15/08/2024
What I teach comes from lived experience. In 2010 I had a depressive episode following the birth of my second child. It was very much anxiety driven and that was difficult to live with - for everyone. My road to recovery really started with the question “How did I get here?”. I didn’t want to just feel better, I wanted to heal and to prevent a relapse in the future. Yes, post-natal was the trigger but what was the underlying cause? What I learned on that road to recovery was an understanding of why I got depression and that there were many, many, contributing factors.
I also wanted to understand why I reacted the ways I did in life? And why I had no control over those reactions. And then there was the impact of depression and that reactivity on those closest to me, because outside of me, they were inevitably the ones who suffered most. When difficult emotions spill out they hurt other people and left me with feelings of regret, remorse, guilt or even shame.
Those answers have unfolded slowly since, and in each situation healing was required. We have all had adverse childhood experiences and these are held in our bodies. The affects of those, subconsciously drive behaviours - also called “behavioural patterns”. What I’ve learned is that you have to feel it, to heal it and the body knows how to do that - we just have to train the mind! And in the 14 years since, through many of life’s ups and downs, grief and joy, I have never relapsed. For what I know now is that all conditions are impermanent - they come and they go - we just have to learn to let them.
