Category: Mental Health

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Mental Health

How Can Women Overcome Guilt and Shame in Recovery?

Shame and guilt are some of the most difficult emotions we experience. It is very distressing to feel like we don’t deserve love and belonging, or that we have been very bad and need to be punished for it.

Women are especially prone to guilt and shame, in part because many aspects of our nature, qualities we cannot help but embody, are looked down upon by the larger culture. Guilt and shame are also residues of traumatization, to which women are more vulnerable.

In this post, we at Villa Kali Ma will look closer at guilt and shame, and how recovering women can learn to transmute and transform them into healthier energies.

What is the difference between guilt and shame?

In popular psychology, the difference between guilt and shame is offered as “I did something bad” (guilt) versus “I am bad” (shame).

Guilt is more limited, and it suggests a different choice could be made in the future. A sincere apology and changed behavior can and often does repair a past mistake. Shame is more condemning and final, conferring the sensation that no matter what we do, we will always be bad.

Shame is, curiously, not absolved with a sincere apology or changed behavior. We continue to be convinced that we are rotten to the core, even when we behave like good people. When someone says to us, “I see you as a kindhearted person”, we think, “You don’t know the real me”.

Another way to look at the difference is to say that guilt centers on a specific action we did, a choice we made, an event or sequence of events limited to their own time and place. Guilt has a time stamp, and may be healed with time. Shame is boundless and forever, therefore that much harder for the human soul to bear.

What is the connection between guilt, shame, and addiction?

Shame and guilt are primary sources of addiction. They are very painful feelings to sustain over time, and shame in particular is noted to be highly correlated with addiction.

Children who grow up in shame-based family systems, where punishment and disapproval are dispensed in response to “who you are” rather than “what you decided to do” have many emotional problems they must learn to overcome through life.

For those of us raised in the shame mindset, a life-long sense of unworthiness accompanies us and must be dealt with in every scenario.

When we fail in life in some instance, which life gives us many opportunities to do, then that failure is not a reflection of specific actions we took, which we might learn from, and do better next time, let alone a reflection of the situation being challenging, but instead confirmation of our unworthiness.

Negative results seem typical of us, rather than typical of such situations. Shame makes everything personal. We become self-absorbed and narcissistic by way of shame, not because we love ourselves, rather because we cannot find anything inside of us to love. Shame is linked to despair and hopelessness.

Guilt, while it is easier to tolerate than shame because it contains a shred of hope that we could behave differently next time, is also fairly toxic.

Guilt implies responsibility, and false responsibility is easily transferred in dysfunctional families. When a small child is blamed for what other people are actually responsible for, for example, the child’s development is arrested by this inappropriate weight of responsibility. This easily happens when a child is made to feel unduly responsible for their parents’ feelings, such as Dad’s irritability or Mom’s sadness.

One reason the child is arrested in her development by being blamed is the fact that the child isn’t actually the origin of the parental stress or failure, and can be confused for the rest of her life about how her own actions do and don’t lead to effects in the world.

Both guilt and shame are precursors of addiction and are further amplified by addiction. Addiction compels people to behave in ways that really do hurt others, which creates more guilt. Addiction is also highly pathologized, moralized, and misunderstood, so it is easy for someone who has an addiction to feel that they are unworthy of love, approval, and connection.

Why do women sometimes feel guilty in recovery?

When we get sober, we have to look at all the things we did while we were under the spell of addiction. It’s never pretty. It’s disturbing and upsetting, and it represents a crisis of identity: if I did all that, how can I also still be a good person? Do I really deserve love and belonging? And if we have a core of shame to begin with, well, we knew it all along that we were bad, and this just proves it.

The good news is, that through the portal of this personal crisis, we have the opportunity to discover true, and genuinely unconditional self-love and self-forgiveness which extends far beyond any love we have known before.

We realize that all the pain we shared with the world was not ours alone to begin with. How did that pain get into us in the first place? We begin to understand how the wounds of others caused them to behave in ways that wounded us. Not because we were bad, not even because we did something bad, but because of things that happened to them that broke their hearts and spirits, long ago, by someone else entirely.

If we want to stop spreading this ancient pain around, we have to heal it within ourselves, which means to restore our original innocence and goodness.

Why do women sometimes feel shame in recovery?

Women feel shame in recovery because it is hard not to identify with the addict we have been. Because the addict within is amoral, selfish, hurtful, and destructive, we think that that is who we are.

All the evidence suggests this is so. The people we hurt tell us we are hurtful people. After all, who else is to blame? We may try for a while, to blame anyone or anything else for our use, but in the end, we know it is us, and no other, who can genuinely be held accountable.

An extraordinary opportunity lies in this pain, which is that we can break the basic pattern of ego-identification. Without lessening responsibility – after all, it is only we who can let the addict in the door of our personal being, or keep that door shut – we can understand that while addiction itself is a very, very negative thing, we are not our addiction.

Addiction is an illness, which can take hold of a person. That is all. No more, and no less, than a serious, but totally impersonal, kind of madness.

Villa Kali Ma can assist women in overcoming guilt and shame in recovery

At Villa Kali Ma, we offer a healing program for women to recover from addiction, mental illness, and trauma, which includes effective clinical modalities from the West in tandem with enduring holistic modalities like yoga, Ayurveda, and acupuncture.

Healing guilt and shame are top priorities for any woman on a recovery path because these two toxic emotions are the gatekeepers that guard the exit out of hell.

If you are ready to find out how each of these gatekeepers can be transformed into the positive guardians of innocence, kindness, and self-loving humility, reach out to see if we might be the right place for you to do your healing work!

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Mental Health

How to Deal with Depression During the Holidays

What is holiday depression?

Holiday depression is another name for the blues, a special kind that comes around starting with Thanksgiving and peaking around Christmastime or New Year. The melancholy among us can have a rough go over these weeks, and even the cheeriest among us might feel it too.

There are many reasons why the holidays surface emotional pain. The stress of travel, end-of-year work deadlines, finances, and pressures of hosting and attending family gatherings are all valid reasons that some women find this to be a demanding time of the year.

Whatever your feelings are, trust us, if you’re not feeling merry, it’s ok. We get it.

What are the causes of holiday depression?

Holiday depression can be caused by any number of things. The most common sources are pre-existing mental health conditions, substance abuse history, seasonal affective disorder, stress, grief, and financial trouble.

Here are three additional ways to think about the holiday blues.

1. Compare and Despair

The holidays can highlight ways in which we feel we aren’t up to snuff. Someone else’s job, children, house, appearance, whatever, can steal away our own sorely-needed self-approval.

A little cure for this holiday blues-maker:

Write up a list of everything you are proud of yourself for, large and small. Acknowledge yourself, for your courage, your best intentions, and all that could be looked upon kindly and lovingly. Put the list in your purse and take it with you to your gathering. In a moment when you need it, go to the bathroom and read your list to yourself.


2. Boundaries and Depression

Due to stress, limited time and space, and large groups of people, something will probably happen during this season that crosses our boundaries. We will feel, whether we recognize it or not, angry.

Depending on our anger skills, we may lash out (saying something we regret, for example), or feel guilty about our anger and turn it inward. The latter will instantly create depression.

How can we stay in witness observer mode as much as we can, taking note that we are angry or that we feel our boundaries are being crossed, and yet not turn against ourselves?

A little cure for this holiday blues-maker:

Choose a subtle, self-soothing action that you will do every time you notice crossed boundaries. For example, you could wrap the fingers of your right hand around the thumb of your left hand and hold it for as long as twelve full breaths.

This is a little body-energy hack that will activate the parasympathetic nervous system and help you stay calm, but also soothe yourself. If you know something positive that will work better than this, good! Do that instead.


3. Stress

Finally, it seems pat, but stress is really bad for humans! Like anger, stress needs to be released almost immediately from the body or it turns into depression or physical illness.

Everyone knows the holidays are stressful, whether it’s because of financials, getting gifts in time, managing family schedules, finishing work projects before the end of the year, being responsible for cooking and hosting, or just the horrors of winter travel. So what could you do to prevent stress from turning toxic for you?

A little cure for this holiday blues-maker:

Pre-plan what you will do every time you notice a stress spike, whether in the weeks during the run-up to the holidays or during the actual days. For example, you could pause to do four rounds of box breathing. Box breathing is like this: four-count breath in, four-count hold, four-count breath out, four-count hold; and all of that four times total.

Again, maybe you have a better hack. Would you rather stop what you’re doing for a 5-minute stretch break? Dance break? Step-outside break? The important point is to plan to use a specific tool and use it.

What is the difference between holiday and seasonal depression?

Seasonal affective disorder is connected to all times of the year in which there is a lack of sunlight and would be diagnosed no matter when it shows up. Holiday depression is linked specifically to the winter holidays themselves. Both of them have similar symptoms, of what would ordinarily be diagnosed as depression, including lowered mood, lowered energy, and bleak thoughts.

The connection between preexisting mental illness and holiday depression

It’s not fair, but it makes sense, that people who already have depression or another mental illness, tend to feel it extra during the holidays.

