[00:00:37] Vesna: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna. Today I am gonna talk about depression, and depression as a message.
[00:00:45] If you are wondering or asking yourself, am I depressed? What is wrong with me? Or you ask someone who struggles with depression. Then in this podcast, I wanna share with you some of my thoughts on depression and things that I know and have seen over the years.[00:01:00] One of the most common things that I hear women will say when they come into my programs is, am I depressed? What is wrong with me? This is not like me. This must be depression. What's going on? Am am I going crazy? The long-term effects of stress and going into burnout can look like depression.
So it's a very common symptom, but it's not depression and it's treated very differently, but sometimes it is depression. And I want to share some of the things that I've seen or some of the insights I've had over. The 20 plus years I've been doing this work about what works for these chronically low moods and I guess a bit of an insight into depression because often depression can have a stigma.
And so when I see women who are either medicated already for depression, you know, they feel like it's something that they, that kind of diagnosis or that label that they are stuck with. And as they. Do some of this work that I'm gonna share. They come out the other end and they feel very, very different, and so hopefully this is helpful.
So [00:02:00] let's talk about the biggest cause of depression is the chemical imbalance. Now, this has been dispelled. This myth has been dispelled. If you've ever seen the work of Dr. Kelly Brogan, she really dispelled this myth and she said there was no valid study ever confirming depression, uh, being caused by chemical imbalance in the brain.
And she saw depression really as a signal as Kinda like a smoke alarm that your body needs some further attention. Okay? And so masking that with medication is actually gonna continue the issues underneaththat are going to be covered up. And so I'm not gonna talk much about the chemical imbalance because that theory isn't valid and it doesn't contribute to improving, the quality of life.
So I see a lot of women still on the medication, still not feeling. Like themselves. Um, and so we wanna look at the things that will really make the biggest difference.
So depression as a meaningful symptom. So one of the things that in a lot of my work that I focus [00:03:00] on is because chronic low moods can look like depression and. Those symptoms can come about due to chronic long-term stress because it breaks down key systems in the body, and one of those systems is the gut.
And we know that there is a link between the gut and the brain. And when the gut is on fire, as they say, the brain is on fire. And so there's a lot of inflammation that comes from the gut that inflames the brain, creating symptoms of low mood and depression and anxiety as well. And so the work of nutritional psychology, if you've ever heard of Term is really looking how food can improve your mood it's working on a couple of different things. It's working on restoring gut health because the gut has such a big part to play with the brain, and that connection happens via the vagus nerve. then the other thing that you wanna look at is balancing blood glucose levels, removing processed foods.
So there is a lot that interferes with proper brain health, but also a lot of [00:04:00] our happy brain chemistry is produced in the gut. and the inflammation can come from the gut, which is really the biggest disruptor for our mood.
so as I said, like women who come through my programs, one big part of it is also doing a gut restore program in order to reduce that inflammation, because that inflammation doesn't just inflame the brain that's coming from the gut. It inflames the entire body, so women can get. Any kind of issues, thyroid issues, immune issues, autoimmune conditions, allergies, joint aches and pains.
There's so many different symptoms that can arise from this. So it's a really necessary part of repairing that fa foundational part to restore your energy, mood and metabolism.
So looking at that, kind of bringing that together, that physical or that dietary, we're looking at diet, we're looking at gut health. We're looking at environmental toxins, right? We are looking at stress and hormonal imbalances. All of those can contribute to chronically low moods an throw a soft balance.
The third one, which I [00:05:00] only just heard the other day, and when I heard it, I just went, yes, that is so accurate. So you've ever followed the work of Bashar? Bashar is like a channel. Uh, he's very, very good. But I heard him say that depression is not a pathological condition, but a natural introspective withdrawal.
And he said depression is compression. Right. So it's an, it's a natural urge to withdraw and go inwards, right? So this compression as a way of not looking for the out at the outside world for the answers, but to go in and to find your own answers. And I thought that was really beautiful. Way to describe it.
Okay. And so, because society doesn't allow for us to, you know, be withdrawn and go into this mode of just kind of going inward and being introspective, you know, he was saying that it's, it's not, shouldn't be looked at as a pathology, but as a time that is important for someone to go inwards and find their own answers to what they're looking [00:06:00] for, whatever it is in their life.
