The Journey Back to Happiness: A Practical and Inspirational Guide and Cookbook for Good Mind Health

By Holly  June

Depression is not a choice. People don’t wake up and think they would like to feel unhappy, empty, or unmotivated all the time. Unfortunately, many of us do not understand depression, and those that are affected, do not want to be portrayed as weak or mentally unstable if they seek help. Thankfully, the stigma around mental health is lifting as more and more people share their stories. This book takes the reader on a journey to discover natural ways to overcome depression and achieve good mind health.

In an inspiring, candid guide and cookbook, Holly June shares insight into how she journeyed through clinical depression to eventually achieve overall happiness through four pillars of mind wellness. After offering a glimpse into her personal story and wellness philosophy, June leads others through a holistic roadmap that provides valuable tools and information regarding foods to eat to attain good mind health, exercises that improve the mood, lifestyle changes that relieve anxiety and manage stress, and ways to live more emotionally and spiritually. Included are over seventy delicious recipes that utilize fresh, wholesome ingredients that nourish the mind, body, and spirit.

The Journey Back to Happiness is a compassionate, practical guide to overcoming depression through easy-to-implement natural tools that help create a meaningful, healthy, and happy life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Dec 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781504391177

Holly  June

Holly June is a holistic health coach, writer, speaker, and mind health advocate who is dedicated to helping people overcome depression through her online mind health programs and speaking engagements. She is the mother of three children and currently resides in Auckland, New Zealand. This is her first book.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 Holly June.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-9116-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-9117-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018911870

Balboa Press rev. date: 12/14/2018

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Contents

Acknowledgement

Introduction

My Story

Chapter 1 Nutrition

Chapter 2 Exercise

Chapter 3 Lifestyle

Chapter 4 Living Well

Conclusion

Chapter 5 Recipes

Breakfast

Salads and Soups

Main Dishes

Sweet Treats

Snacks

Beverages

Basics

To my three beautiful, talented, and amazing children, Samantha, Mitchell, and Mackenzie. I am in awe of what you achieve every day, and I’m truly blessed and honoured to be your mother.

Acknowledgement

I would like to offer my special thanks to my son, Mitchell, for his valuable help, support, and love throughout the writing of this book. His willingness to give his time so generously has been very much appreciated.

Introduction

We all want happiness and good health. We know that we need to look after our physical health, but are you aware that it’s equally important to look after your mental health every day? Both good physical and mental health are extremely important to well-being and happiness. If you struggle with feeling overwhelmed, numb, sad, withdrawn, irritable, or extremely fatigued, you’re not alone.

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 300 million people are affected by depression worldwide¹ and that by 2030 depression will have the greatest global impact of any health issue.²

Depression is not a choice. People don’t wake up and think that they would like to feel unhappy, empty, and unmotivated all the time. Unfortunately, many people don’t understand depression. This makes it hard for depressed people to seek help, as they feel they cannot ask for assistance in case they are seen as weak or mentally unstable. They may feel embarrassed to speak up about their mental health.

Most people feel sad sometimes when something upsetting has happened in their lives, like a relationship break-up or the passing of a loved one. Feeling sad when bad things happen is natural, but usually you begin to feel better after a while. However, sometimes those feelings of sadness turn to hopelessness and despair. If those feelings won’t go away, or they often come out of absolutely nowhere, you could be depressed.

I am not a medical professional, and I don’t have a professional background in mental health. This is a personal book about my life and what I believe is effective for depression based on my own experience. What does depression feel like? Just as everyone’s mind is unique, depression is unique to every individual.

To me, depression felt like darkness—a dark cloud always hanging overhead—as if life had lost its colour. When I was depressed, I felt sad and hopeless, as if the life was sucked out of me. There was no joy in anything. The things that once made me happy didn’t any longer. The things I once loved to do, I dreaded. I had a vague feeling of being here, but not. I had a feeling I belonged somewhere else, an empty feeling, like sitting at the bottom of a dark hole, a numbing of emotions, and, at times, a feeling of not wanting to be alive. It felt as if I’d lost my true self, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get back to happy—the person I once was.

Depression can make you feel guilty. You don’t do things and you know you should, but you just can’t. If you have depression, you often have no motivation to get up or do anything at all. It’s being stuck between not wanting to go to bed and not wanting to get up in the morning. Depression is exhausting! It is exhausting trying to be stronger than you feel. You’re too tired to feel any emotions at all. Does any of this resonate with you? Depression can fluctuate in severity depending on what’s happening in your life, and it can vary in how long you feel depressed.

There is a stigma surrounding people with mental health issues—that they are somehow less than people with good mental health. Depression doesn’t make you any less of a person. It just shows that you may have been internalising your struggle and trying to be strong. You are a courageous and beautiful human being. You have just been trying to be strong for too long.

Today more than ever before, more and more people are talking about their struggles with depression, and the stigma around mental health is starting to lift. It’s hard for people who haven’t experienced depression to understand what it is really like. I wrote this book because I understand what you are going through and I want to offer my experience, support, and love. I know you feel an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. I get that. Don’t despair, as there is always hope if you have faith.

This is my personal story with anecdotal evidence that I hope will offer the tools and guidance needed for anyone seeking to understand or overcome depression. As someone who has personally experienced clinical depression and moved through and beyond the pain, I have come to believe that depression can be treated without drugs. This book shows what has worked for me, and it covers everything that has helped keep me well. I sincerely hope it will work for you also.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to mind health—everyone is made up differently, so we all respond better to different approaches. We need to address the underlying causes of depression in each person instead of approaching the treatment identically. Taking drugs doesn’t cure depression—it just masks the symptoms.