Whether it’s because so much of our mental illness is tied up with family topics, because the winter offers less of the healing relief of sun and outside time or another reason, the connection between the winter holidays and an uptick in mental health symptoms is strong.

This is especially true of the period of time after the holidays themselves, such as the latter days of December or the first days of the new year.

What are signs of depression in women?

Women and men show their depression slightly differently. Men may show their depression more in behavioral terms, for example by isolating, and to experience it more consciously as negative outlook and bleak thoughts about the world. Women may be more likely to feel their depression emotionally, as sadness, and to cry and to feel bad about themselves.

For both, depression is about feeling low, in terms of mood and energy, and is often paired with stopping certain activities that made us feel good. There are many vicious cycles paired with depression, such as eating food that makes us feel worse, poor sleep patterns that give us even less energy, skipping exercise routines so our endorphin levels drop even lower, and overindulging in entertainment, which makes us feel even less connected with what matters in life.

Common signs of depression are:

  • Appetite changes, including weight gain or weight loss
  • Loss of enjoyment in hobbies or creative activities
  • Feeling very exhausted, needing to oversleep, or be physically lazy (beyond normal levels of winter laziness)
  • Moodiness, crying, feeling sad, and thinking about the past too much
  • Crying without really understanding why you’re crying or what you’re sad about
  • Negative thoughts about yourself and your future

How to cope with holiday depression

Why not make a plan for coping with holiday depression? If you don’t end up needing it, great, but if you do, you’ll be happy you had enough self-love and foresight to prepare.

We suggest the following ideas be part of your holiday self-care plan:

1. Exercise, exercise, exercise

Exercise is nature’s most potent antidepressant, right here in our own bodies. It’s so simple it’s silly: if we just move (enough to get sweaty and energized), we’ll feel better.

What can you do to make sure vigorous exercise is part of your holiday season?

Our suggestion is to commit to some kind of daily challenge, such as 30 yoga sessions in 30 days, or to make December your month of dancing til you’re sweaty, once every day. Exercise doesn’t have to take all that much time – just 20 minutes of HIIT or another activity that gets you sweaty and out of breath will give you a cascade of good feelings.


2. Go outside every day for 20 minutes

Nature is also nature’s most potent antidepressant! (It’s a tie with exercise). Find a way to be around plants, gardens, trees, beaches, mountains – whatever you have.

20 minutes outside in the natural light, air, and sounds of nature will deal a powerful blow to the holiday blues. If you have to put on rain boots, lots of sweaters, or a giant jacket and it seems exhausting to do even just that – good. Fighting some opposition for the sake of your happiness actually helps create happiness.


3. Go to Meetings

If you are new to 12-Step, why not make this the year you find out what all the good fuss is about? If you’re not new, then you know why this tip works.

There are 12-step meetings for nearly every kind of trouble, and all of them have Christmas Day meeting marathons.

For those of us with addictions, there are the classics: AA, NA, PA, and so on.

For those of us with food issues, codependency, or love addiction, we have options too.

Finally, 12-step programs exist even just for helping us deal with our emotions. Isn’t that amazing?

You don’t have to identify fully with the description to get the benefit of attending, just go with a spirit of curiosity and open-heartedness. Sit close to the warm fire of honesty-based heart connection offered in these groups.

Managing and coping with stress

Managing stress has two aspects. One is ordering your life so that it unfolds in a less stressful way, and the second is to provide yourself with mechanisms for releasing stress (detoxifying and relaxing the body).

We suggest you do both. Here is our guide to managing tasks so that your life feels less stressful, in the first place!

Project Manage Your Holiday Season

This process, called Personal Kanban, can save your sanity. If this is hard to get from reading, there are short videos online. It’s worth a look up – it’s actually really simple.  Here’s our explanation:

Step 1: Collect Your To-Dos

On Post-its or small slips of paper, brain dump all the things that need to be done (one to-do item per Post-it or slip of paper).


Step 2: Order and Prioritize Tasks in A Visible Way

Somewhere you can see it easily, such as on a whiteboard, corkboard, or just a big piece of paper taped to the wall, make three columns into which you can divide your tasks. These three columns are: To Do, Doing, and Done.

Start with putting all your post-its/tasks into the To Do column. Place the tasks in that column, in order of priority and actionability. The tasks which are most ready to be tackled right now are most towards the top of the list, and anything which is bigger or needs more time will be more towards the bottom.

For example, “Christmas present for Brian” might be above, “Last grocery store run before Christmas” for chronological reasons, and “Christmas present for Brian” might be below “Respond to Molly’s email” because email is easy and can be done right away.

The most time-sensitive and important tasks, but which are actionable, are the tasks that should be towards the top. If a task is time-sensitive but doesn’t feel actionable, try breaking it down into smaller chunks of task and see if that helps.

For example, maybe “Get presents for everyone” is too big to be completed as one task, whereas “Order coffee maker for Jake” is a tiny task that surely could be done right now.


Step 3: Move Tasks through the Pipeline

Now begin tackling your tasks. The way to do this is to take a limited number of tasks from the big, first To-Do column, and move them into the Doing column.

Only put the number of tasks that you think you can get done now or in this particular window of task-doing. The Doing column should never have too much in it at once, literally only the tasks you are essentially doing right now, which will be completed shortly.

Every time you have time to work on your tasks, clear the items in your Doing column, moving them into the third column, Done. When your Doing column is empty, take a few more from the To Do column, reordering and shifting remaining tasks, as well as adding new ones to that column, as needed.

 

This little life hack goes a long way!

More about this process can be found on this website.

When is it time to seek professional help?

If you’re suffering, get help. There is nothing wrong with getting help, in fact, it can also be considered the kindest thing you could do for everyone else, to take care of yourself first. No one does well when any one of us is not ok, that is a universal truth, though it takes a whole lifetime to learn it.

If you know the holidays are hard for you, then do yourself and everyone else a solid and talk to a professional healer or therapist about it. Short-term help for getting through a season is something that can be done any time.

If addiction is on the table, and you’re worried you’ll slip, then take action and get help right away, because relapse is a serious world of hurt for you and your loved ones, both.

Much heartache can be avoided by having enough self-love to prioritize how you feel over all the other expectations that may be loaded onto the holidays.

You do matter, dear reader, enough to protect and support. We can tell you that without even knowing who you are.

Villa Kali Ma can help women overcome holiday depression and enjoy this holiday season

Villa Kali Ma helps women recover from the many miseries of addiction, mental health disorders, and trauma.

We use clinically effective, evidence-based treatment models and alternative holistic practices such as yoga, mindfulness, and nutrition, integrated together as one treatment course. We treat each woman as the individual she is and approach healing with sensitivity, compassion, and a wakeful heart.

The holidays are hard for many of our clients, and we’re prepared to help. If you’re staring down some darkness that you don’t have the heart to face alone this season, then come to us and we’ll do it together. A problem shared is a problem halved.

Either way, we send you our biggest wishes for sane, healthy holidays, dear readers!

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Mental Health

National Depression Screening Day 2024

National Depression Screening Day is October 10, 2024

National Depression Screening Day takes place annually on October 10th. This year, we at Villa Kali Ma are sharing our support for the advocacy campaign, as we recognize the importance of raising the profile of depression in the light of public attention.

Depression is a very painful form of mental illness affecting millions of people. Sadly enough, reports indicate that depression is on the rise, with no small number of sufferers succumbing to suicide as a result.

We know the heartache of depression from the inside, and we know that there is a cure. It is possible to reconnect with the spark of life, even after we and everyone else have started to think our flame has gone fully out. No one is beyond help, and that’s the truth.

But to get that help, we have to know that there is a name for what’s wrong with us and that there is a solution for it. Depression, as horrible as it is, is actually not a death sentence (or need not be). Depression is, compared to some forms of mental illness, rather responsive to treatment. When the right kind of contact is made, human to human, and the right kind of help for a depressed person is able to be administered in the way they need, things can be turned around into their opposite (a life of joy!).

All in all, this October 10th, we here at Villa Kali Ma are very interested to further explore and reflect on how we can all participate in healing depression, nationwide.

What is National Depression Screening Day?

National Depression Screening Day is an action campaign dedicated to the topic of depression, the debilitating and deadly mental health condition affecting more and more Americans each year.

Since not everyone manifests depression symptoms in the same way, it sometimes takes a screening for the condition to be recognizable to a sufferer or their loved ones. Testing can validate and support a person’s ability to have compassion for themselves and to take their own suffering seriously.

Teenagers and adults, men and women, and people in different population categories around the globe may experience and express their depression differently, based on many biological and social factors. Therefore diagnostic tools like a depression screen can be helpful as one measure to potentially indicate the presence of a serious mental health condition.

How to observe National Depression Screening Day?

In our opinion, the best way to observe National Depression Screening Day is to participate in the dialogue about the topic.

Are you familiar with depression yourself (we are!)? If yes, what was it like for you? If you’re no longer depressed now, how did you turn it around? What did you do, who helped you? What did you need to realize about yourself, the world, and your place within it, to be able to come back to the surface of life?

Or maybe you have loved and been close with someone who had depression. What was that like for you? How did you try, succeed, or fail to help them? What feelings does the chronic, unchanging sadness or low spirits of another bring up for you?

