JJ: Welcome back, Lynne.

Lynne: Thank you, JJ.

JJ: So this is probably our fourth show. We have done “Understanding and Healing Addiction,” which was probably the most popular. And we did that recently. And I would highly encourage people who are listening to this, if you are attracted to this show, please go back and listen, if no other show, to that one as well. “Understanding and Healing Addiction.” I believe it’s Episode 82. So the reason why I wanted to bring Lynne back on to do this show is because I see people communicating and talking… And while I’m not trying to control what you’re all talking about, I want to offer solutions for people. And my understanding of depression is that someone feels powerless. And when I hear people talking about depression as if it is something that has happened to them that they have no control over, I find myself wanting to, again, do this show and educate people and check in with people, like Lynne, to just make sure I’m on the right page here, that you’re not powerless and that that belief, that predication of that sort of victim mentality is keeping you in depression. But because my knowledge of depression isn’t as clinical, I wanted to bring Lynne back on. So let’s just start there. Lynne, do people transform depression, or is it something that happens to them?

Lynne: Well, things happen to us. How we interpret them can put or leave us or keep us stuck in a state that feels like depression, because depression is just suppressed energy.

JJ: So you’ve told me that there’s many kinds of depression, but you wanted to talk about three kinds specifically.

Lynne: Yeah. I’d like to talk about three kinds of depression that I think most of us have experienced at some point in our life. If not all three, maybe one or two. And the first one is situational depression, where if someone has lost their job or lost somebody in their life, but they’re focused on what they don’t have anymore. And some people are unconsciously focused on what they never had. Maybe for example, a loving family, support in certain areas of their lives. The way we think about things, the way we interpret things keep us in a negative energy loop. And we have filters. So if we keep using the filter of what we don’t have, we’re going to get stuck in that negativity and that energy that becomes heavy over time.

JJ: Now, what about the people who… And maybe this is going to get covered as we go through the other two kinds of depression, but interpretation. I’m hearing you 100%, and I am all about that, in terms of changing up the way that we interpret or see something and we change the perspective. But in terms of the feeling part of it, are we going to talk about that? Because it sounds almost like a head thing, talking to yourself and how we talk to ourselves and the stories that we’re telling and being able to change the story, right? So changing the story would help with situational depression, right?

Lynne: Yes. And I’ll give you an example. I was working with a woman. We’ll call her Jane. And she came in and she was really depressed. And I asked her what was going on, and she said, “You know, the big issue is I don’t think my mother really loved me.” And I asked her what evidence she had of that. And one of the things she said was when she was a little girl and she was going to school, they lived on a farm and she’d have to walk very far. I mean, a couple of miles a day to get to school. And her mom would make her this cereal that tasted awful, she said. And she said, “How, if my mother loved me, could she feed me this cereal?” And her interpretation was that it was a negative thing, that her mom didn’t love her. And from that came a drain of energy in Jane’s body which, over time, got more and more so. And when I spoke with her mother and asked her how come she fed her that cereal, her mother said, without hesitation, “I knew that she needed to sustain herself for hours. And it was a cereal that we made from fresh grains. And we soaked it overnight, and we put this and that.” And the mother really went through how much care and love went into the cereal. “And I know she didn’t like it, but I didn’t know anything else to feed her that would nourish her and keep her warm and help her feel safe throughout the morning.”So that cereal was made out of love, but Jane interpreted it, because she didn’t like the taste, as something that was being done to her. As JJ was saying, she was a victim of the cereal. And so, once she finally saw why her mom did it, once she saw the true explanation and understood that there was love behind it, she was able to let go of the depression and the feeling that her mother never loved her.

JJ: So then we’re looking at a situation right now, an example of situational depression that started as a child and got carried through to adulthood. And so this person, Jane, had situational depression, even though she probably felt depressed about it for 20 or 30 years?

Lynne: Yes. And when we get stuck in a piece like this, we adapt to a filter. So Jane is looking at all of her relationships since she was a kid and saying, “Does this person love me? How do I know? They need to prove it. I need signs.” And she’ll need specific signs to that. So situational depression, for instance, let’s say somebody loses a job. It’s the same thing. Are you looking through it at a filter that says “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough,” something negative about yourself? Or can you look at it as “How did I create this?” and shift that, or “This is not the right position for me. I wasn’t happy in it anyway. And so now this frees me up to go look for something that may be my life purpose, that may be a happier position for me to be in, that I may be of service, that I may be of purpose, or something that I just plain enjoy.”? How do we see it? It’s how we look at it. It’s not what happens. It’s what we do with it. And so what voice inside of you…? Is it going to be the critical voice that takes over when something happens? Because that will lead us towards depressed energy and not feeling good about ourselves. Or is it going to be that inner coach, that loving adult voice that says, “That’s okay. You didn’t like that job anyway.”? Or this is one of my favorite expressions. “The barn burned down. Now I can see the moon.”

