Author: VKM

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Ptsd in Women

June is PTSD Awareness Month

This June, Villa Kali Ma honors PTSD Awareness Month, a topic that’s very dear to our hearts.

We invite you to join us in a spirit of gentle understanding, with patience for yourself and all of humanity.

What is the importance of PTSD Awareness Month?

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is relevant for many of us, not only the veterans among us. While PTSD Awareness Month specifically honors those among us with clinical levels of traumatization, the truth is that complex adaptive trauma is widespread and often undiagnosed.

The more we learn about trauma, the more we see that traumatization, or the wounding of the human psyche, underlies the many struggles we face as the human race.

Trauma leads to substance addiction, self-harm, and abuse of others. Trauma underlies the emotional and social disconnection and fragmentation that we see playing out in the world in many ways.

Some might say that the extreme imbalances we see in the world – the injustice and the desecration of the natural world, including human life – are only possible to be carried out by a severely traumatized population. Only the sides of us that are numbed, divorced, and alienated from our human hearts and spirits can participate in destruction without feeling the unnaturalness of what we are doing.

Trauma underlies the cycle of victimization, as the wounded among us enact their wounding on every next generation of humans, animals, plants, and materials of the earth.

And yet, it all makes sense! When we understand how trauma shatters, splits, and distorts us into inversions of our true human nature – making us violent, heartless, and dissociated – we can see that until humanity’s trauma is healed, little progress will take place.

Can we realistically expect people to treat each other, or planet Earth, with regard and tenderness, when we haven’t yet learned to treat ourselves as deserving of safety and protection from harm?

Every path of healing the wholeness is welcome. Still, those of us who are drawn to focus especially on the inner work of transformation understand that trauma is one of the biggest obstacles we face, especially as women.

As a collective, we’re going to have to heal what happened to the humans, before we can understand why we behave how we do, why we’re addicted and brokenhearted and psychologically ill.

Here at Villa Kali Ma, we are ever and always dedicated to healing PTSD, erasing this heartbreaking syndrome forever from the minds, hearts, and bodies of women.

What is PTSD?

Post-traumatic stress disorder is the clinical name for a grouping of symptoms and experiences that first gained notoriety after the World Wars when it was called shell shock.

Observing that veterans came home with shattered nervous systems and that wars destroy people, was the origin of a deeper investigation of trauma and how it works.

Since those beginning inquiries into what we now recognize to be trauma, the field has continued to progress by leaps and bounds, gradually revealing how it is that humans came to be in the state we are now.

While traumatization is widespread, it is less common to be diagnosed with the clinical syndrome called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. To receive a clinical diagnosis of PTSD, certain criteria have to be met, which indicate that a person has traumatization to such a degree that it is severely disrupting their ability to live life.

PTSD is often diagnosed among combat veterans, for obvious reasons, but it may develop in response to any life event which was experienced as life-threatening, terrifying, or extremely violating.

It is noteworthy to us at Villa Kali Ma that the majority of people receiving a diagnosis of PTSD are women, despite the far smaller number of female combat veterans.

What are the symptoms of PTSD?

Symptoms of traumatization in general include anxiety, panic, irritability or rage, intense feelings of dread and overwhelm, sleep problems (including nightmares and terrors), and preoccupation with a disturbing event or events.

It is common to adapt one’s behavior to avoid reminders of a traumatic incident, which can result in developing a substance addiction and/or social isolation as a way to manage exposure to triggers.

Triggers are signals in the environment or within one’s subjective perceptions that are armed to activate the nervous system and flood a person with very intense emotions and reactivity.

Four main symptoms of PTSD are used to diagnose it clinically. Individual people will experience their PTSD in somewhat unique and personal ways, nevertheless, these can be guidelines and markers to recognize the disorder’s presence.

Please keep in mind that all of us can relate to these markers to some degree, and that technically we only qualify for a diagnosis of PTSD if our symptoms disrupt our capacity to meet our life responsibilities.

That said, all trauma is deserving of our loving attention to heal it – we don’t need a medical diagnosis to permit us to heal our soul’s wounding. We all deserve all the help we need, no matter who we are.

Four main indicators of PTSD are:

1. Re-living, or re-experiencing the disturbing event.

Essentially, when we have trauma our nervous systems get stuck in such a way that we re-live the event psychologically – emotionally, and sometimes even perceptually – even though the event itself is over. This can take the form of having flashbacks, nightmares, or getting triggered into feeling like the same thing is happening again.


2. Avoidance of Triggers

It’s common for people with PTSD to avoid unpredictable situations, including social gatherings and even close relationships with people, because of the fear of getting triggered.


3. Negative Thoughts and Feelings

It is part of PTSD to live with constant, severe anxiety and negative thinking. The ability to trust or expect life to be a positive experience is eroded. Other impacts of traumatization include overwhelming emotions of intense guilt, shame, rage, dread, fear, and numbing.


4. Hyperarousal

People who have PTSD are often edgy and wound up, because they are in a state of chronic unease, looking out for danger. This hyper-vigilance makes it difficult to relax, sleep, have joy, or experience pleasure. This factor of PTSD also contributes to a tendency towards substance addiction.

What are the facts of PTSD?

According to statistics shared by the National Center for PTSD, which is part of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 6% of Americans will develop PTSD at some point in their lifetimes.

The average number of adults in the United States with PTSD is about 12 million in any given year. About 5% of the current population has PTSD.

The incidence of PTSD is higher among women – of every 100 women, 8 will develop PTSD in their lifetimes, whereas of every 100 men, 4 will develop PTSD.

Villa Kali Ma supports National PTSD Awareness Month

For us at Villa Kali Ma, there is no greater issue than how to help women heal their trauma.

Women are a powerful force of love, intelligence, and creativity. We are nurturers, geniuses, engineers, spiritual leaders, mothers, and workers. But we are also vulnerable, as many aspects of our current world could be tagged as Not Safe For Women.

Recovery from PTSD, this heartbreaking disorder that disproportionately affects women, begins with restoring a deep, unshakeable safety in the hearts and bodies of women. This is our ongoing goal.

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World Eating Disorder Action Day

Eating Disorders in Women

What are some statistics on eating disorders in women?

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, ANAD, around 15% percent of women in the United States will develop an eating disorder by the time they reach their 50s. Of those women, less than a third receive treatment for it.

Each year in the United States, more than ten thousand deaths occur due to eating disorders. That’s around one death an hour.

People with serious eating disorders are more than 10 times more likely to attempt to commit suicide than their non-eating-disordered peers. People with anorexia are 18 times more likely to attempt suicide than those without an eating disorder.

Women are more than 3 times more likely to have anorexia than men. Expanding the category to include bulimia and binge eating disorder, women are still more than twice as likely to have an eating disorder than men are.

What are the types of eating disorders in women?

Eating disorders are serious illnesses that cause severe harm to the minds, bodies, and emotions of women and men. Eating disorders are connected to weight, body image, exercise, and eating, and disproportionately affect women. The most common eating disorders are anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder.

Anorexia

Anorexia is a disorder centered on food restriction and extreme fear of gaining weight. People with anorexia avoid intake of nourishment and are usually underweight as a result of their fear of eating and becoming fat.

If left untreated, sufferers can lose enough weight to become visibly malnourished. No matter how thin they become, people with anorexia still experience and perceive themselves as overweight.

People with anorexia have a condition called body dysmorphia, or a drastically distorted self-image in which they believe themselves to be fat when in reality, their bodies are starving to death.


Bulimia

Bulimia is a similar condition to anorexia but differs in that it includes a cycle of bingeing, or taking in a large amount of food at once, and then purging, which means getting rid of the excess food either through fasting, exercise, inducing oneself to vomit, or abusing laxatives.

Like anorexia, bulimia is a very serious condition with multiple mental and physical health correlations and is paired with body dysmorphia or a very distorted perception of the size of one’s body.


Binge Eating Disorder

Binge eating disorder is a condition in which the sufferer eats a very large amount of food in a short period of time, regularly. Someone with a binge eating disorder typically feels that she is not in control of her eating, and may experience a lot of shame or try to hide her compulsive eating behaviors from others.

Binge Eating Disorder shares some features with bulimia, which also features binge eating, but does not include the compulsive purging behavior associated with bulimia.

 

What are the risks of eating disorders in women?

