Recovery From Codependency

By Darlene Lancer

Codependency is often thought of as a relationship problem and considered by many to be a disease. In the past, it was applied to relationships with alcoholics and drug addicts. It is a relationship problem; however, the relationship that's the problem is not with someone else, but the relationship with yourself, and that is what gets reflected in your relationships with others.
Codependency underlies all addictions. The core symptom of "dependency" manifests as reliance on a person, substance, or process (i.e, activity, such as gambling or sex addiction). Instead of having a healthy relationship with yourself, you make something or someone else more important. Over time, your thoughts, feelings, and actions revolve around that other person, activity, or substance, and you increasingly abandon your relationship with yourself.
Recovery entails a 180 degree reversal of this pattern in order to reconnect with, honor, and act from your core self. Healing develops the following characteristics:
* You're authentic
* You're autonomous
* You're capable of intimacy
* Your values, thoughts, feelings, and actions become integrated and congruent
Change is not easy. It takes time and involves the following four steps:
1. Abstinence
Abstinence or sobriety is necessary to recover from codependency. The goal is to bring your attention back to yourself, to have an internal, rather than external, "locus of control." This means that your actions are primarily motivated by your values, needs, and feelings, not someone else's. You learn to meet those needs in healthy ways. Perfect abstinence or sobriety isn't necessary for progress, and it's impossible with respect to codependency with people. You need and depend upon others and therefore give and compromise in relationships. Instead of abstinence, you learn to detach and not control, people-please, or obsess about others. You become more self-directed and autonomous.
If you're involved with an abuser or addict or grew up as the child of one, you may be afraid to displease your partner, and it can require great courage to break that pattern of conceding our power to someone else.
2. Awareness
It's said that denial is the hallmark of addiction. This is true whether you're an alcoholic or in love with one. Not only do codependents deny their own addiction - whether to a drug, activity, or a person - they deny their feelings, and especially their needs, particularly emotional needs for nurturing and real intimacy.
You may have grown up in a family where you weren't nurtured, your opinions and feelings weren't respected, and your emotional needs weren't adequately met. Over time, rather than risk rejection or criticism, you learned to ignore your needs and feelings, believed that you're were wrong. Some decided to become self-sufficient and/or find comfort in sex, food, drugs, or work.
All this leads to low self-esteem. To reverse these destructive habits, you first must become aware of them. The most damaging obstacle to self-esteem is negative self-talk. Most people aren't aware of their internal voices that push and criticize them - their "Pusher," "Perfectionist," and "Critic." To help you, I wrote a handy ebook, 10 Steps to Self-Esteem - The Ultimate Guide to Stop Self-Criticism.
3. Acceptance
Healing essentially involves self-acceptance. This is not only a step, but a life-long journey. People come to therapy to change themselves, not realizing that the work is about accepting themselves. Ironically, before you can change, you have to accept the situation. As they say, "What you resist, persists."
In recovery, more about yourself is revealed that requires acceptance, and life itself presents limitations and losses to accept. This is maturity. Accepting reality opens the doors of possibility. Change then happens. New ideas and energy emerge that previously were stagnated from self-blame and fighting reality. For example, when you feel sad, lonely, or guilty, instead of making yourself feel worse, you have self-compassion, soothe yourself, and take steps to feel better.
Self-acceptance means that you don't have to please everyone for fear that they won't like you. You honor your needs and unpleasant feelings and are forgiving of yourself and others. This good-will toward yourself allows you to be self-reflective, without being self-critical. Your self-esteem and confidence grow, and consequently, you don't allow others to abuse you or tell you what to do. Instead of manipulating, you become more authentic and assertive, and are capable of greater intimacy.
4. Action
Insight without action only gets you so far. In order to grow, self-awareness and self-acceptance must be accompanied by new behavior. This involves taking risks and venturing outside your comfort one. It may involve speaking up, trying something new, going somewhere alone, or setting a boundary. It also means setting internal boundaries by keeping commitments to yourself, or saying "no" to your Critic or other old habits you want to change. Instead of expecting others to meet all your needs and make you happy, you learn to take actions to meet them, and do things that give you fulfillment and satisfaction in your life.
Each time you try out new behavior or take a risk, you learn something new about yourself and your feelings and needs. You're creating a stronger sense of yourself, as well as self-confidence and self-esteem. This builds upon itself in a positive feedback loop vs. the downward spiral of codependency, which creates more fear, depression, and low self-esteem.
Words are actions. They have power and reflect your self-esteem. Becoming assertive is a learning process and is perhaps the most powerful tool in recovery. Assertiveness requires that you know yourself and risk making that public. It entails setting limits. This is respecting and honoring you. You get to be the author of your life - what you'll do and not do and how people will treat you. Because being assertive is so fundamental to recovery, I wrote How to Speak Your Mind - Become Assertive and Set Limits.
The four A's are a road map. Learn all you can about recovery. Join a 12-Step Program and begin keeping a journal to know yourself better. Codependency for Dummies lays out a detailed recovery plan with self-discovery exercises, tips, and daily reminders. Your recovery must be your priority. Most importantly, be gentle with yourself on your journey.
© Darlene Lancer 2013