If you’re a mental health practitioner or even just a willing ally, you may want to take a depression screening yourself, to learn more about the signs and symptoms.

We always suggest a deep dive into the positive, too: look into the many cures both holistic and mainstream, which are currently used for depression. Ponder the world of solutions, the promising data, for example coming out of the trauma research field, or the use of so-called “nutraceuticals”.

What conclusions you reach are yours, but form a personal opinion about the topic, and engage!

What are the signs to know it’s sadness, not depression?

Depression is different from mourning, grief, and sadness. Although they can feel very similar, and depression can involve many of the same symptoms as grief – sadness, crying a lot, isolating, halting self-care, and needing to sleep more – the key difference is that depression is not a temporary feeling or mood in reaction to circumstances.

Rather, depression is a lingering, or chronic state in which we become trapped in lowered levels of mood, with less energy, loss of hope in the future, and diminished enjoyment in the now. It is frequently accompanied by a desire to die or to commit self-harm.

One way to check whether it’s depression or sadness is to see if there is a life circumstance present, in which it would be expected to feel that way, such as after a loss of a loved one or a serious life change. When we feel blue, sad, low-energy feelings even when we “should” be feeling ok, or when that is essentially our baseline no matter what’s going on externally, that can be a sign that it’s depression rather than sadness.

Why is National Depression Screening Day important?

The painful truth about untreated depression is that it can and often does end in death by suicide. This is a risk we cannot afford to ignore, nor to minimize. When symptoms of depression are not noticed nor taken care of, the deep troubles within, which are currently coming out as depression symptoms, can become more dangerous and turn into violence against the self.

Screening for depression can save lives. As the saying goes, “Name it to tame it”. Screening for depression can help name the darkness, which begins the process of healing it.

Villa Kali Ma Supports National Depression Screening Day

At Villa Kali Ma, we are in favor of screening for depression more frequently, especially in vulnerable populations like teenagers, people with addiction, and the elderly, to help raise awareness and understanding of depression, and to help find a cure.
There are many remedies to depression, ranging from exercise to diet to psychotherapy, which can help touch a person and bring them into the circle of light from out of their dark isolation.

It is heartbreaking to consider how many people feel the way depressed people feel. We are deeply motivated to help shift this, as a part of our mission to support and protect women’s mental health.

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Mental Health

World Mental Health Day 2024

World Mental Health Day is October 10, 2024.

This October, we honor World Mental Health Day. October 10th is the day set aside annually to reflect on mental health, and how we can support it to shine and thrive all over the world. This year’s theme is “It is Time To Prioritize Mental Health in the Workplace”. It sure is, isn’t it?

What is World Mental Health Day?

World Mental Health Day is an awareness campaign intended to raise consciousness and educate about mental health topics around the globe. Its goal is partly to help share stories and experiences of people with mental health struggles, and to reduce stigma and isolation through creating conversations and making connections.

The day is also intended to help share ideas and solutions for how to live with more mental health on the whole, as a collective – something we can all continue to work on, as the madness of the world plainly shows!

The day is also purposed to help raise the standard of care applied to those with serious and chronic mental health conditions, the people most affected by the field of mental health.

What is the history of World Mental Health Day?

World Mental Health Day was established in 1992 by the World Federation of Mental Health. Led by then-deputy secretary general Richard Hunter, the purpose of the day of awareness and action was to advocate for mental health, globally.

In recognition of substandard treatment of those with mental health struggles in some portions of the world, as well as a global level of mental health crisis affecting humanity, plus widespread ignorance about mental health issues, the idea was to focus on the topic and bring solutions to the fore.

For the first few years after its founding, World Mental Health Day was honored by way of a multinational broadcast sharing information and messages related to mental health advocacy. Starting in 1994, World Mental Health Day had annual themes. The first theme was “Improving the Quality of Mental Health Services throughout the World”.

Over the years, more and more countries have participated through advocacy related events and action plans. It is in large part a result of efforts related to World Mental Health Day that understanding and acceptance of mental health concerns has grown around the world.

What are some FAQ’s about World Mental Health Day?

Here are some questions that people commonly have about mental health.


What causes mental illness?

Mental illness is currently believed to be partly biological or genetic in origin, and partly caused by life circumstances and experiences. In particular, the role of trauma – not only from singular shocking experiences but also from more chronic conditions like neglect and abuse – in creating mental health disorders later on in life is receiving more and more attention.

Poor nutrition from the modern American diet, the stress of poverty and living in polluted areas, and exposure to environmental toxins through agricultural practices and other use of chemicals to manufacture products we use daily, is also being studied as a possible factor in mental health conditions.


How do I know if I have a mental illness?

Consult a professional. It is fine to do preliminary research on your own, of course, but we do suggest that you be mindful that many symptoms of mental illness are relatable to all. We all experience some problems focusing our attention, some mood struggles, and chronic tension, for example.

However, when your thoughts, feelings, and struggles to stay balanced represent a serious disruption to your life, (including your ability to make a living for yourself and have relationships with others) something may be out of balance, which could be addressed holistically and/or clinically.

It can be very helpful to be given a diagnostic name for your particular kind of struggles, such as Major Depression or Generalized Anxiety Disorder, as long as you don’t overidentify with the diagnosis and take it to define you totally.

How can I help someone who has a mental illness?

Follow the golden rule of “how do I like to be treated?” Most people would like to be treated the same as everyone else, and not to be marginalized or made out to be overly fragile or different.

You cannot lose when you apply empathy, curiosity, and show willingness to learn more about what a person is experiencing, without applying judgment or attempting to fix them.

It’s generally best not to give advice or to tell someone to look on the bright side, or that everything will be ok, as this tends to give the message that we are not comfortable with their suffering. Connect, engage, and show that you have no need to judge someone, and the person will most likely feel safe to tell you more about what it’s like to be them.

How to observe World Mental Health Day?

The best way to observe World Mental Health Day is to do our best to have good mental health ourselves. Once our own mental health is relatively secure, we can speak and share more with others about what it takes to have healthy thoughts, emotions and bodies. Here are three things we can try, this year, as a part of celebrating World Mental Health:

1. Double Your Self Care

This year, see what you can do to strengthen your own self care practices. Can you eat cleaner, exercise more, spend more time outside? Can you turn off your phone, clean your clutter, or take an art class? With whom in your life can you connect, heart to heart? With whom can you play or laugh? What is that makes you feel balanced, centered, whole, alive, and heart-awakened? Do that, more!


2. Practice Boundaries

Mental Health thrives in an environment of healthy interpersonal boundaries. This year, what can you do to strengthen the lines that helpfully differentiate you from another? Where can you say no more? Where can you allow yourself to stop taking responsibility for another, but instead take more responsibility for you? Boundaries are the golden ticket to mental health.


3. Practice Self-Responsible Communication

Mental Health does best in an environment of kind observation of the mind and emotions, rather than acting out our impulses and behaviors without knowing our motivation. This year, practice self-observation through meditation or journaling, then practice communicating your truth to another! How can you talk about what you need, what you want, and what you’re feeling as a result of those wants and needs? To learn more about communicating cleanly, dig into non-violent communication.

Why is World Mental Health Day important?

Although a lot of progress has been made in raising awareness about mental health epidemics we are facing, collectively, we are still a long way off from being healthy and happy in our species at large.

It is important to continue to cultivate compassion and create spaces of dialogue around the variety of human experiences, what is different about us and perhaps even more importantly, what we have in common.

We all want to be free and sufficiently supported to live life in the way that we personally would define as “happiness”. How can we ensure that right for every single member of the human race, whether we personally approve of their choices or not?

How might we improve our ability to include, to embrace, to recognize our own self in the other? What will it take to stop marginalizing, splitting, and dividing into groups that turn on each other?

These are questions to ponder, that will help lead us to the unity of heart and spirit that is necessary to grow past mental illness and into health and happiness as a collective.

Villa Kali Ma Supports World Mental Health Day

As a holistic mental health care provider dedicated to serving women, Villa Kali Ma supports World Mental Health Day fully. We encourage everyone to participate in whatever way speaks to them, to spread awareness and raise consciousness. For us, this year we carry on walking the long, meaningful road towards total health in the minds, bodies and spirits of women everywhere.

Categories
Mental Health

Herbs for Mental Health and Addiction

Did you know that most medicines used today were originally inspired by ingredients found growing naturally in the wild? Many commonplace seeds, fruits, leaves, roots, bark, flowers, resins, and other parts of plants, trees, and mushrooms carry powerful healing properties.

Before the rise of Western medicine, humanity relied heavily on nature’s pharmacy for cures, remedies, and ways to lessen our ordinary life pain, discomfort, and imbalances. In those days, it was understood that nature could help not only with physical illnesses but also with disturbances of the soul, like melancholy or agitation.

Today, science has helped us to understand more about how the active ingredients in certain plants work together with our bodily chemistry, neurotransmitters, and hormones, to help us recover a state of mental health. When we’re depressed, anxious, possessed by an addiction, or otherwise disturbed from our naturally happy state, we can look to nature’s many medicines for help.

