What causes depression?

What causes depression? No one knows.

No really – not even the medical profession. Do a quick google search and see what comes up. The best they can offer is a few theories of biological factors combined with environmental and behavioural issues. They can estimate how likely someone is to experience depression based on this, but they don’t know the root cause.

Makes it hard to heal something when you don’t know what is causing it!

So we DON’T treat depression, instead we treat the symptoms of depression. Big difference.

Symptoms of depression are generally divided into three categories – mood, physical and cognitive.

According to New Zealand website Everybody, mood symptoms of depression include a persistent low, sad or depressed mood, loss of interest and pleasure in usual activities and irritable mood.

Physical symptoms of depression include change in sleeping patterns, change in appetite, decreased energy, tiredness, fatigue, physical slowing or agitation.

Cognitive symptoms of depression, thoughts of worthlessness or guilt involve loss of confidence in self and excessive guilt about past minor wrongs. As a result of feeling bad about themselves, people may withdraw from doing things and from contact with others. Thoughts of hopelessness and death. The person may feel there is no hope in life, wish they were dead or have thoughts of suicide. Difficulty thinking clearly. People may have difficulty in concentrating. They may not be able to read the paper or watch television. They may also have great difficulty making even simple everyday decisions.

Treatment for depression focuses usually on medication and psychotherapy. One fools the mind into feeling ok, and the other looks deeper into some of the beliefs and behaviour patterns that may be contributing to the depression.

Both focus only on the symptoms of depression – and this can be very helpful because it gives the depressed person a lift and the necessary strength to start taking a hard look at what is actually CAUSING the depression. But if treatment and action stops with just these two methods, as it so often does, then the root cause is never addressed and a huge opportunity is missed to fundamentally realign a person’s life.

So what really causes depression? Here’s my big bold claim.

Depression is caused by a soul in crisis. It’s a desperate plea for attention. It’s a flare above stormy seas during a dark and windy night exploding into the atmosphere.

And what do we do?

Turn a giant hose on the flare and wash it away without bothering to follow the trail all the way back to the flare’s source – that soul of ours. And if the words spirit, soul or consciousness don’t work for you, then think of it like this.

When you are depressed, it is simply the “True part of who you are” telling you that things are ‘NOT RIGHT’, and that you need to make some fundamental changes in your life.

Before we go any further, let’s establish how we work. First, we have the physical body, the emotional body, the mental body and the energetic body. Simple enough right? Examples of parts of these bodies are our hands, our feelings, our thoughts, and the firing of our nerve synapses.

Think of it like the four elements, earth = physical, emotional = water, mental = air, energetic = fire.

But there is another element – the fifth element. Aristotle named the fifth element as the ether – that which encompasses all that is. Hinduism and Buddism call that fifth element Akasha, also ether. And Japanese culture named it Void/sky/heaven.

Within our body, the fifth element corresponds to our soul. It is the part of us that connects with all that is – with the ether, the akasha, or consciousness.

When you experience depression it is because the four material elements are no longer in alignment with your fifth element – your soul. You are lost and floating away from Self, abandoned on the great expanse of ocean… and so a flare is sent up. Depression arrives. This sense of something being fundamentally ‘not right’, this total lack of motivation to engage in the world as it is for you right now, this profound sense of sinking and despair.

Those depressed thoughts and feelings are the flare, shooting up from the soul into the atmosphere to grab our attention and tell us…

That’s why depression is such a gift. It’s maybe the first moment when you’ve felt the stirrings of your soul, it’s a sign to dig deep inside and start listening to what your soul has to say, it’s a neon flashing sign instructing you to change your life now.

The arrival of depression in your life is something to celebrate! Yes, I know, I said celebrate – because now you are being FORCED via feeling awful to make changes in your life that you were reluctant to make before.

Depression is your soul desperately trying to get your attention.

WAKE UP!!!

HERE I AM!!!

LISTEN TO ME!!!