Darlene Lancer is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, author of Codependency for Dummies, and expert in relationships, codependency, and addiction. She has a broad range of experience, working with individuals and couples for 25 years. She is an author and frequent speaker. She maintains private practice in Santa Monica, CA and coaches internationally. For more information, see http://www.whatiscodependency.com to receive a FREE Report, "14 Tips for Letting Go," and find links to her books, Codependency for Dummies and ebooks, How to Speak Your Mind - Become Assertive and Set Limits and 10 Steps to Self-Esteem: The Ultimate Guide to Stop Self-Criticism.
You can follow her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/codependencyrecovery.

Reclaiming Good Mental Health

By Carolyn Barber

What is good mental health? We are all more or less mentally healthy, and this usually varies through our lives especially as we deal with difficult life events, change and so on. Whether we call this psychological wellbeing, happiness, contentment, positive mindset, all these terms relate to good mental health.
With our physical health, it's part of our everyday discourse to be aspirational. We want to feel physically fit, energetic, strong, balanced in our weight, eating a healthy diet, supple, resilient and not prone to minor ailments. Sure we complain about our problems, and talk about how we can't do all the things we know we ought to do. We know it's not easy to stay physically healthy without working at it, especially if we've experienced health problems. We know that even if we reach the peak of physical fitness, we can't maintain this for the rest of our lives without paying attention to it.
Research tells us that good mental health is even more beneficial than good physical health. A positive mental outlook increases the rate and speed of recovery from serious, even life threatening, illness. Psychological resilience and wellbeing gives people the strength to turn problems into challenges into triumphs.
Yet whenever I ask a group of people to tell me what words come into mind in relation to 'mental health', their responses are about mental ill-health! It's as if the term has been hi-jacked to become totally problem-focused.
In the meantime, we're experiencing an epidemic of mental ill-health. About 1 in 4 people are experiencing some form of common mental health problem such as depression, anxiety and various stress related symptoms. GP surgeries are overwhelmed with such problems, mental health services are only able to provide support for the 1% of the population with much more severe mental health difficulties, and there's a plethora of largely unregulated services, treatments and remedies out on the private market. A recent research study showed that the majority of long term sickness absence from work resulted from stress related conditions.
The trouble with focusing on the problems and the pain, is that that's what we become experts in. We're looking for cures and treatments to fix the problem, instead of focusing on what makes for good mental health. We know that physical health is multi-dimensional - no-one imagines that pumping iron to build your muscles is a recipe for overall physical health, although it will certainly make you stronger for certain activities.
So what are the essentials of good mental health?
Connection is certainly one of the best known. Having positive close relationships is good for our mental health, as is having a wider network of friends, colleagues and acquaintances which will vary over time. Giving to others is another really important aspect of connection, improving our sense of self worth and wellbeing.
Challenge is about learning and development, it's how we grow. For children, everyday brings new challenges, yet as adults we often become increasingly fearful of change, unwilling to learn new skills or put ourselves in unfamiliar situations. So expanding our comfort zone, sometimes in small ways if we're feeling particularly vulnerable, will help develop our self-confidence and sense of personal achievement.
Composure means a sense of balance, and ability to distance ourselves from our thoughts and emotions. It means our ability to respond rather than react. This could be described as our sense of spiritual connection, which may come through a particular belief or faith, or may be found through connection with nature. A mentally healthy person will feel an inner strength of spirit, and find ways to support that.
Character relates to the way in which we interpret our experiences and our responses to them. We all have our own personal story, or stories, which we may or may not tell others. We may cast ourselves as the hero, the victim or the villain, and however we do this will impact generally on our mental health. Someone who has experienced severe life trauma may have great difficulty piecing together their story at all, leaving them feeling literally fragmented. Good mental health means having a strong sense of personal values, awareness of our own strengths, skills and resources, and personal stories of learning from mistakes, survival, success and appreciation.
Creativity represents the fun, childlike aspects of our mental health. As children we are naturally creative and we play. As we grow into adulthood, our creativity and playfulness is often discouraged or devalued, and this can cause great frustration, literally diminishing the capacity of our brain to function as well as it could. Exploring creative activities has often been found to have a powerful therapeutic effect, and good mental health certainly depends in part on opportunities to bring fun, playfulness and creativity into our lives.
These 5 C's of good mental health offer a framework within which we can think about our mental health in the same way as we might our physical health. It's pretty damned hard to be a perfect specimen of physical health,but then who needs to be perfect? Just like our physical health, our mental health is a work in progress and always will be.
In years gone by, many people with physical illnesses were treated cruelly because of ignorance and shame. I recall when cancer was spoken in hushed whispers as the Big C. Nowadays mental ill-health is the 'elephant in the room' which we need to be looking at long and hard, exposing to practical common sense and intelligent discussion.
World Mental Health Day on October 10 has been a timely reminder that good mental health really is something we can aspire to for everyone. Let's make it so!

Carolyn Barber, Bsc (Hons), CQSW, is the founder of Wayfinder Associates, a social care training and consultancy business specialising in team development, independent supervision and staff wellbeing. As a serial social entrepreneur, Carolyn has developed community based programmes to promote understanding of mental wellbeing using positive solution focused approaches.
Carolyn has over 30 years experience in social care as practitioner, trainer, researcher and manager, working across public, voluntary and independent sectors.
GSCC registration no: 1074227
LinkedIn profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/carolynbarber