What are the best herbs for mental health?

Many good types of herbs and plant extracts can help improve mental health. Which herbs to use depends on the imbalance you are hoping to correct. Lavender, for example, treats anxiety, while St. John’s Wort is used for depression.

Adaptogens represent an important class of natural medicines for mental health. Adaptogens include a variety of plants: roots like rhodiola and ashwagandha, mushrooms like Lion’s Mane, and herbs like Holy Basil are considered adaptogens. Adaptogens help the body respond to stress and normalize, generating more resilience in the face of life’s demands.

What are complementary and alternative medicines?

Complementary and alternative medicines are paths to approaching illness that lie outside of the mainstream Western medicine model. They work well in tandem with Western medicines most of the time and are generally not considered to be replacements for Western medicine, especially in emergencies. They are generally applied best in reasonably healthy bodies, to improve functioning and strengthen.

Some commonly used complementary and alternative medicines are herbs, often prepared as a tea, such as calendula flower tea, vitamins like Vitamin D, minerals like selenium or magnesium, nutritional supplements, such as fish oil, as well as certain nutrient-dense whole foods or superfoods, like sauerkraut or blueberries.

For people who are basically healthy, these natural medicines are often sufficient alone to correct imbalances, strengthen immunity, and improve neuronal and hormonal pathways.

It’s important with any medicine, natural or synthetic, to pay close attention to the body’s reaction, to listen to one’s intuition and feeling, and to stop a cure if it is creating pain or having bad effects. Every person is different and not all cures are right for everyone. Healing is always a somewhat exploratory path and should be engaged in with caution and presence.

How have complementary and alternative medicines helped with mental health?

Complementary and alternative medicines are often anecdotally reported to be effective for a range of mental health disturbances. Anecdotal evidence is offered by people speaking to their own experience, as well as by alternative health practitioners. These reports suggest that what was once known by all to be self-evidently true, that plants can help by lifting one’s mood, calming one’s nervous system, and helping the body to release stress, is still true today.

From a data perspective, however, it must be said that most natural medicinal cures have not been studied at scale nor with scientific rigor, for example with double-blind tests and a control group. The funding does not exist for such studies to be conducted, and there is little financial motivation to prove the beneficial effects, given that other medicines are more lucrative.

Of the existing studies and anecdotal evidence, we know the most about how herbs can support people with depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and stress.

How to use the medicines safely?

Although complementary and alternative medicines are natural, they are still potent. It is important to be careful to pay attention to dosage and to monitor your body as it responds to the cure you are introducing.

Ideally, work with a knowledgeable, experienced natural medicines practitioner, and consider all context clues and possibilities. Interact with your body as you would with a friend you love and care about.

When the body is manifesting an imbalance, even something like anxiety or depression, understand that the symptoms themselves contain a lot of information pointing to a deeper concern that we would like to resolve, not suppress or brush off.

Most natural medicines are relatively safe, with very few side effects, but nevertheless, you do not want to overload the body with a new chemical agent, even a natural one.

Apply common sense – don’t try creating natural medicines on your own without being sure you are sufficiently trained, follow instructions, be wary of wonder cures (if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is), learn from the experiences of others, and don’t give remedies to children without consulting someone experienced and knowledgeable.

Also, it is important to be aware that some self-help or alternative health gurus push their products for financial gain, rather than for your best interest. Listen to your gut and don’t fall for pushy sales tactics.

The best natural medicines are widely available and do not need to be very expensively produced. That said, pay attention to things like whether or not the product is organic, wild-harvested, how it has been extracted, and whether any chemicals have been used or added. We can only ever do our best, but it stands to reason that what we put in our bodies should be the highest quality we can procure, ideally.

What are herbal medicines and supplements?

Herbal remedies are natural medicines made from plants. Examples of herbal remedies are echinacea (commonly used to support the immune system to fight off colds in winter) or Valerian root (a preparation used to help calm the nervous system, aiding with anxiety).

Depending on the herb, remedies may be taken as a tea, as a powder (usually dissolved in water or juice), as a tincture, or as a topical balm or cream.

The term supplements refers to a category that includes minerals, vitamins, and animal-derived products like bone broth or cod liver oil.

Natural medicines usually have a recommended daily maximum, and it is important not to exceed that amount unless you are working with a practitioner whom you trust, and who believes it necessary for your case. Anything used in excess could have negative effects on the body.

It’s important to be aware that some natural medicines interfere with or negatively interact with some conventional medicines, so please be careful with supplements and do your research if you are taking a conventional pharmaceutical, and vice versa.

What herbal medicines and supplements assist with brain function?

There is a class of herbal medicines and supplements called cognitive enhancers, which support the brain to stay healthy. These are used for supporting memory functions and normalizing other brain pathways, to help us stay mentally sharp and flexible.  Ginko (ginkgo biloba) and ginseng (Panax ginseng) are two herbs that are commonly used for this purpose, and sage is another option.

Ginko

Ginko is an extract made from seeds and leaves of the ginkgo tree, originally Chinese. It is used to help improve concentration, focus, and memory, and has an application in supporting those with dementia or other forms of cognitive decline.


Ginseng

Ginseng is a plant grown in many corners of the world. Korean ginseng, or Panax ginseng, is the kind of ginseng most commonly used as an herbal remedy. It is believed to help with memory and mental performance.


Sage

Sage is a wild shrub also grown domestically, the oils of which are frequently used in aromatherapy. Sage is used as an herbal remedy to help with brain function, but it is also believed to help with both anxiety and depression.

What herbal medicines help with anxiety and insomnia?

Anxiety is commonly treated with herbal remedies, as are sleep problems. The body may respond well to the relaxing effects of many of nature’s medicines.

There are many choices when it comes to soothing anxiety with herbs, roots, and flowers, including passionflower, valerian, Rhodiola, hops, German chamomile, lemon balm, holy basil, gotu kola, ashwagandha, and lavender.

There is a certain subtype of herbal medicine called flower remedies, which some people have found to be very helpful, particularly for anxiety. Rescue Remedy, a popular flower remedy, is used to help with stress.

Many of the natural remedies for anxiety are also helpful during drug withdrawal, such as lavender and passionflower.

What herbal medicines help with depression and bipolar disorder?

People seeking support for depression and bipolar disorder have a variety of options in the natural medicine category.

One herb, St. John’s Wort, is commonly used to help to protect against low mood.

Minerals are usually also recommended for those struggling with depression, as selenium and vitamin D in particular have been reported to help stabilize mood and lessen the severity of lows, perhaps related to their role in the reduction of inflammation.

Folic acid is a vitamin that is almost always recommended for people struggling with depression, and an animal-derived supplement (also available in vegan form, from flax seeds) to help with boosting Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil supplementation) is often advised and found to be helpful, as well.

Dramatically improving diet and nutrition (alongside exercising more) is one of the clearest paths to improving depression and bipolar disorder naturally. Many herbal remedies come in the form of superfoods, such as blueberries, nuts and seeds, and salmon.

A promising area of research includes supplementation with amino acids, like L-tryptophan and 5 hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), as these substances are precursors to serotonin, an important neurotransmitter that is believed to affect depression. Some patients and practitioners of functional medicine report positive results using these amino acids to target mood disorders.

Finally, many of the same herbs recommended for anxiety are also advised for people struggling with depression, as the two conditions are related. In particular, adaptogens like ginger, turmeric, holy basil, Rhodiola, and ashwagandha are believed to be powerful in the treatment of both depression and anxiety, through the way that they reprogram the body’s response to stress, thereby building resilience.

Which herbal medicines help with addiction?

Drugs and alcohol must be eliminated from the body before any kind of healing can take place, natural or otherwise. Some herbs help with the withdrawal process, relieving anxiety and distress, and strengthening certain key organs, like the heart and the spleen, to recover after the many stressors of addiction.

Valerian, passionflower, and St. John’s Wort are believed to help emotionally during withdrawals, through the same mechanism that makes them good supports for healing depression and anxiety. Kudzu, or Japanese arrowroot flowers, may help stay calm during withdrawal from alcohol.

Addiction to alcohol, as well as the withdrawal process, is very rough on the body. Several herbal remedies are recommended for helping the body to recover after prolonged use of toxic substances.

A tincture of hawthorn berries can be taken to strengthen the heart, during and after withdrawals. Dandelion is another herb that has many health benefits, in particular, due to its detoxifying effects. It is useful during detoxification from drugs and alcohol for that reason, supporting the spleen to be cleansed.

The liver is another key organ affected by drugs and in particular alcohol – for cleansing the liver milk thistle is a supportive herbal remedy. Burdock root is a powerful detoxifier, helpful in particular for the kidneys.

Villa Kali Ma Supports Herbs for Mental Health and Addiction for Women

At Villa Kali Ma, we are big believers in the many abundant cures offered by nature to help us recover lives of meaning and purpose.

Our unique program offers addiction and mental health recovery paths for women who suffer from substance abuse and co-occurring disorders, and we integrate natural health into every aspect of our program. From diet to nutrition to herbal remedies, we make the best of what nature gave us, to help us find our way back to connection with all of life.

