There is no reward for being vulnerable for any species of life from one-celled organisms to homo sapiens. Consequences are severe and often swift. It is never safe to be off-guard, and different species create ways to be safe. They need to replenish fuel to fight another day. For example, a dolphin sleeps with one eye open. Many species form protective groups. Consider the number of ways creatures hide or camouflage themselves. Many species simply have thousands of offspring, so a few will survive. When these strategies fail, the final phase is whatever aggressive response they have available to them. The more strength and power, the better.

The added dimension of language

Humans have language, which creates another level of issues around seeking safety. We possess abstract thinking that allows us to engage in the arts, create coordinated societal actions, and have complex relationships with others. We rose to the top of the food chain because of our capacity to cooperate with each other. We have a strong evolutionary need to have close connections and relationships. For example, being socially isolated or lonely has the same effect on your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.¹ Look how much effort is put into seeing close friends and family during the holidays. We want to be with each other and the closer the better.

But one of the most perverse aspects of being human, is that successful thriving relationships require vulnerability and trust. These traits are the antithesis of feeling safe. Additionally, emotional/ mental pain is processed in a similar manner as physical pain.² “You hurt my feelings” and You broke my heart” reflect this phenomenon. So, we don’t like pain in any form, yet we have to become vulnerable in order to have deep and satisfying relationships. It is a huge problem, and it is not playing out well for the human race.

By definition, every interaction with another person requires taking a risk of being rejected or hurt. Even checking out at the grocery store involves trusting him or her to accurately document your purchases and help you with your bags. It is nice if they are in a good mood and are friendly. But what if they are having a bad day? Then there are deeper relationships such as being on a team, doing a project together, starting up any type of relationship, and living together. Being rejected at some level of the interaction is not only common, but also the rule. As you become more and more trusting, at some tipping point the level of vulnerability for that relationship will be reached, and one person will pull back or even reject it.

Your options

At this point, your choices are to 1) quit taking risks associated with interacting with others 2) engage but experience social anxiety 3) use whatever power you possess to control others 4) learn to be vulnerable. Since we don’t inherently possess the ability to feel vulnerable, the other less functional strategies are more commonly utilized.

Some form of anger is universal. Why? It keeps you safe. It protects you from both emotional and physical pain. Even if you don’t actually have the power to change the situation, you may feel like you do. Raw anxiety is intolerable and why we hold on to anger.

Why let go of anger?

• The main reason is that you simply cannot heal or thrive when you remain angry. The essence of healing is normalizing your body’s neurochemical state to that of a safety profile, which is profoundly restorative. If your whole system remains fired up, how can that happen? It can’t and won’t.
• Your brain structurally adapts to your focus of attention. You cannot move forward until you let go of the past, especially your deepest wounds. Most people in chronic pain remain angry at the situations or people who have harmed them. The more legitimate your gripe, the harder it is to move on. But how does holding on to the past make your life more enjoyable?
• Anger is destructive, as it is supposed to be. It’s your body’s last ditch effort to escape threat. It is destructive in every direction, including self-destruction. It is the reason why many people completely neglect every aspect of their health. It is tantamount to slow suicide.
• Anger is abusive and destroys relationships. The key element of successful human interactions is awareness of your needs and others’ needs. How else can you constructively interact with those close to you? Anger completely blocks awareness.
• Anger destroys families. Human consciousness evolved through language and social interactions. The ability to cooperate took homo sapiens from the bottom to the top of the food chain. The need for human connection is deep. Unfortunately, close connections are also the strongest triggers. Why would you ever be unkind to someone you care for so much? Why is the incidence of domestic abuse so high? It is maybe the most disturbing paradox of our human existence.
• Anger is the manifestation of the fight mode of the survival response. All organ systems are affected. The blood supply to your gut, bladder, and the frontal lobes of your brain diminishes and is shunted to your heart, lungs, and skeletal muscles. You can’t think clearly, although it might feel like you can. It is critical to, “Take no action in a reaction.”

Interacting with others involves taking the risk of being rejected or even hurt. There are physical risks, such as trusting a business partner who might run off with your money. What about your partner or spouse, who takes off with another person? These are deep ones, but simply reaching out to another person in friendship creates some level of anxiety.

Train your brain

You can use avoidance, suffer from chronic social anxiety, or resort to power and control to feel safe. The healthiest and most satisfying option is learning to be vulnerable and process rejection. In other words, being with anxiety. Being or feeling rejected is inherent to relationships, and unless you understand this, your world will become progressively smaller. Training yourself to lower your threat physiology (anxiety) instead of fighting it allows you to navigate life more easily. BTW, social connections are anti-inflammatory and lower anxiety.³ Addressing social anxiety is a bi-directional process. You can nurture joy, more easily interact with others, feel safer, and create the life you desire.

.

References

1. Cigna US Loneliness Index. Cigna: 2018.
2. Eisenberger N. “The neural bases of social pain: Evidence for shared representations with physical pain.” Psychosom Med (2012); 74: 126-135.
3. Dantzer R, et al. Resilience and immunity. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (2018); 74:28-42.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2018.08.010

The post Social Anxiety – Vulnerability Doesn’t Feel Safe first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Social Anxiety – Vulnerability Doesn’t Feel Safe appeared first on Back in Control.

• Anxiety is an unpleasant sensation generated by your body’s physiological response to real or perceived danger.
• It compels you to take action to resolve the threat and live another day.
• If you cannot escape or solve the threat, your body’s stress response intensifies and you become angry.
• Anger is irrational, powerful, destructive, and not subject to control. 5–3–2 is an approach to minimize the damage.

“Genealogy” of Anger

The perception of threat of any kind creates a neurochemical inflammatory stress reaction that is experienced as anxiety.

The sensation of anxiety creates a compelling need to resolve the threat.

When you are trapped (loss control), your body increases the stress response in an effort to regain control.

You are now angry (hyperactivated threat reaction).

Anger = turbocharged anxiety.

Neither anxiety nor anger is subject to being controlled. They are powerful automatic reactions. Your choice is how you react to them.

5–3–2: A sequence that allows your brain to be back online

The biggest problem with anger is that, since it is your last-ditch effort to survive, your brain activity shifts from the neocortex (rational thinking area) to your midbrain (reflex survival center). When you are angry, you have lost awareness of others’ needs, it is all about you, and it’s destructive by design. It’s physiologically impossible to think clearly and while you are in this state; you must just stop—somehow. Taking any action while you are angry rarely improves your life or relationships and is usually damaging.

Here is a sequence of steps you can use to minimize its impact. 5-3-2 is the number of words in each step.

• No action in a reaction
• Flip the switch
• Move on

5—No action in a reaction. First, recognize that you are upset. There are many ways anger is disguised. Then you must acknowledge that any action, physical or verbal, is not going to be helpful in the long run. It may feel like you are thinking clearly, but you have to intellectually understand that you cannot. Your brain really is offline. Finally, don’t take any action while you are upset. Say nothing. Leave the room. Take a walk. The anger may lessen quickly or last for a while. Much of it depends how skilled you are at processing anger, and everyone is different.

