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I’ve just started reading and trying to utilize some of the energy practices, but I’m having a really hard time trying to determine where to start to make the most efficient progress.
Background: I’ve been suffering from depression at some level for the better part of 20 years, but it was more off and on until the past 6 years or so. I started taking antidepressant medication about 6 years ago and that helped a lot for a couple of years, but it slowly started to fade in effectiveness.
For the past several months, I’ve been working on revamping my lifestyle as much as possible — I saw a naturopath (whom I believe was really just a glorified nutritionist) and starting eliminating junk food from my diet. I’ve been taking supplements for years and have experimented with virtually every natural substance that someone claims to have helped with depression, but have found no relief. The past 6 months have been pure hel*.
After reading, researching and trying to tune into my “gut” instinct, I believe I have a congested liver, possibly some heavy metal issues and all kinds of crazy energy blockages. I’m starting therapy with an accupuncturist today, but I believe in the long run, the ultimate solution will be to be able to harness my chi appropriately to eliminate the physical and emotional blocks I have.
My question is: what do I start with? My depression is such that I’m very weak and while I’m constantly fatigued, I also sleep very little, so it’s hard for me to undertake anything very taxing on my body. I would, however, like to take advantage of the benefits of something like Tai Chi along with the benefits of meditation, but I guess I’m just confused as to where to begin…I’m self-employed and have been fortunate enough in the past couple of months to have made enough money to enable me to focus most of the next 2-3 months on virtually nothing but my recovery, but I seem to be jumping around from “Relaxing into Your Being” to “Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body” to “Tai Chi: Health for Life”…I read and read and then end up practicing for 5 minutes here and there…I get frustrated because I can’t seem to still my mind very well and I don’t know if I’m doing it right. Like the basic Tai Chi posture — with no one to give me input, I’m just shooting in the dark as to whether I’m aligned properly. And the basic breathing exercises from “Relaxing…” — I can’t seem to get through more than one breath without something crossing my mind — even if it’s brief.
I really want to get better at harnessing my energy and I think it will make a lot of difference for me in the long term, but right now I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels. Where should I start?
I understand where you are coming from Miss Thang. Firstly, decisions and planning can be very stressful while struggling with depression but I think beginning an energy practice has the potential to really help your situation. Secondly, I also recently became involved with Frantzis’ system and was confronted with your same dilemma. He offers a huge variety of practices throughout his books and media. There is a common thread and I crafted a practice and progress plan for myself by distilling what I read from many of his books. Creating such a plan may be too difficult for you now as you struggle with depression. I’d like to suggest that you may enjoy starting with a simple program of belly breathing and the simple Chi rev workout as described in Frantzis’ book “The Chi Revolution”. Meditation may also help but can also be stressful while depressed so tread lightly here. Understand the 70% rule and apply it to all practices. Others on this forum have much more experience than myself so this is just my beginner’s two-cents worth of advice. Eat healthy, move, breath, smile. You can get past depression.
Thanks for the reply and suggestions, John. That paricular book is one I’ve ordered but haven’t received yet — should be here any day now though.
Does Bruce have any good meditation cd’s you would suggest? I listened to his pre-recorded “Meditation Monthly” during which he had a 5 minute or so meditation workshop in it and I found it was much easier to remain focused with someone talking you through it.
Hi Miss Thang,
I have had no exposure to Bruce’s meditation CDs. The progression of breath-centered meditations in the book “Relaxing Into Your Being ” would probably be helpful as long as you remember to go easy and be gentle when pursuing meditation while depressed.
Mark
Miss Thang, I can relate to where you are and trying to figure out where to start. John gave you some really good suggestions about starting slow and being gentle to yourself while you are depressed. I would like to share with you that back in 1976 I had my first episode of mental illness. I heard voices, experienced religious delusions, and hallucinated.
Back in those days, there was no such thing as recovery. I was in treatment and taking some pretty heavy duty drugs that made me very dysfunctional. More than anything I wanted to get better and not just exist in the stupor caused by the medication and the delusions, voices and hallucinations. People who were treating me told me my life was over and that I would never be productive and I’d be in an out of mental hospitals the rest of my life.
I had very severe bouts of depression and wouldn’t be able to move out of a chair. I couldn’t remember how to wash the floor, cook a meal or anything. But I wanted to get better. One thing that I would do was I would get this overwhelming urge to run out of my house, get into my car and drive crazy up and down the streets. Someone always found me who knew me and took me home. The professionals in the 70s and the 80s didn’t believe that anyone got better.
I started reading everything I could get my hands on that was self-help in nature, talking with people to find out if they had experienced what I was experiencing. To make a long story short, what I found that really helped me was when the urge came to run out of my house, I’d lay on the bed and I’d command my leg muscles to be still by saying, “Legs be still.” “Arms be still.” “I am still and relaxed.” I would make myself lay there quietly, just gently commanding myself to be still. I’d do that until the urge to run out of the house passed. When I saw that it was working, I began to lay down on my bed and just gently quiet my body down, relax my arms and legs, and breath deep. Finally, the urge went away altogether as I practiced this.
I began teaching myself relaxation techniques and they worked. I also started reading books about “How to talk to yourself.” I started this when I read a book that said, “What you have to do is a check up from the neck up and get rid of sticking thinking.” I began to try down my thoughts and they were so negative; the books helped me write down new, positive thoughts that were the opposite of the negative ones. I worked each week on one of my new thoughts, reading it over and over. I began asking myself, “If this a new thought, how do I need to behave according to the new thought?” I’d come up with ideas of ways to act differently, and the last thing that fell into place were I had all these new wonderful feelings. I also noticed that my voices had diminished and eventually were gone, the delusions were gone because I had new ways of thinking about myself rather than in some negative way. The hallucinations left too because I became outgoing, friendly, and enjoyed being with people.
There were a lot of other things I did but relaxing my body, breathing, and gentle awareness of my body and using my mind to command it to be still got me started. I was sick like this until I finally fully recovered in 1985 and since then I no longer take any medications. I did something that I was told couldn’t be done, but I did it and that was fully recover from mental illness.
This past year I took a Tai Qi 10 Instructors class and I completed it. I’m still developing my practice and I love it. What I do today is I’m an executive director of a peer-run organization that helps people with mental illness learn how to recover. I’m close to retiring and will be moving from Alaska to Los Angeles area and I’m hoping that I can become an instructor.
Start with breathing, laying still and relaxing your body, and careful with the meditation. Don’t do it for very long and only do it a couple times a week to start. You don’t want your mind and body to be out of balance, but it takes time to bring them into balance. There is tremendous hope for you with kindness to yourself, gentle to your body, and quieting your mind. Start telling yourself, “Every day in every way, I’m getting better and better.”
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