Many of us regard depression as an inner darkness that can throw us into the depths of debilitating emotional and mental pain, making it impossible for us to function in this world for weeks or months even. Life feels pointless, the world appears hopeless, and all we can feel is numbness.
Nothing that ever mattered to us has a meaning when we are depressed. We feel lonely and alone. And worst of all—we don’t care. Once a person becomes caught in this state of iconic inner suffering there seems no escape from the hell worlds of apathy, sadness, and powerlessness. So, while depression is considered to be a treatable condition it still remains a condition that can often only be managed through extended administration of drugs and mental health therapy. While these treatments can help to cope, the truth nobody tells us is that to this day genetics, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and sociology cannot sufficiently explain why for some of us time can heal all wounds and for others make the wounds larger. The simplistic notion that “Depression is Aggression Turned Inward” (a quote from the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud) makes many believe that getting through the dark night of our soul would be a matter of “pulling ourselves together” or “muscling through” a rough time, but the reality of this condition is far from it!
Depression can be as real as a broken bone that requires treatment so it can heal properly. It’s not just a temporary low but a complex physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual interplay of conscious and especially unconscious energies. From an energetic point of view, adding a spiritual component to the healing process could not only help to alleviate the symptoms of depression, but also empower a person enough to find new meaning and purpose to life.
Interestingly, while depression is the most common mental disorder with more than 300 million people affected (2018) and the leading cause for disability worldwide, it also appears to be one of the most misunderstood or misjudged conditions of the human experience. We all go through elevated stress, trauma, loss of a loved one, or the experience of a failure from time to time. It is known that such circumstances can trigger temporary states of grief, sadness, or mourning depression in all of us. Many can get through this time on their own. “Time heals our wounds,” it’s true—but typically not for someone dealing with clinical depression. This state is accompanied by an acute state of apathy and pain that can last months or even years. It cannot only lead to a lack of vitality, physical illness, addiction, money problems, anxiety, isolation, homelessness, or suicidal thoughts, but it often causes severe spiritual pain, and refusal to be human altogether. In the western medical “sick-based” approach, this part of depression is often regarded as a secondary cause and therefore not in the foreground of treatment. A wholeness-based—and particularly an energy-based view of depression—teaches us that there may be more to depression than “just” a neurotransmitter inefficiency. It shows that treating only the physiological, neurological, and mental aspects isn’t enough to heal a person’s inability to feel life force or to mend the soul that is unable to connect with the sacredness of life. So, how could the energetic perspective add to the existing treatment model?
Anyone who has had a taste of what it feels like to lay on your couch unable to get up, get dressed, answer the phone, or fix food for yourself knows that one of the most debilitating aspects of this state is the absence of a good reason to do so. Unable to feel any kind of love or respect for self, we cannot see how any of this would make a difference for us. The pain of staying in this state is in perfect balance with the fear of facing this inner darkness. This is the result of complex mental and emotional coping mechanisms that our ego provides for us. Through the familiarity and desensitization to our suffering an illusionary safety is perceived. The ego then leads us to the conclusion that any change is futile and way too much energy to exert. This then leads to the vicious cycle of lack of life-force, emotional numbness, and spiritual absence, in combination with an unspeakable physical inertia to getting up and doing something about it. The severity of this state is not just some pity-party or self-indulged grieving over a lost love. It’s very real and often perceived as dying in slow-motion!
Energetic Aspects of Depression
What truly causes a person to feel the complete lack of joy—the inability to connect, express, and experience pleasure while in the acute state of depression? Is it our DNA, our childhood, conditioning through culture, modeling through parents, our biochemistry, our hormones, our diet, the environment, or our brain structure that makes us depressed? Or is it an unfortunate combination of circumstances, trauma, or stressors that trigger this often rhythmic or continual sadness? Energetically seen, there is much more to depression than just physiological, emotional, mental, or behavioral predispositions or imbalances.
In general, the energetic perspective investigates the vibrational state of our body. This frequency is divided into six different density levels, three of which are seen or felt and can be consciously experienced as our physical, emotional, and mental layers. The other three realms of our energy body—spiritual, etheric, and energetic—are in the unseen or subtle fields of our body and are therefore only perceived through our subconscious. A trained Energy Worker can consciously perceive those unseen aspects of the human energy system. He or she can function as a mediator between the conscious and unconscious conditions of a person.
