Episode #29. Managing Depression skillfully with Or Sahar

Five percent of the world’s population suffers from depression. It is common after giving birth aka postpartum depression and when transitioning through menopause. Then there is seasonal affective disorder where depression rises with the lack of sunlight. Followed by severe depression in the form of bipolar disorders and manic depressive illness. Depression is a common human experience.

Getting out of depression depends a lot on what choice we make. Are we choosing the light or the darkness. This sounds overly simplistic, but ultimately what it comes down to according to Or Sahar’s experience. What thoughts, words and actions are you choosing to align yourself with?

Having gone through periods of depression myself, I know that while in the darkness it is incredibly hard to make a choice but I also know it is possible. And I also know that there are tools and practices we can do to clear ourselves of those negative emotions.

Or Sahar shares her trials and tribulations through depression. At one point she admitted herself to mental hospital as she felt dangerous to herself. But through the tools and practices of yoga she built herself a stable foundation to navigate dark times by herself and with the tools in her toolbag. Interestingly, her name Or Sahar means “the light of the dawn”.

What you get from listening:

• The role of yoga in navigating depression
• Changing your outlook = liberation = reduces depression
• The diagnosis of bipolar disorder does not have to be a life sentence
• The power of watching, embracing and changing your thoughts
• Curing vs. healing
• What does practicing mean?
• Non-violence as a pathway to navigate depression
• How toxic speech harms our mental well-being
• Practice as an invitation not an obligation

One never gets cured from depression. Instead, one develops a better relationship to it and learns to navigate it more skillfully.

Practices to shift out of depression:

• Change your posture. Roll your shoulders up and back, lift your heart.
• Put a smile onto your face even if you don’t feel like it
• Detox on a regular basis
• Breathe and observe your visitor named depression
• Practice yoga (start somewhere, anywhere)
• Practice non violence in thought, word and deed