Posted by Ciara Muir on 29th Jul 2021
How To Treat Depression Without Antidepressants
Disclaimer: The decision to get off of antidepressants should be made with the help and guidance of a doctor or trained medical professional. This blog should not be confused with medical advice. Though CBD may help with withdrawal symptoms of getting off antidepressants, it is not a remedy for depression. Those experiencing extreme depression should not attempt to get off of antidepressants until they get the okay from their doctor and have begun working with a therapist to address emotional issues.
HOW TO TREAT DEPRESSION WITHOUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS
It is possible to live a peaceful, joy-filled life after quitting antidepressants and taking your healing into your own hands.
You see, the cause for mental disease is a result of the experiences you were exposed to throughout your life that build up on top of each other if the proper coping mechanisms and processes were not available or taught to you.
Humans are very sensitive creatures that store the energetic imprints of traumatic experiences they encounter. If these imprints are not released, they are stored within the body, causing mental and physical diseases to fester.
A traumatic experience can be perceived differently from person to person. Trauma can come in many different forms. It does not have to be this HUGE experience that caused the drastic change in your life, but it can also be a compilation of experiences that cause your soul to disassociate slowly. Disconnecting you from this relationship with your body as it fills with anxiety, deep sadness, worry, and fears. Which eventually results in you taking on a plethora of unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as overeating, distracting yourself with technology, masking your pain with alcohol, and more. While these strategies for dealing with suffering may help temporarily by blocking unwanted emotions, they move you further away from your true self and towards depression.
After a lifetime of experiencing deep pain and not taking the proper steps to process and heal, it eventually leads to depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, Bi-Polar Disorder, Schizophrenia, and so much more. Taking antidepressants can temporarily mask these unwanted emotions and conditions. However, it is a band-aide that prevents you from truly feeling and processing emotions. The benefits of getting off antidepressants are the ability to genuinely feel and, with work, release deeply embedded pain and suffering.
True healing begins when we face our suffering and process negative emotions that are blocked by antidepressants.
Depression and any kind of mental disease could have been avoided by being completely present with your pain as you experienced the trauma. Society has conditioned us all to repress the emotions that arise when we encounter difficult situations, when all you truly need is to FEEL the heaviness, allowing it to move through you without attaching to it. These feelings will pass; however, it becomes trapped within, when you do not allow the density to flow through you. This energy must be moved. Otherwise, it builds up. Layer after layer of accumulated density leads to this mental disease.
You have the tools within you to overcome depression, alongside various completely natural modalities that will help getting off antidepressants.
So what are the steps to treating depression without medication?
It takes peeling off the Band-Aid of masks that are covering up what is truly hiding underneath. The multitude of identities and ways of being that you took on for your survival. It’s a process of looking at the dark, aspects that you hide from both yourself and the world, and bringing them into the light.
This is the Hero’s journey and not an easy task, but there are benefits of getting off antidepressants and various holistic modalities that will make this process much more manageable.
The journey to get off of antidepressants and truly heal is a hero's journey that is challenging. However, it makes you more resilient, authentic and loving when you break through the chemical withdrawal and learn to feel and process emotions.
HOW TO TREAT DEPRESSION WITHOUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS: TRUE HEALING
The process outlined below is for people looking for help getting off antidepressants and searching for a natural way to heal. It involves working with the aspects of yourself that you hide from everyone, the parts of you that you are ashamed of, that you fear, struggle with on a moment-to-moment basis, and making peace with them. While simultaneously bringing them into the light and holding these vulnerable parts of you with love and tenderness. This is the treatment. This is what will ease all your sufferings. This is the KEY to living the life you have always dreamt of having, but it is a process to get there. It is challenging to work with the wounds that you have repressed for years or even decades. Utilizing the modalities that I provide in this blog will get you through and make it as peaceful as possible.
HOW TO TREAT DEPRESSION WITHOUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS: SHADOW WORK
The benefits of getting off antidepressants are realized when you bravely face your darkness. By shedding light on your demons, traumas, wounds, toxic habits, and any other skeletons in the closet. That part of your inner darkness is what you will be focusing on through this process. The scary parts of you that you want to hide from. These are pieces of you that directly affect your day-to-day life by running your subconscious habits, looping you in the cycles of dissatisfaction.
