Part Four
As history would have it, I was born into one of the top 10 most dysfunctional families in middle-class suburbia-Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 42 years ago, I was born to this body to experience some very intense lessons and to learn karma similar to the way an out-of-control forest fire in the driest of forests might ignite hundreds of acres. As far back as I can remember (within my silent world of pre-language) I interpreted thunderously destructive messages from my primary caregivers that (took decades after receiving language skills to discern) reflected their own discontent in themselves. I began making sense of the world prior to language development like all children. The childlike formula for sense making is universal. “I am” the center of the universe! “I” (ahamkara) is defined as everything that happens to me, to others, and my environment. Like a beautiful innocent sponge, I narcissistically internalized everything because of my doing and being. Zealous neural pathways eager for me to make sense of the world begin to edge negative templates within my youthful brain. Pathways that supported feelings of depression, constant anxiety, guilt and an over responsible nature in my personality towards everything and everybody.

Let me offer a silly, yet poignant, example of what all this would look like if it were a Pixar animation within my brain. I would say it would resemble an ant farm with a bunch of dance doing a variety of discomforting emotions (duhkha) running rampantly through their minds. Each aunt would believe that they had no control over the comings and goings of the energy their emotions would induce. The ants would be frustrated at times, and fearfully pressed, and still at other moments, they might feel a twist of aggression. Since ants are workers they would be experiencing these highs and lows without missing a beat as they instinctively burrowed their way developing neural pathways that would serve to keep them separate from themselves and one another. Like most and farms there would be much like force (prana) yet there would be no balance (sattva) between the ants to press and lethargic moods (tamas) or their hyper agitated (rajas) moods. So, you get the picture. There is no stopping those ants. Just like there is no halting the placement of negative thought patterns unless intervention is introduced and new coping tools are practiced. The ant example has served its purpose. Let us leave the farm and get to the Yoga mat where the activities are not about doing they are about undoing.

I am not my thoughts. I am not my beliefs. I am not my material possessions. I am not my accomplishments nor am I my failures. These are simply antaraya– obstacles that prevent a free and secure mind. I am however, part of an infinite plan that is all knowing and all loving. I am that I am. Rolling out a yoga mat and centering myself in the middle in a comfortable seated position (sukhasana) is the prompt that helps take me out of my thoughts, negative or positive, and allows me to set from a position of witness consciousness.

In the moment, I am reminded of Self. I am reminded that “I am”. If “I am” then I must matter, in terms of, the same Creator that has made everything in the universe created me. From my minute, nonjudgmental and quite observant placement on the mat and almost immediate column resonates from the ground up my head down to my sitting bones as I imagine being rooted deeply within the security of Mother Earth. I have learned over time that I feel my best when I am in this practiced state of being. The more of a relationship I develop with Yoga the greater regularity I have in generalizing these feelings in all my affairs on and off the mat. Due to self-study and study of yoga sacred texts (svadhyaya) I am reminded I have a purpose in this world and however I find definition in that purpose it can only flourish to his highest potential when I am recognizing my highest good.

There are so many aspects of how Yoga can help someone suffering from depression and anxiety. I could write 100 papers on just one third of them. Everything from the most obvious like Yoga breathing practices (pranayama) to the postures (asana) to the less obvious such as self-discipline (niyamas) or discipline that concerns our dealings with society and the world (yamas).

I’d like though to end this paper was a very personal and magical realization that occurred in within me during one of my Yoga weekend teacher training classes. A realization I have put to the test repeatedly to make sure I really believe to be true. As I got deeper into this research paper, I discovered several authors and validated my spontaneous insight. However, it was more of the board that it was true for me. The truth for me came to me as unexpected vital information offering me in internalized healing from years of depression without any length of succession in a break in the pattern. What I discovered in that profound moment was that yoga took me back to a time in my life when I was preverbal. A child with no words of her own — only actions and motor skills and a basic understanding of verbal instruction. I found myself during this magic moment (samadhi) when my mad hearing myself breathing slowly and deeply. My movement was lead and synchronized by my breath. My body postures were guided by a kind and loving voice of the instructor. All of a sudden, my inner child took the place of the overcritical adult that I was, just a short while ago, rolling out her mat getting ready to practice. It was I the little girl that was left behind decades ago. The dehumanizing statements that were shouted and the physical attacks no longer held the same significance. The child integrated this valuable information quickly with the adult. I could, somehow, understand and accept this unsettling information from the past as simply being part of the events of my life’s past. They were not the meaning of my life — the meaning of me. Peacefulness permeated and integrated deep within the core of my body, my mind, and my spirit. I felt taller from the inside out. Sensitivity, awareness, and empowerment I just dissolved a thick layer of other people’s limiting communication. I became a happier woman in that moment. I had experienced valuable information from a divine source of knowledge as I surrendered into the moment. On my mat I had had a glimpse of the I that I am, that I was, and certainly, without a doubt, the I that was seized to be. Soham!

