i need help with depression

[tonyzamb]

Hello everyone,
For the last three months i've been suffering with depression for some reason! I"ve never had it b4 and use to be a positive person. I mean i sleep like 12 hours a day and
dont feel good most of the time. I have eaten 3 meals in the last few days and it dont feel good at all!!! I dont wanna take medication because i hear the power of the mind can move me outta this, but i've been trying affitnations and they dont seem to help. I bought a program called "thinkrightnow.com   freedom from depression affirmation program and it hasn't helped much either so i dont know what to do! I mean should i try hypnotherapy or what?? any help would be greatly appreciated here.  I wanna visualize and manefest my goals but feeling bad i hear will only bring me more of the same and i have not even been able to stick to running everyday as much as i try and doing my daily meditation to quiet my mind! 

[schenderson22]

I understand what you mean by trying to avoid medication.  To use the power of the mind you may need a bit of help to start.  5http is a herb that can help elevate your mood while you work on being grateful for your excellent health and happy mind.  You can find it at any grocery store. 

My advice is to make a gratitude list.  List all that you are grateful for.  This is going to be hard b/c of your state of mind but you can do it!! At the end of your list add to it statements of gratitude about what you want as though you already have it.  For instance "I am grateful for my healthy mind""I am grateful for each moment I smile" etc.

Let me know how it goes.

[Ginny]

I understand this. I have struggled with depression as well, and have my own reasons for not wanting to get into therapy or take medications.

18 months ago I was actually suicidal (following a series of bereavements - I just couldn't make sense of the world any more, and it seemed far too painful - I couldn't bear the thought of losing anyone else, and thought I would rather die than have it happen again).

You can use LOA to combat depression, and very successfully, at least in my experience.

1. What I did was to affirm that I wanted to be happy. I didn't say "I am happy", as some people will advise - that was just too far from the truth, and my brain reacted against it. But wanting to be happy is the truth, so I could say that and not activate any resistances in my mind.

2. I also said that I was grateful for every moment of happiness that I experienced - and to reinforce the truth of that, I recalled every recent moment that I had felt happy, tried to re-experience the feeling, and said , "Thank you" and re-affirmed my gratitude for that feeling.

3. I also acknowledged that it is perfectly normal to sometimes feel down, and that I wouldn't get angry with myself if this did happen on occasion. Instead I decided that I would look at the issue that was bothering me, and see if I could do anything about it. If I could, then I did, otherwise I made a conscious decision to let go, and re-affirmed my desire to be happy, and my gratitude for every moment of happiness I experience (repeating steps 1 and 2 basically).

4. The other thing I found helpful was to repeat these affirmations while practising deep breathing - so, breathing deep into your belly, visualising your diaphragm moving down and allowing your lungs and belly to expand from the bottom upwards for the in-breath (count of 4) and then exhaling also from the bottom up on the outbreath (count of four). Trying to imagine that you can feel your blood (or energy or chi alternatively, if you believe in those concepts coursing through various parts of body, focussing on building that energy, also seemed to help (I think it just helped in terms of quietening the mind)

I hope that helps some.

[Ginny]

I just thought of two other things!

1. When I'm feeling happy about something, I try not to be in a rush to do anything else. I just sit and enjoy the happy feeling, and feel grateful for it.

2. When doing the affirmations and visualisations, I try to recreate the sensation of happiness. This works best with the deep breathing exercises. Any improvement in mood is then noted with gratitude - ie, if I don't quite manage 'happy', but move from anxious to calm or 'okay', then I still notice and am grateful for that improvement.

it really does help a lot, I find anyway.

[CEDYLADY14]

Wow! Ginny, great advise! i'm going to try it myself!