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate." - Carl Jung
Antidepressants cloud the mind and prevent you from truly feeling and processing emotions.
HELP GETTING OFF ANTIDEPRESSANTS: CONFRONTING YOUR DEPRESSION
The pain and suffering you are experiencing are a direct result of your past experiences. Through this process, you will face what you went through and utilize healthy coping mechanisms to overcome this pain.
Introspective Questions That Will Begin This Process:
- What am I ashamed of?
- What are some of my toxic habits, and how are they presented in my life?
- What was the most devastating experience I went through, and did I allow myself to feel the pain that came along with it?
- What wounds am I holding onto that are weighing me down?
- What did I need as a child that I didn’t receive?
- How have I been neglecting myself?
- How am I sabotaging myself?
- What is the root behind my unworthiness?
Utilize these questions to begin the process of unraveling the layers of darkness. Become friends with your inner darkness, reassuring yourself through this process that everything will be okay.
Grab your demons by the hand and bring them into the light.
HOW TO TREAT DEPRESSION WITHOUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS: HEALING MODALITIES THAT EASES THE SUFFERING
Ripping the Band-Aid off your wounds can be a very uncomfortable process, which is why it is so essential to utilize healthy coping mechanisms and techniques to make this process smoother as you face yourself.
Some modalities that help you feel at peace:
- Yoga
- Breath Work
- Herbal Medicine
- CBD
- Inner Child Work
HOW TO TREAT DEPRESSION WITHOUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS: YOGA
One of the benefits of getting off antidepressants is a heightened awareness of the body. Building a relationship with your body is an essential part of your healing journey. It is through this intimate connection that will allow you to feel the energetic blockages that need to be healed and eventually cleared.
There are a variety of yoga postures that activate each of the body's main energy centers. These energy centers (chakras) are where we hold the traumatic energetic imprints. When these energetic centers are blocked, it does not allow the beautiful life force energy to flow through us. Instead, it leaves dense energy to stagnate, allowing both physical and mental disease to fester.
Energy blocks stem from suppressed emotions,traumas, memories, or simply elements of our "shadow selves," those uncomfortable parts of ourselves that we have yet to become conscious of. Blocked energy translates into problematic behaviors, habits, and areas of our lives in which we feel stuck, stagnant, or held back from growth.
Do these seven yoga poses often to open the main energy centers of the body
The following Yoga postures correlate with each main energy center and help begin this relationship with the body.
- Tree Pose (Root Chakra)
- God or Goddess Pose (Sacral Chakra)
- Warrior Pose (Solar Plexus Chakra)
- Camel Pose (Heart Chakra)
- Shoulder Stand (Throat Chakra)
- Downward Facing Dog (Third Eye Chakra)
- Supported or non-supported Headstand (Crown Chakra)
HOW TO TREAT DEPRESSION WITHOUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS: BREATH-WORK
Breathwork is life-changing with the amount of peace and clarity it brings into your life. Adding this modality into your daily routines and healing techniques alone will be enough to treat mental disease.
The physical benefits of deep breathing are immediate, as it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, slowing down your heart rate and blood pressure, which is usually racing when intrusive, racing thoughts are flooding your mind. Breathing deeply will bring you back into the present moment and back into your body which will flood your being with the peace of mind you are craving.
Deep breathing also allows you to clear the energetic heaviness one feels when struggling with depression. It is a literal physical release of what no longer is serving—moving the energy out of your body and releasing it into the Universe.
Utilizing breath work while you are doing shadow work will be the game changer in your healing journal. It will allow you to access deeply embedded stored emotions that aren’t always accessible through the introspective question process. Some of these traumas are stored deeply within the body due to the mind blocking these memories from your memory to protect you from the pain.
During your breathwork process, I recommend that you are focus on the following:
- Set the intention for your desired outcome, whether to release sadness, calm anxious thoughts, or further connect to your body.
- Feel the emotions that arise fully, expressing them however they need to be expressed.
- Pay attention to your inner voice and how it guides you.