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, eating disorders are dangerous, not only in terms of the psychological impacts of self-harming behaviors, shame, and negative thoughts, but also because of the toll on women’s bodies.

Eating disorders damage the muscles and the heart and may lead to heart failure. They are also very hard on the stomach and digestive and elimination tracts, causing pain, constipation, diarrhea, pancreatitis, nausea, and stomach ruptures.

Bulimia is associated with mouth and throat cancer, as well as dental problems, due to the corrosive effects of frequent vomiting. Anorexia and bulimia may result in disruption of menses, and loss of bone density (which can lead to osteoporosis).

Dehydration and electrolyte imbalance are frequent problems that come from eating disorders, and difficulties with sleep and concentration are also linked to eating disorders.

What causes eating disorders in women?

There is no single cause of eating disorders. Eating disorders are complex diseases affected by many factors, including the damaging ways that all humans, and women in particular, are treated in the world. EDs are also affected by the rise in addictive chemicals used to manufacture food.

The trauma epidemic affecting people of today is a plausible origin or strong correlative factor for eating disorders. The self-harming, self-numbing effects of abusing food can be used to cope with the emotional and mental dysregulation associated with the severe psychological damage that many of us have sustained.

There is a high correlation between childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders and between EDs and other adverse childhood events like emotional abuse and neglect.

At the same time, there is a component of Eating Disorders that is very similar to addiction. As with addiction, people with eating disorders have compulsive behavior related to a substance (in this case food), combined with obsessive thinking and progressive loss of self-control.

This similarity between addiction and eating disorders explains why 12-step groups like Overeaters Anonymous and Eating Disorders Anonymous work for some women to recover their lives back to sanity.

Many foods available to us today have been treated to be more habit-forming as a way to drive up profit. This increase in addictiveness is accomplished through manufacturing processes that increase the proportion of sugar, salt, saturated fats, and refined carbohydrates, all of which are known to be addictive as well as unhealthy for the body.

The widespread availability of foods that have psychoactive effects of numbing and stimulation, often introduced to our diet during childhood, means that there is greater exposure to addictive food than ever before.

At the same time, our culture’s obsessive preoccupation with physical appearance has also increased, amplified through the omnipresence of the internet. While some progress has been made in reducing the amount of body shaming going on, there is still a long way to go before we have a healthy relationship with eating and our bodies.

All of these factors – trauma, the addictiveness of some foods that are common in our diet, and our culture’s unhealthy focus on physical appearances – play a role in the epidemic of eating disorders affecting women in the United States.

June 2nd is World Eating Disorders Action Day

For all these reasons and more, Villa Kali Ma is joining in the global effort to raise awareness about eating disorders. On June 2nd, we honor this day by redoubling our commitment to helping women recover and to love ourselves as we are, in mind, body, and soul.

What are treatment options for women struggling with eating disorders?

Eating disorders are notoriously hard to recover from alone. If you or a loved one are struggling with an eating disorder, it is highly recommended that you seek treatment.

Eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses and frequently require a combination of treatment approaches in addition to some kind of trauma healing work like EMDR or Somatic Experiencing.

Treatment options for Eating Disorders include several levels, ranging from hospitalization for emergency cases, residential treatment for serious cases, and outpatient treatment. A medical component is very often part of Eating Disorder treatment due to the serious health impacts caused by undereating, overeating, and purging.

Whichever level of care is chosen, it is wise to address the disordered relationship to food with a nutritionist or dietary expert, as well as with a dedicated course of intensive, trauma-informed psychotherapy. This is because to have long-lasting success, underlying emotional components and traumatization will need to be addressed therapeutically with a qualified professional.

Beyond the need for nutritional and psychotherapeutic support, the educational and behavioral aspects (getting compulsive behaviors under control and learning about the disease) also need to be addressed. This is often best accomplished through participation in a structured treatment program, whether residential or outpatient, which provides the opportunity to forge new habits and learn healthy coping skills in a peer setting.

Villa Kali Ma can assist women’s relationship with nutrition and food

At Villa Kali Ma, we are dedicated to helping women recover lives of personal meaning, joy, and purpose. We know that issues relating to our bodies and what we eat or don’t eat strike deep into the core of pain that most women carry.

Deep inside, most of us felt at some point in our lives that we weren’t good enough, that we weren’t lovable, smart, or valuable people, and sometimes we punished ourselves and our bodies for our supposed imperfections.

It’s not easy to be a woman. So many of us developed disordered eating, addictions, and low self-esteem, and then beat ourselves up even more because of those problems. But just because we can’t figure out how to love and forgive ourselves doesn’t mean we’re actually unlovable or unforgivable.

In actual fact, we are wonderful! Each and every last one of us. So are you. And not only do we deserve to heal, we can heal. It is completely doable.

If you need some help healing, come check us out, we’d love to help you find your way to a loving relationship with your body and the food it needs to thrive.

Categories
Sexual Abuse and Addiction

Sexual Abuse and Addiction

What Is the Connection Between Sexual Abuse and Addiction?

Sexual violation is extremely damaging to the psyche. It shatters the mental, emotional, and physiological lives of its targets. There is a strong correlation between the tragedies of sexual violence and addiction.

In situations where unwanted sexual activity takes place, such as sexual abuse or assault, the perpetrator is often acting under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. Alcohol and other drugs create a disinhibited state, wherein sexual and aggressive urges, and latent tendencies towards acting out one’s damage on others, are not able to be kept in check.

Once someone has been the victim of abuse or assault, they are also likely to find themselves using drugs and alcohol to cope with the aftermath. This is part of the abuse cycle. The intense feelings of shame, violation, fear, rage, guilt, and unworthiness that follow from abuse and assault are extremely difficult to cope with and require psychological help to heal from.

Most victims do not get help in time and are psychologically fragmented or deeply wounded by these experiences.

In the case of sexual assault, many victims may be under the influence themselves during the events as well, as drug and alcohol use often places people in unsafe, illegal, or otherwise risky situations, including sexual encounters in unknown locations or with unknown people.

Statistics of Sexual Abuse and Addiction in California

Formal studies on sexual abuse and addiction in the State of California specifically are limited, but loose inferences may be drawn from comparing findings on the prevalence of substance abuse statewide.

The California Health Care Foundation’s 2022 study on Substance Use in California found that:

  • Death by fentanyl overdose in California has increased tenfold since 2015
  • Emergency room visits due to non-heroin opioids and amphetamines had increased by 50% in 2 years (2018-2020)
  • The number of facilities offering residential treatment for substance abuse, and the number of hospitals offering inpatient care for substance abuse, increased by more than 50% between 2017 and 2019

A University of San Diego study comparing sexual assault and sexual harassment in California to the national average reports that California has a higher rate of sexual assault and harassment than the rest of the nation.

RAINN, an organization that tracks incidences of sexual abuse and assault, shares the following statistics in its section about children and teens, nationwide:

  • Child Protective Services found that almost 60,000 children were victims of sexual abuse in one year alone
  • One in 9 girls and 1 in 20 boys experience sexual abuse or assault, under the age of 18
  • 82% of all sexual abuse victims under the age of 18 are girls
  • Girls in the age range of 16-19 years old are 4 times more likely to be victims of sexual assault than the rest of the population
  • Of all victims of sexual abuse under the age of 18, one out of 3 victims is under the age of 12
  • Victims of childhood sexual abuse know the perpetrator about 90% of the time, and 30% of the time the perpetrator is a family member
  • Victims of sexual abuse are 4 times more likely to develop symptoms of a substance abuse disorder, 4 times more likely to qualify for a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and 3 times more likely to experience a major depressive episode as adults

A study of the prevalence of physical and sexual abuse among substance abuse patients and its impact on treatment outcomes stated as their starting premise that “two-thirds of all women and over a quarter of all men entering addiction treatment report a history of sexual or physical abuse”. The same study says “Prior physical or sexual abuse is associated with more severe alcohol, drug, medical, family/social, legal and employment problems, as well as psychiatric issues such as depression, anxiety, phobias, and interpersonal difficulties.”

A comparative study published in 2002 concluded that individuals who have a background of having been abused could need a higher intensity of care and longer treatment times due to the negative impacts of abuse on their ability to recover.

What Are Common Emotions Intertwined With Sexual Abuse and Addiction?

