Healing Depression Without Medication: A Call For Love

Healing Depression Without Medication: A Call For Love

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An interesting fact about depression with far reaching implications is this: recent research indicates that for mild to moderate depression, physical exercise is at least as effective and, in some cases, more effective than anti-depressant medication. Lets expand on this statement. What happens when you don't restrict yourself to the western scientific view of the body as solely a mechanical material system whose sac of chemical exchanges can be manipulated for your benefit by exercise or medication?

By enlarging the scope of inquiry to include consciousness, what role does exercise have in shifting your state of consciousness? Why does it feel so good and why do you feel quite different afterwards? How does your sense of self in relation to others, to nature, to a problem that you are currently facing change? What happened? Take a moment to remember the last time you exercised. What qualities of consciousness most characterized what you felt?

Did you feel a sense of strength, a movement of energy, more alive, a unity of body, mind and spirit and/or a sense of connection with what is around you, particularly if you exercised in nature? Typically, exercise feels good for one or more of these reasons. Then, when you resume your activities, whether it involves working through an issue, relating to others, taking care of chores or simply relaxing, you feel refreshed, renewed and often inspired by new insights and perspectives. This is very noticeable if, before exercising, you felt depressed, stuck, tired and/or overwhelmed.

Another fact about depression with more implications than first meets the eye, is that cognitive behavioral therapy is widely recognized as an effective evidence based treatment for depression. Cognitive behavioral therapy is essentially a form of psychotherapy that focuses on the types of errors in thinking which cause depression. Over generalizing, black and white thinking, disqualifying the positive and magnifying the problem are the kinds of thoughts that a psychotherapist will look to correct in this form of therapy. But is it the negative thoughts that are really the root cause? It certainly is very depressing to think you are worthless, helpless and/or that nothing goes your way. However, when you ask what is the worst of having those thoughts or what is the bottom line of feeling like you are a failure, it often has to do with a lack of connection, feeling totally alone and separate from everyone else who seems to have it together.

Commonly, when you exercise or when you have positive thoughts, a sense of connection is enhanced. What does this suggest about a core understanding of depression? Consider that depression is what you experience when a feeling of separation from your innate wholeness and meaningful connection with others predominates your consciousness. When you are cutting off, shutting out or down and therefore disconnecting from the essence of who you are, depression appears. Depression is most fundamentally a call to remember that you are one with all that is, to reunite with your Soul, to realign with the life force and to re-connect with others. In other words, it is time to let go of false beliefs that result in feeling separate and to move more deeply into feeling love.

Let's start with loving yourself from a truer place. When you say you love yourself, it usually means you feel you are a good person, you accept who you are, you like what you have done and have forgiven past errors. However, this is not the experience of love emanating from within your Soul. It is outside love that is conditional. When things are going the way you want, you feel confidant and have a positive outlook and self-image. When not, your self-esteem drops, you doubt yourself and you feel the threat of being an outcast. A sense of connection is lost because it was not based in real connection. Real connection always remains regardless of the change in circumstances.

Soul love is love within yourself not love of yourself. Love within is unconditional. It is your essence. Depression, properly understood and used, reveals the difference. Depression shatters the fragility of false love so that you may discover and experience the source of real love. It is a presence always there that arises without effort and does not require working on yourself. It is simply to be received and be made aware of particularly upon the eventual collapse of outside love.

When a collapse of self-esteem occurs, the suffering of feeling separate from yourself and therefore others is the worst of it. The pain is used to become aware that your self-esteem was not based in your essence and the separation you feel reflects an inner separation that was there all along. You have not been conscious of your innate wholeness and at oneness with all that is. There is no possibility of knowing who you really are and the Soul's way of living.

Depression is a necessary failure. It requires that you dig deeper by pointing out what form[s] of separation is needing to be let go of so that you may experience your true nature. When the medication or thought distortion fixes are recognized as just a beginning, then the power of depression can be used as a faithful servant to the unfolding of Soul consciousness. All suffering is, in the end, about the need to remember. It opens the door to go deeper and experience the love that is within. This love is the ground of all life and is only where connection can be truly known.

When you experience your Soul's love instead of self-esteem based in outer love, then the circumstances around you can look radically different. Even when nothing has changed, new perspectives, solutions and ways of being with the situation can suddenly arise from within. The same challenge with a very different consciousness changes your world. Therefore, the first step is about re-connecting. Then the second step is problem solving, if there is still a need. This may be a very different way to approach challenges than what you are used to. Commonly, you think you can't rest or let it go until you first do something to get rid of the negative thoughts and feelings and/or address the negative situation. Love from within our Soul consciousness connects you to something much larger than the confines of depression. Receiving takes precedent over doing in the beginning so that you may experience what it is like to come from a place that is not just your overworked mind. From a sense of connection with all that is, the right action will be realized. It is only from separation that you can feel too overwhelmed or depressed to act or to act from frustration.

Exercise: The next time you feel depressed, realize that most fundamentally it is about a need to re-connect to what is larger and to what is true. Depression is like a void in need of being filled with love. Take your aloneness, which is the ultimate pain of disconnection, into the arms of your Soul. Ask what your Soul or heart is experiencing as you are held in your aloneness. Go for a walk in nature, call a friend, follow your breath or listen to a beautiful song. These will all help you to receive love. It is about a time for remembering that you are one with all and creating the circumstances for that to happen. Depression is to take you deeper into your heart so that you can feel what is there. Ask again what your Soul is experiencing. That is the only place where you can know yourself and your heart's way to be in the world. When you are living from your Soul, you will know. Depression is replaced with the joy, ease and peace that stems from knowing you are connected with the love behind all that is.

About the Author:
Jeffrey Douglass, MSW, CSW, author of Living From Your Soul, has been a licensed psychotherapist integrating psychology and spirituality for 33 years. Jeffery offers individual and couples counseling (also available by phone), as well as retreats, workplace coaching, and telecourses. To purchase the book, or for further information, please visit our website: www.livingfromyoursoul.com, email us at: jeffrey@livingfromyoursoul.com or call 208-667-8387.



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