3—Flip the switch. Anger is so powerful that you will never be able to give it up nor will you want to. Flipping the switch means that you let your anger drop enough that you are able to think more rationally. Then you make a decisive choice to come out of the victim mode. However, it is important not to flip the switch until you think you can actually do it. You may drop right back into anger, and you just keep making the choice to change direction.

2—Move on. Once you have returned to a rational state of mind, you’ll be able to address the upsetting situation more clearly and constructively. What is interesting is that often what seemed so important and intense just disappears. Since anger is a trigger within you, and the situation or a person is what set it off, the “problem” often ceases to exist. It is critical to keep moving forward into the life that you want or the solution you desire. If you spend your time trying to keep solving what makes you upset, the list is endless, it isn’t that enjoyable, and you’ll drag yourself back into The Abyss.

There are many facets to anger and ways to process it to minimize its impact on your life. This little 5-3-2 strategy will get you started, and you’ll find it useful many times a day. Don’t let anger run your life—starting today.

Recap

Anger is destructive and it is supposed to be. It is a last-ditch survival mechanism will compel you to do whatever it takes to physically and mentally survive. It is a physiological state and the additional problem is that the activity in your brain shifts from the neocortex (thinking center) to your limbic region (survival region). It is not possible to think clearly or creatively. So, the first step is recognising that you are angry (there are many disguises) and understand any actions, physically or verbally, are going to inflict damage. This a simple decision because you won’t benevolent in this state.

Second, after you have allowed yourself to calm down, then “flip the switch.” This is also another simple and definitive decision because anger is addictive and irrational. You will never want to give it up. You make a decision, “I am not going to remain in a victim mode.” Why do you want to give up your peace of mind to someone you dislike or a situation that is intolerable. You may have to do this multiple times a day as there is no end to life’s challenges.

Finally, just move on. Get on with your day. Take a break. Pursue your projects. As you spend more time engaging in activities you enjoy, your brain will evolve in that direction. It is remarkable how effective the “5-3-2” strategy works.

Questions and considerations

1. One of the most challenging aspects of dealing with anger is recognising it. Maybe it has become normalised. There are many disguises and it is important to recognise them.
2. You must allow yourself to deeply feel your anger while at the same time, not acting on it. Suppressing it creates even more havoc.
3. Have you considered how much time you spend being angry? If you think you are rarely angry, think again. It is basic to your survival and there is no getting rid of it.
4. Taking no action in reaction is difficult and requires discipline and repetition. It is a powerful and overwhelming emotion.
5. If you can learn and use this sequence, you will quickly notice an improvement in your relationships. Think about how you feel when you are around someone who is upset. Think how you might appear to others when you are angry. Anger is not attractive.

The post “5–3–2” – Processing Anger in Three Steps first appeared on Back in Control.

The post “5–3–2” – Processing Anger in Three Steps appeared first on Back in Control.

• Our core life outlook is programmed by every second of our life to the present moment.
• Each person has infinitely unique perspective and feel there are basic ways we “should” live our lives.
• When others (or ourselves) don’t meet our internal standards, we’ll often become critical and demanding.
• When your wishes turn into demands, internally or externally, you have created “unenforceable rules.”
• Remaining upset about situations you have no control over burns up your reserves, and you’ll develop unpleasant symptoms and/or become ill.
• Understanding the problem allows solutions.

“Should”

There are many reasons for resentment and one of them is the word, “should”. Dr. Fred Luskin in his book, Forgive for Good,¹ presents a concept of the “unenforceable rules.” There are many situations that irritate us daily and a can consume a lot of energy. Many of the frustrations arise from situations that we have little or no control over, such as other’s behavior. Dr. Luskin points out that it’s fine to wish someone would behave differently, but when that wish becomes a demand in your mind then you are wasting your time, consuming energy, and destroying relationships. Thinking, “I wish my son had better manners” is much different than, “He has to act better and I am going to have a say about it.”

This type of thinking pervades almost every aspect of our lives and the closer the relationships the more intense the interaction. Make a list of behaviors of how others should act. What happens when they irritate you? Do you give advice, snap at them, nag, or give unasked-for advice?

If you’re critical, either openly or silently, of your other’s actions, you’ll foster resentment within you. The people you are critical of are not any happier about being criticized than you are when you feel judged. What makes all of this more ironic is that when you are judgmental, you are just projecting your own opinion of yourself onto others. As you can see, this is a tangled mess.

Where does it come from?

It arises from within us. We are programmed from birth to be what everyone around thinks we should be. Your parents are the earliest and most powerful influences, but everyone has an effect – friends, colleagues, employers, co-workers, society, and the marketing world. So, the word “should” becomes the guiding force of our lives. Other descriptions are “self-esteem”, “perfectionism”, and the “self-critical voice.” They are relentless and a major factor wearing us down and compromising the quality of our lives. Additionally, there is no way for humans to escape from their thoughts and consciousness. Stress in the form of “URT’s” (Unpleasant Repetitive Thoughts)² causes a chronic stress state and may be the underlying driving force behind all mental and physical diseases.

So, we are also the target of our own “unenforceable rules” and then project them onto others. It is how human consciousness works. As dismal as this situation is and it is as disruptive as it sounds, it is a solvable problem. There are many ways to calm the nervous instead of trying to control it. The first step is understanding the nature of your self-critical voice, nurturing awareness of how it looks, and feeling its impact on you and others around you.

Suggestions for “should” to “would like”

First, everyone sees the world from their own perspective and it feels like the “correct” one. Work on suspending judgment and try only to listen.

Second, keep reminding yourself of the “unenforceable rules”. You have little control over most of the situations that irritate you. This is especially true when others are trying to control you. Train yourself not to react when you feel judged and become aware of when you are judging and making demands based on your “standards.”

Third, everyone’s perspective is valid – especially your children’s. Only listen to your children for a month (preferably indefinitely) without giving advice or being critical. Consider reading Parent Effectiveness Training by Dr. Thomas Gordon.³ He was a child psychiatrist who presents remarkable insights into how your children are viewing your behavior and words. Often a child can see a situation more clearly than a parent who is upset.

Finally, just let go. Enjoy your day with whatever tools you have. All these patterns and reactions are almost infinite and have no endpoint. Quit trying to “talk it out” and realize that anytime you are anxious or angry, you’re in a survival reactive pattern that isn’t subject to rational interventions.”

All of these strategies center around awareness. It’s critical to see when you have transitioned from, “Would like” to “Should.” Then let go and move on.