And what do we do? We MISS the great gift of depression and it’s ability to motivate us to ruthlessly examine our life, instead becoming completely absorbed in the FEELINGS and EXPERIENCE of depression.

But until we hear the message, we can’t know what to do, because we won’t know what is wrong.

My own experience of depression demonstrated this perfectly. Denial of my own truth and of the path my soul wanted to walk led to depression. Following the flare back down to my soul, and listening to what it wanted, put me back on the right path and the depression melted away. (With a lot of effort and hard work – knowing what’s going on doesn’t make it any easier to deal with!)

It becomes very difficult to heal the root cause of a condition when the belief system doesn’t accept there is such a thing as a soul, or a consciousness beyond the body, feelings, mind and energy. This is the conundrum western medical experts find themselves in. Until they can embrace an understanding of the world which includes the spirit, they can not heal a condition caused by the pain of the spirit.

The key to unraveling depression is simply being completely honest about WHO you are, and what YOU want. Even if it means facing up to truths in your life you would rather keep hidden.

At it’s most basic – a misalignment of internal truth causes depression.

• Like you married your wife because you thought she was hot and now you can’t stand her.
• Maybe you pleased your parents and became a doctor when your True Self yearned to be a lawyer.
• Or you really didn’t want children at all and can’t bring yourself to feel any love for them, and feel AWFUL about this.
• Or you miss your home country so much and even though you’d be ‘worse’ off you really want to move home again.

Our soul knows our Truths. We KNOW our truths. But so often… they are hidden and denied. Instead, we buy into what society tells us.

Like we should be happy because we won Miss Universe – but our true self couldn’t care less about being Miss Bloody Universe, and instead wishes she were living in the Arctic charting the movement of polar bears.

“How could she possibly be depressed,” society mutters. “She’s got everything a girl could want! Fame, money, looks…”

But life is so much more interesting and complex than that. We don’t all find fulfillment in the same things – even though we’re sold the same external desires via our advertising-controlled media. Looks! Wealth! Fame! Possessions! Eternal Youth!

Denial of who we truly are combined with actions taken for external reasons create depression.

• I’ll make a million bucks and then they’ll love me! So why aren’t I happy now…
• I’ll be an All Black and it will be awesome! So why aren’t I happy now…
• I’ll marry the richest man I can find and then everything will be wonderful! So why aren’t I happy now…

What makes us truly happy is simply being who we truly are. It’s aligning our physical, emotional, mental and energetic selves with our spirit, soul, consciousness, true Self.

So if you are encountering depression, the most empowering you can do is to first change your perception of it. Welcome it into your life as a gift from your soul. Start by getting the help and support you need from your friends, family and the medical profession – medication and psychotherapy are excellent at treating the symptoms. This is important because when you are in the depths of depression, and I know, I’ve been there – it is IMPOSSIBLE (nearly) to do ANYTHING. And to start listening to your soul or true self, you need to be able to take action.

With the symptoms taken care of, or at least lessened, and the support and love of those close to you, then you can start to do the hard work that will free you from depression forever. The big question you need to ask yourself is Who am I TRULY? What makes my heart sing? (It is not always easy to answer this question, and it’s beyond the scope of this article to cover it, but one giant leap you can take toward answering this question is to start practising yoga!)

Rates of depression are increasing all over the Western world, and I believe it is caused by our general reliance on external sources to chart our life’s course, with little heed paid to the yearnings of our soul. At some point, this total disregard for our own internal truth manifests as a profound sense of despair and disillusionment with life. Instead of seeing the horror in a world plagued with depression, we can instead see it as a giant wake-up call – our collective soul is crying out for recognition.

In the wake of material comfort, it is time to finally understand that true joy, happiness and contentment comes from living an authentic life.

It is time to connect to your true self – the flow of prana within.

And one way to do this? Yoga. Yep, yoga is an awesome step that you can take to begin to travel back to the truth of who you are.

(This article is based on my own experience of depression and my observations of those I know – it’s not intended to be an accurate description of the way all people experience depression.)

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