The emotions that go along with sexual abuse and addiction are characterized by a pattern of alternating experiences of “trauma-flooding” and avoidance.

Addiction represents an attempt to cope with and avoid triggering, overwhelming influxes of traumatic memories, including the terror, shame, guilt, fear, powerlessness, and despair that the perpetrator introduces to the psyche of the victim through severe violation of natural boundaries.

The psyche employs several methods of defense to avoid being in a state of such overwhelming distress at the conscious level. It is very common that an abuse survivor will subconsciously use psychological strategies like numbing, dissociating, developing multiple compartmentalized personality states, and even forgetting what happened (at the level of the conscious mind).

Addiction is part of this pattern of avoidance and suppression. Therefore many abuse victims do not consciously realize what the source of their addiction is, because it is covering up painful traumas and memories that are too terrible to cope with.

It is important that anyone with a background of abuse or assault understand how incredibly damaging these violent acts were, and how much help is deserved and needed to get out from the “eternally returning nightmare” state created by the damage.

It is also important for women to understand that the chances of some kind of sexual or physical abuse, or other form of adverse childhood event, being the real reason for turning to substances in the first place, is relatively high. As shared above, it is estimated that two out of three women who seek treatment have been abused also.

What Treatment Options Are Offered at Villa Kali Ma for Women With a Background of Addiction and Sexual Abuse or Assault?

Villa Kali Ma is a unique program tailored specifically to women who have a background of substance abuse, mental health problems, and/or trauma.

The reason we offer these three forms of treatment together is that they are almost always intertwined! We can’t tell you how many times we have uncovered the degree to which sexual trauma explains the reason a woman “needs” her drugs or alcohol to cope.

It is a mistake to think that your addiction, your self-destructive behavior, or your mental illness is happening because of something you did wrong, or something that’s wrong about you.

There is something wrong, but what’s wrong is not you. It is a signal that something bad, unnatural, violent, neglectful, exploitative, or damaging took place and you were affected by it then, and you’re still affected by it now.

Maybe there was an active perpetrator who hurt you, or maybe it was the unconscious, accidental behavior of others, the failure to be sufficiently protected from harm. This is a dangerous world in many ways, and more of us than we know have been hurt by it.

Whatever you endured, we want you to know that we believe you. We believe you that it really was as bad as your scared, frozen, anxious body, your baffling addiction, your fleeing, scattered mind, and your self-destruction tell us it was. All these years later, you are still carrying the burden of something that was never about you in the first place.

The good news is, sister, these burdens can be lifted. You don’t have to carry them anymore, and you have every right to heal. There IS a path out.

Villa Kali Ma Can Assist With Trauma and Addiction

Villa Kali Ma serves women with trauma and addiction through a unique, sensitive program that carefully, and consciously provides the right kind of help each woman needs. In an East-meets-West approach, we use holistic, ancient healing wisdom (Yoga, Ayurveda, Breathwork, and more) in tandem with a cutting-edge, scientific treatment model that incorporates the latest insights and innovations from the field of trauma and addiction recovery.

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The difference between yoga and meditation

The Difference Between Yoga and Meditation

Yoga and meditation are related practices, both of which are extremely helpful for women recovering from addiction, trauma, and mental illness.

More than 5,000 years old, yoga is an ancient Indian philosophy, including moral guidance and practical advice for achieving liberation from suffering. The philosophy of yoga is formulated as eight “limbs” of practice.

The word yoga represents the idea of joining, or union. When we practice yoga, we are choosing to walk down a specific road. Like all roads, the road of yoga leads somewhere. Each yoga session represents a few more steps down the road.

According to the founders of yoga from millennia ago, the road of yoga practice leads home to our own cosmic origins, the benevolent indwelling one source we all came from. It is the perspective of yoga that all of us come from the same origins, and that we will all find our way back home sooner or later. Yoga is offered as a direct path back, for those of us who are ready for that and want that.

Both yoga and meditation are part of the larger yoga philosophy, which encompasses practices of cleansing, and healing breath work that cause the body to heal and balance itself from within (pranayama). It also offers a behavioral path for living mindfully that takes into account the (sometimes easy-to-forget) unity of all living things.

At Villa Kali Ma we use both yoga and meditation to help women recover lives of meaning, joy, and purpose. We have found yoga and meditation work extremely well to restore palpable experiences of union with a deep inner well of peace. This has been true for ourselves and for the women we serve.

What is yoga?

In the West when we say we do yoga, most of us are referring to the branch of yoga practice which involves physical exercises that strengthen, stretch, and tone the body. There are many different variations and schools of yoga that teach the practice of using these asanas, or postures, as a path to well-being.

Many yoga teachers uphold the tradition of practicing mindfulness during postures, and may also guide students through different forms of pranayama (breath work). Some teachers include short seated meditations, but most Western yoga classes center around a sequence of physical postures.

Lucky for us, we can take our pick among the many variations of yoga, following what resonates and feels supportive for us. All forms of yoga asana practices are beneficial for training the body to reside in a state of health and happiness.

Even though asanas like Downward Facing Dog, or Adho Mukha Svanasana, seem like they’re primarily exercises for the physical body, the truth is that each asana works not only the body but the mind, heart, and spirit of the person practicing.

Each posture stretches, tones, twists, cleanses, or stimulates key glands, and nerve plexuses, and activates the deepest body pathways which are responsible for generating feelings of peace and joy. Whether we realize it or not, therefore, yoga is automatically healing and regulating our minds, hearts, and spirits.

What is meditation?

Meditation refers to the practice of being as physically and mentally still as possible (usually in a seated posture) and strengthening inner powers of neutral observation and unwavering focus.

There are many different styles and traditions of meditation, but the general idea is to learn to quiet the mind. Meditation usually has an anchor for the awareness to focus on, and return to after having wandered off, such as placing awareness on the breath.

Meditation has a lot in common with mindfulness but isn’t strictly the same concept. Mindfulness is a broader concept and can encompass other practices of present-moment awareness, such as mindful self-compassion, mindful eating, or mindful movement.

Both mindfulness and meditation are about learning to gently tune one’s powers of awareness towards the present moment and to refrain from identifying with any contents of the mind. Emotions, physical sensations, and thoughts are all compassionately and neutrally observed without grasping onto them, trying to change them, or making an identity out of them.

There are other meditation traditions that aren’t, strictly speaking, the same as the practices articulated by the philosophies of yoga, but there is a lot of overlap. Zen Buddhist meditation and Tibetan Buddhist meditation are relatives of the older Indian meditation practices.

What are the benefits of yoga?

Yoga has many benefits for the mind, body, and soul.

At the physiological level, yoga is a powerful tool that:

  • Strengthens the body and builds muscles
  • Reduces inflammation
  • Relieves stress and regulates the nervous system
  • Improves flexibility, mobility, and balance
  • Combats depression and reduces anxiety, regulating mood
  • Boosts immunity
  • Promotes healthy sleep
  • Improves cardiovascular health

Because yoga promotes mindfulness and clarifies focus, in part through the benefits of breath work and the impacts of yoga positions on adrenal and other body systems, yoga improves mental and cognitive abilities. Some mental benefits include:

  • Greater ability to clear the mind of brain fog or scattered thoughts
  • Improved single-minded focus and concentration
  • Choice in one’s thoughts, greater ability to refrain from indulging in a negative thought
  • Greater ability to become absorbed in a flow state

The psychological impacts of yoga are also many, and include some of the following benefits:

  • Stay calm in the face of potential nervous system triggers
  • Deeper peace and feelings of wellbeing
  • Stay in the now moment
  • Feel your feelings and feel your body
  • Sense of connection to life and oneself

What are the benefits of meditation?

Like yoga, meditation has many benefits to the health of mind, body, and soul, in part because of its powerful effects on the nervous system. Meditation is known to:

  • Reduce general anxiety and control panic attacks
  • Combat stress, including the inflammation and toxicity to the body created by stress
  • Deal with difficult situations without going into states of fight-flight
  • Longer attention span, better memory, and restored ability to focus
  • Healthier sleep
  • Pain management
  • Lower blood pressure

Villa Kali Ma offers yoga and meditation

At Villa Kali Ma we incorporate both yoga and meditation into our offerings. The philosophy of yoga guides our program, and the practical tools learned through practicing asanas, breath work, mindfulness, and meditation are valuable assists for learning to live a happy life in recovery. The great Indian sages, who wrote their advice for living well down over 5,000 years ago, saw deeply into the heart of the suffering of humans, and also into its enduring cure.

