Depression

Depression often starts as a result of some situation outside of us, such as loss of a relationship or a job, or some challenge in our life that overwhelms us. When we are unable to recover we sometimes develop a chemical imbalance in our system that affects mood, sleep, appetite, energy, memory, thoughts, and feelings. It should be treated or it can etch permeant pathways in one's life that are negative and unhappy. No matter how depression starts, the things that we tend to do when we feel depressed, like withdraw, avoid people or quit exercising , are what make matters worse. Depression is a real disorder and we cannot get over it through force of will. But we can take a walk, call a friend, or get busy on your to-do list in a very gentle way that acknowledges and appreciates how very difficult it can be to get moving. Psychotherapy has been found to be very helpful. in pulling out of a depression. Exercise also helps. And sometimes medication that improves the chemical imbalance in our brain is needed to get us kick-started toward recovery.

Anxiety

The treatment of anxiety is different in many ways than when working with depression, even though the two issues are often present at the same time. To work with anxiety we need to focus on the body and also be open to the influence of long-ago experiences. When we come into the world we are completely helpless, dependent on the grown-ups around us. We don't usually remember these first years, but our body does. These early experiences are stored in our unconscious memory banks and they impact our sense of safety and trust in the world. Because no childhood in perfect, we all have some old fears stored away and these fears sometimes send us messages that the world is not safe or that we are not welcome here. When these old, unconscious memories and beliefs surface we can feel very anxious, but we don't know why because the original experiences are lost to our conscious memory. In order to address this anxiety we need support to be able to feel the feelings, stay present in our body, and be reassured that these feelings made sense to the small child. When we bring presence, awareness, and kindness to these old parts of ourselves, they begin to lose their punch.