Categories
Mental Health

September is National Yoga Month

What is National Yoga Awareness Month?

National Yoga Awareness Month is a month-long campaign dedicated to raising awareness about yoga.

Here at Villa Kali Ma, we are happy to sing yoga’s praises, far and wide! In many ways, yoga represents the heart of our program. Our founder, Kay White, credits her recovery from substance addiction in very large part to yoga.

No matter who we are, where we’ve been, or what we’re staring down in our life’s journey, yoga is a viable, supportive path for finding a way through.

What are the benefits of yoga?

Yoga is a healing resource that goes far beyond what it can do for physical body strength, balance, and flexibility. Yoga is a comprehensive system that heals mind, body, and soul, through breath work and lifestyle philosophy as much as through physical postures. This ancient system is scientific and methodical, tested and refined by thousands of practitioners over thousands of years.

Many people start yoga these days because they are looking to improve their physical fitness. Yoga strengthens the core of the body, extends the range of motion, corrects alignment, improves balance, and tones muscles.

Yoga also brings deep peace, by healing internal organs and glands. Yoga accesses the part of our physiology that hosts our mental and emotional experiences. In modern parlance, yoga can be said to rewire pathways of the brain and nervous system, anchoring us into habits of happiness, peace, and freedom.

How can yoga help mental health, addiction, and trauma?

At Villa Kali Ma, we have observed that trauma, addiction, and mental health imbalances are intertwined. Yoga is a phenomenal resource for all three because it gets to the very root to repair our deep damage and disconnection. By restoring the physiological functioning of the body, the emotional processing ability of the heart, and the clarity of the brain and nervous system, yoga gets to the bottom of it all.

Studies conducted on the role of yoga in mental health treatment suggest that yoga reduces symptoms associated with conditions of anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, through its ability to reduce the impacts of stress on the entire physiology.

Trauma lives on in the body mind and spirit through a damaged nervous system, such that we are trapped in frightening moments of the past. Through yoga’s many regulating, harmonizing, and toning impacts on the nervous system, as well as through its kind and humanistic approach to suffering, yoga can easily be used as an effective trauma treatment, restoring safety and now-moment orientation inside our bodies.

Yoga helps in part because it does not separate the physical body from thought and feeling. Rather, yoga expresses a basic unity, that thought, emotio, and body cannot be fully teased apart. Isn’t it true that it’s easier to think clear, sane thoughts when our mood is positive? Isn’t it easier to feel positive emotions when our bodies are also healthy?

The word yoga, which translates as “joining” or “union”, reflects yoga’s basic mechanism, which is to reunify us with our source of being. Whatever we believe in our hearts about where human beings come from and what we’re doing here, most can agree that to be cut off, lost, and fragmented feels lonely and bad.

Without saying exactly what it is that we are reunifying with, necessarily, yoga erases our existential isolation and reconnects us to the hub of the wheel of life, healing our cosmic attachment trauma.

Then everything else gets better too. When we are in harmony with the higher music of our own lives, we think sane thoughts, feel our emotions inside our heart space, and experience our physical bodies as strong and alive.

This makes us resilient. We feel safe, curious about life and other people, and strong enough to face expected and unexpected challenges. We become unconditionally centered and connected. Even when external events are not what we prefer, we feel our basic goodness, are able to observe our own thoughts without identifying with them, and have trust that whatever transformations will be asked of us, we will come out the other side stronger.

Yoga benefits our mental and emotional bodies as much as our physical ones, bringing us into a state of clarity of mind, while stimulating the heart center to bloom and do its job well, too. When our hearts are working, we are able to feel deep feelings of love, inspiration, and connection. We are also able to move through the darker shades of emotion, experiences like grief and anger, with grace.

What are some ways to practice yoga?

The wonderful thing about yoga is that there are many branches and paths to it. Some ways to explore yoga this month include:

1. Shop around: take a class at each yoga studio near you

Many studios offer a starting deal for you to get the lay of the land. You could take this month as an opportunity to find a “home” yoga studio that’s just right for you.


2. Experiment with different kinds of yoga

Try early morning energizing classes and evening relaxation oriented classes. Try kundalini yoga and yin yoga. Give yourself the month of September to experiment and try everything that sounds intriguing and even intimidating to you. Let your body lead and pay attention to how you feel, what excites you and rises and opens your energy, or what doesn’t.


3. Try yoga online

On YouTube and other channels, many yoga teachers offer free classes, guided meditations, and information about yogic philosophy. Make a goal for yourself for this month, committing deeply to one teacher or trying out different channels. You could do one practice a day for the 30 days of September, or just one practice a week, whatever feels like the right level of challenge for you, that you can genuinely commit to.


4. Create your own practice

If you know a little bit about yoga already and have mastered some poses, design your own routine, making it exactly what you love and need most. It can be short – just 15 minutes long as a start. If you want to, share your pose sequence with others, record a class as a video, and gift it to friends.


5. Mix up the pace

You might like to try holding only a very few poses, but holding them for a longer time, to get the deepening experience. You could dedicate your September to be a restorative, yin yoga month, centered on helping you find greater levels of nurturance and safety. On the flip side, if you’re looking to take your life up a notch, you can try moving through poses more swiftly than you normally do, as a faster, more aerobic experience. Whatever you do, try it for a month and take note of the effects, as a way to find your own, personal path through this ancient healing system.

With any of these, please pay attention to your body, be mindful of its signals, and don’t injure yourself! It’s always better to start slow and build up at a sustainable pace than to rush or push.

What yoga programs do we offer at Villa Kali Ma?

Villa Kali Ma is a holistic treatment program for women struggling with substance abuse, mental health disorders, and trauma. Yoga is a core component of all of our programs.

We use a gentle, trauma-informed therapeutic approach to yoga that accepts all women just as they are coming to us, without judgment or any kind of pressure. At the heart of yoga lies the understanding that each person alive contains a seed of the divine, and is infinitely precious. We feel the same, and we treat each woman who comes through our doors as such.

The way we use yoga is as a key for carefully unlocking the bonds and chains that have shackled a woman to her misery. From our own experiences and our years working with women to recover, we know the special combination of softness and firmness that is required, to be strict in banishing addiction or self-destruction, and yet loving and encouraging to the human heart.

In each of our programs, we hold group yoga classes, meditation, and breath work, with options for individual yoga therapy in one-on-one sessions. In addition, yoga deeply informs our approach to coaching lifestyle changes in mindfulness, sleep, diet, and exercise. We rely on the insights of yoga to help women learn to re-pattern their hearts and minds to more connected, healthy thoughts and emotions.

We invite you to read more about how we use yoga as part of our program for achieving sustainable recovery.

So many of us are looking for peace of mind, to feel better in our bodies, and to have deeper emotional resonance within the structures of our lives – yoga is a way to find these things.

Villa Kali Ma Acknowledges National Yoga Month

Without yoga, Villa Kali Ma wouldn’t be here! As our founder Kay shares in her story, yoga can save a person’s life. If yours needs saving, too, come check us out, sister.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193654

Categories
Mental Health

September is World Suicide Prevention Month

What is World Suicide Prevention Month?

As anyone who has been touched by suicide knows, death by self-harm creates enormous trauma in the lives of surviving loved ones, friends, and even casual acquaintances. The fabric of human life is torn for generations whenever any violent death takes place, and suicide is one of the worst ways of bringing harm to our collective heart.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States and around the globe, as many heartbroken humans succumb to the supreme tragedy of severe isolation and despair that gives rise to thoughts of ending one’s life.

To be clear, there is no shame to be applied to such individuals, as anyone who has been there knows that the kind of extreme torment suffered by people longing to die isn’t easily judged away. At the same time, it can’t be glorified or glamorized away, either, as though there is anything noble in it because there isn’t anything wholesome about killing anyone, especially oneself.

This September, we at Villa Kali Ma invite you to honor World Suicide Prevention Month together with us. World Suicide Prevention Month is an awareness campaign observed every September, in hopes of strengthening collective commitment to preventing suicide.

To Villa Kali Ma’s mind, suicide is the result of extreme disconnection from one’s own life source, sense of value, and meaning. Addiction can and often does lead to suicide, as do the soul-fragmenting impacts of serious trauma. Several forms of mental illness are linked to self-harm as well.

Through our holistic programs for women, we are committed and devoted to helping to heal these epidemic ills through our daily work.

Why is World Suicide Prevention Month important?

Like addiction, suicide is no respecter of class, race, or any other lines and categories we draw between people in our minds. Suicide can touch any human through its signature mechanism of intense, intolerable pain of the heart and mind.

Although patterns of suffering and trauma run in families and across generational lines in intricate ways, what all suicidal people have in common is a loss of hope and a severe disconnection from their own love.

When the fire of a person’s spirit has gone out, it is important to understand that through contact and connection, the fire can be lit again. When we understand how critical each human life is to the rest of us – how we are all puzzle pieces of a picture that cannot be completed without each person’s contribution – we might remember it is in our own interest to make sure less of us fall through the cracks.

Statistics on women and suicide

According to an analysis of suicide statistics collected from 2001 to 2021, conducted by public health researcher Preeti Vankar, suicide is most common among women ages 45 to 64.