And I thought that was a really beautiful way to look at it because it doesn't have that negative connotation and it, then can be nurtured rather than something to move away from. Okay. It can be nurtured in order to find the answers that you need and to have that healing. And then to come out the other side,
The fourth one is understanding low moods this I feel like people don't actually really understand, so when we're in a low mood, we don't feel good. Our life doesn't feel good. We probably don't like our relationship. Maybe we don't like our business or our job feels like our life sucks.
We're in a low mood. Everything looks. Bad. We, we don't look at things in the same way as when we're in a good mood or a high mood. And so low moods don't feel good. And often when things don't feel good, we, we wanna try and fix it. And so low moods or chronic low moods can look like depression. Now what we have to understand is that low moods are a cycle.
It's very normal to experience low moods without [00:07:00] anything happening in your life. Okay? Because it's like the seasons, right? We have the seasons and they change, and that's a very normal part of life on planet Earth. And to not have a season would be weird, would probably be very, disruptive to life and food.
And life on the planet, right? So low moods is a natural part of our cycle. It's like the seasons. We have good high moods and we have low moods and high, and so we we're kind of going up and down. We're riding the waves. But when we're in a low mood and we don't understand low moods as being a very normal part of human existence.
We can think, well, this is my life. My life just sucks. Like I'm just so over it. Like this problem and that problem, I've gotta fix it, or I can't fix it. I'm gonna stay like this. And so sometimes we don't understand that we're in a low mood. We looks like it's coming from our life, and then we can kind of keep ourselves stuck there for a long time, when really we should be able to bounce back up quite naturally.
And so. We can [00:08:00] innocently keep ourselves stuck in a low mood because we are resisting it. like, same with a symptom. If you've got a symptom, if you are, I wanna get rid of it. What, what can I take for it? What supplement, what do I need to change? What do I need to do?
If we've come so hyperfocused on it, we create resistance to it and it's more likely to stay. Okay, because we're so focused and the same thing with a low mood, the more we fight against it, the more actually we push ourselves into a lower mood and it feels even worse and it feels like we can't get out of that hole.
But again, low moods are part of a season, they're part of the cycle and they're very, very normal. And we are designed to, to elevate and come back up to a high moon.
And the last one is going to seem. Way off, but it's based on the work of Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey. And the reason I learned about this years ago because Joseph Campbell talked about the hero's journey. Like there, there's a point in your life where you're gonna get what he said is called to an adventure
and it's a call to break away from your life. There's [00:09:00] your spirit is pulling you in another direction. And quite often what we do is we ignore that call because I don't wanna. uproot our life and disrupt things. And you know, it's not the best, but it's okay. It's gonna, I'm gonna make it work. Right. And then there is this nudging from the spirit constantly.
And Joseph Campbell said, if we keep resisting that call. Then eventually that energy, that spirit that's trying to push you forward, that energy becomes stifled and it leads to anxiety and depression because we are meant to be making a change and we're not making those changes. We're meant to be, you know, following our path.
We're not following our path, and eventually we do. Eventually everyone. Answers the call, as he said. And then we begin the hero's journey, which we go through hardships and challenges until we come out the other side as the hero. And you know, then we teach others and we share our experience with others.
And I thought that was a really beautiful way and it [00:10:00] made sense to me. 'cause I could see people in my work that, you know, they were stuck in their life and they really. And their energy was stuck and they were so burnt out. They were so tired and so unhappy, but really they were being called to make changes that were really scary for them.
And then through our work together, when they made those changes, I saw people. Recover from their, burnout or adrenal fatigue from one week to the next. Okay. And that is because their energy was released, right? It'd been stifled and then it was released. And I think that, you know, if this is you and you may listen to this, this and think, Hmm, there's something in that for me.
And if that is what you're getting, that you need to look into that a little bit deeper, because that's already a message. So I hope that was helpful because I know that for women who come through my programs that it feels very much something that they're stuck with. But really, depression can be a symptom of something, you know, to look out for, whether it be on the physical side from our health or in the bigger picture of our life as well.
So [00:11:00] I'd love to hear your comments below. What, what did you take away from this?