JJ: Haven’t heard that before.

Lynne: So if we incorporate that energy, “The barn burned down, and now I can see the moon,” into what happens to us, it’s not really a “to us.” It’s a “for us.” So what’s happening for you that you need to look at? And that is one of the ways to move past that situational depression, where you’re just beating yourself up and you can’t see the good in it. Ask yourself, “What’s good about this?” And if you can focus on that, the energy will come up, you will get into motion again, and you will probably find a better place to be yourself, a better way to love, a better way to see things.

JJ: It’s changing perspective. And we’re going to do a whole show about nonviolent communication and what I think is really great work about that, and identifying your feelings and your needs and things like that, and being able to see from someone else’s point of view because that’s the piece here with this, it sounds like. And I know that’s like a huge issue with people. Why is it do you think Jane couldn’t put

Lynne: Well, I think as children, we just accept a lot from parents. And the thing is that it stayed with her. And I think what happens for most of us is it gets into a groove, and it gets like a well-worn record, over and over. We so believe it to be true in our psyche that we don’t even check it out. So checking it out is one way to break a pattern. To check it out with a person, to check it out with your higher self, to go in and ask, “Is this really true, or is this my interpretation of it?”

JJ: Right. Okay. And that’s what we’re all about here, obviously. It’s hard to keep our shows down to 30 minutes, because I just want to talk about this for the next five hours for that reason. I’m not saying we need to speed up. My love of this uncovering is really in the empowerment of every situation, and taking any belief system and sort of just twisting it around and upside-down, and go “Hey, what about this? What if we look at it this way?” because of the freedom that comes with that. But I’m not going to go off that tangent right now. So we have situational depression.

Lynne: That’s number one.

JJ: Okay. What’s number two?

Lynne: Number two is the one that most people think they have, and that is a chemical depression. So you’re on antidepressants, SSRIs, or maybe even something natural. And chemical depression really does exist. In my work with people, I see that it doesn’t exist as much as they think it does. And when we get to number three, we’re going to see what it is for most people. But what I do want to say about chemical is, of course, if you really need something, see somebody and get either a supplement or a medication. But serotonin is the neurotransmitter that makes us feel good. That’s why women reach for chocolate. We get a little serotonin boost from that. Serotonin is made in the gut. And when we get to be around, I’d say, 35 or 40, our digestive systems are not working well. And so the gut can stop producing serotonin, which is why some need to go to either a chemical or a supplement.

So check your digestion. One of the things you can do is to check your digestion if you feel that you have a chemical depression. And also, check your Vitamin D. Let your doctor do a Vitamin D lab for you so that you could see, because these are both two things that contribute to the actual physical depression. When in holistic work we add a digestive supplement or something along the lines that your stomach needs to kind of get back on line and produce what it needs to produce again in the neurotransmitters to help you feel good, things can change. Sometimes, people don’t even need a supplement. So check with that, too. If you feel that it’s chemical, have somebody check with you and see what’s going on with your numbers. Or there are serotonin tests to actually run.

JJ: Lynne, in terms of chemical depression, two things: one thing I want to ask and one thing I want to add. The thing I want to add from when I’m listening about serotonins made in your gut, and one of the reasons probably why your gut isn’t working as much as well into your 30’s and 40’s, is the quality of food that you’re eating as well as the lack of enzymes and probiotics that we have in our diets. So everyone, please check back with Tasty Tuesdays. This is what we cover on this show in terms of the cooking and eating good foods that serve you and also transform your ability to make your happy drug, to make serotonin. So on that note, there is a test out there, and I think it’sSanesco. It’s a neurotransmitter test. It tests all the different neurotransmitters. Do you ever use or recommend anything like that? What do you think of something like that?

Lynne: For me, I think the tests are good. I use them for testing. But mostly for me, I can see. So I honestly like to save the client a couple hundred dollars and just muscle test them and see what they need. Because of the intuitive part, I can pretty much see what they need and what would be helpful for them. But for those that are more scientific and would like to see your numbers on paper, absolutely.