In 2020, 8 in every 100,000 women between the ages of 45 and 54 committed suicide. Although women are three times less likely than men to commit suicide, the rate of women attempting suicide has gradually increased over the last two decades.

According to a study of suicide rates across races and ethnicities published by the CDC by way of the National Center for Health Statistics, suicide rates increased between 1999 and 2017 for all race and ethnicity groups, with non-Hispanic white women showing the greatest rise in rate of suicide among females. Women’s suicide tends to be less violent (less likely to involve firearms than men), as women are more likely to try death by self-asphyxiation or poisoning.

Although completion of a suicide attempt is more common among men, women are more likely than men to experience suicidal thoughts and perform suicidal gestures. Women who suffer from addiction are more likely to experience suicidal ideation, or serious thoughts of suicide, and to attempt to take their own lives.

It is exceptionally important to acknowledge the significantly elevated suicide risk among women who are suffering from addiction, mental illness, and traumatization. Women with these conditions are vulnerable and need protection and support.

What are some facts about suicide?

Suicide is defined as death due to purposeful self-injury with the conscious intention to die. An accidental death by overdose or as a result of self-destructive behavior is not, strictly speaking, considered a suicide in the same way.

Not all efforts to end one’s own life succeed; some remain as suicide attempts. A suicide attempt means that someone intended genuinely to take their own life, but they were not successful.

It’s important to understand the degree of seriousness behind an attempt, as some expressions of self-harm are meant as ways of crying out for help, whereas others are more serious attempts to die. When a person has a serious intention to die, they will likely try again and must be protected and supported in greater measure.

People who have experienced other kinds of violence, including sexual violence, bullying, and child abuse, are more likely to attempt to commit suicide.

According to statistics presented by the CDC, suicide rates increased by around a third between 2000 and 2022. In 2022 alone, almost 50,000 Americans died by suicide, and the estimate for those experiencing suicidal thoughts was 13 million. Almost 4 million people planned a suicide attempt, and more than 1 million people attempted suicide but did not die.

The importance of taking care of your mental health

With statistics like these, we cannot afford to ignore the positive effects of proactively caring for mental health and all that that entails. While at large as a culture we have dismissed the stirrings of the soul, emotions, and the need for connection as secondary to productivity and external markers of success, our inner lives cannot be ignored without cost to all of us.

Therefore, in honor of World Suicide Prevention Month, we here at Villa Kali Ma invite you to consider how, when you take good care of your own mental health, including your soul, spirit, and physical body, you are helping the whole collective to learn how to have greater care for all of mankind.

When we have good mental health, we enjoy the following protective factors:

Greater Resilience

Self-Esteem

Positive, Healthy Relationships

Balanced Quality of Life

Greater Sense of Purpose and Calling

Career Success and Personal Productivity

More frequent experiences of Joy and Inspiration

What are some reasons you can think of, to practice good mental health habits?

Here are some thoughts of ours:

  1. When we fill ourselves up with love, self-care, healthy boundaries, and positive thoughts, we have a wellspring of soothing, hopeful, honoring energy to share with others
  2. When we honor the life inside ourselves unconditionally, whether we meet externally imposed standards of success or not, we promote the practice of loving and including all people, just as they are, no matter what, as part of the family of life
  3. We can live our lives in a way that shows that we value human life and that it is something to cherish and give thanks for. When we treat ourselves and those closest to us as precious, important, irreplaceable beloveds, we are helping the world’s soul remember its own unconditional value.

Depression can lead to suicide

Certain mental health patterns, such as depression and most especially bipolar disorder, are strongly linked to suicide.

It’s important to understand that persistent suicidal thoughts often accompany these conditions. Suicidal thoughts should never be taken as less than very, very serious symptoms. We can only hope that these thoughts are more metaphorical than literal, but we would never want to take that chance and assume that a person won’t one day act on that thought.

Such thoughts cannot be easily batted away when the spirit of a person is eclipsed by depression patterns, which represent a very serious sickness of mind and heart. With compassion, we must understand how a person can become entranced by the voice of suicide when one dances too closely with the dark, as people with these disorders cannot help but do (until they are able to heal from these conditions).

It stands to reason that those who are in intense suffering without a break may find themselves thinking about suicide if only out of desperation and hope that the suffering would end with death. For such people, the goal is to help them have hope and to imagine and see a future.

It is also helpful, if the suffering person has anyone they care about, to realistically understand and consider whom they would harm if they acted on the thoughts and harmed themselves. People who are depressed have an extremely negative image of themselves, in which they imagine that they are so terrible, that no one could love them or get any joy out of their presence. We must help people in this state understand how far off these thoughts are.

Has suicide worsened since COVID-19?

Some reports showed that the impact of what took place between 2020 and 2022 has been to increase the rate of suicide.

Recently some of these claims are refined as more data emerges. The current view shared by the National Institute of Mental Health says rather that the increase in suicide rates affects teenagers, but that other categories remained stable.

In general, researchers will learn more over time, and current data could be interpreted in different ways.

How can you get involved in Suicide Prevention Month?

This September, think creatively about how you might support all people to know that their lives are valuable, meaningful, and necessary in this world. Here are some ideas for ways to honor the spirit of the month.

1. Tell your people you love them

Make sure everyone around you knows how much you value them, unconditionally. Not only for what they do for you but for who they are.


2. Offer to hold space for someone

Everyone can use a little compassionate witnessing. If you sense someone in your life may be going through a hard time, offer to sit and listen to them, without offering advice or trying to fix it. Help them feel safe to share the truth of what they’re going through by modeling an attitude of peace and non-judgment.


3. Share your own experiences

If you have any experience with depression and suicidal thoughts, talk to people openly about how you got out of that particular spell. What was the cure that your spirit gave you, for this particular poison? How did it show up in your life? What actions did you need to take? Who helped you?


4. Give Thanks to the People Who Help You Feel Valued

If there are people in your life who help take care of you, and help you feel connected and important just as you are, make sure these people know that you feel and appreciate their love. Shine a light on the ways that they are helping to hold you in this world, connected and secure in the strands of the web of life.

Our individual therapy program can assist women thinking of suicide and self-harm

At Villa Kali Ma, we offer several paths of healing that all lead to the same place – a full and total reconnection to life.

One way we help women get there is through our individual therapy program, which is integrated into each of our programs for substance abuse, mental illness, and trauma.

Read more about how we protect and promote women’s well-being through individual therapy sessions.

Villa Kali Ma Cares About Women’s Mental Health

Women are at the heart and core of Villa Kali Ma. We offer addiction and mental health recovery programs to heal women from substance abuse, trauma, and mental health problems, including depression.

In our integrative sustainable recovery programs, we guide women to discover their inherent, eternal value, and teach them how to live in joy and self-love. From abiding awareness of one’s own lovability, self-harm becomes impossible.

References:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1114127/female-suicide-rate-in-the-us-by-age-group/
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2017.htm
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1130500/suicide-thoughts-plans-attempts-women-us-by-substance-use-disorder/
https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/index.html#cdcreference_3
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2023/youth-suicide-rates-increased-during-the-covid-19-pandemic
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9331016/

Categories
Mental Health

Natural Remedies for Anxiety

Passing states of worry, unease, edginess, and even fear are so commonly experienced that we might call them an ordinary part of life.

When life situations are uncertain, as they so often are, and we’re not completely sure what we may ourselves may be called upon to do in order to resolve them, it’s natural to tense up. The unknown is felt in the body as a kind of question, waiting to be answered.

There are also many factors of contemporary life that trigger the body at the nervous system level to signal possible dangers – sudden loud noises, pollution, chaotic energies, and information overload can all be processed by the body through tension in our stomachs, restricted breathing, and racing hearts.

For some of us, chronic fear becomes a burden of its own. Anxiety is a problem when it seriously disrupts our lives when we are unable to relax fully after the resolution of a situation, and when it starts to create physical and mental health problems for us.

Women are more likely than men to be given a diagnosis of anxiety and are more likely to be prescribed anti-anxiety drugs. This sets us up easily for dependence and eventually addiction, due to the habit-forming properties of these drugs, which can become problematic very quickly.

For those of us struggling with anxiety, there are many good reasons to try working with natural remedies before turning to a prescription. The main concern is that anti-anxiety drugs are not only very quickly addictive but also wane in effectiveness, meaning that they are not a real solution, only a postponement of the inevitable.

On the positive side, anxiety is responsive to many natural interventions, including lifestyle changes like better exercise, sleep, and eating patterns.

What are natural remedies for anxiety?

Anxiety treatments are considered natural if they do not involve prescription medications. Herbs, nutritional supplements, aromatherapy, exercise, and mindfulness practices are examples of natural remedies for anxiety.

From Villa Kali Ma’s point of view, the most important natural remedies for anxiety to know about are exercise, movement, yoga poses, breath work, and parasympathetic nervous system stimulation.

Regular Exercise

Exercise is the most potent natural mental health intervention. This is because when the body is exercised to appropriate levels of physical exhaustion, many beneficial physiological changes take place within the body.

