I hadn’t really thought much about depression until I met Catherine Carrigan at one of my educational kinesiology workshops. Catherine had survived years of depression, suicide attempts, hopping from one drug therapy to another and from one therapist to the next. She enrolled in my class because she discovered that she could eliminate her depression through integrated physical movements, and she wanted to know why. Her experience sparked my interest, and I began to read the research on depression, studies that seem to tie right back into our culture’s stress addiction.

Close to 10% of men and women in America are now being medicated for depression. This startling statistic raises serious questions regarding diagnosis and whether pharmaceutical companies are more interested in making profits from ill health than contributing to good health. A New York University study done in 2007, showed that about one in four people treated for depression is, in fact, just dealing with the aftermath of a recent emotional blow from some kind of loss or sudden life change. There’s mounting evidence that these emotional damages could more effectively be healed by exercise and the support of a closely connected community, rather than drug therapy.

Recently, researchers found a genetic predisposition for depression in the form of a short serotonin transporter gene that can produce a highly vigilant emotional brain. However, this gene only boosts depression risk when triggered by a significant stressful event, especially when a person constantly rethinks the event, worries about it, and anticipates further difficulties. Anxiety is the root of almost all emotional disorders:  post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and depression. Because there are more neural pathways going from the amygdala (the very vigilant part of the emotional brain that assesses threats) to the cortex (the reasoning area of the brain) than the other way around, our anxieties often control our thoughts. These thoughts can lead us to overall negativity and ever greater anxiety.

To make things even worse, within weeks of depressive stress, another brain structure, the hippocampus, wears out as the spines on its neurons wither and the cells die, hindering its ability to tell the hypothalamus to stop delivering more stress hormones, thus increasing stress. The communication breakdown between the cortex and the amygdala distorts emotional responses and the social decisions one makes, often causing alienation. The result is a vicious cycle of isolation and entrenched depression. Depressed people tend to have few social contacts and become negative about the people around them, making relationships difficult. They don’t feel like they fit in and have little curiosity about other people or new ideas, so they become antisocial and isolated. The isolation leads to low self-esteem, a lost sense of value, and even self-abuse. People are only mean when they’ve forgotten their own value.

Everyone has their own take on depression. I saw it from the outside as my daughter went through a brief bout of it years ago. Then in the fall of 2006, I discovered firsthand how quickly the depressive cycle spins out of control and how terrible it feels from inside it. My years of being on the road, traveling in many countries, hauling heavy luggage full of books, teaching 10-hour days, and in my time off assisting in the building of our home and spending endless hours on our small Hawaiian farm weeding, planting, and pruning were taking their toll on my body. I had even commented that if I didn’t slow down, my body would stop me, and sure enough, in the fall of 2006 it did. I came home to my husband Ahti crippled with a severe spondylothesis scoleosis and herniated disc, unable to lean over or even move much without massive pain.

First I was angry with this once strong but now fragile body that had always worked at my command. I was frustrated with my inability to pull the weeds that had their way with the farm while I was gone, or ride in a car for more than fifteen minutes, or move with grace and flexibility, or even be present enough to enjoy my close friends. I have always been a driven, doing person and my world had turned inside out. Standing up and lying down were the only two positions that afforded some relief from the pain. It got to a point where there were only moments of freedom from the burning, shooting pains in my back and legs.

I hid away, not wanting to see anyone, even my loving and supportive husband. I would sleep long hours, eat very little, and sleep again. I couldn’t understand much of what I read, and had no interest in writing. My once quick mind worked slowly and seemed so empty. The word that constantly hung over me was “Lazy.” I judged myself harshly at every turn. The powerful self-help tools I had acquired over the years were forgotten as I spiraled downward. I felt so helpless and hopeless as each new therapy failed to make much of a difference.