Recap

I was putting up our Christmas tree one year and the strings of lights had become tightly tangled. As you well know, the solution is to loosen it all up and slowly unravel it. I got a little frustrated and started to yank on the wires and of course made it much worse. Understanding how you have become ensnared in your life outlook is a critical step in untangling it. Then look at how your views are projected onto others.

Ongoing self and other-directed “should” thinking erodes our enjoyment of life. Awareness is key to solving it. Are you being the person that you want others to be. If you are in a critical mode, is that attractive to people around you? Would you want to hang out with you? Awareness of how your actions and attitudes appear to others is humbling and also allows change. You’re your nervous system becomes more regulated and calmer, you’ll be the change you’d like to see and it is contagious.

Questions and Considerations

1. By definition, each of us has self and world views that are unique and how we determine our place in life. It is challenging to see situations through another person’s eyes.
2. So, we have a fairly fixed life lens and other’s actions validate or invalidate this view. We have an instinctive impulse to bring people around to what we think is right and become upset when they don’t respond.
3. We can’t control other people, although we certainly all try. None of us like to be controlled; yet we still do it.
4. Consider the actions in others that are upsetting to you, the amount of energy you are expending in this state, and how you might be trying to influence them to change.
5. You might wish others would behave in a way that is more in line with your thinking, but when, “would be nice” turns to, “should be this way”, you are keeping your body in a threat state, expending needless energy, and detracting from the quality of your life and others. You may also become ill.
6. Understanding how infinitely different each of us are is an important starting point. Be kind to others and to yourself.

 References

1. Luskin, Fred. Forgive for Good. Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2003.
2. Makovac E, et al. Can’t get it off my brain: Meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on perseverative cognition. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging (2020); 295:111020. doi.org/10.1016/j/psychresns.2019.111020
3. Gordon, Thomas. Parent Effectiveness Training. Crown Publishing, New York, NY, 2000.

The post From “Would Like” to “Should” – The Unenforceable Rules first appeared on Back in Control.

The post From “Would Like” to “Should” – The Unenforceable Rules appeared first on Back in Control.

• Forgiveness does not have to be that difficult. You are simply making a choice of not letting a situation or someone you dislike ruin your day.
• It specifically is part of the “input” aspect of dealing with anger.
• Anger is present in everyone’s life every day.
• There are different ways of accessing forgiveness. It doesn’t have to be an insurmountable obstacle. “Flipping the switch” is an abbreviated version of it.
• Don’t let anger run you.

Forgiveness is a big word and a loaded one for most of us. There are many situations that seem (or are) unforgiveable. But ongoing anger, which reflects a hyper-activated threat response, is deadly when it is sustained. The essence of the reaction is feeling trapped – by anything, including pain. The depth of your frustration is indescribable and is the driving force keeping you in The Abyss.

It is more useful to reframe forgiveness as just one aspect of “anger processing,” which is a multi-pronged approach to lower your stress chemistry. Forgiveness specifically addresses input into your nervous system that sends out messages of danger creates a heightened state of alert. Holding onto the past is a major reason your body will remain in this state, and eventually it breaks down. The focus of processing anger is bringing your body’s physiology back into a state of feeling safe.

Genealogy of anger

The sequence of becoming angry is:

• Circumstance or person who has wronged you (real or perceived)
• Blame
• Victim
• Anger

Anger is so powerful that no one ever wants to let it go. Becoming aware of this universal unwillingness to move on is a critical first step. Being a victim is a strong role, and it helps you feel safe, whether you are or not. You are never going to wake up one day and feel that you want to give it up. You must keep making ongoing choices to “let go.”

Then the next step is being aware when you are in a victim role. There are many disguises. Unfortunately, this hyper-vigilant neurochemical state (anger) shuts down the rational frontal cortex of your brain, and your glial cells (support system for neurons) throw off inflammatory markers, which sensitize your nervous system. This cascade of events blocks access to being open, having insight, treatment, and healing.

You simply have to decide whether you want to remain in this role or move on. There is no magic or shortcuts. It is an ongoing intellectual choice of, “I don’t want to continue being a victim.” One term for this decision is, “flipping the switch.” It might be considered an abbreviated version of forgiveness and is accessible quickly.

Levels of forgiveness

At its most basic level forgiveness is simply “cutting the cord” and “letting go.” This is different than “acceptance” and “suppressing.” It is an intellectual decision you make every time your attention lands on an upsetting spot. That is it and all that is necessary to free yourself from the past. You have definitively altered the input.

A deeper level of forgiveness would be seeing the situation through the other party’s eyes and have some understanding of where he or she is coming from. This allows you “let go” a little more deeply.

Developing compassion for the other person is what a lot of people consider forgiveness. You realize that there is a high chance that they are suffering and the reason they acted badly. But it may be essentially impossible to achieve, especially if there is ongoing abuse. It is not necessary to reach this level to effectively process anger.

Processing anger is a skill you’ll use daily. It is a powerful statement to you and the world that you are going to live your life on your terms, and no one person or situation is going to take that away from you. It is the tipping point of healing in that you cannot create the necessary shift in your brain to move on without letting go of the past.

Methods of changing the input

There are various ways of accessing forgiveness and not letting the past interfere with your day. I learned many of these following concepts from Dr. Fred Luskin, who is a friend of mine and author of Forgive for Good¹. Some suggestions include:

• Understand how detrimental it is to hold on to the past and not live in the present. Dr. Luskin calls this scenario “renting too much space in your mind.”
• Just “let go.” Is this person or situation worth disrupting your day and peace of mind? Use the “5 – 3 – 2” strategy to minimize any damage caused by anger and maximize your capacity to enjoy your life.
• Reframe the situation. Make a choice not to view yourself as a victim and look at challenges as opportunities. “Never waste a crisis.”
• Cultivate awareness—just being aware of your anger can dissolve it. Especially when you realize that it exists only within you.
• Identify your grievance stories—Dr. Luskin also makes the observation that if you tell the same story more than three times where you are the victim, you have a “grievance story.”
  • This is particularly relevant when suffering from chroni pain when it really was someone else’s fault. How long do you want that person or employer to run your life? They are not worth your time.
• “The unenforceable rules”—There are many situations and people in life that you wish would be different, but you have no control or say. It is fine to want a better scenario, but when that wish turns into a mental demand, it is problematic. Spending time being upset about things you have no control over is a complete waste of time.
• Have compassion—I mention this gingerly because this step is difficult and not mandatory to move on. Most people, including me, can’t achieve this without professional help.
• Please just don’t read this list. Processing anger requires daily practice and many approaches. Forgiveness is an important aspect of it.

Essentially every person I have seen truly heal has learned to recognize and process his or her anger. Although you can somewhat improve without dealing with it, the real breakthroughs won’t happen without letting go. Each person will learn these skills at their own pace. It is powerful and we have observed that letting go of anger is the “shortcut to healing.”