Mental Health and Spirituality

In the first article in this two-part series, we looked at general circumstances regarding the connection between spiritual experience and mental illness. We will now get a bit more specific.
I've been asked many times how an entity attachment can happen; that depends.
First, a definition: an "entity", as we use it, is any sentient being. Specifically, in this framework it is not incarnated - it's just a cohesive ball of energy, an individual piece of consciousness with intelligence. A soul is an entity, but an entity is not necessarily a soul. An angel is an entity, but an entity is not necessarily an angel. Furthermore, in my work I only deal with negative entities. These have chosen not to work with Light (Spirit, if you will) and not to evolve spiritually - they therefore have no source of power unless they can induce negativity in an individual soul. That's why they seek to attach. They are, in effect, parasites.
Negative entities attach to a soul when it's incarnated into a body... when it's in the learning process and so subject to making mistakes. Often, the life lessons connected with the learning process are so onerous as to cause the person in question to look for easy solutions. In that case they are vulnerable to an attachment. A negative entity is attracted to the situation's energy, and an offer is made (usually very subtly and unconsciously) that appears to offer some relief. Naturally such a being will not literally appear with the classic devilish horns and tail; it will offer an attractive solution and half-truths, while downplaying the downside to the arrangement. Catch more flies with honey, etc...
Therefore, entity attachments are a choice we make. True, it can be because we were tricked somehow... but we're still responsible.
That said, entity attachments in themselves don't seem to be all that prevalent in "causing" what we think of as serious metal illness. They may be more of a symptom, in that one who is already in pain and in a weakened state will be more vulnerable to seeking shortcuts. In the first article I mentioned "soul facet" loss; I believe that this (and related or similar breakdowns of the psychic structure) are more often at the root of mental dysfunction in this life. The soul, if we could see it, would look like a multifaceted gem; and each facet or group of facets serves a particular function. As mentioned before, the partial or complete loss of these functions is extremely disruptive to the personality. As little as 10% loss can show up as mental illness; at 30% loss, psychosis is pretty much a sure thing. The functions affected or lost may very well be ones that may not be critical in the dimensions of pure spirit... but the loss of them can be highly detrimental when a soul does incarnate and attempt to lead a physical life. These can be retrieved, but it becomes much more difficult when the person in question has lost a goodly portion of his or her faculty of free will.
These are just two of the energetic roots that can underlie mental infirmity. There are likely as many different causes as there are for, say, head trauma in the physical body. You can get bonked on the head, or you can fall down the stairs. Slightly different causes, slightly different effects.
But so far we've only been looking at severe mental illness... psychosis, mainly. But what about the less severe variety of neuroses and personality disorders like depression, anxiety, and obsessiveness?
Many of those can also be symptoms of entity attachments and fragment loss - it's just a matter of degree. We often find such attachments specifically bringing depression and the rest; but it can also be a secondary symptom. If the entity is bringing an energy of, say, abstinence, the inability to find or keep a satisfying sex partner or enjoy a good meal can easily lead to depression.
We can even produce some kinds of entities ourselves. The constant, strong repetition of negative thoughts can eventually lead to the formation of an independent "thought form" - in other words, the energy of our thoughts take on a life of its own and becomes an actual entity; and even if the one who produced it wishes to stop the process, the thought form remains attached, tending to keep the cycle going. A few percent loss of soul facets could have a similar effect, depending upon the area they dealt with.
Also, there are environmental influences - which is why we clear properties like homes and businesses. Even if the negativity isn't connected to a particular person but to a place or thing, that dark energy can still have an influence. For instance, you may have a family get along fine when they go out to eat, but begin fighting like cats and dogs when they get home - that's a good example of a house that should be cleared. It may be no accident that you feel badly when you go into a particular place of business, or workplace.