Categories
Plant-Based Diet and Mental Health

Essential Oils for Alcohol Detox

What is alcoholism?

Alcoholism is a complicated, serious disease affecting the mind, body, and spirit. It is progressive, which means that it worsens over time.

Although alcoholism can be stopped in its tracks, it cannot be reversed, which means that once the ravages of alcoholism have taken hold, they cannot be altogether undone.

That said, through living a recovery-based lifestyle centered on health, sanity, and sobriety, many women who used to suffer from alcoholism move on to live meaningful, joyful lives.

Alcoholism’s key features are chemical dependency on alcohol, serious problems with mental, emotional, physical, and relationship health, and negative life consequences (for example job loss, legal problems, DUIs, and so on).

Alcoholism involves overwhelming cravings to drink, which the afflicted person finds impossible to override, despite known negative consequences of drinking. When there’s a problem of ineffective willpower, an inability to choose against mental obsessions, and impulsive urges to act in one’s own best interests (and that of other people), this is a sign of addiction.

 How does alcohol affect the body?

Alcohol affects many of the body’s systems negatively, including the brain, heart, and stomach.

Hardest of all for the body, however, is alcohol’s effect on the liver. Because alcohol is toxic to human bodies, the liver has to work overtime to try to eliminate the poisonous effects on the body’s systems at large. In the case of liver disease cirrhosis, alcohol has overwhelmed the ability of the liver to cleanse and protect the body from harm.

Cirrhosis takes hold when enzymes in alcohol are absorbed into the cells of the liver, causing a fatty acid called acetaldehyde to begin to accumulate in the body. This excess of fatty acids corrodes the liver and prevents it from being able to properly metabolize fats.

Alcoholism also causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, pancreatitis, high blood pressure, and brain damage.

What is alcohol detox?

Quitting alcohol requires a detoxification process, during which the body must be monitored carefully to make sure that the withdrawal symptoms do not present a health risk. People have died during detoxification from alcohol because the body can go into seizures. It is also very uncomfortable.

We highly recommend checking into a medically supervised detoxification facility. Detox facilities are designed to ease the physical body through withdrawals and will make the psychological process easier too. Alcohol withdrawal may involve frightening hallucinations, intense discomfort, shakes, nausea, sweating, and of course, very strong cravings to drink.

You are more likely to succeed, and it will be less difficult to endure, with support and supervision of the process.

What is the process of alcohol detox like?

During acute detoxification, which may take between five to ten days, the body goes through predictable stages as it adjusts to the absence of alcohol in its system.

Each addictive substance has a slightly different profile during the detoxification process. In the case of alcohol, you can expect a range of mild to severe symptoms including:

  • Diarrhea
  • Sweating
  • Weakness and muscle aches
  • Inability to sleep
  • Chills, Shaking and Tremors
  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Hallucinations
  • Depression and Despair
  • Anxiety and Panic
  • Seizures

Withdrawal symptoms from alcohol detox may kick in around six hours after the last drink. The intensity and severity of symptoms will most likely peak and be at their most dangerous and uncomfortable a couple of days into the process.

The severity of withdrawal symptoms will be influenced by any preexisting physical and mental health conditions, whether or not alcohol was used in combination with other substances (including prescription medications). Withdrawal severity is also impacted by how much alcohol is being consumed, how frequently, and over what length of time.

Aromatherapy for alcohol detox

There are many kinds of supplemental healing methods that can be engaged during withdrawals to make detoxification from alcohol a less painful, severe experience. Villa Kali Ma uses many of them, including massage and nutritional support.

One wonderful support from the nature kingdom is to use essential oils to help the body reorient and restore its inherent self-healing and self-balancing functions. Several common essential oils have been found to assist in the detoxification process and generally promote peace, well-being, elimination of poisons, and restored immune functioning.

Alcohol detox symptoms like nausea, chills, and anxiety can be ameliorated with the presence of aromas administered in the form of direct topical application (rubbed into the skin) or inhalation (breathed in).

What is the history of essential oils?

Aromatherapy is an ancient form of plant medicine that employs naturally occurring healing properties of aromatic plants. The reason we feel joy when we smell jasmine flowers and roses, breathe more deeply when walking in eucalyptus groves, or like to scratch and sniff the peel of a lemon is because each of these healing plants is gently communicating with our bodies in a beneficial way.

Plant extracts, including essential oils, have been used therapeutically since time immemorial, for healing, cleansing, and spiritual purposes. Many plants have healing properties – in fact, many prescription medicines have a plant extract as its key ingredient. Nature provides many cures for common ailments contained in ordinary plants growing around us.

There is evidence of advanced knowledge of the healing properties of plants, including their oils and extracts, tracing back to Egyptian times. The Greek namesake of modern medicine, Hippocrates, recorded observations related to plants serving as medicine for human wounds and illnesses. More recently, French chemists and surgeons in the 19th and early 20th centuries re-confirmed the presence of many effective cures for burns and battle injuries in common plants, like lavender.

Although much knowledge of the medicinal use of plants and their essences has been forgotten in the folds of history, the use of essential oils has become popular again in the West. Little by little, what was once commonly known in our great ancient civilizations, about nature being a source of healing for humans, is slowly returning to collective memory.

What is the use of essential oils for alcohol detox?

Essential oils can be used in a supplemental fashion to help support detoxification from alcohol, lessening the pain and severity of symptoms through triggering inner hormonal and neurotransmitter cascades that create greater feelings of well-being, and aid in the body’s removal of the offending poisons.

Detoxification is work done by the body’s own self-healing systems to eliminate and flush out substances that present harm to the body (such as alcohol). Essential oils, through gently stimulating the immune system, nervous system, and glands, help the body’s healing force to do this more easily and comfortably.

Essential oils are derived from plants, trees, flowers, and roots, through a distillation process that concentrates their therapeutic effects. Essential oils can be applied topically at certain points of the body, such as on the scalp, brow, temples, acupressure points, chest, stomach, back, or hands and feet, depending on the type of symptom to be alleviated.

Some essential oils can be imbibed as tinctures, which help send oils to the digestive tract. Others are best absorbed through the lungs and nasal passages and will be administered through diffusion in the air or as steam.

The method of delivery is chosen based on which body system is being targeted, and most essential oils have multiple purposes. For example, ginger is warming, immune-stimulating, reduces inflammation, and also dissipates nausea, and may be used for any or all of these effects.

Essential oils are used for a wide range of effects, ranging from pain relief, calming the nervous system, stimulating the nervous system, reducing inflammation, boosting the immune system, and cleansing.

10 types of essential oils for alcohol detox

Essential oils are natural, potent, fragrant plant extracts that are packed with medicinal powers. Essential oils may be an anti-depressant, pain-relieving, anxiolytic (anti-anxiety), detoxifying, anti-inflammatory, soothing, and stress-combating. All of these effects can be helpful during detoxification from alcohol.

These 10 essential oils are especially beneficial for supporting the body in going through withdrawal symptoms and restoring balance as it purges out poisons.

Black Pepper Oil

Black pepper oil has been determined to help with alcohol cravings, gently reducing the desire for a drink during detoxification, and may be used on the spot to get through a nasty bout of cravings.
Black pepper oil is believed to achieve its anti-craving effect in part by stimulating the body to increase availability within the brain of the two critical neurotransmitters, dopamine, and serotonin. Both of these neurotransmitters are intimately connected to mood and motivation.


Ginger Oil

Ginger oil helps heal the liver. Since of all organs, the liver suffers most under the toxicity of alcohol, the powerful properties of gingerol, the medicine found naturally occurring in ginger root, is especially helpful for alcohol detox.


Peppermint Oil

Alcohol detox typically includes nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. Peppermint oil soothes upset stomachs. Peppermint oil is also refreshing and cooling and helps create mental focus, dispelling brain fog.


Lavender Oil

Lavender oil helps with anxiety, encouraging the body to relax. The anxiety and insomnia of detox can be soothed with this powerful oil.


Roman Chamomile Oil

Roman chamomile oil is deeply calming and helps with the anxiety people experience during alcohol detoxification.


