to who you associate with -- your boss probably fits neatly into the latter category. Meditation can also help: simply quieting your mind for a while, and clearing out the constant chit chatter that seems so omnipresent during the waking hours, can help you reconnect with your spiritual side, and place things into a wider perspective. Listening to good music often helps. And finally there are some holistic therapies and treatments available, such as EFT and NLP, that may be able to help. Past life regression could also be a possibility.

J.

Last edited: 2-11-2006 02:16:49 PM

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Hi Debs,

Welcome to Holistic Local, there are certainly loads of people here who just love to make people smile

I am also a therapist / coach and agree whole heartedly with Asif. Take time for yourself, appreciate yourself, recognise and praise yourself when you do things well and if you really feel you can't be bothered today set yourself one, small, achievable goal once you start its amazing what you can do. And use your imagination, its great, its free and it really works well, if you dont feel happy, imagine you feel happy. Lie down and picture a happy you, see what you are doing, hear what you are saying, feel how good it feels and when you open your eyes again tell yourself you are going to play make believe and be that person you were imagining.

Take care and I look forward to reading future posts

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Hi there Debs,
Isn't it wonderful to know you're not on your own in all this........so many positive & practical things to try out.

What stood out for me on your request for advice was the 'should be happy'.
It can be hard to admit how we really feel , and people don't always want the truth when they ask ' How are you?'
There are so many expectations with our modern culture, and we could never live up to them all .
Its completely normal (whatever normal is!) to have up and down moods- and while I accept that a low mood is very different to having depression- if we deny the feeling or over analyse how we feel we can spiral down deeper.

Lastly Debs, I find that when I am in a stable place, then past unresolved issues can come up simply because they are now ready to be released. Thats when its useful to look at Therapies/ Healing methods to speed the process up, so see what you're drawn to . Also Flower Remedies are extremely helpful in this situation.

Hope this helps, Jayne x

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Last edited: 7-11-2006 08:54:03 PM

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Hi Debs,

Welcome to the forum.

I've felt the up and downs, my mum had 3 suicide attempts and my uncle was schizophrenic and suicided, not sure whether that relates too much to my own ups and downs, cos we all have them, thats what lifes about.

I've found EFT, Reiki, NLP and Hypnotherapy really useful to help balance energies. Im teaching at a mind body spirit show this weekend so a bit manic right now getting everything organised.

If you're interested in finding out more about EFT, please email me off list and I will send you an info sheet so you can have a play at home.

Once the show is over Im planning to get together something a bit more comprehensive that I can mail out. I welcome a reminder on this.

eft@soulutions.uk.com

Love Kim x

Last edited: 2-11-2006 06:04:35 PM

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Hi Debs

Welcome to Holistic Local, I'm glad that you found our little holistic haven

I think I've been quite lucky in that I've never experienced real depression so perhaps I'm not the best person to give advice on the subject but I'll say a couple of things anyway.

I think the main reason I've never experienced depression is that I was fortunate enough to come into contact with a lot of spiritual and self empowering information from a fairly young age. I was about 19 when I started down my spiritual path and I haven't looked back since, and over the years there's been dozens of books I've read which really helped me develop a positive mindset and become the eternal optimist that I am.

So on top of all these other fantastic suggestions here my advice would be to regularly read self empowering books on spirituality and self development. You do tend to find that a great many books say essentially the same thing but in a slightly different way, but I think this is good in a way because it often helps you to understand and integrate the information better.

Some of my personal favourites which have been a huge help to me in developing a peaceful and positive mindset are:

The Power of Now and also A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
The Messiah Seed by Story Waters
Infinite Self by Stuart Wilde
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

Obviously just reading stuff doesn't do any good if you're not able to integrate it, which is always the trickiest part and some people find that much harder than others. But if you haven't read any of the above mentioned books already it certainly won't do any harm to take a look at them.

I hope that helps

Andy

Last edited: 2-11-2006 06:16:02 PM

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Last edited: 7-11-2006 08:52:01 PM

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I can understand that you're feeling very negative about life right now, but I think you're starting to take it out on the other forum members here who are merely trying to help you as best as they can. Like you say, they don't really know you, or exactly what you're going through, so they can only suggest what works for them, as can I. Try not to be so critical or hostile, please.

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Last edited: 7-11-2006 08:52:23 PM

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Hi Debbie,

I shared some of my now old and similar story in an attempt to connect with you and to show empathy, rather than tell you I understand how you feel. Likewise I dont want to make promises I cant keep. I said I was planning to get together a self help document to email you not a "get together" do. Hope that makes that a little clearer for you.

You have been welcomed and given a lot of support and it seems like right now you cant accept it. Sometimes life is really sad and Im not suprised you're feeling like this if your uncles being buried tomorrow.

Please take our love and best wishes and perhaps when you're more open and can eliminate the yes buts we can be of help. There are many people here with a lot to share.

Feel free to email me if you change your mind.

Much love
Kim

Last edited: 2-11-2006 07:28:57 PM

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Last edited: 7-11-2006 08:52:46 PM

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Given the rawness of emotion that Debs must be feeling today and that incongruency with some of the forum posters' thoughts and intentions, it may be best to leave the discussion here for the time being and allow some balance back in.

One of the downfalls of being on a forum and discussing emotive issues is the lack of tonality in the words. The same piece of text CAN be taken the wrong way. With this in mind, lets just leave it. The time for explanations and apologies and acceptances can be best left for another time when it feels like the right time.

Asif

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Last edited: 7-11-2006 08:53:09 PM

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