The day I posted the Journal entry on Postpartum Depression, I received this Richard Russell piece from his Dow Theory Letters, a financial advisory letter that he has printed daily since 1958. Here are his ideas on one facet of depression. I agree with his viewpoints, as presented, and so I would like to share them with you at this time. In no way does this opinion go into the essence of the source of depression, but some societal patterns are presented here which assist our understanding about how depression (frozen buried shadow anger) may be evoked in certain individual types. We are a society that pursues happiness on the “outside” of self. We are enmeshed with an identity crisis, day in, and day out.
Mr. Russell is 86 years old.
The Dow Theory Letters, by Richard L. Russell, September 16, 2010:
“ I’ve hesitated to write about this “hot” subject, but what the hell, I write what I’ve learned and what I think is important, so here goes. There’s more to life than making money, as most youngsters will find out.
The sports sections of almost every newspaper feature advertisements about male inadequacy. And the inadequacies are all sexual. Do this, grow that, try this pill, thrill her with this, thrill her with “an unbelievable 24-hour session”; all this depends on the mistaken male fantasy that every women wants more and better sex. Try this yourself, ask any woman what she really wants, and the answer will probably surprise you. What most women want is not “better and wilder and longer sex-sessions,”‘ what they really want is CLOSENESS. And closeness is something that most men know little or nothing about.
What most women want (and this is the opposite of all those ridiculous and misleading ads) is closeness and an emotional experience without being pressured for sex.
Many women submit to sex because this is the only way they know of — to get emotionally closer to a man.
Probably the most wide-spread psychological problem facing the US (and world) population today is depression. I believe that much of this depression comes from an early and maybe later lack of the feeling of closeness. More Americans live alone today than at any other time in US history.
It’s common today to meet divorced women or single women who live alone. This is made possible because of today’s women working and being able to support themselves — without the “baggage” of husbands or boyfriends they’re not crazy about. Today many women would rather live alone than live with a man they feel no closeness with. Many men marry for sex, few women do.
The ads that we read in the newspapers every day are nutty and far from the truth. These ads drive men both crazy and competitive, and the stupid ads set them on the wrong course. The answer to a man’s frustration and unhappiness is not “male dysfunctioning.” Men’s problem is failure to know how to be close with anyone, particularly with women.
Many so-called sexual studs live alone. No woman wants them. Today the idea of love, romance, and emotional attachments is ignored or even denigrated. The ads for male super-sexualtiy have taken over. We’re raising a generation of depressed individuals and confused, narcissistic men.
Today there are more single women in the US work force than single men. It started with women in the defense factories during WWII when that famous poster showed Rosy the Riveter flexing her muscular arm and saying “We Can Do It!”
In the “old days,” whole families lived together. Fathers, mothers, children, grand parents and even great-grand parents lived under one roof.
Today kids leave the nest and go out to live alone or to marry for the wrong reasons. No wonder divorce rates are surging. No wonder the phrase, “starter marriage” has come into the language. Hollywood seems to set the standards for the nation. Read US or Star, and you’ll read about nothing but divorce, depression, break-downs and cheating wives and husbands.
Today many women dress provocatively — the more skin that shows, the better to attract men on a sexual basis. But ironically, it is not “great and lasting sex” that women want. It is the long-lost closeness that is missing. And what do we have in place of closeness? Often it is depression, and a life of frustration and living alone.”
Crestone and Beyond
And there you have it, a perspective about a dimension of the depression problem, from someone who has been around—for a while.
Now I would like to offer some observations on breast and prostate cancer, as I have come to understand these chaotic cell growth patterns in my physician journey.
As an additional commentary on feeling states and the depression issue, I uniformly observe a common thread with prostate cancer clients. I have come to appreciate that this common malady is uniformly rooted in a man’s difficulties in feeling his emotional terrain and past buried wounds, and staying stuck in denial about all of that.
The trick is to get the man into his body and out of his dissociative left brain thinking based facade. Then he has to become familiar with his feeling states. We feel in the body. We think about feelings (or not) in the brain. Prostate cancer, and all of the cancers, are based on emotional disorders which create chaotic cell growth patterns.