Recap

Anger is so powerful and necessary that you will never want to give it up. Besides, you can’t control it. Life keeps coming at us and you’ll have the opportunity to practice dealing with it daily.

You can choose what you want to input into your nervous system, and you can also what you want to hang onto. Forgiveness is one of the tools that allows you to “let go” and move on. But every time you think about the situation or person who wronged you, your nervous system will fire up.

Realize that forgiveness is just one of the tools of anger processing that may not be relevant to a given situation or you can’t access it. Putting it into context of being only one of the approaches helps you to use it quickly and efficiently. Maybe it lasts for only a few minutes. That’s fine. You can do it again, and again, and again.

Questions and considerations

1. If you are this far into the course, you have realized that you are angry. Everyone is and it is particularly intense when trapped by your thoughts and/or physical pain. However, some people still are not connected to it or are not aware of the magnitude of its impact. Consider how connected or not you are to your anger.
2. Review the disguises of anger. We may not want to present an angry front to others or ourselves. We are incredibly skilled at disguising it. What might be your set of disguises?
3. Many people have a long history with the word, “forgiveness.” You might feel badly because you can’t or won’t let of anger. No one really can. This is a massive end-of-the-line survival reaction that you have no control over. Understand, your way of “letting go” may be completely different than your concept of forgiveness.
4. The strategies mentioned above are methods to forgive. As you can see, there are many variations. This word is not as concrete as you might think. Find out what works best for you.

References

1. Luskin, Dr. Fred. Forgive for Good. Harper One, New York, 2003.

The post Forgiveness is Not What You Think – Learn It first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Forgiveness is Not What You Think – Learn It appeared first on Back in Control.

 Objectives

• Every function and action of your body is in a delicate balance. This is achieved by every action being combined with an almost equal opposite reaction.
• The autonomic nervous system regulates your internal organs, and the two parts are the activating sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the calming parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).
• Sustained activation of the ANS causes illness and disease.
• There are ways of recruiting the PNS to counteract this process and heal.

The areas of the nervous system are named by location but are just different areas of one system. It consists of:

• Central nervous system
• Autonomic nervous system
• Spinal cord
• Peripheral nerves
• Sensory receptors

The autonomic nervous system

Every aspect of it is equally as critical for survival. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates all the internal organs and chemical balance of your body. It is named as such because all of its functions are automatic. A few of its actions include regulation of:

• Heart rate
• Bowel and bladder function
• Regulation of acid/ base balance
• Respiration
• Sweating
• Blood pressure
• Immune response
• Level of alertness
• Rate of metabolism (energy consumption)
• Electrolyte balance

There are two parts to the ANS that are constantly active and counterbalancing each other – the sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic (PNS) systems. The SNS is often referred to as the physiological gas pedal. Its role is to activate your body’s defenses to fight off threats of any kind. The threats can be physical, mental, or emotional. For this discussion, we’ll categorize societal threats under physical threats. The threats may be real or perceived, but your SNS will respond in a similar manner.

Activated

This activated physiological state is called, “Flight or fight”. When your body is exposed to prolonged elevations of inflammation, metabolism, and stress hormones, different physical and mental symptoms will be manifested. When it is sustained, people develop serious illnesses and diseases, including chronic pain. The late phases of SNS activation are called, “freeze or faint” where there is systemic collapse of bodily functions. It is the body’s final survival attempt.

Calm

The most effective way of combatting and preventing chronic disease is to stimulate the PNS, which has the opposite effects of being anti-inflammatory, lowering metabolism, stimulating regenerative hormones, and calming the nervous system. The PNS is the physiological brake pedal. Remember that both the SNS and PNS are both almost equally active most of the time to maintain an incredibly delicate balance (homeostasis).

Your body has to be in a regenerative state of safety in order to heal and replenish itself. It is the common denominator of the various effective healing approaches and there are many ways to achieve this state. The foundation of the calming PNS effects is the vagus nerve. It is the 10^th cranial nerve that originates in the midbrain, below your main body of the brain. It is connected to every internal organ in your body, including the immune system. Recruiting and reinforcing the vagus nerve is the most powerful way of inducing a relaxation response to counteract threat physiology.

Inducing relaxation – breath work

Research suggests we can induce this relaxation response of the PNS through various breathing exercises. Some of them include:

• Voluntary relaxed slow breathing exercises (e.g., diaphragmatic breathing and alternate nostril breathing and applications of mindfulness practices.¹
  • Engaging in slow breathing exercises during stressful experiences (mental or physical) at a rate of 6-10 breaths per minutes helps optimize ventilation gases, arterial oxygenation, gas exchange. Higher arterial oxygenation stimulates the PNS.
  • Given the evidence and benefits of slow breathing exercises on health and well-being, and decreased mortality in diseased states, it is surprising that the medical community has not prescribed this effective and simple tool as part of a standard care of medical treatment for those struggling with acute and chronic diseases. Slow breathing exercises are a vital part of optimizing health.
• Slow long exhalations especially linked with deep short inhalations
• Alternate nostril breathing
• Breathing slowly through your nose – also stimulates Nitric Oxide release, which is powerfully anti-inflammatory.
• Meditation with deep breathing. Try using a counting method (such as 4 counts breathing in and 4 counts out; or 4 counts in, hold for 7, and release for 8); alternating nostril breathing (block one nostril while breathing in and the other nostril while breathing out); or just focus solely on your ²

Other PNS recruitment strategies

• Quiet humming – stimulates the 7^th cranial nerve at the back of the throat, which is close to the vagus nerve
• Certain relaxing pitches of quiet music like a lullaby stimulate the 8^th cranial nerve, which is also near the vagus nerve.³
• Other calming activities will stimulate the PNS
  • Mindfulness/ meditation
  • Biofeedback/ medical hypnosis
  • Visualization
  • Slow-movement martial arts

Understanding that using these tools directly effects your flight or fight response, helps you to engage and use them daily. Again, this is working with your physiology and the effect on your psychological state is secondary. Your physiology is what determines your mental state. It is desirable to stimulate the PNS as much as possible.

Recap

One of the basic premises of successfully solving chronic pain is taking control of your own care. One step deeper is directly stimulating the calming effects of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). There are multiple ways of making this happen, with breath work being one of the most accessible and it works quickly. However, you are addressing just one aspect of the body’s response to stress, which is the physiology (output). It is temporary and just part of the solution.

Addressing the input and the state of your nervous system are bigger picture strategies, but it is critical to have easy and direct access to your PNS.

 Questions and considerations

1. Have you wondered why techniques such as breathing, mindfulness, meditation and soft music are effective in calming you down? It is because they directly stimulate the ANS.
2. These tools are only part of the solution, but a critical aspect of it. It is helpful to be able to quickly calm your body’s threat response. You can bypass hours of misery.
3. Part of the flight or fight reaction is elevation of inflammation throughout your body, including your brain. Your nervous system is hyper-reactive, and your sense of peace and well-being is gone. Your physiological makeup is a driving force behind your mental state.
4. The good news is that you have many ways to recruit the PNS through addressing the input, the nervous system, and output. You can regain control of your health and life.

