We are part of a complex tapestry of energy. Our environment – the soil, the air, fire, water – is energy. Some energy is denser than others. A rock’s energy is denser than the sun’s, however both possess energy.

Scientists measure energy in the form of atoms and molecules. We put names to energy. Yet, we seem to forget that regardless of how we measure it, we’re also connected to energy on a more ethereal level that’s hard, if not impossible, to measure outside of our inner knowing.  While many people grasp that our body is energy – because it’s easily measured through science – our feelings, actions, thoughts and souls are energy, too. When we choose to stay mad, we are choosing to hold onto that negative energy. When we choose to feel love, we are embracing our higher energy frequency.

Depression is an energy that forms from either early traumas or negative thoughts. It creeps into the essence of our bodies. It sometimes lies dormant for years before it can explode, full force, and affect every aspect of us, including our etheric energy field.

Etheric energy must be managed in the same way we manage the healing of more concrete parts of self, like a broken leg. In fact, etheric energy affects our bodies more than we may give it credit. Even animals must manage their etheric energy. Have you ever seen a stressed dog? How about a cat that was not raised in a litter and was thrown out to fend for itself as a kitten? These animals, like us, have to manage their way through the world and this affects how their physical and etheric energy flows.

Amy Weintraub, who has suffered from depression herself, has spent years helping people work through deeply seeded emotional disturbances with yoga. Through the use of mudras and chants along with asanas, she helps clients reestablish functioning in their chakras. In her book, Yoga For Depressions, she writes:

Talk therapy, though a vital component in our individual recovery from depression and other psychological disturbances, also has its limits. If, as most psychologists agree, the seeds for depression are sewn in infancy through patterns of relationship with significant others, prior to acquisition of language, how can we root out the depression solely through language? Recovery from depression must include the body.

Working through the emotional aspects of this trauma is more than talk therapy. We hold traumas in our bodies, even if we have never had a violent hand laid on us. If you were raised with abuse in any of its forms; physical, psychological, emotional, verbal, sexual, financial, neglect, mockery, then your energy has been tampered with. When people block love from you, they block an energy flow in you. If you minimize the abuse or think the abuser is now dead and therefore you no longer have any issues this way, then you’re more closed off from yourself than you think.

There are multiple ways we fracture ourselves. We can separate from our bodies, we can disconnect from our emotions, we can shut down our thinking and even emotionally cut off people we love.  Regaining connection to all dimensions of who we are is the first step toward healing. One of the first and best ways to do this is through your breath and chakras which means bodywork. As Weintraub says:

When you practice Yoga with awareness of the sensations in your body, your thoughts, and your feelings, you will grow in self-awareness. And as you grow in self-awareness, you begin to have glimpses of what it means to feel utterly and wholly connected, how your small self is not separate fro the Absolute, the Self of the universe.

It’s also important to remember, we also hold love, acceptance, and caring in our bodies, too. Reconnecting to the most fundamental aspect of our existence, our body, we can release that which is holding us back and reclaim that which fills us with the Divine.