Many men create illusions of difference, comparison, and competitiveness in order to protect their self-esteem via ongoing efforts at one-upsmanship. This requires a mental processing and engagement internally in the thinking world, and externally in the world of action. At some point this becomes exhaustive as neurotransmitters are depleted in these vain efforts.
Most guys just live in their thinking brain world. The Heart is overruled, or disregarded entirely and the transmission of chaotic Heart electromagnetic into the wounded chakra systems commences. The prostate gland is about woundings (memoried trauma) in the 1st and 2nd chakras which have never been acknowledged and healed.
I began to understand the connection between emotional chaos and cancer during my surgical years when I dealt with the unresolved Heart wounds in women who presented to me for surgical help with their breast cancer. This cancer is a disorder of 4th chakra energetics, and the key feature is grief. I was always able to find some history of long standing unresolved grief trailings, in addition to a more significant grief within a 2-5 year period prior to the diagnosis. A common grief was a felt sense of betrayal, or loss, in significant relationships.
Multiple relationship betrayals or losses in a short time span compound this risk. Relationship dynamics are how we learn about ourselves. The relationship mirrors some aspects of ourselves to us.
There are other risk factors for breast cancer, but these are not uniformly present. If they are present in a sensitized ongoing grief process in a woman’s life, then I believe that the risk of breast cancer is magnified.
Taking this one step further, all disease states have their origin in unhealed emotional chaos (unhealed, unforgiven trauma). Most people will be intimidated and resistant to this concept because it means that one will have to become accountable for the resolution of one’s woundedness, and the coherent reordering of one’s Grief Box. See the prior Journal entry on the psycho-emotional considerations of depression which introduces this concept.
You become the Wounded Healer when you begin to take accountability for your Identity Crisis issues. After you begin to own your own healing, you can legitimately assist others. You do not need some special degree or institutional proclamation, but you do need to understand your boundaries of how far you should go with your healing abilities. Some authority dictocrat organization might come along to sanction and squash you.
We are all inherent healers. I hope that you have a physician in your life who understands that concept. It is part of our chemical and psychic make up. Healing is a natural intelligence which we all possess. It often requires assistance from us at the conscious level, but usually it is just happening on its own at the subconscious level. Deeply held subconscious trauma imprints and subsequent faulty belief systems usually require assistance from an outside healer source.
I go over the emotional frequency states often in this Journal. The recent posting on “Postpartum Depression, Part I, Psycho-emotional Considerations” introduces the Emotional Guidance System. I have also written about this in a number of earlier entries.
I will be posting the “Postpartum Depression, Part II,” entry on the biochemical considerations soon, like in 7-10 days hence.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond
Associated Reading
- What Does the ‘Best Evidence’ Say About Antidepressants?…”Antidepressant drugs — the most widely used therapy for depression — are also among the least effective, and often make the situation worse, especially in the long term.” This article, posted here on 4-4-19, is a must read for anyone who is using antidepressants and wants to get off of them. The dangers and complications of this class of pharmaceuticals is discussed. The correct natural alternatives are explained. This class of drugs is essentially no better than placebo. Antidepressants numb out what it is that we need to be able to feel. As I often tell my clients, “If you can feel it, you can heal it.”
- Mental Health Benefits of Sceletium…this herb from South Africa has effects similar to serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The Designs for Health supplement which has sceletium is called Mood Stasis. Here is a whole website devoted to sceletium.
- How exercise treats depression…some of the interesting biochemistry of how exercise helps depression is covered in this 8-22-19 article from the Mercola website.
- I spent half my life on antidepressants. Today, I’m off medication and feel all right…33 year old Brooke Siem teaches people how to get off of antidepressants. Posted here on 1-11-20, from The Washington Post.
- Symptoms of Prostate Disease You May Have Overlooked…”Prostate cancer is estimated to affect 1 in 9 men during their life; risk factors include advancing age, obesity, smoking and chemical exposure. The disease has few, if any, early warning signs; symptoms include urinary urgency and frequency, difficulty starting and stopping, and pain or burning with urination.” Posted here on 3-6-20, this article features an interview with prostate cancer survivor and award winning filmmaker Peter Starr who documented his healing in a well done video. Peter elected not to receive conventional medical industry treatments. He pursued natural healing therapies instead and has done well.