Anxiety, Depression and Catharsis through Meditation
Meditation is fundamentally an exercise of the mind. People who regularly meditate have greater focus, clarity and can manage their stress much better than people who don’t. The reason for this being that those who regularly attempt to exert greater control of their minds have a deeper understanding of their own thought processes.
Ultimately, mood disorders like anxiety and depression are symptoms of underlying trauma. Psychotherapy has very similar goals compared to those of meditation; to help patients develop the self-awareness and consciousness to recognize their own trauma and develop healthy coping mechanisms.
What is Meditation?
Meditation is a collection of exercises that create awareness to your breathing patterns, bringing you into your body, rather than floating around in the mind with thoughts of the past or the future. Meditation helps cultivate an unattached mind, bringing about a focused attention which translates into a greater degree of awareness of your surroundings. In addition to this, meditation exercises progress towards exerting greater control over your body; involving relaxing your body so your mind can relax.
In its final stages, when you’ve begun to master your own body and mind; the exercises turn towards self-reflection and analyzing your own thoughts to help overcome your depression and anxiety. As you begin to analyze your own experiences and thought processes, you involuntarily start identifying problematic behaviors and thoughts.
With this awareness, you can also control your reaction to your thoughts, you will have successfully overcome your conditions as well.
Self-Reflection and the Subconscious
The roots of mood disorders are buried in past experiences that force us to develop faulty and destructive perceptions of the world. When you go through hurtful or painful experiences, your mind automatically tries to explain why it happened. It constructs an image of the world that would explain how the events played out which would explain your experiences.
As it generalizes these new assumptions, your behaviors and your thoughts start following the same path to develop into full blown anxiety or depression. A lot of times, many people force themselves to believe in an account of events that’s hardly true. Instead of resolving their issues, they repress them.
When this repression can no longer hold back their sadness or pain they react to their injuries. Reactions that we call depression or anxiety led to dysfunctional ways of coping with an overwhelmed mind.
The self-reflection prescribed by meditation can help you develop the focus to understand your own thoughts and ideas. With this ability, you can develop a deeper understanding of your troubles and traumas so you can move beyond them and into a balanced mind and body.
Meditation and Catharsis
Ultimately, the only way you can ever find relief is if you can resolve the underlying issues that are creating bondage. You must come to terms with whatever trauma you went through. This can only happen if you express that you are indeed hurting, and are ready to untangle yourself from the fears, beliefs, desires and aversions that got you there in the first place. In this process you learn to let go of your anger, sadness and slowly move on from your past instead of letting it define you. You learn all that you are not, so you can embrace all that you truly are.
At Seeds of Satya, we help our clients overcome grief, anxiety and depression through a series of spiritual healing exercises and meditation Denver Co. Our events include Shamanic Yoga circles, grief counselling and much more. Get in touch with us today for more information on our services and events in Denver, Colorado.