References

1. Mason H, et al. Cardiovascular and respiratory effect of yogic slow breathing in the yoga beginner: what is the best approach? Evid Based Complement Alternat Med (2013); 2013:743504. doi:10.1155/2013/743504.
2. Zaccaro A, et al. How breath control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiologicalcorrelates of slow Frontiers of Neuroscience (2018); 12: 1-16.
3. Vickhoff, B, et al. Music structure determines heart rate variability of singers. Frontiers in psychology (2013); 4: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00334.

The post Calming Yourself by Recruiting the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Calming Yourself by Recruiting the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) appeared first on Back in Control.

• Processing anger is more doable if it is broken down into its components.
• Anger is a powerful, necessary, and hard wired survival reflex. You cannot tame it with the conscious brain.
• It is an acquired skill that requires ongoing “adult education” in order to refine it.
• Framing the approaches in terms of an “anger academy” will help you rethink the complexity of anger and enable you to deal with its parts in a focused manner.
• Developing a “working relationship with anger” is your degree.
• It an expertise that you will be using daily indefinitely.

Anxiety is the sensation you feel when you sense real or perceived danger and anger represents a more intense reaction when you can’t solve the threat. They are hard-wired responses that are present in every living creature and sustain life. The only way to lower them is to decrease your levels of the stress hormones, inflammatory markers, and metabolism (rate of fuel consumption). You cannot reason with or control the flight or fight response. It is as effective as talking to the hard drive of your computer – can’t work. Consciousness elicits the same threat physiology, but you can’t escape it. Consider how much of your life’s energy is consumed by battling these unpleasant emotions.

There are two distinct aspects of deep healing.

• Learning tools to neutralize and lower these survival reactions
• Placing your energies and attention on creating the life you want.

Healing occurs as you move into wellness and away from the pain circuits. What doesn’t work is using “fun” and other activities to counteract these emotions. The bottom line is that you want to minimize your time in threat physiology and learn to create mental and physical safety. Regardless of the site of intervention, processing anger is focused on lowering the levels of the hormones and inflammation caused by your threat response.

You can directly lower these hormones, increase the resiliency of your nervous system, and learn to change the nature of your input. All three areas are important and require different tools. We are going to use the metaphor of a boarding academy to conceptualize the various strategies.

Welcome to “Anger Academy”

Visualize a walking onto a beautiful campus and seeing the main building bordered by two departmental ones. There is an entry gate with a security guard, and you must be carefully screened before you are allowed be on the grounds. The three buildings represent:

• Output – the student center/ food/ spa/ lounge – Main building
• Your nervous system – engineering and design center – on your right
• Input – educational/ training center – on your left

The curriculum – Enrollment

It is most desirable on a given day or moment to have your “output” or your body’s neurochemical state in a range that is neutral or relaxed. The more time you can spend in this state the better. But, anger is inevitable, and it is important to use it only when necessary and be careful not to cause damage–especially to those who are close to you. The final physiological response is affected by 1) the reactivity of your nervous system and 2) the content of your input. It is a dynamic process that varies from minute to minute.

The state of your nervous system is influenced by your prior programming, current circumstances, and how you are caring for your body. For example, lack of sleep and exercise along with a highly inflammatory diet will elevate your levels of inflammation and compromise your coping skills.

Daily stresses are often overwhelming. If you come from a challenging and chaotic childhood, it is hard to feel safe because maybe you really never knew what that was like. Consider the hypervigilance of a feral cat compared to a pampered domestic one. It is difficult to truly tame a cat who had to fend for itself from birth. It takes less stress to set off the threat response and this is also hardwired in for each individual.

Output is clearly affected by your “input.” There are two categories of input.

• What are you choosing to put into your nervous system?
• What are you holding onto from the past?

The first step is becoming aware of the nature and effects of your ongoing input. Once you have some clarity, there are multiple strategies to alter it. It is a deeply personal process.

Security gate

The security area represents the current state of your body’s chemistry, and it can vary from a profile of being content and safe to upset and inflamed. Of course, the reason you are coming to this institution is that you are trapped in pain and the levels of frustration often reach a level of rage. The sensations are intense and powerful. Your whole body, including your brain, is full of inflammatory markers. Your brain’s blood supply is diverted from your neocortex (thinking centers) to the lower centers that are meant more for basic survival. In this state it is not possible to think clearly or absorb new information. So, before you can enter the university to master anger processing skills, you must first normalize this inflammatory state. Your “output” is hypervigilant, which is the outcome of being trapped for any reason.

The “security guard” will take your temperature, vital signs, and see if you are calm enough to engage in the learning the skills to process anger. This is not a small step, in that anger is the greatest block to healing. There are many facets to it; it is powerful, and most people don’t want to give it up because it keeps you safe – whether the sense of safety is real or perceived.

If you are fired up, you can leave and return another day, or you can hang out in the spa just outside of the campus intended for your use to calm down. It has a pool, hot tub, massage, sauna, gym, and soft music. It is a beautiful modern building and could not be a more relaxing place to be. You can stay as long as you would like and return anytime.

If you choose to turn around and return to your prior situation without taking some action to calm down, it is unlikely that you will be able to meet the criteria to enter the campus. Regardless, whether you calm down on your own or with some help from your time in the spa, it is the first step in being able to engage in learning the strategies to understand and deal with anger. Your brain has to come back “online.”

On the grounds

Once you are through security, you have a choice of which building you want to enter but continuing to calm yourself is probably the best option. Each one has multiple resources to help you acquire anger processing expertise.

The center main building (output) is a deluxe version of  the spa area just outside of the campus. It’s large with nice facilities and concierge services. There is no limit as to how well you are treated. You can hang out with your friends, eat great food, and kick back in the jacuzzi. There are resources to teach you to self-soothe and nurture yourself. You may want to spend more time there to re-energize before you start to work on the other aspects of anger.

The engineering and design building on the right is where you will be rebuilding and strengthening your nervous system. Every action you take today is based all of your life experiences up to this very second. It consists of your prior life programming, the state of your general health, and how skilled you already may be in using tools to calm and improve it. In essence, it is the sum total of your coping skills and resilience. Both can be refined and strengthened with a thoughtful approach.

The training/ education building on your left is where you will learn strategies to process the input from your life – all of it. What is being entered into your nervous system affects the composition of output?

CHOICES OF INPUT

Examples of what you might currently be uploading are conversations that are critical of others – either directly to them or in the form of gossip, discussing your pain and medical care, complaining, sharing a generally negative world view, watching violent TV, etc. These types of activities keep your nervous system fired up with many direct effects on your body and peace of mind.

