Healing Depression through Self-Expression

There is an intriguing psychological connection between the processes of expression and depression, both of which relate to the concept of life force.

At the root of the word “express” is “press,” symbolising movement or the outward flow of energy. Expression, in this sense, represents the healthy externalisation of life force—moving thoughts, feelings, and creativity into the world. Similarly, “press” is central to the word “depressed,” indicating that the life force is still active. However, in depression, this energy becomes directed inward, constricting and turning against the self rather than being expressed outwardly.

The distinction between the two lies in the direction of energy flow. While expression channels life force outward in a productive and often therapeutic way, depression internalises and suppresses it. Importantly, these two states cannot coexist; one cannot simultaneously express and depress life force.

From a therapeutic perspective, depression often serves as a critical signal that aspects of a person’s life may require attention or change. It can indicate unfulfilled needs or a lack of meaningful outlets for self-expression. In psychotherapy, addressing depression involves exploring underlying causes and identifying areas where clients can cultivate interests or find constructive ways to express their thoughts and emotions. This shift from inward repression to outward expression is an essential part of the healing process.

How Stress Can Trigger Panic Attacks

Panic attacks are very common. They are not a sign of some kind of mental or physical illness, but they are directly related to cumulative stress – a kind of stress which builds up unnoticed over months or years. This is why for most people the first panic attack comes as a complete surprise.

Very few people experience just one single panic attack. In most cases panic attacks tend to recur, seemingly without any reason. Repeated panic attacks lower your self-esteem, break your confidence and crush the faith you had in yourself. Your life begins to be dominated by the ever-present fear of experiencing another panic attack. All the things which you once believed in and hoped to achieve suddenly may become very distant and unreachable.

If you suffer from panic attacks my aim in therapy is first to teach you simple techniques which can help you to take control over panic attacks and so to lose fear of panic attacks.

Secondly, working together I can help you to identify and address the underlying stress which led to panic attacks. For some people stress can arise from the difficulties in relationships, or from work problems, or for many people stress arises when their deeper need for self-realization has for some reason been obstructed.

Worry: A Habit We Can Break

Worry is the misuse of imagination.
—Dan Zadra

Worry is a lasting preoccupation about something that has already happened in the past or that we fear will happen in the future. Worry never deals with the present.

Worry can be powerful and persistent. It can run our life.

Somehow, we tend to believe that worry is virtuous – that I am not a good parent unless I worry about my children and that I am being irresponsible if I am not worrying about my business.

Worry is a pattern of thoughts, a certain habit of thoughts. It is a type of thinking that makes us feel as if we were reliving a past event or living out a future one. We may feel that we cannot stop those thoughts from occurring. They are characterised by the phrases “If only…” and “What if…”

• “If only…” thoughts are always about an unhappy event that we wish had not happened.
  The event has left us with an unresolved emotional feeling and our mind continues to try to resolve it, trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Unfortunately, in many cases, because the event has already happened, nothing can be done. We cannot go back into the past and have the event turn out differently.

• “What if…” thoughts are about future events, about the possible bad things that could happen:

  • ‘What if I get ill?”

  • “What if I lose my job?”

  • “What if I make a mistake?”

Each of these thoughts is about a possible future event. Such thoughts can make us depressed or anxious, no matter how unlikely it is that such an event will happen.

Most of the things we worry about are things we have little or no control over. Agonising about what happened or might occur and about things we cannot control gives our power away.

Worrying is a habit, but like any habit, it can be broken.

The Shadow: Path to Wholeness

Shadow is our psychic twin that follows us like a mirror image.
––R. Johnson

If we identify fully with survival personality, we deny other parts of the personality. These denied parts form our shadow.

The shadow starts in childhood, as we are discouraged from expressing our true nature for fear of upsetting others. To gain love and avoid the disapproval of parents and others, we repress parts of ourselves completely out of our awareness. We do this because not being loved would have risked a loss of existence at that stage.

Often, the shadow is seen as our ‘darker’ nature, something entirely negative, composed of the unknown aspects of personality. In reality, the shadow refers to all the parts of ourselves that we do not express, both known and unknown. Sometimes, we know them, but we do not admit them to ourselves.

The shadow holds all these parts of ourselves that we have disowned for one reason or another. They may have positive or negative qualities. They may be parts that we do not like about us or that we think are bad. It holds all our unexpressed feelings—shame, fear, anger, and guilt—but also our unexpressed capacities, talents, and creative energies.

There are treasures in the shadow. For example, a person who grew up in a family where rational thinking prevailed and such things as art making were not given much value may discover some artistic talents hiding in his shadow.

The shadow can be viewed as an unlived life. It holds everything that has been repressed over years of our lives and embodies all of our life experiences that have not been allowed expression. The narrower and more restrictive the society we live in, the larger our shadow will be.

We all have shadow. To be human is to have a shadow. The shadow is unavoidable, and we are incomplete without it. No one can be complete without shadow.

If the shadow is not recognised, if we are not conscious of it, the shadow’s energy can be projected onto others. That we disown in ourselves will be projected outwards. Then, the faults, qualities, and abilities we see in others mirror our own.

Our first task of growing whole is to ‘own our own shadow’. To be whole, we need to include our shadow. Much of the self-discovery involves gradually uncovering our shadow and accepting more and more of our disowned parts. Accepting these parts of ourselves enables us to become more who we are, moving into our authentic personality from the survival personality we adopted for survival reasons in our early lives.

By uncovering the shadow, we will regain many lost gifts—a new source of spontaneity, wonder, and creativity—but also our vulnerability and all unexpressed feelings of anger, resentment, and fear. They are all part of our story, making our path and wholeness.

Hyperventilation Explained: Managing Anxiety through Breath

What has to be taught first is the breath. - Confucius

When we are anxious, fearful, or stressed, we tend to hyperventilate. Understanding hyperventilation is key to managing anxiety.

Hyperventilation, or over-breathing, simply means inhaling and exhaling more air than the body needs. As a result, the body takes in too much oxygen while expelling more carbon dioxide than it produces, causing blood levels of carbon dioxide to drop too low.

Low levels of carbon dioxide in the blood can trigger several unpleasant sensations, such as:

• Irregular heart rate: Low carbon dioxide levels cause blood vessels to constrict, reducing blood flow throughout the body, including to the heart and brain. This can cause the heart to pound, skip beats, or produce palpitations.

• Trembling, tingling, or numbness: Reduced blood flow means that body tissues receive less oxygen, leading to tingling sensations or numbness in the mouth, hands, and feet. This can also cause a general weakness, making your legs feel unable to support you.

• Light-headedness, dizziness, and blurred vision: These are common symptoms, as the constricted blood vessels significantly reduce the oxygen supply to the brain—sometimes by nearly half.

• Shortness of breath and feelings of suffocation: This is often the most frightening symptom. Low levels of carbon dioxide prevent the body from effectively using the oxygen it has, creating a sensation of breathlessness, even though the body contains excess air.

It’s important to understand that all sensations caused by hyperventilation are completely harmless. Hyperventilation is a condition, not an illness, and it can happen to anyone.

The good news is that hyperventilation can be controlled. Breathing is the only automatic bodily function that you can consciously regulate. While you cannot directly slow your heart rate or stop sweating, tingling chest pain, or other panic attack symptoms, you can control your breathing.

This ability gives you the power to change how you breathe when you are anxious, fearful, or under stress. By adjusting your breathing during a panic attack, you can reduce the severity of the sensations and lower your anxiety.

Thus, the first step in managing anxiety and stress is learning to control your breathing.