The natural life force expresses itself in the body and the mind through pleasure, happiness and well-being. Physical, intellectual and sexual pleasure, a feeling of serenity, joy, spontaneity, trust and connection with the environment are all characteristics of a successful inheritance from nature adapted to life. However, this gift may be spoiled. More and more individuals encounter difficulties in sustaining enough interest or passion for life, lose motivation and seek help. More and more people get diagnosed with depression and even more are undiagnosed and untreated. Anxiety is the most common underlying cause of many physical illnesses. Most people who suffer from drug addiction, eating disorders or obsessive compulsive disorders are also anxious and depressed. A lot of people who suffer from a terminal illness also suffer from depression and anxiety. Psychiatrists diagnose more and more people with depression and anxiety and prescribe more and more drugs and less and less psychotherapy. But drugs do not work. If we want to prevent young people from committing suicide, becoming alcoholics or drug addicts and committing crime we must take a good look at how our society creates anxious people and how it treats it.
Anxiety and depression go hand in hand. Depression manifests mostly on the mental emotional plane with negative ideation, sleep and eating disturbance while anxiety is one step further and manifests also on the physical plane with physiological disturbances. Most of the symptoms of anxiety are the physiological manifestation of fear: Palpitation, sweating profusely, low fever, tremors, dizziness, difficulty breathing.
In both cases, ideation is driven by self-destructiveness with a focus either on past traumatic events over which one had no control or future catastrophic thinking.
These symptoms culminate in a panic or anxiety attack to the point where the person fears losing her mind and/or her body; she fears dying. If untreated, this can have serious chronic consequences on physical or mental health.
What Smothers the Life Force?
The life force and the mind
How come a human being who was given the gift of life can come to such suffering? What are the processes that contribute to this progressive smothering of the life force and what has led an individual to be encased in an armor of fear?
Inner Conflict
Something happened that was out of the person’s control and the person cannot accept it. For instance, a mother had her children taken away through a custody case, or someone is on probation and continuing illegal activities. Anger and fear build up. Energy is needed to control these emotions so that they do not surface and this inner conflict damages the life force.
Compromising
The damage is progressive, and one is not aware of it: one is compromising by not living one’s ideal life to live in a convenient situation and one’s spirit dies. For instance a woman sacrifices her life for the convenience of financial support.
Isolation, lack of support and nurturing slowly undermine the life force and one loses the will to live.
Negativity, poor self-esteem, self-judgment, fear of living
The life force is synonymous to a strong spontaneous vector turned outwardly with trust and love. Education and upbringing teach children how to tame and sometime how to repress this life force. Unhappy parents teach their children how to die inside in order to survive in a sad world.
Fear is the anticipation of a negative event in the future and the inability to live the present moment.
The problem is with the mind and the solution is with the mind.
This is why cognitive therapy works so well for depression.
Amending the Mind
First of all, all adolescents on the verge of joining adulthood are confronted with this issue of deciding if they want to live or die. To engage life we need to consciously want to be here and contribute something to our world or planet. After one makes the decision to live, one sees the necessity to build a positive belief system that sustains life. The depressed person needs help to examine her/his entire system of thoughts and see if this system is adapted to sustaining life. If not it needs to be replaced by a positive one.
For instance, one may think that the world is false, corrupted and violent and rather than be negative and depressed about it chooses to create a supportive environment and a life of service and dedication to good.
Ignoring the Mind
Because the problem is with the mind another solution is also out of the mind and meditation is another avenue to treat depression and anxiety. When this deep connection with oneself is attained the small disturbances are less likely to be overwhelming and to overtake reality.
The Life Force and Brain Chemistry
There is no doubt that the life force anchors in the brain. The brain needs oxygen and nutrients to function properly. If we eat a diet deficient in amino acids, vitamins and minerals we will not synthesize the feel good neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin or endorphins. If we live a sedentary lifestyle, our blood is not oxygenated properly and the driving force to make energy. If we eat hydrogenated fats and not enough polyunsaturated fats, our cell membrane lacks essential fatty acids that give it its flexibility and oxygen cannot penetrate the cell. So the problem is really in the lifestyle that society is offering. Our society is fabricating depressed and anxious people by feeding them dead food and breaks their spirit by offering materialistic goals. We now have a population of unmotivated unhappy people who have no desire to participate in this world to whom we are feeding drugs that do not work. What works are lifestyle changes, better nutrition, and an active lifestyle with regular physical exercise. We could save many lives if everyone had access to information about alternatives to drugs.
Drugs Do Not Work
Prozac, Celexa, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Effexor, Trazodone,. Pharmaceutical companies continue producing new generations of antidepressant that hide the failure of the preceding one. Just a new name but the same product! Most people who seek help from me for depression and anxiety are taking antidepressants, anti-anxiety and sleeping aids and still are not feeling good, still have suicidal thoughts and need assistance. The drugs may have helped initially for a month or two because drugs increase the levels of feel good neurotransmitters. They initially boost the energy, and restore the pleasure of being alive, but eventually the body gets habituated to the artificially increased levels of serotonin or dopamine and their effects become null.
Drugs cannot be a permanent answer because the existential cause of depression must be addressed and the starving brain must be properly nourished. Because of either a poor nutrition or a sedentary, stressful and mentally and physically toxic lifestyle people may become deficient in feel good neurotransmitters and supplementation with amino acid precursors vitamins and minerals is essential to get started. Tests may be ran to adapt the protocol to each specific case. Ultimately a lifestyle change and sometime long-term psychotherapy are needed. Raw food nutrition is a great approach because it matches the life force and supplies a massive amount of undamaged nutrients. Exercise is a natural way to increase endorphins and has shown to be as efficacious as antidepressants to cure depression.