Breathword, meditation, and herbal remedies can help ease withdrawal symptoms
HELP GETTING OFF ANTIDEPRESSANTS: HERBAL REMEDIES
We have plant medicine allies on this path of healing; everything we ever need to feel abundant and at ease is provided for us by our dear Mother Earth. While on this healing path, there will be moments of suffering so debilitating that it is completely acceptable to rely on herbs that our planet has provided for us. There are a variety of calm-inducing medicines that are natural.
While on this path of quitting anti-depressants, my withdrawals were often so extreme that the anxiety would overtake me, and I still needed to function in everyday life. I utilized the following natural remedies for help getting off antidepressants when my withdrawal symptoms were just too hard to bear.
Theanine is an amino acid that is not commonly found in the human diet, as it is not one of the essential or nonessential amino acids. L-theanine is often called a “non-dietary amino acid.” Because of its structure, Theanine is known to reach the brain quickly following oral consumption.
Theanine is a relaxing but not sedating agent that helps process stress and improves attention. It has also been found to aid in sleep quality.
Ashwagandha is one of the most well-known Ayurvedic medicines that has been proven to lower cortisol. It has been scientifically proven to significantly help people with generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and depression.
5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) is an amino acid that your body naturally produce serotonin. Low serotonin levels are associated with depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, weight gain, and other health problems. Therefore, increasing your body’s production of serotonin may have various benefits. For this reason, serotonin-producing 5-HTP supplements have become increasingly popular.
HELP GETTING OFF ANTIDEPRESSANTS: CBD
CBD personally saved my life while going through the withdrawal process of anti-depressants. I went through a period where I could not sleep because of how much my mind would race. I utilized CBD as a tool to help relax and fall asleep until I could address the cause of the racing thoughts. The effects are so subtle; you cannot notice any significant side effects other than your peace of mind. Leanna Organics is my go-to brand. I use all their products daily and recommend them to my friends, family, and clients.
CBD is a natural way to relax the mind and body
HOW TO TREAT DEPRESSION WITHOUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS: INNER CHILD WORK
Your inner child is your most authentic essence. The portal to discovering your purpose. The key to rediscovering your innocence, purity, compassion, empathy, and joy, leading you to find your POWER.
As you entered this world, the subtle programming of this society slowly began to strip away the layers of your individuality, connection to God, innocence, and trust.
The lack of unconditional love, nourishment, and understanding slowly started to sharpen you around the edges, blocking your heart, encouraging you to believe that such beauty and safety are non-existent in this world.
The emotional turmoil, trauma, and abuse you went through reassured you that this world is full of evil engraining this negative perception of reality and distrust of humans.
Inner child work is the process of getting in touch with this wounded, programmed version of yourself to heal, nourish, love, understand and reparent. It allows you to unveil the layers of masks and programs so you can access your authentic, loving nature.
In the process of healing your inner child, you can pinpoint where a negative coping mechanism or habit was created, allowing you to dive back into that timeline to heal and guide that past version of yourself.
It is revealing a healthier way to deal with that turmoil, therefore, rewriting the present moment. While also giving you the ability to free yourself from the trauma you experienced, breaking the chains that have been dragging you into hell.
Everything you have been searching for exists; however, your wound-tinted glasses have blocked your perception of seeing the opportunities that would lead you to access this abundance. It's time to open up and expand this perception.
Some beginning tips on how to get in touch with your inner child:
- Start reintroducing the activities you did as a child into your life.
- Meditate on a picture of yourself from your childhood.
- Connect with old friends from your childhood.
- Meditate with the intention of connecting with your inner child. Here is a link to a video that guides you through this process.
- I created an inner child healing workbook with all the tools necessary for you to begin this process.
The link is found below:
This blog was written by Ciara Muir
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CBD is a mild, non-intoxicating, and non-habit-forming remedy that comes from nature. It gently, but effectively decreases nervousness and body discomfort, also since the skin is covered in CBD receptors it can be rubbed directly onto the skin to promote softness and resilience. Discover how CBD can assist you on your path to happiness and wellness!
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These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Consult with your doctor if pregnant or breastfeeding before using any Leanna Organics' product.