But, a caution: we mustn't be so quick to blame some evil entity for our gloom. We can make the choice to be depressed, or fearful, or anxious. Even if there had been a negative attachment but it's been cleared, we might be in the habit of being depressed. How to tell the difference? Not easy, and the only way I know of is to have an intuitive practitioner take a look.
If it's not an outside influence, painful as it is, it may just be what we're used to - and thus is a comfort zone for us. It's simply what we're accustomed to being. In this case we need to use our free will and make the choice to be happy... or at least not sad. When I find this in a client, the way I advise them to get out of it is to not aim too high at first. Some think that you should just wake up one day and decide to be happy. Studies;have proved that "thinking happy thoughts" only depresses people more because it's a lie. Much better to acknowledge where we are and to accept that we're feeling bad, and that there's nothing wrong with that - it's just the way it is for us at that moment.
When acceptance is realized, we can then work on proceeding from negative to neutral. If you think of a thermometer, for example, you can see that it's impossible for it to go from -5 degrees to +5 degrees without passing through zero degrees. In other words, we're trying to first get to a point where for all practical purposes we have little emotion at all. Popular touchy-feely, sentimental spiritual concepts would have us believe that it's better to have negative emotions than none at all. This is a well-meaning and superficial lie. Having negative emotion as a comfort zone leaves no space for more productive and pleasant experience. But if we empty that emotional space, we then have the opportunity to gradually introduce positive emotions - which will quickly have a snowball effect and eventually become the comfort zone.
Another trick that I myself used: years ago I saw the movie, "What the Bleep Do We Know?". I had varying degrees of interest in the concepts in it, but the one that hit home for me was the idea that bodily chemicals like hormones (or the lack of them) can be in a sense addictive. Like alcohol or heroin, we become acclimated to being under their influence.
So, the minute that our bodies or minds receive a signal indicating that we need another fix, we unconsciously do something about it and produce the chemical (or inhibit it, depending on the mechanism). In order to produce or inhibit it, we need to induce a condition that will do that for us. In the case of depression or anxiety,we need to feel depressed or anxious to get our fix of the chemical. But a rational mind needs a reason feel depressed.
Do you see where this is going? When I decided to take a close look at this phenomenon in myself, I had a eureka moment: I discovered that indeed, a split second before I began to feel badly, my mind began to search for a reason to feel badly. Needless to say, there's always at least one or two things that we can come up with in this regard. The dog's sick... the car's broken down... the mortgage is due - it doesn't matter what it is as long as we can come up with something negative to back up the emotion we wish to evoke in order to get our jolt of sadness.
In my own case, once I truly understood this sequence, it was fairly easy to stop the cycle. For anyone who experiences depression or anxiety on a regular basis, I recommend a close examination of how your mind tricks you into a negative mode. It then becomes a simple matter of taking charge.
It is to be hoped that the reader who has been himself diagnosed with psychosis or another personality disorder will take these words in the spirit in which they are written. Remember that no one (especially a professional) is going to tell you that you're "crazy" for no good reason. On the other hand, at the same time you need to realize that any non-ordinary experiences that you're experiencing need to be related to people in a way that won't frighten them. Find someone you trust and talk to them about it. You may indeed be experiencing a paranormal or spiritual phenomena; but because of the fact that our perceptions of our own reality can become distorted, some kind of confirmation is a good idea.
We've covered some of the possible "spiritual" root causes of both serious mental illness and less debilitating but undesirable dysfunction. If one's belief system doesn't allow for these concepts, it still may be useful for the diagnosed person (and their families) to at least consider that there may be some merit in them. Clearing the energetic causes of personality afflictions is not an instant fix... but it can go a long way toward facilitating the healing process.