What are you holding onto from your past that continues to agitate you? Why would you do that? The past has little if anything to do with your day. You have given your quality of life over to someone or some entity that you despise. Forgiveness is an advanced set of techniques that dramatically alters the input into your nervous system.

Your degree

An “working relationship with anger” diploma will allow you to efficiently neutralize your flight or flight response. It is one of the more practical degrees you can attain. Acquiring these skills is one of the most powerful and definitive moves you can make to take back control of your life. But remember, the first step is getting past security.

Recap

Anxiety is the sensation generated by your neurochemical response to a threat and intended to motivate you to take action to solve it. If the stress persists, your reaction will become stronger, you’ll secrete more stress chemicals, and feel anger. Anger is your body’s last ditch effort to regain control.

It is a powerful and hard wired impersonal reaction. It is also complex and involves every cell and organ system in your body. You cannot survive without it, and it is impossible to thrive if this physiological state is sustained.

Developing a “working relationship” with it involves understanding the different aspects of it and learning to minimize your time in a threat state through different portals. Do you want your life to continue to be an ongoing replay of your past or are you ready to create the life you want – from reactive to creative?

 Questions and Considerations

1. When trapped by chronic mental or physical pain, your brain and body are literally on fire. Your inflammatory markers are sky high, and you cannot think clearly. Have you considered how you feel in this state and compared it to when you are calm? Even without pain, what is the quality of your life when you are enraged?
2. Your brain is “offline” while you are angry, and it really is temporary insanity. It is humbling to consider how many “issues” disappear after you have calmed down.
3. Every living creature, including homo sapiens, has a version of this reaction. It is universal and intended to be unpleasant. So, why you take it personally? It is protective, and what you have, but not who you are.
4. Forgiveness alone is the historic approach in addressing deal anger. However, it is a big leap to forgive in light of many circumstances. Anger is a complex full body response to an uncontrollable threat and breaking it down into its components is a basic starting point to master dealing with it.

The post Anger Academy first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Anger Academy appeared first on Back in Control.

• Anger is a hard wired automatic survival reaction, and it is impossible to get rid of, conquer, or transform it into a more constructive experience.
• We are not programmed to be vulnerable, so we don’t have a good reason to give up anger, nor will we ever want to. Anger is protective but also damages human relationships.
• Understanding the various obstacles to dealing with anger effectively is an important step in learning how to process it.
• Many, if not most people, do not want to give up their anger (pain). There are reasons why.

The unwillingness to process anger, let go, and move on is the greatest obstacle to healing. And without learning to let go and move on towards what you want, it is impossible to heal from mental or physical pain. Nonetheless, even hearing compelling stories of healing, a high percent of people simply had no interest in pursuing a healing process. The excuses were endless, but it boiled down to not being able to let go.

I spent at least five years trying to convince people to pursue these concepts, and the harder I tried, the more resistance I ran into. To be clear, I never found a way to engage them, and I finally realized that it was important for me to conserve my energy for those who were open to learning and change. So, the first point I want to make is that I am wide open to suggestions regarding ways of presenting these ideas in a manner that reaches more people. I am a bit discouraged, but not giving up.

That being said, I have learned a lot about the reasons why people won’t give up their anger, and they are definitely unique to a given person.

Obstacles to addressing anger

The main reason preventing people from letting go, is that anxiety and anger are hard wired into our brains. They are both words that describe your sensations generated being in flight (anxiety), or fight (anger). Under any perception of real or imagined threat, there is an instant reaction that compels you to take action to ensure survival. You cannot reason with or do battle with these circuits. As my friend, Dr. Bruce Lipton, points out, “There is nobody home.” You might as well lift up the hood to your car and talk to the engine. They are necessary for survival and are necessary gifts.

Second, when you are anxious and especially upset, your body is full of inflammatory proteins call cytokines. These small proteins are the ways that cells locally communicate with each other. At a certain threat threshold, they signal anger (fight or flight) and cause the blood supply to shift from the thinking centers of the brain (neocortex) to the lower survival regions of the brain. You physically can’t think straight. So, a significant aspect of chronic disease is that the inflammatory nature of it blocks the ability to treat it. Some patients report a sense of “brain fog.” It is not a psychological term. It is your brain “on fire.”

Then if your anger/ anxiety is sustained, the inflammation and elevated metabolism (rate of fuel burn) physically robs your brain of fuel and destroys neurons. You have heard me mention multiple times, that chronic pain causes physical shrinkage of your brain. Fortunately, it will regenerate through the healing process.¹ How can you learn how to understand a new treatment approach if you can’t think clearly?

Fourth, racing thoughts become permanently etched into your brain and become obsessive though patterns. They realty are not responsive to rational interventions. One metaphor is that of dust devils that are small mini-tornados that are common in the open prairie. Your brain has trillions of them, so even if the smallest percent become powerful, that is a problem. It also universal and a trait of possessing consciousness and language. My term for it is “phantom brain pain” because it is a similar process as phantom limb pain. It can occur in any part of the body, including your mind.

But a major issue with letting go of anger is that it protects you from being or feeling vulnerable. There is no reward in nature with any species, including humans, for being vulnerable. You are dead. Remember, the main responsibility of your hard wired unconscious brain is to keep you alive, not to provide you a good time. The problem for humans is that being vulnerable is at the core of successful relationships.² It is a huge dilemma.

Finally, anger is addicting. Why would we not want to hold onto it? It is powerful or at least feels powerful. A basic human drive is to feel safe. Anger does give you more power and control, and you feel safer (even though it may not be true).

The rewards of anger – and winning

There is even a physiological reward for power. It has been shown that people who are bullied have higher inflammatory markers than students who were not harassed.³ What is more disturbing is that the bullies have lower levels of inflammation. A 50-year study in Britain showed that about 40% of adults were bullied while in middle school and high school. The long-term consequences were brutal.⁴

What we are calling, “socialization” is really a huge power struggle. You would think we would behave better as adults, but the behaviors frequently carry over. For example, there is a phenomenon called “mobbing” where co-workers will gang up on a given worker.

You may not want to hear this, but people in pain are often “bullies.” They can make endless demands on the family and caregivers. They may not be that nice about it. Instead of being sources of peace and love, they are emanating a negative energy that creates chaos. They may not be enjoying it but also don’t know how to give it up. It is a vicious cycle.

Additional barriers

Other obstacles to letting go include:

• You may not recognize that you are angry. It is your baseline state.
• The more legitimate your anger, the harder it is to let it go.
• If you are socially isolated, it is challenging to keep up and hone your interpersonal skills, especially when you are in pain.
• Not understanding the nature of letting go. It is a powerful move of taking your life back, not one of weakness.

 Recap

The one factor that predicts healing is willingness to learn the tools to calm and reroute your nervous system. Why would not everyone want to do this? A high percent of people have no interest even in spite of ongoing misery and endlessly seeking medical care.