How Energy Work Can Help Depression
Every health condition shows a specific vibrational energy frequency and pattern (although in the unseen for most of us) that can inform us about our overall state of health, as well as pinpoint the unseen conditions, such as mystery diseases or unexplainable symptoms.
Energy work is the healing art of deliberately changing the vibrational frequency of a person through etheric surgery or higher vibrational exposure to help shift it into a higher state, so that self-healing can occur—just like a medical treatment—but without physical manipulation. Energy Healing can happen from a distance and is therefore often done remotely, as it doesn’t require physical contact.
Our energy system is primarily regulated through our Chakras or Energy Centers. They function similar to our physical organs or glands but in the subtle realm of our body. A misalignment in our energy centers or overall energy field can play out just like how too much sugar can lead to diabetes or smoking to lung problems. Imbalances lower the vibrational frequency of our system and thus affect our body, emotion, and mind.
Energy workers have the trained ability to look into the energy body within a person’s system like with an etheric x-ray or MRI. A single energy reading or healing session can reveal where in a person’s system the flow of life force is blocked, diverted, or under- or overactive and thus identify the underlying causes for such energetic imbalances. In personal energy coaching the energy worker can then help to translate the meaning of these energetic imbalances into the individual situation of a person and together they can develop a roadmap for approaching the physical, emotional, mental, and behavioral symptoms by showing new ways to address attachments, blockages, and even spiritual or karmic aspects.
This can often give a person a fundamentally different view of their own condition and provide them with new and often empowering tools to not only address their physical or emotional state but also increase inner connection and ultimately a more hopeful outlook on life. Through continued energy healing or clearing sessions the individual and energy healer work together so that the imbalances can then be released and new ways of dealing with and facilitating the healing of these underlying causes can be trained.
The most important aspect of the energetic healing process, however, is that the person begins to be able to experience their own energies first hand that makes them more aware of early warning signs or subtle shifts in their own energy. With this increased awareness a deeper connection can be felt, which can then lead to a more enhanced strategy to deal with the energetic stressors, events, or circumstances that can trigger depression. This can allow a person’s energy to reach the needed levels and motivation to face inner conditions and ultimately become more resilient.
The fastest way to apply and experience energy work is through learning energetic self-clearing, centering, and regulating techniques. Through a simple visualization and a deeper understanding of how our energies and energy flow influences our mind, body, and emotion, we can quickly begin to notice differences within ourselves. The efficiency of energy work is always directly related to a person’s perception of their own energies, feelings, and sensations. Energy work addresses this primarily through including mindfulness techniques, such as deep breathing or meditation, but the most impactful aspect of this approach comes through involving a person in the self-healing process itself.
Overall, the best results usually occur by combining physical, emotional, behavioral, and energetic healing modalities.
Energetic Causes for Depression
Developing a broader inner lexicon of sensations and reference feelings for energetic states is instrumental for understanding and identifying the energetic causes of depression. Without this new perspective, the energetic aspects cannot be located—neither by the practitioner nor the person him/herself, as the most common causes for depression from an energetic point of view are aspects that relate to a person’s inability to connect with themselves as authentic self. These causes or factors are primarily reflected in the state and physical areas of our 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chakras. These imbalances can often be directly felt if a person is aware of their energy centers. Physical sensations, such as discomfort in the lower abdominal area, digestive issues, or hip or lower back problems often indicate 1st or 2nd chakra energy flow problems. Stomach or sternum pressure, tension in the ribcage, or even heart palpitations can hint at issues with 3rd and 4th chakra energy flow. However, the deeper layers of our energy field which are located in the previously mentioned unseen category of our energy body (not shown in these infographics) can reveal more specific aspects of our energy; it can show Energetic Attachments or Fractures that influence how our energy expresses, how it interacts with other outer/other people’s energies and which primary energetic state or alignment a person is in.