Natural hormones and neurotransmitters that calm and soothe the body are triggered to flow through the entire body system through exercise. Exercise always works in a pinch, and can be used on the spot to avert a panic attack, because it interrupts the body from effectively creating the anxious state.


Release through Movement

The body creates anxious feelings by restricting breath, tensing muscles, and increasing the heart rate. The body is preparing for action because it believes us to be in danger. Once prepared for action, it’s hard to release those energies without actually taking some kind of intense physical action.

We can help ourselves release anxiety by moving the body vigorously. The best way to do it is to let the body do what it’s trying to do, rather than to work against the body. Anxiety is the body’s attempt to create safety through running away or fighting. Therefore quick, very energetic exercises that allow the body to use up the urge to run and fight will release the anxious state most directly.

The trick is to move the body until you feel like you are at your fitness limit, out of breath, warmed up, and heart pounding. You may want to mimic punching or fighting motions, such as those used in martial arts.

Exhaustion can be achieved quickly, depending on your fitness level, by running, doing squats or push-ups, HIIT, jumping jacks, or anything else that quickly spends your excess energy and gets you into a state of full body activation.


Calming Yoga Poses

Other forms of exercise that are helpful for anxiety include calming, regulating poses such as those taught in yoga, which stimulate adrenal glands directly, and other parts of the body, to induce the relax and release stage. Therefore, if vigorous physical activity isn’t available, you may also be able to interrupt an anxiety attack through poses like forward bends and child’s pose, or gentle twists.


Breath Work

The trick to using breathwork for anxiety is to shorten the in-breath and to lengthen the out-breath. During anxiety, we over-oxygenate through hyperventilation, because the body is preparing for a fight or flight situation. As described above, we can help the body by allowing the body to experience vigorous physical exercise, which will give it the opportunity to mimic fight or flight sufficiently, so it can calm down.

If this isn’t an option, we can also support the body to trigger calm down by consciously inducing the relaxation mode, through the breath.
This can be quickly achieved, much more quickly than we might imagine, through following simple breathing patterns, such as box breath.

Box breath goes like this:

Breathe in for a count of 4 full seconds (one Mississippi, two…)
Hold your breath for a count of 4 seconds
Breathe out for a count of 4 seconds
Hold for a count of 4 seconds
Start again with the 4-second inbreath. Do this whole cycle 4 times. At the end of the 4 cycles, pause to check how you’re feeling, and repeat as many times as may be necessary.

Allow the body to shake, tremble, or gasp if it does, this is part of the discharging of energy.


Parasympathetic Nervous System Stimulation

Finally, another powerful tool to know about is parasympathetic nervous system stimulation. There are many tools and techniques that can be relatively quickly and easily applied, such as this hand space which uses the hands, and this one, which is a gentle vagus nerve stimulator.

Experiment with gentle, easy ways to trigger the vagus nerve. You may want to check out our post on using the Voo Sound, popularized by trauma work pioneer Peter Levine. Further, a quick search on YouTube for “vagus nerve reset” will guide you to many other easy tutorials that demonstrate the principle.

All in all, to quickly encourage the body to release the anxious state, the most important is to go through the body. When the body is appropriately allowed and supported to release the anxious state, the thoughts will gradually calm down.

What does not help is thinking, or mental looping, as this reinforces the tunnel vision and restricted thinking that goes along with anxiety. It is hard to stop thinking during an anxiety attack, therefore going through the body is much easier. Calm the body first, and the mind will follow.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a very uncomfortable state of being, which has physiological aspects as well as mental and emotional components.

At the physical level, it is experienced as inability to be still, difficulty breathing, rapid heartbeat, sweating, muscle and stomach tension.

At the emotional level, anxiety is felt as a degree of fear, ranging from dread, panic, and terror, to vague unease.

Mentally, anxiety is characterized by worries and obsessions, looping thoughts, and preoccupations with “what ifs…”

What are the signs and symptoms of anxiety?

Chronic anxiety shows up in many ways. Anxiety is strongly correlated with stress and is sometimes indistinguishable. Anxiety generates many health problems, such as stomach and digestion problems, muscle pain, and lowered immunity. Some physical signs that you may have anxiety include high blood pressure, stomach problems, and muscle tension.

Anxiety is most commonly diagnosed because of mental or emotional distress, such as being burdened with worry, tension, and the inability to relax. When you are unable to dismiss worries, especially when you realize that they are out of balance, but you are unable to let them go, that is anxiety. If you are familiar with states of intense dread and panic, you are likely dealing with anxiety.

What are the different types of anxiety?

Anxiety comes in many shapes and forms, with different diagnoses. The most common types of anxiety are generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These conditions are related because they all have to do with fear and maladaptive attempts to cope with intense unease.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is diagnosed when people experience the symptoms of anxiety to a life-disrupting degree, and when the anxiety appears throughout their lives (is “generalized”).

Panic disorder is diagnosed when a person experiences panic attacks.

Phobias refer to anxiety that is centered around specific topics, such as social phobia when we fear social connection and contact with groups or other people.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a form of anxiety that involves compulsive behavior and obsessive thoughts.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is diagnosed when the anxiety is clearly connected to specific traumas.

When is it best to get help for anxiety?

Some anxiety is completely normal – we all go in and out of states of tension, and having anxiety isn’t anything to feel ashamed of or to take on board as a fault or failing. We have all been socially trained to think negative thoughts and to keep ourselves in states of edginess. Furthermore, almost all of us sustain some form of lighter or heavier trauma.

If anxiety is making your life miserable, we here at Villa Kali Ma extend you our compassion, and we encourage you to get some kind of help. That help doesn’t have to be clinical, though it could be. Anxiety can be helpfully treated through many different paths, including yoga, diet, meditation, even massage and essential oils. You should be able to find a kind of help that fits you and who you are, what you value, and what you really need.

The loneliness of any mental health condition is usually a big component of the suffering and can be greatly lessened by reaching out to someone who will connect with you kindly to help you find a solution.

What treatment programs does Villa Kali Ma have that can assist women with anxiety?

Villa Kali Ma addresses anxiety through our women’s mental health treatment program, and through our dedicated trauma facility. Healing anxiety is also a part of recovery from substance abuse, as most substances disrupt our ability to self-regulate our emotions, so we address it in our addiction treatment programs.

It can be helpful to know that the strong majority of women who turn to substances to cope with their lives have experienced some measure of traumatization, and frequently qualify for an anxiety disorder.

Overall, the interactions between alcohol, drugs, anxiety, trauma, and mental health are complex and require thoughtful, attentive care to unravel and treat. It can be done, though! We know, because we’ve helped many women free themselves already.

Why is holistic treatment most ideal for anxiety?

We at Villa Kali Ma strongly favor holistic treatment for anxiety for one simple reason: the existing mainstream medical solutions, prescription anxiolytic drugs, do not work except as an instant fix. They do not cure the underlying condition, and instead lead to addiction. To us, this is not a solution, but rather a trap.

Holistic treatments sometimes take longer and require that we do hard work to change at deep levels (though that work is not as hard as we may fear). However, changes made through holistic treatment are longer lasting, have no side effects, and have the upside of leading us into greater, kinder contact with ourselves.

That said, we integrate our holistic approaches with the Western medical model for a reason. For us, it is not an either-or, but rather a case of both models working together.

Villa Kali Ma supports natural remedies for anxiety

Villa Kali Ma offers many natural treatment paths for healing anxiety. We treat women’s anxiety with nutrition, yoga, mindfulness, creative arts therapies, outdoor therapies, massage therapy, aromatherapy, and body psychotherapy (somatic therapy), in addition to the most effective psychotherapy approaches available.

References:

Hand Space I Arizona Trauma Institute I Somatic Exercises

Micro Movements I Arizona Trauma Institute I Somatic Exercises

Categories
Mental Health

Happy Women’s Equality Day

In times of turmoil, it’s good to remember that change is possible.

How do we know change is possible? Because there have been many extraordinary moments in our collective past when positive leaps of societal evolution took place seemingly out of nowhere.

Women’s Equality Day celebrated every August 26th since the early 1970s, is intended to honor one such significant moment in history.

What is Women’s Equality Day?

Before 1920, women were prohibited by law from voting in any elections. Women were presumed to be politically irrelevant, even too delicate for the difficulties of politics.

Of course, many women did not see it the same way, but since women’s voices were not represented, it was difficult to change public perception. To this day, equality remains a disputed topic.

Since the passing of the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920, women have been participating in politics in greater measure, as voters as well as elected representatives.

Achieving the right to vote was an important milestone for women because it meant that women had to be reckoned with in the political sphere. Once women gained the right to vote, candidates running for office needed to inform themselves and show some measure of care for topics close to women’s hearts, in order to get elected.

Gradually, through political action and other channels, the subjective experience of women gained visibility and greater understanding within the larger collective consciousness. Women gradually became protagonists in the story of life, and not only objects and side characters, just there to support the narratives of men.

What is the history of Women’s Equality Day?

In the early 1970s, 50 years after the proclamation which granted the women’s vote was signed into law by then-Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, Women’s Equality Day was officially designated by Congress as a day to celebrate and recognize the importance of women’s suffrage.