OM Shanthi

Amy Weintraub asked the question in her wonderful book, for which I have learned so much, A Compassionate Guide to Relieve Suffering through Yoga, Yoga for the Oppression, “if depressive patterns developed prior to the acquisition of language, after we root out the depression solely through language? Recovery from depression must include the body.” According to Mayanna Ekberg, a psychologist who treat survivors of abuse, “A. body oriented treatment model speaks the language of these areas of the brain-sensation, perceptual experience and somatic responses.” Bodywork professionals coming from an array of backgrounds, Yoga and Massage therapists, as well as semantic psychologists share the theory that everything ever experienced in an individual’s life is stored within the body. As a Massage Therapist myself, I often will remind clients that the “issues are in the tissues”. The body recalls and stores recollection in the muscles even when distressing memories become repressed. International Yoga teacher and clinical psychologist Richard Miller sees depression as a somatic-based problem that has settled within the tissue. To this, he believes that depressed people need bodywork. “Yoga is an exquisite form of bodywork that eliminates the residue that has become lodged in the tissue.” Another psychotherapist, Lama Palden Drolma, founding teacher of the Sukhasiddhi Foundation, supports this fact with, “Yogic practices purify the energy channels (nadis) for the flow of life force and energy (prana). In the process, the sludge is brought to the surface. It is like cleaning the sewers. The psychological and emotional obstacles get flushed to the surface.” A regular yoga practice can provide an opportunity for the wounds in one’s life that have been “integrated in the tissue” to begin to melt. Yoga can help in the release of paint for experiences and traumatic events.

Part Three
There are many reasons why some individuals are plagued with chronic depressive episodes through out their lives. According to the Nature versus Nurture theory, Nature being the first theory represented here, it supports the idea that those with depressive effect develop due to a genetic predisposition. Within the DNA, there lies a “depression” gene. Second, is the Nurture Theory, which suggests that depression is triggered from prolonged stressful encounters experienced within the environment and or from the primary individuals we come in contact. The Nurture theory states that the seeds of depression get planted during the first few years of our lives. For most, the seeds are planted long before verbal skills have been acquired. We have no means to describe or communicate what we are experiencing in early childhood. Nor the intellectual capabilities for which the identifier processes feelings. It makes sense that a recipient of mistreatment before developing a verbal palette or the emotional relativity to process a situation of abuse, neglect, or mistreatment, characteristically could establish a lifetime default setting consisting of chronic guilt, anxiety, and depression. More times over these early childhood memories are buried and not consciously accessible for identification. Unaware of the childhood origins of negative events the adult body emerges to experience unsettled feelings that seem to fall mysteriously upon the mood from nowhere. “Ta-da”, allow me to introduce the materialization of all this…the Adult/Child. For whom, believes they have no control over how, when or where positive change could possibly manifest because they have no recollection of how and when feelings of such a depressive nature began. Within the adult body remains feelings from childhood that rise and fall like an unfortunate stormy emotional hurricane. In his book, Homecoming, Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, John Bradshaw writes, “the earlier the print of emotional trauma that deeper the damage. The limbic system of the brain begins to operate during the first six months of life. This is the brains emotion center that is developing is through our senses. The neo cortex is still developing during our early years on and the thinking brain needs a proper environment and proper stimulation in order to develop healthily. When we reflect on the fact that the visceral brain is concerned with survival issues and is governed by repetition, the idea of ‘permanent imprint’ makes sense”.

Neuroscientist Robert Isaacson has argued that traumatic memories are difficult to root out because they are memories of life-saving response. Since the visceral brain learns and remembers, but is poor at forgetting, he imprints the trauma with a permanence that will dominate the future. What ever a child survives in the first years of life, a time of intense vulnerability, will be registered with survival benefits in mind.

Fritz Perls, who developed Gestalt Therapy, often said we need to “lose our minds and come to our senses.” Through the gentle practice of Yoga, I am suggesting that we see in move through the original patterns of our minds by slowing them down and quitting the repetitious nature. A new relationship with our inner truth sales that is pure love can surface. It then becomes within our conscious control to recognize our “sensual” nature as the God conscious beings we were created. We can begin to move into a direction of identifying our personal power and gain control over our lives. Learning to manifest positive life changes, sustaining peaceful thought patterns, and ameliorating chronic depressive and anxious moods are basic gifts that are waiting. Yoga practices are the liaison that brings us to the Truth-we have been and are a reflection of all that is Divine from the very moment of conception! We awaken to the knowledge of that which is most basic and present in all of us — our Soul. There is only one Soul whether we are in this human form in this lifetime or not. There is only one consciousness. The Yogis call this Atman. This is our true nature.