Deeper energy healing work can also give us information about patterns and dynamics within our personal energy field. It can show how our energy can gravitate towards certain energetic states, such as ego or true self states. The main distinction here is their energetic quality, namely whether our energy is contractive or expansive, which can be responsible for subconscious reactivity and avoidance patterns. Issues with 5th, 6th and 7th chakra energy flow involve our self-actualization and contextualization of reality. These can only be addressed through deeper spiritual and etheric self-healing work as they often involve the complex dynamics of our past and present experiences with our present perception of ourselves and what we can do about it. By learning how to consciously shift one’s energy, a person can learn to feel more empowered to overcome preexisting conditions or traumas in the past, which can help to feel more capable to actively deal with internal and external energetic stress factors.
Energetic Stressors & Coping with Stress
Responsible for energetic stress is an internal conflict, triggered by a battle of True versus False or Ego Self. Sigmund Freud’s work illuminated inner ambivalence between different expressions of self and allowed us to understand the relativity of inner conflict. Early conditioning to performing in a certain way or defining oneself through doing rather than being can therefore be a major contributor for this primary disconnect of a person from being able to feel their own needs. It often sets the stage for repressing emotions, or being afraid of feeling pain altogether, and induces the ego with the fear of not being good enough. A toxic relationship, a hostile co-worker, addictive patterns, etc. are just a few examples how these energetic conditions can lead to diseases of our energy body.
The result of such deeper energetic attachments can show in the formation of an energetic cloud of constant inner judgment and negativity which can disrupt a person’s ability to feel, sense, and emote adequately and play out in coping mechanisms that shut down sensitivity and sensuality altogether. The conflicting notion not being lovable enough can then further disrupt a person’s ability to feel the right to be here and result in feeling completely displaced or even condemned by god altogether.
Energetically, this inner schism is often stored in repressed childhood trauma and karmic aspects that can only be read in the energy signature of the unseen energetic layers of a person’s energy field, which is why these stressors are difficult to diagnose.
Conclusion
Although depression could be considered a global phenomenon, it’s often treated like a shameful family secret. Once a person is labeled as clinically depressed, and worse, begins to identify with it, a vicious flipping back and forth between shame and fear is set into motion. When looking at depression in the context of current collective and geopolitical chaos, financial uncertainty, and social and spiritual confusion it is no coincidence that the growing number of people suffering from depression are not just dealing with unexpressed aggression, neurotransmitter and hormone imbalances, or different brain structure. We are in the middle of a global transformation that pushes our human adaptability to the outer limits of old paradigms in medicine and psychology.
As a species, we are beginning to realize that we are not just programmable computers with protoplasm that can go wrong under stress, but that we are energetic beings with a heart and a soul who can elevate ourselves above the limitations of traditional health models through the power of our consciousness and energetic awareness. The significance of this enhanced adaption to illness and disease could be profound for our human evolution, but before these 300 million people can learn how to out-vibrate this serious condition a few more taboos need to be broken.
Shifting the emphasis from the predominant medical sick-based paradigm to a self-healing-based way of approaching depression requires the energetic understanding of depression. It could lead to a transformational self-empowering and self-healing experience by “allowing” a person to connect with his/her own self-healing powers, but for this we need more professionals that know how to integrate energy work.
The integration of energy work and energy coaching as a reprogramming and self-healing tool in existing physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral therapy can be used to develop new ways of dealing with energetic stress. It can help to identify and overcome recurring coping cycles, such as addictive patterns and trauma syndromes, and thus increase the general state of fulfillment and happiness in life. However, even though Mindfulness, Energy and Spiritual Healing are reported to help a person to more holistically recover from depression, these alternative healing modalities are unfortunately not yet accepted in most countries. Despite an alarming increase in depression in people worldwide (according to the National Center for Health Statistics, the reported number of Americans taking antidepressants in 2014 was 12.7%, which represents an increase of more than 64% in the years from 1999 to 2014) the energetic approach is still poo-pooed amongst healthcare professionals. Luckily, the research showing positive results is so compelling that more and more health care practitioners are considering adding energy work to their healing arts.
From the energetic perspective it is very likely that we will see a massive increase in energy workers amongst professionals in the years to come. Adding energy healing to treating depression could show that we are more than just bodies with a soul—but souls with a body. For this paradigm shift that could pave the way to implementing spiritual-energetic healing modalities into our current models for healing and recovery to take place, we as individuals need to understand that healing is not defined by the absence of pain but more so by the presence of love.