Michael has served hundreds of clients worldwide through his intuitive energy clearing practice. He provides spiritual counseling and practical, down-to-earth life coaching.
Although much of his work is based in the metaphysical, Michael does not subscribe to much of the current "New Age" agenda. Spirituality is meaningless unless we can apply it to our physical reality; that's why we're here!
To learn more, please see Michael's website, "The Healed Spirit" at http://www.healedspirit.com.

Mental Illness Help: Stigma, Resources, and Advice

By Analisa L Corral

What exactly is a mental illness? I asked myself this question seriously when my brother and mother were first diagnosed a few years ago with Bipolar I and SchizoAffective Disorder. Shortly after, I was forced to reflect on this question once more after my own diagnoses: Bipolar II.
A lot of times, the first ideas that come to mind for the average person of the mentally ill are various images of "crazy" they have acquired from movies such as, Shutter Island, Donnie Darko, Psycho, Girl Interrupted etc. These movies portray the mentally ill in such exaggerated ways that they create a horrible stigma for them.
The Medical Dictionary defines mental illness as, "Any of various disorders characterized chiefly by abnormal behavior or an inability to function socially, including diseases of the mind and personality and certain diseases of the brain. Also called mental disease, mental disorder."
A definition I find more digestible is from the website of an organization called NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, "Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life."
The great news is that it is that mental illness help is possible. Many recover and live productive lives once finding the right resources going through the right treatment.
Besides seeking out a psychiatrist or a psychologist (the latter is medication oriented), joining support groups, or finding more resources such as a local NAMI, we must also seek out understanding and compassion for the mentally ill. Knowledge is the key.
People with mental illnesses are suffering from symptoms or experiences beyond their control. Many people get angry at a depressed person who won't get out of bed, but wouldn't feel the same towards a person with a broken leg. These examples may seem like totally different scenarios, when in actuality they are both physical issues. The second scenario is just less apparent.
With depression, for example, the electrical activity (alpha rhythms) in the frontal lobe of the brain is either very low or non-existent, while other areas of the brain are over active. You can find pictures of a depressed brain vs a healthy brain in many books, or through an internet search. The contrast of the colors representing the activity of the neurons is astonishing! You can actually see what a depressed brain looks like! Check out positron emission tomography scans from Mark George, Terence Ketter, and Robert Post, Biological Psychiatry Brand, NIMH, Bethesda, Maryland and see for yourself! New research has been favoring the "yes" answer to the much debated question, "Is there really such thing as a chemical imbalance that causes mood disorders?" I could go on and on about neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and norepinephrine, and how when they are not being properly received by the synapse it causes depression. I could go on about how medication works in the scientific sense, but I'd rather talk about hope. I urge you to look up this information on your own, because you cannot have hope without understanding.
So, what is a mental illness? To a person with the illness fear, guilt and confusion are usually the underlying unconscious answers. These bad feelings dominate their lives. They are dreading and fearing their next episode; they are guilty about how they live their lives and affect the lives of their loved ones, and they are confused about why this is even happening. Why me? Why can I hear voices others can't? Why am I ecstatic one moment, then crying hysterically the next?
