Do depression and anxiety always need medical treatment? I say NO! Part 2.

As you all know by now, I’m a nutrition consultant and natural therapist, so I have great faith in the body’s ability to heal itself, if it’s given what it needs.

First, to be really clear, nothing I’m going to say in this post is to be taken as medical advice. There are some things you can safely try yourself, at minimal or no expense, which may help a great deal. But this doesn’t mean we never need medical treatment, or other professional help. So make sure to keep your options open and be responsible for your own wellbeing. And remember that this is an overview, just to give you some ideas of the potential approaches.

PHYSICAL

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at depression caused by physical issues

SITUATIONAL

Sorry it’s taken a while to get this finished, but today, we’re going to address the mental / emotional aspects.

First, I want to distinguish between the type of situations it’s probably safe to address on your own, and the type where you definitely need professional help.

Normal Stressors

By normal, I mean the types of things that everybody is likely to have at some stage in their life. This might include:

• Something as simple as an argument with your spouse
• Or something as impacting as a bereavement
• relationship break ups
• work stress
• family stress
• financial stress
• moving house
• overwork and overwhelm
• illness
• having to give a speech
• exam stress

Trauma

This might include:

• Accidents
• Abuse
• PTSD
• Severe illness
• Anything that might cause you to be re-traumatised if you started thinking or talking about it

While some of these techniques can be very helpful for these types of trauma, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go there on your own. You need to have the guidance of an experienced practitioner, who will know how to work in these areas gently, and who will know what to do if you go into a tailspin.

SOME TECHNIQUES THAT MIGHT HELP

There are a lot of therapies that come loosely under the category of energy medicine.

I had a phone call from a new client the other week who said she wanted to see me for some kinesiology as she had much better results from it than she had ever had from talk therapy. This is not uncommon. Many people are reporting that they get much better results from energy techniques than from talk therapy. This is because the energy work releases the traumatic memories from the body, including the physical tensions that arise as a result.

I’m not going to go into each of these in depth, or we’d be here all day. I’ll just give you an overview of some possibilities. If there are any you want to know more about, let me know.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

This is also known as Tapping or Meridian tapping. It was originally developed by Gary Craig, based on Thought Field Therapy, developed by Roger Callaghan.

I’m not going to go into too much detail on EFT as I have written about it quite a bit before:

• Overcoming my fears
• Emotional Freedom Technique Part 1
• EFT Part 2 – Getting started
• EFT Tapping videos for Xmas stress

But just to recap, it involves tapping on certain acupuncture points while focusing on the issue you want to release. These are part of the energy system that runs through our bodies, much in the way that nerves or blood vessels do.

As well as the videos I shared for releasing Xmas stress, there are tapping videos on Youtube for any number of situations. Finding something you can relate to and tapping along with the presenter is a good way to get some practice (after reading my Getting Started post above).

We also have another very experienced EFT practitioner on Steeemit, @eftnow. Check out his [article about using EFT with Matrix Reimprinting]https://steemit.com/spirituality/@eftnow/how-your-birth-story-echoes-throughout-your-life-and-how-it-can-be-resolved)

He is also keen to do some group tapping sessions with Steemians, so follow him, and ask him about it.

Energy Kinesiology

This is the type of kinesiology my client was coming to see me for. The modality I use most often is Touch for Health (TFH). This involves gently stress testing different muscles in the body to see if the client can hold them. If they can’t, it doesn’t mean the muscle is weak (as an exercise kinesiologist would be testing) but rather it indicates that the energy that should be flowing through the muscle has been disturbed in some way.

Once we have a picture of the imbalances in the body, there are a number of techniques to correct the energy flow.

With TFH, we always balance in the context of a goal. For example, if you were feeling anxious about a speech, we might balance for something like “I am confident speaking in public and easily communicate with my audience.” At the start, this is patently untrue, so will cause an energy disturbance and a “weak” muscle. By the end, we are looking for the muscle to be strong, indicating that the client has lot more energetic resources to meet the goal.

This is just one of the ways kinesiology can help a person. Another way I often use it, is to help a client identify food sensitivities.

Two of my previous posts about kinesiology:

• Quick & Easy calming tip, from Touch for Health – while this is part of TFH, it is a very useful stress release tool, that anyone can use themselves, so please do go check it out
• Six days training in a new natural therapy

Ho’oponopono

Back in 2016, whens @sift666’s dad was in bad way, he wrote about it and talked about some of the ways he was dealing with the stress. One of the techniques, which we wrote about together, is Ho’oponopono. Rather than reinvent the wheel, here’s what we wrote:

This is a Hawaiian healing technique, brought to mainstream attention by the work of Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len and his workshops with Dr Joe Vitale.

It’s based on the premise that we are responsible for everything in our world, including everything we perceive to be outside ourselves. By accepting that responsibility, and using the healing emotions of repentance, forgiveness, gratitude and love, we can heal our perceptions from the inside out.

You simply focus on the thing that is upsetting you and say these four phrases:
• I’m sorry
• Please forgive me
• Thank you
• I love you

When I’ve been in bad states of mind, I’ve found this technique very powerful and comforting.

You can read more about it here

Other techniques

These are the three that I have used most, but there are other similar therapies about. Techniques that target and dissolve specific incidents seem to have better results than techniques designed for general relaxation.

That doesn’t mean activities for general relaxation are not worth doing. It’s well worth adding into your daily or weekly routine, activities like:

• Meditation or Prayer
• Yoga or Tai Chi
• Laughter yoga
• Bodywork such as massage or reiki

Thanks for reading and don’t hesitate to ask questions. Please share your experiences below, so we have a wider range of options for people to investigate.

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