My approach to poor mind health has been trying to understand what the underlying causes are. I believe that depression is not in our heads but in our bodies. When we improve our physical health, we improve our mind health; our energy, vitality, focus, and mood all lift. My approach is to eliminate everything that causes imbalances in the body, while adding what heals and calms the mind.

The most effective treatment involves addressing the whole person, not just the depressive symptoms. I believe that depression is a consequence of something that is missing, a wake-up call that your life is out of balance and that you need to start treating yourself with love and kindness. In order to have good mind health we need to be aware that everything is intimately interconnected. It’s essential to look at our health holistically and give the mind body and spirit equal attention.

However, as I said previously, different things work for different people. You may need medication so you feel well enough to make change, and you may need counselling as well. Antidepressants may be helpful in some cases, but I don’t believe they are necessary in most. First use the four pillars in this book. If you still need help, the option for medication is available.

There is hope. You have already taken the first step by picking up this book. Read it—but don’t do everything at once. Change one thing at a time, maybe take a walk each day, meditate for five minutes, or even dance around your living room. Make small changes. It’s truly gratifying when you are able to stick to even a small intention. Make a note in a small journal each time you do something from this book and then tick if off—for example, I went for a walk in nature today or I made myself a healthy breakfast. Feel how this makes your mood lift and your energy increase. If you can do more than one thing, that’s great. However, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed when you are depressed, so if it’s too much, just choose one and tick it off as done. That’s a win.

This book is for those who want to improve their brain health and is especially important for anyone struggling with depression. A large part of this book is devoted to nutrition, as I discovered that an essential component of good mind health is what you eat on a daily basis. However, nutrition is not the only factor in managing and overcoming depression. I believe that a four-pillar approach is vital. Half of this book consists of four pillars (parts) and includes the tools and guidance that are essential to leading the way out of depression. The second half of this book is made up of delicious recipes to help you on your journey to good mind health.

I hope something in this book helps you or someone you love. I’m reaching out to help you. I will show you what has helped me to get and stay well. Lots of love is heading your way from me to you. X

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My Story

I’m writing this for you. I want you to know that you are not alone, that help and love are here for you. Life comes in waves, with good times and inevitably some tough times too. I know that some days it can be difficult simply to get out of bed in the morning, especially if you feel as if no one cares, but your life is important and somebody does care. I care. People will never know exactly what you are going through. We are all putting on brave faces while fighting internal battles with our mind, but we can reach out to each other with love and understanding to create a powerful force for change in the world.

I know that it is not your choice to have this darkness called depression. I didn’t want to feel overwhelmingly sad all the time. I wanted my motivation and interest in life back, but I found it hard to do almost anything. I wanted to live a normal, happy, healthy life, but getting up, getting dressed, and leaving the house seemed almost impossible at times. I worked hard to overcome my depression. I went about my daily life with a smile on my face, but underneath that smile was an internal battle. I didn’t tell others in case people thought I was weak and that I couldn’t cope—or because I thought they wouldn’t understand. I felt exhausted all the time, with the enormous effort needed to push myself through my day while fighting with my mind. If this is anything like what you’ve experienced or are experiencing, know that I get it.

Let me tell you my story so you can see that the body and mind have the amazing ability to heal, if we let them. A few years ago, I had some major life changes. I lost everything, including my health. I lost my business, my house, my marriage, my unborn baby, people I thought were friends, my drive, and my will. I had also spent many years in an abusive long-term relationship. I subsequently went through a period of two years where I self-medicated with alcohol and another unhealthy relationship. Not pretty! I went from instructing fifteen-plus fitness classes a week, training clients, owning and managing a large gym, training for a marathon, and looking after two young children alone to not having enough energy even to get out of bed. That is the power of stress. One day your body says, No more, thank you very much! For me, this presented itself in a number of ways, including inflammation in my body, which showed in my skin, hair, joints, energy levels, sleep patterns, and mood. Add to that low motivation, low concentration, and brain fog. Phew! Stress! In my case, stress did lead to constant fatigue and depression. I always thought of myself as a happy, positive person, so having such severe fatigue and depression was a real wake-up call!

I went from being a happy and busy mum, working seven days with no history of depression or prior symptoms, to suffering from nausea, extreme fatigue, insomnia, low mood and motivation, and an acute sense of dread. I had previously assumed that depression was something that happened slowly. This was not true in my case. I was diagnosed with depression, and I was put on antidepressants. This helped numb my emotional pain, but I felt disconnected from my feelings. How can you heal if you can’t feel? Drugs mask the pain, but they are not a cure.

As a health professional and a believer in natural remedies, being on medication didn’t sit well with me. I know what my body is supposed to feel like when I am in shape physically, and I felt wrong. The medication didn’t help me feel better, just disjointed. I came to my own decision simply. I know exercise helps depression, and I know eating well makes you feel good, and eating poorly and drinking too much makes you feel bad, so I decided myself, with no advice from a medical professional, to ditch the meds cold turkey. I can’t stress this strongly enough: I do not recommend this at all. I felt terrible initially, much worse. Consult a doctor or medical professional if you are on medication and taper off the meds slowly, with guidance, while adding in the key elements in this book one step at a time.

I’m a mum, so I had to get up in the morning and had to care for my children. I had routine, which helps. I made myself get outside and walk every day. I found that if I ate well, my mood was better. So baby steps. It was by no means an easy ride, as I didn’t have the motivation or energy, and I had constant brain fog from lack of sleep, but I was determined to get my old self back. I set up a plan in which food, exercise, lifestyle, and what I call living well were very important parts of my recovery. I experimented with myself over a period of four years.

I spent many happy hours developing and