Breathing through Depression

Do you think about where it all started?

Maybe you’ve felt this sadness your whole life. You have childhood photos of a perpetually serious face with eyes that tell so many tales, but all you were ever told was that you didn’t have anything to feel sad about.

Or you’ve had moments where it felt like you could do anything you set your mind to – periods where you create things, brainstorm, and experience unfettered joy. But those times always come to a crashing halt, and the highest highs you feel in those moments can quickly flip to the lowest lows.

We can be born with higher sensitivity or a lack of “rose-colored glasses.”

We might experience trauma, and “surviving through it” wears us down over the years.

We can shuffle between anxiety and depression so much that we don’t know what we feel more of.

We might be autistic or ADHDers who have to fight through restrictive societal judgments on what seems like an hourly basis.

Depression is the breakdown that comes from exhaustion and disappointment.

It can be what happens when we feel we are always fighting and are too worn down to keep it up.

It can come from hormone fluctuations, like when we have a baby.

It can come from the perception that everyone depends on you, and the demands never stop.

The sensitivity and neurodivergence aren’t the challenges; it’s the struggle of pulling ourselves out of what feels like quicksand or an avalanche of emotion.

Perhaps you’re the mother of a child…

… who speaks of an emptiness beyond their years – who says things that frighten you in their finality or refuses to tolerate what they feel is “too much.”

You may be trying to decipher whether they really mean what they’re saying because they seem too young to have such big feelings. You don’t know what could have happened to create such angst and worry.

And you’ve probably received mixed messages, with some telling you to ignore all that sad talk and others telling you to get help.

You want your child to have a safe space to talk about it all.

You want to take it all away from them and feel it for them.

But you don’t know what to do or how to help them.

There is a path to solace and joy…

When you find safety, connection, and hope, your depression will lose its intensity. That’s when you’ll be able to develop strategies that support you through your most intense feelings.

Your creative and empathetic parts might be providing the passion that drives your depression. Once you determine what’s at the source of your internal rhythms (e.g., trauma, neurodivergence, high sensitivity, or life transitions), you can redirect the adrenaline fueling the negative self-talk. You can then channel it into creative pursuits, more encouraging self-talk, or movement.

Sometimes, it’s about accepting all our parts and figuring out how to be gentle with ourselves when we struggle. We will help you look at those parts, find the source, and nurture within you a “felt sense” of safety. When our nervous system is able to calm, when we can leave behind that feeling of shut-down, that’s when we’re able to explore skills for preventing and tolerating the big feelings.

Finally, IF you decide to, we can address trauma you’ve experienced (whether from childhood or more recently).

Ultimately, our work together is about helping you rediscover joy!

We respect YOU as the expert on your life.

You know your needs, and we’re all ears. You know yourself and what works for you. We want to collaborate with you, leveraging that knowledge to your benefit.

We don’t use any intervention that positions us as authoritarians in your life experience.

As we work together, we’ll use a variety of approaches that address both the negative THOUGHTS of depression and the painful effects it has on your BODY.

We’ll look at everything – distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and the effects of trauma – to help you get to the other side of depression.