Part Two
We know that stress is inevitable in our lives. We have good stressors and bad stressors that are like threads in our emotional fabric. Too much bad stress can create snags oppression, leaving our emotional fabric with, figuratively speaking, and a never-ending tear. Therefore making any hope for a happy, healthy out-look on life nearly impossible. So what is actually going on in the body as its experiencing stress? In the article, the power of mood, written by Michael D. Lemonick, he states that stress comes in two forms, acute and chronic. Acute stress is the result of imminent danger,(“ flight or flight”response) it floods the body with powerful hormones that can damage the cardiovascular system. Where as chronic stress is caused by constant emotional pressure that a person cannot control. It produces hormones that can weaken the immune system and can contribute to damaging bones resulting in osteoporosis.

Let us imagine the brain has just received a situation or thought which cultivates a stress response. Upon the first notion of danger area structures of the brain, including the hypothalamus, amygdale, and pituitary gland, get stimulated. They exchange information with each other. They then signal hormone and nerve impulses to the rest of the body to prepare an escape route in order to survive the assumed stressor. The body now unleashes a flood of hormones through out the blood stream that flows through every organ. Adrenal glands react to the alert by releasing epinephrine (adrenaline) which makes the heart pump faster in the lungs work harder to flood the body with oxygen. The adrenal glands also release extra cortisol and other glucocorticoids, which help the body, convert sugar into energy. Nerve cells release norepinephrine, which tense muscles and sharpen the senses to prepare for action. Digestion comes to an indigestible halt. It can be imagined, with all that unleashed, stress certainly can place at risk at least one of the 11 systems of the body. Lemonick goes on to mention in his article that won the threat has diminished epinephrine and noepinephrine levels drop. If danger comes to often damage to the arteries is likely. Chronic low-level stress keeps the glucocorticoids in circulation leading to a weakened immune system, loss of bone mass, expression of the reproductive system, and memory problem. Scientifically and medically, we know all these responses occur in the body during times of stress. However, the relationship between depression and other diseases remains to be uncovered to its fullest potential. Lydia Lewis, president of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance says, “When you only have roughly 8 minutes with your primary doctor is kind of hard to get into the realm of depression. And when you go to see a specialist, for example a cardiologist, they’re just thinking about your heart, not about depression or stress, and those effects on them in regards to your heart.”

Be ground.
Be crumbled.
So wildflowers will come up where you are.
You’ve been stony for too many years.
Try something different. Surrender.
–Rumi, from “A Necessary Autumn Inside Each”

Depression
Disclosing its Commonality — Lessening its Power

Part One
Everyone experiences situations in their lives that cause sadness, lowered self-esteem, and anxiety. Losses, a disagreement with a friend, or a perplexing job related issue, are but a few of the possibilities that may point us towards an occasional state of feeling downcast or agitated. It is normal for those people to feel despondent and when a situation arises where they feel little control over the circumstances. Usually, though, as an individual has time to process the situation that initially provoked their distress, they gain back the stamina that is needed to once again ill content about themselves and their lives. Their negative mood shifts to positive. Wisdom in a needed life lesson are adopted in the sadness that angst damage that plagued them for a few hours or days.

For many individuals though, a new day simply represents another 24 hours of struggling within an all too familiar mood that reflects feelings of sadness and fear. Emotionally overloaded, the feelings of hopelessness and despair can make one feel like they are stuck in a revolving door that just will not let them escape. The worst part of being in the revolving door is that there is no room for another person-like depression, the focus of this yoga research paper, an individual who suffers from it usually creates a life of isolation for themselves that seems to go nowhere. Daily living tasks, reasoning abilities, sleeping and eating patterns represent just a few aspects of the depressed person’s life that take one a spiraling pattern of continued self-destruction. As they become more immersed with the experience of the blues, they begin to see themselves as alone and separate from others around them. This type of melancholy process creates blockages that harm the mind-body spirit connection. Maladies such as hypertension, heart disease, cancer, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, stroke, and autoimmune type illnesses can be created or exasperated by the way we feel. The experience of chronic depression shows without a doubt that mind and body are not separate at all; they are inter-connected through cells, or modal glands, connective tissue, and organs. When an individual is in a sad day there also seems to be an inability to foster spiritual practice with a higher power or infinite wisdom.

The latter is all too in court because it represents a universal connection that can be the source of strength which is all nurturing, non-judgmental, and crucial to the alleviation of feelings of isolation. According to Time magazine, January 20, 2003, each year an estimated 30,000 people commit suicide, with the vast majority of cases attributable to depression. These statistics however do not even begin to estimate the impact on depressed people’s relationships and productivity (which costs the US economy some $50 billion a year).