Rosemary Oil

Rosemary oil has diuretic properties, which means that it helps the body eliminate. Elimination is an important path for the body to cleanse itself during detoxification and is related to the restoration of optimal hydration levels.
Rosemary is additionally known for alleviating muscle pain and soreness, which is a common symptom during detoxification. Finally, rosemary is calming and will help the body return to regulation after a spike in anxiety.


Lemon Oil

Lemon oil, extracted from lemon peel, is a powerful healing agent that stimulates the immune system. The naturally occurring healing chemical limonene, found in lemons, supports the liver and kidneys to cleanse toxins out of the body, especially during detoxification. Lemon is also noted for healing the symptoms of depression.


Mandarin Oil

Mandarin oil helps with the detoxification of the liver and the body at large, by supporting cleansed and oxygenated blood to circulate in the body. Mandarin oil, made from the peels of a species of orange similar to a tangerine, also has calming effects.


Grapefruit Oil

Grapefruit oil, another citrus oil, helps detoxification by supporting the body to flush out molecules of alcohol that have built up in the liver, and is also used to kill pathogens or parasites. In general grapefruit oil stimulates elimination, as it is a diuretic, and flushes out any kind of waste.


Fennel Oil

Fennel is a plant which helps purify and flush the body of toxins. Similar in scent and taste to licorice, it is especially helpful in the digestive tract, stimulating the body to digest and process. Generally, fennel oil supports the body’s tissues and organs to be cleansed during detoxification.

Villa Kali Ma can assist with Alcohol Detox

At Villa Kali Ma, we’ve devoted ourselves to helping women recover from alcoholism, a particularly nasty form of addiction. If you think alcoholism may be affecting you or a loved one, we encourage you to take action!

Mercifully, alcoholism can be treated and lives can be recovered back to sanity. But alcoholism’s a tough nut to crack, and like many illnesses, responds best to early intervention. That said, no matter how far you’ve spiraled into addiction, there’s still hope for you if you’re willing to change and be changed!

If you need to detoxify from alcohol, we strongly encourage checking yourself into a medically supervised detox facility, for your safety. This is especially true if you have been drinking a high amount and/or over a long period.

If you’re not sure, detoxification from alcohol is part of the treatment services we provide as a part of your recovery journey at Villa Kali Ma, so feel free to consult us for an opinion!

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Plant-Based Diet and Mental Health

Plant-Based Diet and Mental Health

What is the connection between plant-based diet and mental health?

Is there a link between eating your vegetables and having a resilient, healthy, happy mind? We think so! Here at Villa Kali Ma, we’ve been championing a plant-based diet since our founding days.

What is a plant-based diet?

A plant-based diet means eating only plants and foods made from plants. This includes eating fresh leaves, stems, and roots of plants – vegetables like carrots, lettuce, and broccoli, raw and cooked. It also means eating fruits and berries, as well as starches and proteins in the form of whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds.

Some foods made by fermenting plants, like tempeh, miso, and tofu, which are made from soy, are frequently included in a plant-based diet, as well as oat or nut milk, yogurts, and faux cheeses.

Specifically, in the plant-based diet, we refrain from all meat and dairy – red meat, poultry, fish, and milk-derived products are replaced with alternatives.

Ideally, plant-based diets are composed mostly of fresh, organic, whole foods. Where organic isn’t a possibility, we look for simple food that is as fresh, unprocessed, and natural as possible.

In this context, natural means “as close to the original form as possible”. The more processed a food item is the more degraded its nutritional profile. That said, naturally-fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickles are recommended on a plant-based diet because they help maintain gut health and bring much good (such as B vitamins and other needed nutrients) into your body.

It’s important to note that with the rise of many plant-based products on the market, GMO foods and plants farmed using chemical pesticides (these often go together) have many toxic impacts and should be avoided where possible. If a product is not explicitly labeled organic and/or non-GMO, the chances are high that although it is plant-based, it may be made from genetically modified soy, corn, or wheat (for example). Make your own decisions, of course, just a heads up that not all that’s technically plant-based is healthy for humans or good for the environment.

Chemical additives, preservatives, long ingredient lists, ingredients you’ve never heard of, and highly processed and refined sugars, gums, and other common ingredients that add flavor or help a plant-based product mimic meat or dairy should be considered with caution. Of course, it’s ok to have treats in moderation and to enjoy your food, but it’s wise to be aware of the presence of imposter health foods on the market.

Plant-based diets are meant to be paired with a healthy lifestyle, including good enough exercise and sleep. In general, we always recommend tuning in with your body resonance and highest wisdom before putting anything in your system!

What is the difference between vegan and plant-based?

Strictly speaking, vegan means that not only your diet but also all other products in your life (cosmetics, clothes, etc) are free of animal ingredients. Following a plant-based diet focuses just on what you put in your body in terms of food and drink.

How does eating a plant-based diet affect your mental health?

We at Villa Kali Ma favor a plant-based diet for recovering a healthy mind, body, and spirit.

We have found the plant-based diet to be the most supportive path for restoring natural functioning internally. A conscious, thoughtful diet focused mostly on eating as closely to nature as we can (in practical terms, that means as organic and unprocessed as possible), is highly supportive of a life of self-awareness, self-care, and intention.

Eating plants has many nutritional benefits that are known to support optimal mental health too. Fresh, minimally processed plants and whole foods replenish us with the right balance of minerals, vitamins, probiotics and prebiotics, fats, and proteins that are right for a higher-vibrational version of human life.

Here at Villa Kali Ma, we also feel that eating foods with the lightest impact on the environment, and the greatest regard for animals, fits with our ethics and intentions to live in harmony.

What are the benefits of taking care of your gut?

Perhaps the most important connection between mental health and the plant-based diet has to do with healing your microbiome, which is found in your gut.

The gut is called “the second brain”, and it is an important part of mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual health.

A growing minority within the field of medicine holds that most mental health imbalances, such as negative thoughts, anxiety, and low moods, stem from troubles in the microbiome (gut). The gut and the brain are closely connected and maintain constant two-way communication, by way of hormones, neurotransmitters, and nerves.

By helping the gut to get what it needs, nutrients-wise, and cutting out those substances that erode the gut’s strength and ability to protect itself from harm, we have a better shot at restoring the natural relationship between “gut feeling” and a clean mind. A healthy gut will signal to the brain that all is well, and promote positive, healthy feelings and thoughts.

A healthy microbiome corresponds to healthier thoughts and emotions, as well as a well-feeling body. When the gut is supported to do its job, then our brains and nervous system can do their jobs better, too.

How to make the most out of your plant-based diet?

While in treatment at Villa Kali Ma, we will show you how to prepare plant-based foods that are delicious and share guidance on how you might like to integrate plant-based, conscious eating into your life.

Please know that whatever your path and choice is, we respect and understand that every woman, and everybody, is different. Each person is encouraged to follow their own highest wisdom and to pay attention by tuning in to the truth-frequencies of their own body as best as they can.

Our general attitude is to eat as close to nature as possible. That means, eating plants soon after harvest, and eating plants that are organically grown and locally sourced, whenever and wherever this is possible.

Shoot to shift the bulk of your diet to be composed of fresh vegetables and fruits that haven’t been preserved or processed (the exception being living-culture, fermented vegetables like sauerkraut, which provide many vitamins and probiotics). Support this diet with whole grains (unrefined wherever possible), seeds, nuts, and legumes. If you care to, include some organic tofu, tempeh, and nut milk.

Remember that food issues can be emotionally triggering, and don’t make it a moral thing, or about being a worthy person or not. And don’t be too black or white about it. A perfect diet is not a thing; “perfect” can be the enemy of the good. A better diet will go a long way!

What are the benefits of a plant-based diet?

The health benefits of a plant-based diet are believed to be:

Lowered risk of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes, potentially contributing to a longer life span

Supports optimal weight for your body type and body mass index

Happier mental-emotional states through hormone harmonization, regulation of serotonin and other neurotransmitter functioning

More fiber and nutrient-dense foods

Better gut health and immunity

More energy

What is Villa Kali Ma’s principle behind a plant-based diet?

The field of nutrition, which we at Villa Kali Ma support wholeheartedly as one of our many multimodal approaches to supporting women, explores the ways that mental illness may be connected to a lack of certain nutrients, or an impaired ability to process our food the way we need to.

