From Stuck to Flowing: Moving Energy to Alleviate Depression
By Dr. Sue Morter
We all feel sad, lonely or depressed from time to time in our lives. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one or a disappointment we’re facing, feeling a heaviness at life for a period of time is natural. When that heaviness and lack of energy becomes our constant state of living however, we may be experiencing a more serious form of depression.
If you feel this constant state of depression in your life, you are not alone. In fact, Major depressive disorder affects approximately 14.8 million American adults. (Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005 Jun; 62(6): 617-27).
When you look at depression through the lens of Energy Medicine, there are many techniques you can use to help alleviate the symptoms of depression and regain a sense of vitality and joy in your life once again.
Depression is Stuck Energy
Quantum science teaches that everything in all of creation is energy – including you. In it’s natural, unobstructed state, energy is meant to be constantly moving, especially inside the human system. However, we as humans, have the ability to shut down that energy flow when we worry, get angry or experience other undesired emotions.
Chronic depression results when we aren’t able to process an emotional experience completely. When the energy behind those emotions isn’t metabolized, it becomes heavy, or dense, in the energy field. When this happens, the energy field becomes compressed and, in regards to the human condition, on an emotional level, it feels like what we call depression.
It’s important to recognize that when we feel this compressed, heavy, depressed kind of feeling, it isn’t because there’s something wrong with us; it simply represents the fact we haven’t completely metabolized some emotional experience we’ve encountered.
To remedy this feeling of heavy, unprocessed energy, we have to learn to go back and be present for ourselves in a way that we were unable to be present when the situation originally occurred.
Processing Unresolved Emotions
One of the ways that we can begin to process unresolved emotions is to take our attention inside the body and ask ourselves the following question:
“When I think about how I’m feeling right now, where in my body do I feel the heaviest? Where do I feel that there’s a gap in the energy flow in my body?”
If you don’t know how to feel the energy flow in our body, simply ask, “Where in my body is the energy any different than it is in the rest of my body?” The mind will go to where it needs to go, and from there, our task is to bring our loving attention into that place in the body where the mind has landed.
As we focus on the particular area in our body and bring a breath of loving presence to it, we begin to feel held. We start to feel a sense of self, or a sense of wellbeing, that was never associated with this emotional situation before.
Once we start to experience this feeling of wellbeing, our next step is to breathe up and down through the system of the body. This begins to move the stuck energy, and results in a sense of flow again. When that flow returns to the energy system, the energy field begins to once again become robust. As this happens, we start to feel lighter, more available, present and clear. Our state of depression begins to shift and we feel ourselves getting better because we’re more functional.
It’s as Easy as Moving Energy
So, you may be wondering if all you have to do when you’re depressed is take your attention to the core of the body and find a knot in your stomach or heaviness in your heart, and squeeze it as you start to breathe, and you’re going to be well?
There’s a little more to it than that, but the most important thing to understand is that breathing sets the energy in motion again and causes it to begin moving through our system. As that energy is set into motion, we start to have a vital force flowing through the body.
I teach techniques in The Energy Codes® coursework that allow individuals to align their breath with the central channel of their body, which causes the energy to pick up a powerfully-focused momentum through the system. It has a unique impact in the body and is very different than just taking a deep breath and hoping you feel better in a moment.
There are many other techniques along these lines we can do to start to raise the vibrational frequency of the body.
Techniques for Raising Your Vibration
Depression is simply compressed energy, so anything that we can do to raise that energy and expand it out again is going to be a good modality in an integrative sense to move ourselves into a new state in life.
There are many types of activity we can do to help raise our vibration:
- We can get our bodies in motion by exercising, which results in the release of endorphins that help us feel better immediately. Breathing up and down the central channel of our body while we’re exercising is even better.
- Eating an alkalizing diet helps immensely. This means eating lots of fruits and vegetables, as close to nature as possible, will raise the vibrational frequency of the body and create an uplifting feeling.
- If we can start to do all of these things at the same time (exercising, breathing through the central channel and eating an alkalizing diet) there will be a collaborative effect on the body that picks up the momentum faster than anything else we could do.
The body has the capacity to heal and to be thriving and vital and highly creative. If we’re not experiencing that or if we’re suffering feelings of depression, there’s a reason and also a solution. We must begin by putting all of the above techniques together at the same time.
In that moment, time is on our side, and life is on our side. We’re supposed to be whole and healthy and vital and life is about flowing energy. Anything that we can do to get the energy flowing in our system again allows us to feel more alive, vital, and more capable of managing and developing the life of our dreams.