Dealing with Depression and Anxiety Sahaja Yoga Meditation Makes a Difference

Hi, my name is Melanie and I am compelled to tell you my story about my depression and anxiety. I didn’t realize that I was suffering from it for my entire life, to be honest. Anytime that I was nervous to do presentations at school or do any sort of concerts, I would pass out, not realizing as a child that that’s actually anxiety. It is genetic, my grandmother did fight it, personally, she did it on her own, without medication but she did definitely suffer from depression and anxiety. What I can offer you from my story is that I’ve been with my husband for six years now, we are a blended family, I have two young boys and a stepson. They’re 14, 10 and 12. I didn’t realize how it was affecting my family and my children because to me a person with depression is someone who lays on the couch or lays in bed, doesn’t get out of bed, doesn’t do anything, doesn’t shower for days. That in my mind was what depression was. And clearly, I was highly mistaken because I would get up and go to work, I would take care of my children as best as what I could do, and my husband and I would argue constantly about my depression. He would say that I was suffering from depression and I was going, you’re crazy, I’m not suffering from depression, I am perfectly fine. So, it came to a point about three years ago, where I realized that definitely I was struggling from depression, I could physically feel it, it was drowning me. All I could describe it as is a big black hole and I was hanging on by a thread to try and not go down that hole. It affected my children, it affected my relationship with my husband. The most terrifying part of it was admitting it, especially to my parents who would absolutely support me no matter what and was very proud of me to let them know that I was suffering. I did go see a psychologist and it was confirmed through my story that I do suffer from depression and anxiety. I have been on medication for two years now and I’m doing well. You do have to give it a process because there’s so much medication out there for depression and anxiety so a lot, in the beginning it was probably about six months before I found the right dosage, the right type of medication that I should be on. So, I am doing well with that. I do exercise twice a week, so that’s really important to make sure you’re out socializing, even if you feel it coming on, just push yourself to get out of bed, shower, go do something, walk around the mall, take your dog for a walk if you have a dog, anything possible, because that will help you to not fall back into the trap, especially winter is hard to deal with, especially January. I’ve been doing okay this year. I did, in September, come across a yoga, it’s called Sahaja yoga, which is S-A-H-A-J-A -Y-O-G-A. What that is it’s a meditation and it helps you become centered. So, it deals with your chakras, deals with your right and your left side, channels, which is one is your emotional side and one is your future side, so all the things that you need to do, tasks and that sort of things. And of course, your left side is definitely your past, your attachments, any sort of thing that you haven’t dealt with. So, through this meditation, you do clearings of these channels and you strengthen your chakras and by doing that, it’s through meditation, if you like to google it and get information about it, it’s absolutely a wonderful thing to do. It has saved my life definitely from my mental state because I can now center myself and quiet my mind. It has changed me in so many subtle ways that I didn’t even know existed. I am so much more calmer, I don’t yell as much, I don’t swear as much. It is a process that you go through. All of it is free, they don’t charge you for any of it, it’s across the world, so I would highly suggest looking it up and seeing if there’s any classes or seminars in your area and continue to go and to do it because you do have great relationships out of it. And I am very shocked at the relationships that I’ve developed. They’re considered brothers and sisters and I look forward to seeing them every week and we keep in contact and we do our own things. I do eventually want to get off the medication just because, for health reasons, with my liver and that. I am going to try that, probably in the summertime and see how it goes and try and deal with it on my own through exercise and through meditation. But, everyone needs to find their thing when you have depression and anxiety, whether it’s exercising, whether it’s roller-skating or biking or whatever it could be, painting, writing, anything that helps you get out your anxiety and to keep it at bay. So, I just felt like, today is the Mental Health Day, and I felt compelled to tell you my story and hopefully someone will see it and it can help them, because that’s truly what this video is about. It’s about helping others who suffer from depression and if I can change one person’s life, then this was well worth it. So, I thank you for listening and take care. Thank you.