The idea that we can support our souls to heal in part through diet is wonderful because what we put in our mouths is something that we have some measure of control over.

Even if we can’t change what happened in the past, we can change how we think and feel in the moment, in part through eating more holistically.

Villa Kali Ma supports a plant-based diet benefiting mental health

Many aspects of contemporary life are believed to negatively impact mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

Consumption of synthetic chemicals in our food and drinks (dyes, preservatives, and so on), too many pharmaceuticals, drugs, and alcohol, toxic exposure from manufacturing and agriculture, inundation by artificial light and sound, infrequent contact with soil and living flora, and many other factors are probably making it hard for your beautiful, miraculous physical body to function as nature designed it to. And how can your spirit, here to have its experiences in form, do what it’s here to do, with all these burdens pressing down on it?

Spend some time with us, in any of our programs. We’ll include guidance for how conscious eating, nutrition, plant medicine, and gut healing can be a beautiful, freeing part of your recovery story!

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Reiki Healing Benefits

Reiki Healing Benefits

Villa Kali Ma offers a Japanese healing practice called reiki in our outpatient and inpatient settings. We integrate reiki as a supplemental holistic modality in recognition of its benefits in promoting energetic balance. Reiki supports and enhances treatment and recovery work.

What is Reiki?

Reiki, also called Reiki Healing Touch, is a healing technique that restores and promotes a state of health in the body, mind, and spirit, by stimulating the correct flow of ki, or vital force, throughout the body.

Reiki came to the West by way of Japan, where it was originally formulated into a simple, effective healing modality about a century ago.

The word reiki joins two Japanese words together, rei and ki. Rei is the indwelling God-essence found in all living beings, and Ki is the vital force. Ki is the Japanese version of the same concept in the Chinese language, qi.

Reiki restores health through the placing of hands on or near the body to affect the human electromagnetic field. The goal is to restore balance and flow of the body’s natural life force energy so that it is freed up to self-correct any trouble areas.

How does reiki work?

Reiki works with the idea that health is contained inside the body rather than being something that must be brought into the body from the outside. In the absence of blockages and obstructions to health, health thrives, so the goal of reiki is to clear obstructions so that natural movement of the human energy field can take place.

According to the medical paradigm that gives rise to Reiki, there is a vital life force, called Ki in Japanese. This force underlies, perfuses, and supports all life. When Ki is flowing as it should, it is like a pristine river in the wild. It has a way of flowing that works best to support all the life within it.

When this river of life force is polluted, blocked, or constricted in some way or another, the life force is likely to stagnate and create areas of by-water. These places are disconnected from the overall flow. In extreme cases, the river may lose its ability to support life at all.

According to Reiki and most other medical traditions arising from ancient healing practices, our physical, emotional, and mental health all depend on our vital life force being allowed to flow freely as the life within us directs us to, without undue constrictions imposed upon it.

We are resilient and can survive a lot of restrictions to our flow, such as those created through trauma, poor diet, and other ways of creating blockages, but in genera, it is not preferred by the body itself and has a cost in terms of our health.

Reiki’s healing effects may be due to its operation on the parasympathetic nervous system,  the “rest and digest” side of the nervous system which down-regulates us, bringing relief from tension and anxiety, lowering blood pressure, deepening breathing, and slowing heart rate. This is the vagal state that most supports physical wound healing, digestion, release of shock from the nervous system, and recovery from psychological traumatization.

Are there any side effects of reiki?

Reiki is considered a gentle and safe way to encourage balance and health in the body. Reiki has no side effects.

Reiki is non-invasive, and gentle, and is used in hospitals, palliative care, and surgery rooms for its calming effects, without adverse effects.

What should you expect in a Reiki session?

Reiki sessions last around 45 to 90 minutes. There is no predetermined best number of Reiki sessions. Starting with a minimum of three sessions is usually advised, to get used to the effect Reiki has on you, and to notice its subtle beneficial impacts on your state of body and mind. Enduring health conditions would require more sessions, over time, as the body is tuned back to health incrementally, with subtle, non-invasive adjustments that won’t upset the body’s homeostasis.

During your Reiki session, you will lie down, though shorter seated sessions are also sometimes given. You remain fully clothed. The practitioner places their hands on or just above your physical body, depending on what you are comfortable with. The practitioner will move through 12 different established energy centers around your head and along your 7 chakras, which are the main energy centers along your spine.

Reiki can also be learned and self-administered relatively easily.

How does a Reiki session feel?

People usually report feelings of peace, deep relaxation, physical warmth, and calm during and after receiving Reiki. Some people experience tingling, coolness, or even no sensation during the treatment. Reiki is working with a subtle layer of the body’s energies and will not likely be an intense or dramatic sensation, though occasionally stronger energy movements and shifts inside the body may be sensed during or after sessions.

What are the Reiki healing benefits?

Positive effects of using Reiki to heal include:

  • Pain reduction and improved pain management
  • Relaxation
  • Stress reduction, amelioration of stress-related illnesses
  • Parasympathetic nervous system activation, balancing of hyperarousal and hyperarousal systems
  • Slowing of heart rate, reduction of blood pressure
  • Improvements in anxiety and depression
  • Better quality of life with chronic health conditions
  • Enhanced feelings of self-esteem and overall well-being
  • Symptom management with serious conditions like cancer
  • Better sense of interpersonal connection and social belonging

What does the research say about reiki?

Some clinical studies have been conducted to verify the benefits of Reiki, comparing them to a placebo Reiki or “sham Reiki”. These studies aimed to find out to what extent subjective patient reports of being helped by Reiki can be substantiated with objective measures as well.

Studies until now suggest that Reiki may be helpful with pain relief, relaxation, and anxiety. A 2017 study comparing Reiki to placebo found promise in the use of Reiki for these domains.

A 2011 study of Reiki to support healthcare professionals avoid burnout suggested that Reiki demonstrated beneficial effects due to its action on the parasympathetic nervous system.

A similar conclusion was reached by the findings of a 2015 study into using Reiki to support clinicians working in mental health.

How much does Reiki cost?

In private practice, the cost of Reiki will vary by practitioner and may cost around $60-$90. Low-cost and even free Reiki sessions are sometimes available in certain contexts, where volunteer practitioners are offering their services. Reiki practitioners should have some training (there are three levels to become a master) and qualifications.

At Villa Kali Ma, Reiki sessions will be part of your treatment if you would like them to be.

Does insurance cover reiki?

As an alternative health modality, Reiki is not usually covered by health insurance. However, in some cases where physical therapy, massage, or palliative care are covered by an insurance plan, Reiki may be an option as well, so the best way to know is to check with your insurance.

Who should avoid Reiki?

There are no known reasons to avoid Reiki, as it is safe and non-invasive. Its main effects will be to stimulate your body’s self-healing systems by way of accessing the parasympathetic portion of the nervous system (the part responsible for rest, digestion, wound healing, and recovery from illness).

Please consult your trusted source of medical advice personally if you would like to know if there is any reason you personally should not get Reiki.

Villa Kali Ma offers Reiki for women

Reiki is offered at Villa Kali Ma in our inpatient and outpatient settings because of its supportive effects on recovery from addiction, mental health problems, and trauma.

We find Reiki to be a valuable support through its mechanism of restoring peace and calm and triggering the self-healing side of the nervous system.

Villa Kali Ma’s holistic treatment program is available in our residential setting and our outpatient, community-based programs too. Depending on the level of care you need, you can receive Reiki as a part of your treatment journey with us.

The way we offer Reiki is as a supportive, adjunct therapy tailored specifically towards recovery-based goals of greater freedom, happiness, and peace.

References:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21821642/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26167739/

Categories
Mental Health Awareness Month Ideas

Mental Health Awareness Month Ideas

What is Mental Health Awareness Month?

Mental Health Awareness Month is an annual campaign to promote the importance of mental health topics in the public eye. It also raises awareness about mental health needs and trends, and shares resources for addressing mental health challenges.

When is Mental Health Awareness Month?

Mental Health Awareness Month always takes place in May. This year, May 2024 has the theme “mental health in a changing world”. With a focus on the destigmatization of mental illness, mental health advocacy, and education, the goal of this annual honoring of the mental health field is to help more suffering people know that they’re not alone.

