If you “spring clean” your house this time of year, you might consider assisting your liver to help you “spring clean” your body. The liver’s cleanliness and your tendency towards depression are linked.
In the Theory of the Five Elements in Chinese Medicine, Wood is the element of Spring. The organs associated with the Wood Element are the Liver and Gallbladder. The liver processes everything you ingest and as such acts as a filter, clearing out toxins that might negatively influence your metabolism. As such we must support our liver and gallbladder in the Spring as it’s energy is highest this time of year to do it’s “spring cleaning”.
Conventional medicine and Chinese Medicine look the value and purpose of the liver very differently. In Chinese Medicine, the liver provides adequate metabolism and can adversely effect the stomach and spleen and create a variety of symptoms. The element of Wood has a Spiritual or energetic understanding as well. Opposite sides of the same coin the liver when healthy either provides support for creativity or when in stress from unresolved emotional stress produces anger or suppressed anger, known as depression.
Diet can be a factor in the health of the liver. Excessive use of drugs or alcohol can damage the liver. In Paul Pitchford’s, Healing with Whole Foods, the author lists and explains the use of certain foods and supplements to assist the liver to heal itself. It is the only organ of the human body that when supported properly will completely regenerate itself.
Addressing the energy, (which is the glue binding all the atoms and molecules that make up the cells and organs), is equally as important as treating with liver with diet or supplements. It has become the case more often in recent years that supplementation, exercise and diet alone will not heal a wounded liver.
Chinese Medicine has seen the liver as the body’s repository for unresolved emotional stress– you know– the events from our past that when we happen to think of them produce sadness or negative emotions such as anger. Despite popular belief, in order to learn from the event and have it help shape your life and choices in a good way, you do not have to hold on to the negative emotion that is so often attached to the memory.
My work with you helps you take the negative emotion out of the painful memory so that the memory becomes of value to you in ways that you cannot currently imagine due to the emotional stress still hanging around the memory.
When anger or other unresolved negative emotion does not find resolution it can get stored in the body tissue and negatively influence the smooth flow of Qi or energy in the liver and other organs which then effect the liver. The very word depressed is suggests a slowness or slugglishness.
This is the season where depression can resolve or go deeper. Spring and it’s rebirthing energy is about digging up and releasing and birthing anew having resolved the suppressed negative emotions that have gotten stuck in the tissue.
There are other systems like the One Brain® System and my ESRT© that can help you by-pass belief system in order to get to these unresolved stressors and resolve them. I know of no other modality or healing tool that can address these deeply held emotions and patterns that dramatically effect our organs and especially our liver’s ability to function healthfully and efficiently.
In Dr. Neil Nathan’s recent book, he explains that complete healing of an imbalance in the body may not occur with supplements or medications alone without some form of emotional release therapy. Dr. Nathan has learned a version of emotional release therapy and used it with his patients which resulted in his learning that you MUST get the emotion out of the tissue so the tissue can respond to the healing prompts being fed to it by the medication or supplementation. My work with you assists your body in a similar fashion because my tools assist the body-mind with releasing the stored and unresolved emotions from our past.
Even if children are depressed or there doesn’t seem to be a “reason” that a person “should” be depressed, the depression can come from the epigenetics or the DNA passed to them from their parents and grandparents. Sometimes parents don’t realize, as they marry and start a family, as young people themselves that they too have “hold-over” stress from their childhoods which, if significant enough can transfer to their children. It isn’t until their child has problem medically or psychologically that they are then faced asking themselves what they had to do with the development of an imbalance in their child. Though Chinese Medicine doesn’t directly address this level of depression, my other work, ESRT© or The One Brain® System does.
In a session with someone who tells me they are depressed, we don’t “treat” or diagnose depression but we look at the energetic imbalance within the whole of the person, addressing intersecting energetic aspects of their thoughts, emotions and life choices. Depression, in my work with you, is merely a symptom of a deeper imbalance. It is that imbalance that is addressed, not depression, but in the process the depressed feelings may change immediately or within a certain number of sessions as the client’s body-mind unravels the mysteries underpinning their issues.
From an energetic and/or Spiritual level depression is about a failure to transform. This means there is an unacknowledged and therefore unresolved inner conflict. Psychotherapy is helpful to help identify the conflict but this can take months of therapy and then once identified, simply solutions may not be enough to resolve the conflict. This is where my work dovetails so nicely with someone undergoing psychotherapy for depression. Having treatment for the problem, in a “surround the dragon” sort of way and adding my work to the mix provides an easier and sometimes faster resolve to the problem.
Medication, for the most part, suppresses the symptom of depression. But medication can be a useful tool to get the individual feeling better in order to take a deeper look at how they got to the depth of their depression. Once the person is ready to address their depression to understand it and resolve it, using a combination of acupuncture, counseling and ESRT© or One Brain® gives the individual tools to work on the deeper levels of themselves so they might begin the journey into recognizing and processing the inner conflict that gave rise to their depression. These same tools assist the individual in making new choices to transform their world to be congruent with a deeper level of self that had not before connected with and allowed to become a part of their greater self.
Resolving depression is a function of learning to hear, listen to and act on the inner voice. As a culture we have so much noise thrown at us every day, it is easy to lose this connection with self.
Research has shown that 15 minutes of a strong connection via meditation is as good as taking an antidepressant. The improvement in mood was the same. Learning to meditation for some may be challenging so using the tools I listed above to begin to quiet the body so that stillness can be learned would be first on the path to learning how to have a good and strong connection via meditation. Once the person has some ability to sit quietly then learning a clear technique such as I teach in my monthly Meditation classes will bring the full healing potential of meditation to their day to day lives.
Underneath every disease process is some level of depression. We “lose heart” or become angry about our circumstances long before we become ill. When these issues go unresolved over time they deepen into a dis- ease (lack of ease) in the physical body. It goes from the emotional and mental level to the physical when we deny or avoid our inner selves and it’s attempts to communicate with us about our path and choices in our lives.
A diagnosis of depression is not a life sentence to sadness. It is an opportunity worthy of embracing in the many ways I have listed above.
If you or someone you love is struggling with depression help them open to the many ways that can heal and transform them by guiding them to some, if not all of the modalities I have listed here. My emotional release transformation work, ESRT© is available over the phone because energy knows no time or distance. You will be pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable, effective and life changing my work will be for you.
Author: Bethann Vetter
Bethann Vetter is a Holistic Therapist, Medium and Teacher. She uses frequency balancing tools via her Mediumship in Trance skills to locate and provide the frequencies your unique set of imbalances requires. She uses her own subtle energy body technique, Epigenetic Reprogramming to help you clear subconscious level blocks. Frequency Specific Microcurrent is used for specific cellular level healing. Classes are available in active meditation skills such as mediumship and trance healing skills. Trance Healing sessions called QHHT© are also offered. Her frequency balancing ability works similar to the way Edgar Cayce worked. She tunes in to your issues and provides you with the necessary information, substances you might need as well as adjusting your frequency to a higher harmonic level. Her work is done by appointment only at a distance or in her office in Jacksonville Beach, FL.