JJ: Okay. Again, today we’re at 96 countries. There are people that you’ll not be able to muscle test maybe soon or ever. And so for those people, sending them to something like Sanesco to get that. I haven’t had the test done, but I’ve been fascinated by it, and I really would like to because it just looks very interesting to see where your [15:16] levels are and your norepinephrine and just neurotransmitters. So that way, rather than just running to a drug that may disrupt, if you see that your melatonin is out or out of balance because you just supplemented on your own and took too much melatonin and now you’re out of balance or something. So I just want to get your feed on something like that.

Lynne: Sure. Yeah.

JJ: Okay. So we’re on to number three.

Lynne: Number three. And this is the biggest. It is suppression. It is suppression due to what we were told as kids. “Don’t express yourself. Don’t have feelings.” The things that were said to us.The things that were not said to us that we gathered. And probably in those situations, in most situations, it was probably true. We learned just not to express ourselves, to be quiet, to endure, and to be scared. When we’re in a scared emotion, when we’re in a survival emotion, our energy shrinks and we contract. And the more we contract, the more we’re suppressed, the more we start to move towards depression. Because what is depression? Depression is suppressed energy from wherever it comes from. And those emotions that are buried become suppressed energy, which can make us feel like the world is not a safe place, where it’s not okay to have needs. It’s not okay to say your truth. We question our lovability, which follows us through our lives. The lovability question is a question that more women have than men. Women are more afraid of abandonment, and self-esteem can be lower. And a lot of times, that’s through the mother contact when we’re growing up, because a child learns to look at mom, to say “How am I doing?” And if we don’t get that positive feedback, we start to shrink. Shrinking, suppression, and then depression.

JJ: Would you also say that some of that suppression, besides what we’re told, is also shown through modeling? So maybe I wasn’t told not to do something, but because my parents showed me that they didn’t like doing that or they didn’t think that was good, that then, of course, that energetically, without words, got translated to me.

Lynne: Absolutely. And I would ask people, “What is the climate? What is the emotional climate that was in your house when you were growing up? Was it free? Was it easy? Was it tense? Was it angry?” And then another exercise that people can do for themselves is to find a quiet place and do some belly breathing. And after you feel calm, bring up an image of your family sitting around the dining room table, having a meal when you were a kid, and feel what that was like in your body. And just be with that. And so many of my clients see from that distance, what the years of distance between then and now, how their body feels. They literally tense up when they’re doing it in my office, or they start to get nauseous. But you start to see things from a distance because you’re not “in it” in it at that point in time. You’re in it emotionally. And just learn for you what that was, because that can lead you to ask questions or seek help in understanding “Where is my suppression coming from? What was I taught? What was I told?” And there’s other vehicles. There’s society and there’s religion. And there’s many ways that we learn to stifle ourselves and be quiet. Society teaches us to look good. Feel bad, but look good. And so we’ve got this internal conflict going on.

JJ: We published a show that was about empowerment and fitness, and empowerment through fitness. And one of the things that’s obvious about fitness and for me and with Fit 2 Love and my movement of wanting people to understand that it’s more effective when it comes from a place of self-love and nurturing and not from doing it because you don’t like yourself, or you reinforce that “I’m only lovable when I look good,” but what I didn’t realize until you just said this because I’ve been so against it for so long is that society does expect us to not be happy, because somehow we’ve attached that to selfishness. Now, I want to address that because I feel like that’s a huge piece here, that people who might be depressed feel like giving themselves attention or love or doing something nice or talking to themselves in a nice way or paying attention to themselves somehow has shame attached to it. Can you speak to that?

Lynne: Yeah. I think depression does have shame attached to it. And we were taught to give. And again, I’m going to go to religion here because the religions tend to teach people how to be with other people. So if you were brought up in a time and place where you were taught to give to others and not take care of yourself, that’s something that needs to change. And again, men don’t seem to have this as much as women because women are taught to care for others and take care of others. Self-love and self-nurturing needs to be number one for you. And ask yourself daily, “What have I done to make my spirit bigger? Is it cooking healthy food? Is it working out?” Working out is one of the best things you can do for yourself. It not only moves everything in your body, which helps move the stuck energy, which helps move you away from suppression, but it also makes you feel triumphant. It makes you feel challenged. It makes you feel good about yourself because you’ve done something good for yourself. And it’s very helpful in not picking up the wrong foods. So when I was on staff at Pritikin, which is a health center in Santa Monica, people were worked out twice a day so that they didn’t crave so much. And it was a very successful program.

