Maria Gaian, holistic healer.

A previous post talked about how depression is about more than just your mind. In this one I want to talk about where to start healing from depression so you can create a life worth waking up again for.

A long time ago someone asked me how I got started ditching the black dog of depression. 

I’d learned that depression is  multidimensional and we experience it through our: –

🧍 physical body;

💭 thoughts;

😰 feelings, emotions and moods;

🍽️ behaviour;

🛌🏽 and subconscious mind.

Depression also manifests in the the way we percieve our relationships, situations and our past history.

So I know that we need to treat depression holistically in order to heal it properly.

With a huge amount of enthusiasm,  I wrote a list of all the tools and techniques I use to manage depression and keep the black dog at bay. 

I sat back feeling satisfied that I’d given the woman asking the question all the answers! 

Boy, did I have a rude awakening. 

The woman wrote back to me saying that she was in tears because she’d had so much hope that I could help her until she saw the giant list I wrote.

She told me that the list was exhausting and she felt like she’d never achieve her dream of being depression free. 

I felt awful! The last thing I ever wanted to do was to upset anyone.

In my haste to share my tips, I’d forgotten how overwhelming depression is, how everything just feels too much. 

I thought back to when I was at my absolute worst, when depression had overwhelmed me so much that I could barely get out of bed.

And I knew that the list I’d written would have totally overwhelmed me, too.

Although my comprehensive list was helpful, it needed to be condensed into much smaller steps – baby steps – tiny little tasks and experiences that build up into something much larger over time.

Managing depression requires patience. The chances are you didn’t get depressed overnight and you won’t heal it overnight either. 

There are a lot of people promising quick fixes – I’ve tried many of them, even trained in some – only to find that on their own they haven’t worked for me.

The biggest lesson I learned was that you have to do the right things at the right time to make the most difference.  

But how do you know what the right thing to do is?

Try it now and then come over to the Black Dog Cafe and we can talk about the results. You are NOT alone. I’m here for you. 

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