This lesson presents some of the reasons why this is such a problem, but the essence of it is that the disease itself is what blocks treatment. Anger is the sensation created by a fired up nervous system, increased rate of fuel consumption, and inflammation. The inflammatory markers (cytokines) create a shift in the blood supply from the neocortex of brain (thinking centers) to the lower parts of the brain (survival regions). So, we can’t think clearly enough even to begin to engage. Chronic pain is especially problematic, in that the amount of anger generated by being trapped in pain is unspeakable. That is why a famous rehab physician, Dr. John Sarno, called it “rage.”⁵ My term is being in “The Abyss.” It is a very dark spot and sometimes it is so hard to see any light that nothing happens.

Questions and considerations

1. Several or none of these barriers to letting go of your anger may be relevant to your situation. If they do not and you are not willing to learn ways to let go and heal, then what are your own obstacles.
2. If you have come this far in the course, that is a huge accomplishment. If these ideas did apply to you, you have surmounted them enough to engage.
3. For some people, positive changes can occur quickly, and they are not prepared to deal with the speed of change. Generally, they will pull back but eventually re-engage. Pulling back happens for the same reasons that originally blocked learning. Understanding your personal blocks allows you to work back around them quickly.
4. Do you really want to let go of your anger? The answer is, “no” for all of us. But you may want to have a better life.

References

1. Seminowicz DA, et al. Effective Treatment of Chronic Low Back Pain in Humans Reverses Abnormal Brain Anatomy and Function. The Journal of Neurosci­ence (2011); 31: 7540-7550.
2. De Mello, Anthony. The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony De Mello. Doubleday, New York, 1992.
3. Copeland W, et al. Childhood bullying involvement predicts low-grade systemic inflammation into adulthood. PNAS (2014); 111: 7570-7575.
4. Takizawa R, et al. Adult health outcomes of childhood bullying victimization: Evidence from a five-decade longitudinal British birth cohort. Am J Psychiatry (2014); 171:777-784.
5. Sarno, John. Mind Over Back Pain. Berkeley, New York, 1999.

The post Blocks to Letting Go of Anger first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Blocks to Letting Go of Anger appeared first on Back in Control.

Acknowledging the extreme complexity of this topic, I have three basic observations. One is that anger is powerful and addicting. It does serve an important purpose in that it keeps you safe. There are few, if any rewards from a survival viewpoint, for being vulnerable. The second reason people can’t let go of their anger is that they have not learned to be vulnerable. It is an intolerable feeling and why would you want to experience it? Because it is also the essence of relationships and being human. What a dilemma!!

The final reason is that people are not connected to their anger. They have dissociated from it and can’t feel or see it. It manifests in multiple ways. However, just because you are not aware of them doesn’t mean that they are hidden from those who are close to you.

Processing anger overview

I have changed my thinking and have observed that you can’t just jump to forgiveness from anger without understanding and addressing all aspects of it. I now use the term, “processing anger” and there are three categories of interventions to accomplish it. Keep in mind that anger is a necessary and powerful force to stay alive. Instead of fighting, suppressing, or trying to get rid of it, a better concept might be, “developing a working relationship with it.

This process is an ongoing learned skill with much overlap.

• Output – Lowering inflammatory markers and elevated metabolism (body burning fuel) is a necessary starting point. Sustained elevations cause illness, chronic diseases, and early death. Your brain is also “off-line” because it is inflamed and blood supply is diverted from the thinking centers.
• The nervous system–If the nervous system is hyperactive for any reason, it will consistently overstimulate every aspect of your survival response.
• Input–Anger is always linked to an event in the past that either gets replayed in the present or is continually interfering with your current reality. Forgiveness simply breaks that link. It does not get rid of it. That is why forgiveness is such a dynamic ongoing skill that you use multiple times every day.

Why this sequence?

Addressing the output first is critical for several reasons. Your brain is affected by inflammation. The supporting cells of your neurons, called glial cells, throw off inflammatory proteins call “inflammatory cytokines” and your brain is sensitized. The danger signals to your brain are magnified and you’ll experience more pain. The blood flow to your neocortex (human thinking regions of the brain) is also compromised and it is impossible to think as clearly. The only intention in this state is your own survival and not the needs of those around you (unless it serves you). So, the first step is to use methods that directly lower this response by stimulating your autonomic nervous system (via the vagus nerve) to secrete anti-inflammatory calming cytokines, so you can learn and implement these new strategies.

Addressing the status of your nervous system is the next important phase. If you were raised in a chaotic or abusive family that was devoid of safety and deep nurturing, you won’t have much capacity to nurture and care for yourself, much less allow yourself to feel vulnerable (anxious). This is also a learned process that you will allow to happen over your lifetime. One of the paradoxes is that you can’t force it. That would be the antithesis of vulnerability.

Finally, forgiveness is a multi-dimensional process that changes the input into your brain so there is less intensity being sent to your brain and there will be a calmer output in the form of anti-inflammatory cytokines and safety hormones. It is actually a selfish act in that you are making a powerful move to take back the present moment. You are breaking the neurological links to the unpleasant aspects of your past.

Addressing the three aspects

Output

• Breath work
• Calming music
• Mindfulness/ meditation
• Medical hypnosis/ biofeedback

These are  autonomic nervous system interventions that directly stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (calming). It may take a few weeks to learn and consistently implement them before you begin to feel less anxious and agitated. There are many layers of these tools. It has been a better starting point than trying to jump straight to forgiveness. You can only do what you can do when you can do it.

The state of your nervous system.

This is a critical piece of the big picture. Your central nervous system is processing over 20 millions bits of information per second and directing your behavior in ways to keep you safe and functional. Most of this occurs at an unconscious level. It is programmed to recognize danger that you learned from past experiences. Anytime you are anxious or angry, something in the present is connected to an unpleasant learning experience from your past. Understanding the nature and source of these “triggers” is important and then retraining your brain to choose different reactions when you really are not in danger.

Your immediate environment also dictates your state of alertness. Lack of sleep, poor nutrition (inflammatory), little physical exercise, troubled relationships also are factors affecting your perception and processing of pain. Each and all of them make a difference.

Input

What you choose to put into and keep in your brain is up to you. You can decide to continue to complain about your pain and troubles. Any time you are complaining, you are now the victim of that person or situation. Or you can be critical of almost everyone, anything, including the news and yourself. How does any of this help calm your nervous system? This does become challenging in that most things we are upset about are valid–but you are the one who gets to suffer.

Forgiveness is another layer of decision-making that dramatically alters the input. It is the method where your links to the past can be broken so that your prior life experiences quit ruining your day (life).There are many aspects to it. It is a complex, but learnable skill. You cannot do it intellectually. It is too powerful. The goal is to understand and implement this set of tools to the point it all becomes almost automatic. The groundwork of diminishing the output and increasing the resilience of your nervous system are first steps and productively dealing with unpleasant input will launch you into a new reality. Processing anger really is the “Continental Divide” for healing your pain.