I used to get angry at my mom. I used to be disgusted that she couldn't get out of bed and help my dad make the money our family desperately needed, but the more I read and learned, the more I understood that she had a "broken leg" and needed support to heal. She needed understanding with all of her internal chaos, and now I am happy to say that through talk therapy, medication, and a dramatic procedure we had to resort to called ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy), she is almost back to herself. She is on her way to recovery. I have my mom back and she is getting better everyday.
Remember, if you or a loved one has a mental illness, you do not have to accept the stigma that these movies, books, and ignorant perceptions have thrust upon your situation. Join groups that fight against stigma, create your own organization or club, raise awareness, research others who have mental illnesses and are leading productive lives. Become inspired by them and learn from them. I can bet you most of these people have accepted their diagnoses and decided to receive help in the form of treatment, even if it means taking medication. I was very apprehensive about medication, but I discovered that just as diabetes must be treated for life, so does my Bipolar II.
I'll leave you with a quote from Nietzsche, "One must harbor chaos within oneself to give birth to a dancing star," and one from Aristotle, "Why is it that all men who are outstanding in philosophy, poetry, or the arts are meloncholic?"
So get out there, and learn. Start on your path to discovery, healing, and greatness!

Check out this mental health advocacy organization for hope and resources: http://www.nami.org/
Here is a link to a song I wrote about the feelings I've had going through my mother's issues, my brother's, and my own: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3fov4pWSgU Thanks!

Alcoholism - Alcoholism and Genetics

By Larry A Burns

Research shows that your genes may make you more or less likely to develop an alcohol addiction. According to research conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), many genes play a role in shaping a person's risk for alcohol addiction, and alcoholism is a 'genetically complex disease' like heart disease and diabetes.
Genes may account for as much as 50 percent of your chances for alcohol addiction but that does not mean genes determine your fate for alcoholism. Environmental factors and lifestyle choices complete the other half of the equation.
One way genes may play a role in developing alcoholism is the variation of the enzymes ADH and ALDH in the liver that help metabolize alcohol. These enzymes vary from person to person. Some people can easily metabolize alcohol while others metabolize it more slowly creating a buildup of a toxic byproduct in the body.
Early studies with mice have shown that genes may play a role in alcohol sensitivity, alcohol tolerance, and withdrawal symptoms. Later gene studies in humans show a connection between alcoholism and genes affecting serotonin and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) activity in the brain. One study followed the drinking habits of college students. Students with a particular serotonin transporter gene participated in more frequent drinking and heavier drinking episodes than students with a different gene variant.
Studies on the effects of various drugs and their ability to help treat alcoholism also help to take a look at the gene factor in alcoholism. Naltrexone is an example of one such drug that has helped many people stop drinking. It works by blocking the opioid receptors in the brain responsible for the euphoric feelings associated with drinking. People with different variations in the gene receptor respond differently to the drug. Some people it helps; some people it does not.
State of the art advances in medical and technological sciences continue to help researchers and healthcare professionals study the complex gene factor associated with alcoholism. One thing is for certain--neurotransmitter genes and alcohol addiction are inherently related. Continued study can help identify specific genes that increase the risk, and help to provide a platform for awareness and prevention.
If you or someone you know is suffering from alcoholism, seek treatment at an advanced drug and alcohol treatment center specializing in neuroscience technology. An advanced treatment center with imaging technology can help address chemical imbalances caused by alcohol dependency and offer an individualized program for a complete and sustainable recovery.