JJ: Well, I’m all about recommending exercise to combat depression, if for no other reason, because sometimes people resist the idea of exercise because of the shame attached to “I’m exercising because I think I should look better” or all of that. And really, it’s that energy management. It’s that anxiety release. It’s that movement of chi. And just like you just said, it’s keeping you in a better feeling place. So for anyone out there, we’re going to add that to the list. I want to go through each of these depressions again and give one or two recommendations for people who want to try working out on their own.

Lynne: Do not let your critical voice run the show. Again, go back to the question, “What’s good about this?” and find the silver lining in it, so that you can mobilize your energy towards what’s good about this. Do not let your critical voice just beat you up and tell you things that are not true. But do look at “What can I do to change this? What was my role in whatever happened?” Clean up your side of the street, and then put your energy and your focus into shifting.

JJ: Okay. Number two. If I am on medication and I have been told that I have chemical depression, what can I do?

Lynne: Well, you might want to do some testing. Or if you feel fine on your medication, just stay on the medication. I would definitely look at your digestive system, though, and see a natural practitioner. And find out if you can turn the serotonin back on, because if you can, that might be very helpful. I would also look at Vitamin D. And even if you have chemical depression, speaking to somebody can be very helpful because they can still give you different ways to see situations.

JJ: And there is a book called “The Biology of Belief.” I mean, if we can emotionally vibrate higher, it changes our chemistry, yes?

Lynne: Oh, yeah. Again, depression makes us feel dark. We feel dark. And we want to bring in the light. And it’s “How do we bring in the light?” And part of it is to keep your body moving. Keep your mind moving in the right way, in “The barn burned down, and now I can see the moon.” That’s the energy you want to be in, not the “I’m not good. I’m this. I’m that.” Do not let that happen. Exercise. Move your body. Talk to family and friends. Network. Do not go into eating and drinking, which will only be destructive behavior and will just get you stuck and may even dig you deeper in what your critical voice believes to be true. Do not give it the power. Use your intuition to ask, “What is the first step I need to do in moving past this? What is the first step I can take in creating a shift?” Find a time and a place to express your feelings. Talk with someone. Work it through. But you see, all these suggestions are movement of energy. So don’t let the energy get stuck because that is what depression is. It is stuck energy.

JJ: And I’ve heard, based on some of the work I do with law of attraction, that also depression is the lowest vibration energy and that it’s also powerlessness, feeling powerless. And I’m really wanting people to hear that and understand that this show, your work, my work, this movement I’m trying to get started here is that we are never powerless. Even when you’re telling yourself and you’re looking around and your viewpoint is that “I am powerless,” pick up “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. I have not read the book. I heard about it through Wayne Dyer. I know that the message was this was a concentration camp victim, beaten, almost left for dead, tortured, and he still came away with knowing that “You could beat me. You can torture me. You can kill my family. You can do all these horrible things,

Lynne: Part of what I just spoke about would help with the suppression also. Move, move, move.Exercise. Move your energy. Use your intuition. All of those will work for the situational depression, the suppression. And the chemical is a little bit different, but for the two other ones, suppression and situational, any of those will help. You want to see your energy like a moving river. And right now, when you’re feeling depression, it may feel like the lake is frozen. It may feel like there’s boulders in it, so your life force is low. You want to get your life force up. Movement. Don’t listen to your critical voice. If you want supplements, take supplements. That’s quite all right. Check the digestion. Any type of depression or suppression, all of that works.

JJ: Okay. And for the last and final piece, of course, you do phone consultations and work with people on the phone if they don’t live nearby. Correct?

Lynne: I do. I can read their neurotransmitters or their chemicals. So I can see where the depression is coming from, the source of it, what they believe that’s holding it in place. Yes, I do.

JJ: Great. So now, let us know. I know it’s lynneboutross.com. Go ahead and tell us where people can find you if they really want to reach out and sort of get to the bottom of what’s going on with them.

Lynne: Yeah. My website is lynneboutross.com, and the phone number is 424-234-8767.

JJ: And if you haven’t guessed already, I am a client of Lynne’s. And she’s been on the show now four times. And I’m going to continue to have her back anytime things come up about things I want to share with you, because my mission is to empower you in every aspect of life to be able to do what we’re talking about, and know that you have the ability to pull yourself out and to live the life that you want to. And here are some of the tools to do that. So Lynne, thank you so much for being here.

Lynne: Thank you.