Quips and Tips for Spiritual Seekers

Depression can be treated in many ways – including spiritual healing – but a key to emotional health is the practice of self-compassion and self-care. Here’s how self-compassion and self-care helps with depression, plus several ways to weave this type of emotional healing into everyday life.

“The name of the game is taking care of yourself, because you’re going to live long enough to wish you had,” said former editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, Grace Mirabella.

And one of the best ways to take care of yourself is to be consistent about practicing self-compassion, self-forgiveness, and self-nurturing! One of my favorite books about emotional health is Emotional Freedom Practices: How to Transform Difficult Emotions into Positive Energy – it’s an excellent resource for holistic health and wellness. And, here’s how self-care can help lift depressed feelings…

Depression Help – The Emotional Healing of Self-Compassion and Self-Care

Psychological research shows that having compassion for yourself during hard times – whether your struggles involve internal emotional problems or external stresses and pressures – can help lift feelings of sadness and despair.

Depression can involve blaming yourself for the things you’ve done, said, or even thought. If you’re depressed, you may be dwelling on your pain and frustration, obsessing about how life should be, or criticizing yourself or the world in general.

Finding freedom from depression can involve extending love to yourself and nurturing your spiritual self.

“Self-compassion helps to eliminate a lot of the anger, depression, and pain we experience when things go badly for us,” says psychology professor Mark R. Leary of Duke University. “Self-compassion helps people not to add a layer of self-recrimination on top of whatever bad thing happens to them.”

When you practice self-compassion and self-love, you:

• Feel less anger, frustration, and pain, depression.
• Blame yourself or beat yourself up far less often.
• Get defensive or irritated with people less often.
• Struggle less with painful memories (real or imagined).
• Accept responsibility when things go wrong.
• Deal with negative emotions in healthy ways.
• Have a self-perspective that doesn’t depend on the outcomes of events – but rather on your own positive view of yourself.

Self-compassion and self-care can lift feelings of blame and shame, which helps with depression.

How Do You Practice Self-Care and Self-Compassion?

Some things are easier said than done, especially if you’re in the habit of beating yourself up! Try these ways to take care of yourself:

• Be kind to yourself (rather than critical). You know when you’re being hard on yourself, and you have the power to stop.
• Pray, meditate, visualize, or take “down time.”
• View your problems as a normal part of life; remember that everyone has difficulties to overcome.
• Identify and accept both the good and the bad with tranquility and peace.
• Focus on thoughts that make you feel safe, calm, happy, and peaceful.
• Turn away from bitterness, anger, disappointment, and frustration.
• Breathe deeply, get fresh air, and enjoy the view (even if it’s from your hospital room!).
• Savor foods you love, but practice moderation – because if you overindulge, you’re no longer savoring.
• Learn ways to create positive energy, and spend time with people who inspire the best in you.

“American society has spent a great deal of time and effort trying to promote people’s self-esteem,” says our psychology professor, “when a far more important ingredient of well-being may be self-compassion.”

What do you think of finding emotional healing in self-care and self-compassion? I welcome your comments or questions below…