Learn more information about drug and alcohol rehab centers and treatment for alcoholism at: http://crosbycenter.com/drug-rehab-california/treatment-for-alcoholism/

Meditation, Heart Disease and Depression

By Ellen Lake

Imagine, if you would, a treatment that could reduce the incidence of heart attack and stroke by nearly 50%. Imagine also that this treatment had no documented side-effects and was, after some initial training and education, able to be implemented at no cost. Would you be interested? If you suffered, or had a family history of either of these conditions, the odds are you would be. What is this treatment? The answer is simple. The answer is meditation.
Traditionally associated with spiritual practice, meditation is found within Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sufism and has has been around for thousands of years. It is even postulated that the first meditators were cavemen staring into the fire.
Meditation has long been described as a means of self-realisation and achieving states of higher consciousness but what is exciting now is that science is starting to prove what Yogis have always known to be true. Meditation is not only good for the mind and spirit, it is good for the body too.
A study released in 2009 by researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin in association with the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention in Iowa has found that very result. A group of 20 participants, all who had been diagnosed with heart disease, were divided into 2 groups and followed over 9 years. One group practiced regular meditation and the other group were given classes educating on health and exercise. The group who meditated showed a significant reduction [47%] in incidence of heart attack, stroke and death.
Another study at the University of Oregon has shown a relationship between meditation and decreasing levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue. What is particularly exciting about this study is that scans of the 45 students involved clearly demonstrated structural changes in the brains, after just 11 hours of learning and practicing a meditation technique.The connectivity between neurones, the nerve cells of the brain, in the parts of the brain that are concerned with emotions and dealing with conflict, was enhanced.
It is a sad fact that depression is a disabling condition prevalent in our society. The World Health Organisation describes depression as the world's "leading cause of disability" and predicts that depression will reach second place by 2020 in terms of contribution to the "global burden of disease'. In a National Australian survey 6% of people were found to have had a depressive disorder in the last 12 months and 10% to have had an anxiety disorder.
According to Professor Tony Jorm, Director for the Center For Mental health Research, Australian National University, "Depression costs $2.5 billion per year in absenteeism and $900 million per year in impairment at work. Treating all the depressed employees in a business is estimated to save, on average, $ 1500 - $3000 per employee."
These figures speak for themselves. Stress, depression and heart disease are not just an individual issue, they are also an economic issue. In the words of Professor Harvey Whiteford, "If you treat depression, it has an economic return for the employer, for the individual and for Australia." [The Bulletin, November 12, 2002.]
It's time we thought more expansively and preventatively. Meditation has been clinically substantiated in the management of heart disease and depression. Different practices and styles are available and once learned, it is free and completely portable.
By why wait? Take steps now to learn this simple but incredibly effective technique. You may just find it changes your life!