A proclamation was introduced by New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug in 1971 and again in 1973, as debates and struggles over the (still controversial) topic of the Equal Rights Amendment took place all around the nation. Abzug’s proclamation was a response to the 1970 Women’s Strike for Women’s Equality.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon issued a proclamation officially recognizing August 26th as Women’s Rights Day, and in 1973 Congress approved the resolution, changing the name to Women’s Equality Day. Since then, each President has rededicated August 26th in honor of Women’s Equality.

What is the importance of Women’s Equality Day?

Women who grew up with the right to vote may not have full appreciation for the bitter nature of the struggle that was necessary to bring women’s equality to the light of national attention. As unsupportive of the female principle as our current social structure is, the situation was worse in the generations immediately before us, in which basic rights of protection and recognition of our subject-hood were not given. It’s an important reminder to preserve and protect what we cherish, which our foremothers sought to ensure for us.

As all generations of women stand on the shoulders of those before us, it’s important to understand and recognize what women before us fought for, and what they overcame.

Women’s Equality Day is important because it reminds us to never forget the power of people coming together with a positive purpose.

What are ways to honor Women’s Equality Day?

Express Your Point of View

If you appreciate your right to vote, to have an opinion, political or otherwise, and to express your personal point of view, say thank you in your heart right now to the women who came before us.

You may also celebrate them and what they gave so that we could be free, by exercising those freedoms now, for example by speaking your mind!

Use your politically-protected right to express yourself by sharing what you see, what you feel, and what you sense about yourself, each other, and our world. Your subjectivity matters.


Enjoy Being You

In 2024, American women have the most freedom to be themselves we have ever had in recorded history. We are free to compete, to win, to be strong, to be creative, to be intelligent.

Perhaps most important of all, we are free to live our lives from within, as the authors of our own experience and not only as an object of another person’s lens. We have the opportunity to live our lives from the inside out, and not the other way around.

We are here not only to be looked at but also to look. We are active, organic, alive intelligence in a human body, representing the feminine principle and perspective, as grandmothers, daughters, sisters, wives, girlfriends, partners, elders, matriarchs, leaders, and more.

Enjoy your freedom to be a person, unique and individual in all the beautiful ways you actually are, by actually being you, whatever that looks like today. Be as authentic as you can. Forgive yourself for not matching the impossible standard. Let yourself be you. This is a freedom worth cherishing.

What are ways to support Women’s Equality Day?

If Women’s Equality Day means something to you, talk about it to people in your life. Reflect on what it means that just over a century ago, we were considered politically irrelevant, presumed to not have anything of value to contribute to the political sphere. If you disagree with that, speak up and contribute. Shine your light, and share your piece!

You may also want to go out of your way to lend extra support and recognition to women you know who are holding it down in a difficult spot, or who are pioneering in their field. Watch movies made by women, listen to women’s music, support women-owned businesses, and learn more about women’s experiences.

Every moment, in every day, we are gradually shifting this “man’s world” back to a world in which men and women are equal partners in the co-creation of our social structure, sharing power in mutual appreciation, recognition, and protection of all.

Villa Kali Ma supports Women’s Equality Day

At Villa Kali Ma, as a women-centered business providing services for women, we support Women’s Equality Day! We value women – ourselves and the women in our lives. That’s why we’re devoted to helping all women everywhere experience the freedom of healing profoundly from trauma, addiction, and mental illness.  The more women are healed, the more we can heal the rest of the world too.

Happy Women’s Equality Day to all! 

Categories
Mental Health

How to Maintain Mental Health from Summer to Fall

Seasonal Changes Affect Women’s Mental Health

The annual shift from the warm, lazy days of summer to the cooling, darkening days of fall can and often does affect women’s feelings, stirring melancholy to rise up to the surface.

Many of us feel echoes of loss and the hints of winter’s upcoming celebrations and darkness. The changes in sunlight, temperature, and return to time indoors can stimulate and disrupt us.

For those of us who have a harder time keeping an even keel, we may suffer during changes of season. Fall can feel like a wind sweeping through, stirring us up and scattering us around.

Is it hard to trust the natural shifts and changes in our own inner and outer worlds? Do we turn depressed or anxious, destabilized, or fall into painful states of being? If so, we may need extra attention and TLC to adjust.

How can we accept these natural, predictable yearly shifts? How can we prepare for the upcoming transition into fall and winter?

Here are some ideas from Villa Kali Ma, as to how we might embrace the wisdom of nature’s seasonal shifts and go more gracefully into the next chapter.

Do women struggle with mental health more in the summer or fall season?

Seasonal Affective Disorder is triggered by the change of season, most commonly kicking in around the fall. Although some women struggle with summer, too, more of us tend to struggle at the end of summer, as darker seasons appear on the horizon.

This struggle shifting from summer to fall has natural and social components. In part, we are affected by changes in sunlight, the amount of outdoor time (nature and being outdoors are healing and regulating, and good for mental health), and dropping temperatures.

At the same time, many women are affected by the long-reinforced pattern of fall being a back-to-school time of year, as well as anticipation of the winter holidays, which bring family topics to the fore.

Signs of Seasonal Affective Disorder include losing energy, feelings of sadness, and a dropping away of feelings of connection, purpose, and inspiration.

We also might find ourselves turning to self-soothing behaviors like overeating or spending aimless time on the internet or phone, as our old coping behaviors appear in response to the increase of sadness and pain internally.

What are some ways women can maintain their mental health in the fall?

Take Care of the Body

When it comes to maintaining a better state of being during the shift of seasons, there are many body-oriented hacks that help.

Focus on nutrition, taking advantage of the sun when it is there, good workouts, sufficient sleep, and weekly time in nature. In general, when we keep our bodies happy and supplied with mood-regulating hormones through these natural practices, our state of mind will be much more resilient.

Stay in Connection

Connection with others is key to reducing isolation. Think of ways you could get more emotional contact with safe support during this time. People in recovery can double up on meetings, or attend a recovery-themed retreat. If you’re in therapy, you might consider scheduling some extra sessions, following the principle that prevention is the best medicine. Dedicated time having fun with positive friends and loved ones may do the trick, too.

Embrace the Season

Deliberately enjoying the best sides of a season can help, too. If we consciously choose to enjoy the golden light of Indian Summer, the arrival of squash and pumpkins at the farmers market, or the smell of drying walnut leaves, whatever it is that we personally love, we can align ourselves with the beauties of the season.

Journal to Prepare for Fall

Here is a suggestion for a journal writing prompt about the seasonal shift:

What do I love most about this time of year?

How might I get the most out of what this time of year offers?

What is hardest for me about this time of year?

How might I protect and care for myself during the difficult sides of this season?

What does fall mean to me personally? What does it mean to nature? What does it mean to my fellow humans?

Make a Fall Self Care Plan

If you think about it, each season is only 3 months long. Can we make and commit to a 90-day plan? If that feels too long, go month-by-month, starting with September. Think about what you can put on the calendar that will help you feel loved, supported, and treated like you matter.

Here is a way you could put that plan together.

Step One: Brainstorm

Free write and get out everything you think and feel about how you could have a good experience of this season, fall 2024.

I believe I can have a positive experience this fall by…

My vulnerabilities and areas of need this fall are…


Step Two: Remember Your Tools

Now that you’ve thought about the season from the bigger picture point of view, generate a list of all of your tools.

Be creative. Self-care can mean a lot of things. In our opinion here at Villa Kali Ma, a good self-care plan will address these very important pieces at the very least:

-Body – exercise, nutrition, sleep

-Emotions – feeling our feelings, connecting with others, releasing

–Inner Child – connecting with ourselves, having creative fun and giving ourselves our attention, scheduling things that will give us joy

-Support – getting help, contact, and connection with others

What are 10 tools I have that support my body to be happy?

-I can sleep in on the weekends

-I can make myself green juice

-I can go to yoga 3 X a week…

What are 10 tools I have that support my emotional health?

What are 10 tools I have to give love to my inner child?

What are 10 tools I have to help myself get support from others that help me?


Step Three: Put Self-Care on the Calendar

Whatever you came up with in your brainstorm and your list of tools, take a few pieces out and put them on the calendar. Choose low-hanging fruits, things that feel easy, fun, doable, and energizing. Where there are foreseeable difficulties, see if you can couch them between acts of self-care. Make a plan that feels good to you personally.

Villa Kali Ma offers mental health programs

Villa Kali Ma is a unique healing facility dedicated to helping women experience true mental health and happiness, at the deepest levels of being. We offer programs to treat traumatization, heal emotional wounds, and repair thoughts about ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Our experienced staff are prepared to address any variation of women’s suffering, and we have many tools, practitioners, and modalities at the ready. We treat addiction, trauma, and mental health troubles with a compassionate and effective blend of Western and Eastern modalities.

Villa Kali Ma supports women’s mental health

Since it was founded, Villa Kali Ma has served women’s mental health loyally, bringing innovative, alternative, and evidence-based breakthroughs to women in need of healing. We unite the best of the West with the ancient healing wisdom from the East.

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