What is the importance of self-care when it comes to your mental health?

Mental health requires self-care. How do you take care of the health of your thoughts, your emotions, your moods, and your states of being?

Take a look around you. How does humanity seem to be doing? Are we healthy? Are we sane? Are we happy?

If you’re like us here at Villa Kali Ma, you can see that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, as the quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet goes. All is not well. In fact, a lot is wrong. People are more despairing, more suicidal, more addicted, more materialistic, and more lost in distractions than ever.

On the other side, there is a growing movement of people who are choosing to generate bubbles of positivity, autonomy, and creative responses to the conditions we’re in. Many are more awake, aware, responsive, and on point than ever before.

Facing the world’s polarities and pressures can unbalance us internally, but it also means we have a choice. We are allowed to orient and align ourselves towards what we personally feel to be resonant with peace, sanity, and goodness, even if it goes against the grain.

We can choose to be a lighthouse, giving off peaceful, calm signals of warmth and light in the planetary storm. By keeping the flame of mental health lit in our own personal lighthouses, we help everyone who may feel lost at sea. We lend comfort and kindness and contribute a little bit of brightness that collectively, adds up to a lot – enough to see by, enough to find one’s way home by.

But to do this, we have to practice our own mental health awareness, noticing when we have no flame in our tower, but instead have become part of the madness.

What are the signs when our own mental health is off? Do you recognize any of the following?

What can we do when our mental health is showing signs of wear and tear when our flame is blown out? We can use self-care to light the lamp again.

5 5-Minute Mental Health Hacks to Reignite Your Self Care

1. Reorient to the Now

Stop what you’re doing and go outside. Look at something green and growing if you can find anything. Whatever outside space you’re able to access, stay there for 5 minutes and allow yourself to orient slowly by looking around you, observing everything you can see with your eyes.

Now listen for everything you can hear in this now moment. Now physically contact what you can touch and feel with your hands or sense on the skin (temperature, breeze, moisture or dryness, any textures you want to touch). Finally, notice any scents or other environmental now-moment signals. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly before you go back inside.


2. Move your body

Do 5 quick minutes of movement right now. For a gentle version, stand up and, starting with your head and neck, gently stretch every section of your body, down to your tippy toes. Pay attention to any portions of your body that are asking to be stretched and let them stretch in ways that feel good. For a more energizing version, instead do 5 minutes of vigorous activity (squats, jumping jacks, whatever gets your heart pumping). Don’t forget to enjoy the afterglow feeling!


3. Listen to Classical Music

Listen to a piece of classical music all the way through, not doing anything else and closing your eyes as you listen. Classical music soothes and enlivens the nervous system, restoring balance, calm and liveliness.

Here’s a beautiful piece that’s under five minutes. Of course, you can also choose your own! How about a Mental Health Month playlist?


4. Go Positive

Do a quick journal writing for 5 minutes, free-writing or listing in response to any or all of the following questions:

What am I grateful for?

What and whom in my life am I fond and affectionate of?

What and whom do I love?

What do I feel bright and positive about?

What do I self-approve of, about myself and my life?


5. Play Creatively

Play is regulating to the nervous system, and gets you back into your joy-body (opposite of Eckhart Tolle’s “pain-body”.

For five full minutes, scribble or draw something with your non-dominant hand, whichever one you don’t normally lead with. The drawing should be really “bad”. If you want some prompts, here are a couple of things: (draw anything that sparks your fancy, or something else!):

Draw a dog wearing pajamas talking to a rabbit wearing a superhero outfit

Draw a pegasus making friends with a unicorn while perched on two stars in the same constellation

Draw a bowl of spaghetti that fell into some long grass

Draw what your Dad would look like if he was part cat

Villa Kali Ma helps women experience Mental Health

Villa Kali Ma is dedicated to helping women recover lives of meaning, joy, and purpose. We help women feel what it’s like to be happy, strong, and mentally healthy, every month of the year!

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Mental Health and Relationships

Mental Health and Relationships

One way of understanding mental illness which is growing in popularity is to understand mental health symptoms as signs of a deeper issue – trauma.

When events of our lives impact us so deeply that the tissues of our soul are bruised, torn, or shattered apart, and we don’t have the opportunity to heal that trauma response, we are left with a wound in ourselves, a sinkhole in the foundation of our being.

Rather than finding a way to let the wound close over, we develop a whole personality based on avoiding it. This personality is not exactly healthy. It is made up of compensatory behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and even sub-personalities, all designed to avoid direct contact with the wound.

The traumatic wound is like the proverbial hole in our soul, a place where consciousness that was once connected to all of life now is trapped, walled off, and isolated. We keep it locked away. Locked away from the light of our own awareness, and hidden out of sight from others, it continues to be disconnected, frozen, and stuck.

The compensatory personality structures, thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and social roles we build up to stabilize and to work around the deep pain of the hole create knock-on effects, and problems of their own.

One of the problems mental illness creates is that it makes relating to another human being in a loving way more difficult. Our coping gets in the way of our ability to love and be loved.

How can mental health affect relationships?

Mental health problems affect relationships when one or both partners become overly absorbed in dealing with mental and emotional pain that is bubbling up to the surface of life.

Most often, the mentally ill person starts behaving in a disordered way, with dysfunctional adaptations, accommodations, and workarounds that take up more and more time and energy.

These are our mental health symptoms, things like distorted thoughts, negative emotions, unstable moods, or destructive behavior. This uptick in dysfunctional ways of being directly affects our partners. Our symptoms set off reactions and adaptations in them and may trigger them deeply. The pain that lies in them is also stirred to life.

When we’re mentally unwell, we deserve so much kindness and compassion. We’re not being this way on purpose. These patterns of action are desperate ways to cope or avoid contact with a vivid field of pain inside that we fear we can’t face without getting sucked into it. The core wound – we each have one – is deep and dark until we heal it.

Whether our soul illness has the flavor of depression, psychosis, mania, obsession, anxiety, or addiction, is sort of immaterial. Whatever way we suffer may be personal to us, a factor of genetics and culture, maybe even caused by diet or toxic exposure or spiritual influences, who knows.

No matter what kind of disorders of thought and heart we develop, though, the underlying cause is basically the same – some part of us is deeply not ok. The deeply not ok part is seeping to the surface of our lives, and we are doing our best to contain it. We suppress, we deny, and we scold ourselves. But the deeply-not-ok part won’t give up until it gets the love it needs – our love.

Mental illness symptoms get worse if we do not address the unloved pain underneath them. This fact is actually good because most of us won’t get help unless we have a crisis. That crisis is a doorway out of prison – the prison of being trapped in failing mechanisms of avoidance – and into a new life of reunion with the healing, loving forces that wait patiently within our own beings for us to call on them.

Should a woman tell her partner she’s struggling with mental illness?

Whether or not to share the fact that you are having mental illness symptoms is a deeply personal choice, and no one should feel pressure to do that or not do that. It is something you get to decide.

However, we here at Villa Kali Ma do feel strongly that awareness and openness are necessary for the cure. Managing to acknowledge and say out loud what’s really going on inside you is the beginning of getting the help you need.

Love can come to our unloved pain, and it will, but the wound must be allowed to exist first. And the truth is, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Every human being on this planet has a part like that. If you’re having mental illness symptoms, this just means your soul is ready to heal that deep hurt part.

In AA they say that secrets keep us sick. That’s true in mental health too – our loved ones can’t help us if we don’t let them even know that something is making us ill all over our minds bodies and souls.

So whether you decide to share it with your loved one or not, consider at least sharing it with a healer or therapist. Truth, especially difficult, impossible, unspeakable truth, sets us free.

Can mental illness affect intimacy with a partner?

Intimacy is almost always affected by mental illness. Sex isn’t separate from the rest of our ways of relating, nor is it detached from our hearts, bodies, and minds. Our adaptations and ways of avoiding pain will show up in our sex lives too.

If we cope with pain by going after pleasure, we might be drawn into sex addiction or seek heightened sensation through paths that deviate from our heart’s real values and needs. If we cope with pain by shutting down, we may zone out during sex or suppress sexual feelings altogether.

Sex is very vulnerable, and can be evocative and stirring to the parts of us that are ill, and may upset the balance of our system of coping. Some couples can connect sexually but not in other ways. Some couples relate well but struggle with sex.