For meditation coaching and training http://www.endresultscoaching.com

Rehab for Depression

Sadness is the normal reaction to unfortunate events. It resolves in time and with new ways of seeing things.
Depression is an involutional melancholia: a sense of inner emptiness that has no external cause. It comes from nowhere. It simply exists and won't go away.
It is important to distinguish between sadness and depression. Sadness does not need treatment; depression does.
Doctors who fail to make this distinction will tend to prescribe antidepressants for everything. How else can we account for 31m prescriptions for Prozac and similar pharmaceutical drugs being given out each year? There may sometimes be an unthinking exchange between doctor and patient:
'I am depressed.'
'You suffer from depression. Here is an antidepressant.'
The intention on both sides is that the patient will feel better and function more effectively. Yet vast numbers of controlled studies reveal that antidepressants are only 20% more effective than placebo - dummy tablets that have no active chemical ingredient. Even so, antidepressants can lead to a dependency, they are dangerous in overdose and they can be used in suicide. Paradoxically, they may even lead to suicide by distorting reality, rather than by helping them to face it appropriately, with non-chemical support. Clinical depression, due to chemical imbalance in neuro-transmission systems in the mood centres of the brain, does not inevitably require chemical treatment. There are many alternatives.
Doctors whose training leads them to believe in pharmaceutical drugs as the solution to many of life's emotional, as well as physical, problems will tend to prescribe even more when told that an initial drug has not helped. They may increase the dose of the first antidepressant, add in another and then consider prescribing a mood-stabiliser as well. The doctor's greatest fear is that the patient will commit suicide and that he or she will be blamed for not providing the appropriate clinical treatment. This tends to be judged on what other doctors generally do. Consequently there is a solid inertia: the status quo continues and is unchallenged, regardless of the mounting evidence of serious risks associated with these drugs.
From the perspective of the patient, the sombre feeling and clouded mind make it very difficult to function effectively when faced with very real challenges such as unemployment, bereavement, inadequate housing, family problems and money worries. The doctor's suggestion is often that an antidepressant will 'take the edge off' or 'put the mind in a splint' and thereby enable the patient to be able to function more effectively and even resolve some of the issues. There is very little evidence that this is what happens in practice. It is more probable that the patient becomes dependent on the drug and the problems persist as before.
Patients will often try to lift their depressed moods on their own by using alcohol, recreational drugs, nicotine, caffeine, sugar and white flour. All these substances have mood-altering effects: they act on the mood centres of the brain. Therefore it is very easy to become habituated to them. People who have addictive natures will then become addicted to them, often to several at the same time.
Withdrawal symptoms occur when the individual tries to stop using these substances by 'going cold turkey'. These symptoms are resolved by taking more of the habit-forming drug - and so the rot sets in. Progressive decay is inevitable in physical, emotional, mental, social and every other aspect of life.
It can be argued that depression and a tendency towards addiction are the same thing. The depression exists before the use of mood-altering substances and processes. The addiction to them occurs afterwards. Some people may be born with an addictive nature. This then becomes activated by traumatic events that set up a craving for mood-alteration. Full blown addiction then occurs when the individual discovers the mood-altering properties of one substance or another - or many.
A responsible rehab will focus on helping the patient to become abstinent from all mood-altering substances and processes. Prescription medications will be used in an effective rehab only to cover short-term withdrawal symptoms. Otherwise a disastrous long-term pharmaceutical drug addiction can follow.
The centrepiece of rehab should be trauma resolution, as well as giving insight into the specific nature of addictive disease and recovery.
The appropriate on-going treatment for the underlying depression is through daily working of the Twelve Step programme, first formulated by Alcoholics Anonymous. This is at times an unpopular suggestion - but the process works and there are no damaging side-effects.
Years of misery can be set aside. Gloom and doom become features of the past, not of the present. A fresh outlook on life opens up new visions and presents new opportunities.
People who resist surrendering to a higher power than self in a spiritual (but non-religious) programme can have their previous wretchedness again - any time they want to return to it.

Dr Robert Lefever is regarded as the pioneer of addiction treatment methods and depression rehab centres in the UK and is the leading expert in rehab for depression.
He established the very first rehabilitation centre that treated patients with eating disorders, alongside those with drug and alcohol problems. He was also the first to treat compulsive gambling, and workaholism.
In the last 26 years, he has worked with over 5000 people suffering with stress, depression, and various forms of addictive behaviors, (principally problems with alcohol, drugs and food), as well as running a busy private medical practice.