Ahti introduced me to Eckhart Tolle’s books, which I read piecemeal, but they did strike a chord. I began seeing my back problems and pain as my shaman’s journey, a gift that was essential for the evolution of my soul. Stillness and conscious being became my teachers. I realized that depression occurs when we forget what and who we truly are:  masters, not victims. I made a storyboard, a picture representation of where I was choosing to go, with a fluid dancer in the center encircled with light, a reminder of my power. My emotions began to flow freely as I cried often, began to laugh, and even experienced bliss at times. I took walks, remembering the importance of cross-lateral movement, walking through the pain, knowing it was helping to relieve the pressure on my lower back while taking in the abundant, ever-changing landscape around our Hawaiian farm. I could even play my violin (standing up) for several hours without much pain, which filled me with joy.

My husband and friends persistently invaded my seclusion and invited me into life, while my loving physical therapists and osteopath taught me to be empathetic with my body and listen deeply to its messages. My daughter came from the mainland to be with me, assisting me through love and a profound balancing session to come back to my power, my authenticity, and understand this great gift that had been given to me.

The months grew into a meditation on just being present and listening to the startlingly beautiful world around me. I moved past the deep depression, practicing to be more coherent and present in each moment while listening to and honoring all that my body was sharing with me. The final step was major back surgery, and learning to trust the medical profession, not just alternative therapies, and that I didn’t have to do it all myself. I realized and deeply appreciated that I was connected to boundless goodness and the love and support of friends and family. Now and then I look at the storyboard I made then and realize the miracle I was given. My perspective on life has completely changed now, and . . . I can dance all night in my light, flexible body without pain.

The healing and power in connection

Some of the tribal Africans groups I encountered while teaching in South Africa, Botswana, and Lestho have a solid family/clan structure that assures everyone is taken care of and a sense of belonging. These people live by “UBUNTU” which means, “Because I am, we are, and because we are, I am.” Depression is unknown in the intact tribal areas I visited. Dean Ornish, author of many books on lifestyle, claims that nothing more powerfully affects our health than love, connection, and community. Yet, we remain ruggedly individualistic in our Western culture, which can easily lead to a sense of isolation, loneliness, and depression. Thus, we are at least three to five times more likely to get sick and die prematurely, not only from heart disease, but from all causes, than cultures who have strong cooperative communities and honor emotional expression.

I fear that isolation has become a way of life for many children and adults in our society. TV and computers become focal areas for the family, decreasing firsthand interactive communication or real play and touch. Parents are busy earning a living, often leaving latchkey kids, who may be missing out on the full quota of family warmth and connection. As adults, isolation and our longing for self-value and connection often take the form of obsessive consumerism, necessitating that we work more and spend less time with one another.

We know that the more social contacts people have, the happier, more optimistic and healthier they are. Our strongest ties are those relationships characterized by frequent contact, deep feelings of affection and obligation, and a broad base of understanding. Strong ties tend to buffer people from life’s stresses and lead to better social and psychological safety. Knowing that we are in constant communication with one another and continually influencing one another through the invisible vibrational fields issuing from our hearts and brains should certainly allow us to feel more connected. When these fields are coherent, there is a natural sense of safety, belonging, and peace, and we feel in harmony with one another. We are able to express ourselves fully, passionately, and emotionally.

Our amazing technology can leave us overwhelmed by volumes of email, blogs, and other internet activities, while dramatically infringing on our peace and quality of life. The flicker of the computer screen increases our levels of adrenaline and cortisol, and vastly decreases our dopamine levels. We spend large chunks of time daily checking the Internet while missing the firsthand experience of being with the flesh and blood people just a few steps away. And then we wonder why we are lonely!

I’m not against technology, but why not make more room in our lives for actual, physical, emotional, real-time connection with one another and with our innermost selves. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves to set aside time for creativity and self-reflection. Take time to move, play, and walk in nature with your children, friends, and family on a daily basis. Seriously limit TV and computer time in our households so we share more. Our children need our presence, not our presents. It may be time to simplify our lives, needing less “stuff” and more connection.