To add to the confusion, there are so many toxic ideas about masculinity, femininity, and sex itself circulating in toxicities of the media that we are almost all of us subject to some kind of insecurity related to our bodies, our sexuality, our desires, or lack thereof.

If you are experiencing challenges with intimacy, please know you are not alone, as alone as you may feel with that, it’s exceedingly common. For people with mental health struggles (also widespread), it’s par for the course.

What other ways can mental health affect relationships?

Mental illness in relationships affects partners’ abilities to be close to one another because the amount of energy and effort that goes towards managing symptoms can be exhausting. It is draining to power up our elaborate systems of psychological avoidance, for ourselves and for the people who are trying to love us.

It is also hard for partners to understand our symptoms as being about us and not about them. For example, a depressed person may be uninterested in their partner. An obsessive person can’t stop fixating on and controlling tiny unimportant details. An addicted person has no empathy and uses people selfishly.

The partner of the ill person can take symptoms like these as reflections of their own lovability, rather than evidence of sickness. Even if the partner can see it is the unwellness of the other more than their own failure to be lovable enough, these symptoms that block the give and exchange of love can feel disheartening, even impossible to live with.

Even though the last thing in the world that we can bear to believe is that our symptoms are troublesome for others, this is often true when we are ill. The reality of that is hard to bear, but there’s a truth to it.

Often it’s only once we realize how our ways of coping impact our loved ones that we realize we owe it to them, if not ourselves, to finally take on doing the deeper, scariest work of getting to the bottom of our soul wound.

This means getting some kind of professional therapy or alternative healing to stop the symptoms from running our lives. It also means, probably, some kind of trauma work, to address the original pain once and for all. Luckily, there are many wonderful healing modalities to choose from!

How do I know when it’s time for individual or couples therapy?

All relationships have times of grace and times of struggle. That’s a normal part of life. However, therapy is enormously supportive for individuals and couples no matter what your situation.

Relationship skills can be learned and practiced. We can all get better at loving, or behaving in ways that the love in our hearts really arrives in the hearts minds, and bodies of the people we love.

It is also supremely supportive to have a witness to your relationship dynamics, a neutral party who can help both members of the couple recognize the good as well as the problem zones.

Villa Kali Ma can assist women with mental health concerns

We all deserve love and adoration, affection and care. We also all, in our own ways, can be challenging to deal with.

Villa Kali Ma is fully dedicated to helping women heal from trauma, mental illness, and addiction. We have many programs and offerings, and if you’re on the hunt for some help, we’d love to meet you!

Categories
Addiction and Relationships

Addiction and Relationships

Addiction has a big impact on relationships. Family, friends, and co-workers are all affected when the woman they once knew becomes consumed with addiction.

Intimate relationships, such as marriages and partnerships, are deeply, heartbreakingly altered when addiction takes hold in one or both parties. Everything degrades, and the possibility of emotional intimacy is destroyed.

The miracles of recovery and the restoration of a woman’s freedom back into her own best Self’s arms may have the most meaning of all for their husbands and partners.

Why does addiction affect relationships and marriages?

Healthy relationships require many things to work, but one of the keys is that both people have to be willing and able to relate not only as mentally-identified egos or even animal bodies but also heart-to-heart.

We must have a functioning emotional core, a basic capacity for bonding. Through heart connection, we are able to give and receive love.

Love is the most important ingredient of human life. Everyone who behaves destructively is showing us what it’s like to not have enough love circulating in them. Everyone who behaves harmoniously is showing us what it’s like when there is enough love. Love is everything.

Even though relationships are hard for all of us, we are usually willing and able to lower the drawbridges of our defenses enough to form heart-based romantic connections, because of the power of love and our native need for it. When we marry someone, it is often because this is someone with whom we feel we can mutually open the doors of our hearts.

We can have a lot of flaws and still be lovable and still love. Mistakes can be made and forgiven. As long as there is still a softhearted human intelligence in the eyes of the person we love, we have a shot at a human relationship.

Addiction destroys the possibility of love. It closes the heart. It replaces the human being who once abided in that body with a hungry ghost, a fiendish entity that has only one goal, to be fed and to grow and to destroy.

Addiction hollows us out and fills us with something else. Something not-us. And this entity, we can call it the Addict, is not capable of love.

All the love we give to this entity means nothing to it. And it has no love to give back, either.

The Addict is supremely untrustworthy. It lies. It manipulates. It uses. It is sneaky and conniving. It is pathetic. We feel sorry for it, but our empathy, like our love, has no impact at all. The Addict is dead to the heart.

What are the costs of addiction for women?

When a woman has an addiction, she is on the road to ruin her love relationships. If she does not find her way back to her human heart, firmly casting out the Addict and all of its false promises, she will lose the privilege of connecting with others through her birthright human capacity to give and receive love.

Because addiction is progressive, it gets worse and worse (until recovery). Like all illnesses, it’s not always present, and there will be phases where it seems like it has gone away. Most likely it has not, but is hiding in wait.

The costs to a relationship as long as addiction is present are high. There can be financial costs – money gone to alcohol or drugs, healthcare costs, addiction treatment, property damages (crashed cars, etc), bad financial decisions, court and legal fees, and lost jobs.

Addiction costs time and energy, too. Wasted effort, as unity and cooperation are unraveled by astonishing selfishness. Conflict grows omnipresent, as couples are divided and conquered by “the Problem”.

The biggest cost is the loss of trust. Loss of trust closes hearts, and walls us off from the possibility of love.

What to do when drinking or drug use is harming the relationship or marriage?

We may suspect that alcohol or drugs are harming our relationship for a while before we know for sure. It can be helpful to know certain markers that are generally considered to be indicative of the presence of addiction.

Signs that drinking or drugs are hurting your marriage:

-One partner is codependent, covering for the other. One partner is lying to friends and family, making up excuses, or in some other way actively participating in cleaning up after the addicted person’s wreckage.

-The topic of drinking or drugs, or the consequences of behavior that took place while under the influence (infidelity, staying out late, missed appointments, broken promises), is a source of conflict in the marriage.

-The couple or family has become isolated out of shame and secrecy, to protect addiction-related secrets, lies, infidelities, employment problems, physical and emotional abuse, or other issues that arise from the addiction.

-One or both partners can only talk or be intimate when drugs or alcohol are involved.

-Early-stage signs of domestic violence, such as touching another person angrily or throwing things.

If you recognize that there may be an addiction wrecking your marriage, it is highly advised to get help right away. It is a good idea to get professional counseling or enter treatment, and/or to attend AA (if you are the person who is dependent on substances) or Al-Anon (if it is your loved one).

12-step groups are free (small donations are collected in a pass-the-hat style to cover room rental fees and so on, but 12-step is always self-organized and there are no employees). There are many in-person meetings all over the world, often several in a day if you live in a city. If you live in a rural area with few meetings, online meetings are effective too.

Please note that even though the language of these programs is geared towards healing alcoholism, the cure offered by AA works equally well for any addictive substance, including prescriptions. The underlying problem of an Addict taking over where you used to reside is the same, no matter the substance.

That said, there are also specific programs for narcotics addiction and for prescription drug addiction:

Narcotics Anonymous

Pills Anonymous

Can addiction treatment help a woman’s relationship?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, it is very hard to heal a relationship until the addiction itself is addressed. If the substance-using partner is willing to get help, it is a window of opportunity, an opening into a positive future.

Commonly, one person in the relationship wants to get help but the addicted person does not. That’s ok. It is still very beneficial to get help for the codependent partner, upon whose cooperation the addicted person relies for protection from consequences.

The codependent person can be supported and taught how not to cooperate with the Addict, but still love the human. This will help make it uncomfortable for the addicted partner to stay addicted, and more likely to be willing to get help. This is the best thing the non-addicted partner can do to help herself and her partner.

Villa Kali Ma helps women and their partners heal from addiction

Villa Kali Ma specializes in healing women from addiction. Part of our treatment includes addressing relationships, and the ways that addiction has hurt or eroded the trust of our loved ones.

We love seeing women in recovery bravely repairing with their partners and families, doing the work of restoring what was broken down by addiction. If you’re looking for support for your addiction or your spouse’s addiction, we can help you.

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