Our emotional connections nurture and allow us to remember our worth. We must invite people into life, through our modeling of coherence and passion, or they may choose depression, violence and/or death without connection to others or themselves. We have no time and no reason to leave our precious children, elderly, friends, family and even strangers out of our lives and in the hands of an incoherent technology-based world, devoid of authentic human emotions and connections. It seems that a million worlds of separation vanish when we embrace another being.

If we are parents, there’s much we can do to remind our children and especially our teenagers of their connectedness and wholeness. Truly be present with them, without judgments about their music or their outlets to community. Get involved personally, go with them to concerts, play the video games with them, and then ask, honestly, out of curiosity, why is this music or video game important for them? Listen, listen, listen to these precious beings our love created, and then model coherence for them. Honor and mirror back to them their emotions with empathy, for example, “I hear that you are feeling very isolated and angry.” Ask them about their choices and how those choices assist their lives, helping them to feel less stressed, angry, or isolated. Listen without judgment and again mirror back their choices: “You have chosen to _____, which assists you with ______.”

Accept them as exploring, wise individuals, seeking what they need most:  a solid sense of themselves. Make them partners in our lives, working and playing alongside us. Give them options to be of value, such as working with younger children, the elderly, or animals. Keep offering them healthy outlets as they develop greater responsibility, things that demand constructive action, and a sense of accomplishment. Adolescence is an especially sensitive time when the need for intimacy and the desire to be of value through constructive action is paramount. As we trust our kids to learn how to handle themselves, we give them back their power.

To manage the depression cycle, we may have to first remember who and what we are—masters of our lives, not victims—and then honestly address the underlying causes. And then stop the runaway thought patterns by focusing on the present and choosing to see everything as a learning opportunity, and get the body moving and the emotions flowing through sound, music, and play. All of these measures assist the spines on the neurons of our hippocampus to re-grow, and new replacement cells to develop.

Touch increases production of oxytocin, our bonding chemical, and is a great healer. Many social workers are prescribing “Therapy Pets” for disenfranchised children, depressed suicidal individuals, and elderly patients who lack touch and companionship. The close alliance with a pet re-ignites the flame of connectedness and concern for another that is so very healing.

Mature emotions allow us compassion, altruism, empathy, and love. They also assist us in developing intuitive discrimination of what is being authentically expressed or not in our community and world, thus making us more able to respond and assist for the highest good of all. To me, being in control means acknowledging and emotionally expressing in a responsible (responding) way all the aspects of who I am. It is expressing the richness of me by being genuine and passionate in my life.

“The human heart can go the lengths of God...

Dark and cold we may be, but this
Is no winter now. The frozen misery
Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;
The thunder is the thunder of the floes,
The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.

Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul men ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.

The enterprise is exploration into God.
Where are you making for? It takes
So many thousand years to wake...
But will you wake for pity sake?”
~ from "A Sleep Of Prisoners" by Christopher Fry

In Sufism and many other mystical practices, God is equated with Oneness, our wholeness as entangled vibrational patterns. Perhaps Christopher Fry also had that image in mind when he wrote this poem, so full of emotion, potential, and connection back to Oneness.

About the author

Dr. Carla Hannaford is an internationally recognized educator with a background in biology and more than four decades of teaching experience. She has presented more than 600 lectures and workshops in 35 countries over the past two decades, has advised ministries and departments of education in the United States, Russia, South Africa, Singapore, and Scotland, and has contributed to education and science journals. This is her fourth book. Her earlier book, Smart Moves:  Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head, has been translated into a dozen languages. Playing in the Unified Field has a foreword by physicist William A Tiller, who was featured in the popular film, “What the Bleep Do We Know?” and is currently Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.

© Copyright Carla Hannaford, from her book Playing in the Unified Field: Raising & Becoming Conscious, Creative Human Beings