The post Three Aspects of Processing Anger first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Three Aspects of Processing Anger appeared first on Back in Control.

• They are, first of all, the same entity. Anxiety is the sensation generated by your autonomic nervous system’s response to a threat. Stress hormones and inflammatory proteins are elevated and when a given situation doesn’t resolve (chronic pain), more of these molecules are secreted in an effort to regain control. The result is anger, which is anxiety with a neurochemical chemical kick. It is a response to the environment and not primarily a psychological issue.
• Anxiety and Anger are universal, powerful and necessary for life. You are not going to get rid of them.
• Anxiety represents a feeling of vulnerability and helplessness. The intention is to be so unpleasant that it compels us to take action to decrease it. So, we are hard-wired to avoid this emotion at all costs. In nature, there are significant penalties for being vulnerable.
• Anger feels powerful and is often effective in regaining control. It is a rapid response that solves or masks anxiety. It also gives you the extra boost to resolve a threat.
• But what happens to your thinking when you are angry? The blood flow to the frontal lobes of your brain is diminished, the inflammatory proteins in your brain sensitize you to sensory input, and much of your reaction emanates from the more primitive centers of your brain. You are flooded with a barrage of angry, intense, and irrational thoughts. It is temporary insanity.

• Anger both masks the feeling of anxiety and also turbocharges the system, which created it.

Reasons to forgive

There are numerous reasons to process and let go of your anger.

• The main one is that you simply cannot heal when you remain angry. The essence of healing is normalizing your body’s neurochemical state to that of a safety profile, which is profoundly restorative. If you whole system is fired up and remains so, how can that happen? It can’t and won’t. You can improve somewhat without forgiveness, but the deep healing can’t occur until you can calm down and truly let go.
• Another core concept of solving pain is stimulating neuroplastic changes in your brain. You physically can cause your brain to change its structure based on where you place your attention (suppression doesn’t work). That means you have to move towards your vision of what you would like your life to be like instead of continually trying to fix your prior life. You cannot move forward until you let go of the past, especially your deepest wounds. Most people in chronic pain remain angry at the situations or people who have harmed them. The more legitimate your gripe, the harder it is to move on. But how does holding onto the past make your life more enjoyable.
• Anger is destructive, as it is supposed to be. It your body’s last ditch effort to escape threat. It is destructive in every direction, including self-destructive. It is the reason why many people completely neglect every aspect of their health. It is tantamount to slow suicide.
• Anger is abusive. It also destroys relationships. The key element of successful human interactions is awareness of your needs and others’ needs. How else can you constructively interact with those close to you. Anger completely blocks awareness at every level.
• Anger destroys families. We evolved language and the human consciousness through language and social interactions. It is ability to cooperate that took homo sapiens from the bottom to the top of the food chain. There is a deep need for human connection. Unfortunately, close family connections are also the strongest triggers. Why would you ever be unkind to someone you care for so much? Why is the incidence of domestic abuse so high? It is maybe the most disturbing paradox of our human existence.

• When you are angry, you are in the fight mode of the survival response of fight, flight, freeze, or faint. Your body’s response is to mobilize every resource to survive. The blood supply to your gut, bladder, and the frontal lobes of your brain diminishes and is shunted to your heart, lungs, and skeletal muscles. You can’t think clearly, although it might seem like you are. That is why it is so critical to, “take no action in a reaction.”
• The problem is that this reaction that blocks awareness also blocks the creativity needed to constructively solve the problem. It really does represent temporary insanity.
• Forgiveness is the most powerful and definitive move that you can make to take charge of your life. It is actually a selfish and bold act. You are no longer allowing someone you dislike (despise) continue to be in your head and run your life. You don’t have to like this person–ever. You are just breaking the link between the past and present.
• I often asked my patients that what is your day like when you are angry? Forget about your pain. It isn’t a great day. So regardless whether you are in pain or not, anger will compromise your capacity to enjoy your day. You are in Hell and you may be so used to being there that you might not even know it. Take a deep breath and think about this scenario for a while………

Why hold onto anger?

It keeps you safe. It protects you from both emotional and physical pain. There are few, if any, rewards in nature for being vulnerable and humans are part of this reality. In essence, you are being asked to give up your anger so you can experience anxiety. Raw anxiety is an unpleasant feeling. It is this interaction that may be the root cause of why it is commonly thought that you cannot really be open for change until you “hit bottom.” In other words, the anxiety is so out of control that it can no longer be contained by either functional or dysfunctional means.

So, it is not an unwillingness to give up anger that is the problem. It is inability to feel and tolerate vulnerability. That is why a critical aspect of The DOC Journey is the sequencing that allows you to learn tools that allow you to feel safe. You will learn how to regulate your body’s neurochemical reaction to both internal and external threats. Each person is unique and has to engage with the process on his or her own terms.

One of the antidotes to anxiety/ anger is control. But another one is to give up the need for control. That is what the whole DOC Journey is about–awareness, calming down, stimulating neuroplasticity, letting go, moving towards a vision, and enjoying your life. You can’t fix chronic pain, but you can crowd it out of your brain and life.

What do you want? What do you really want? Don’t try. Do it!!

The post Forgiveness–The Continental Divide of Freedom and Hell first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Forgiveness–The Continental Divide of Freedom and Hell appeared first on Back in Control.

Perhaps this game is like weeding.

The trick is to become so practiced

that you can sing while you do it,

that when you see one beginning to sprout

you will by instinct

lay your fingers in the earth,

find its root,

and set it free.

                            Alec

The beginnings of the DOC project

The DOC project originally started by me sharing some stress management tools that had pulled me out of a deep burnout. I had no clue that chronic pain was solvable, but I wanted to help my patients cope with it. When I began to address sleep, I noticed that many people were having less pain, which caught my attention. I had no access to psychologists, so I began to recommend David Burn’s book, Feeling Good. It is book-based cognitive behavioral therapy. People began to feel better.

I was also continuing to deal with my extreme anxiety, but I was not breaking loose. I was also suffering from over a dozen other physical symptoms. As I continued to rapidly spiral down, as my stresses became extreme, I was forced to acknowledge that I had some anger. I had not a clue that I had anger. Not only was it there, it was my core.

Healing

I honestly don’t know how I got through the next six months or what tools I used to process my anger. I had no anger management skills and I also did not realize how much perfectionism fuels it. I thought I simply had “high standards.” I learned of the many disguises of anger. I now know that anxiety and anger are the same entity, representing the feeling caused by elevated stress hormones and inflammatory markers. Somehow, I got through It with a major step being that I understood what being a victim was and made a simple decision to come out of that role. My anxiety dropped through the floor and most of my physical symptoms disappeared.

Many years ago a patient gave me the book Forgive for Good, by Dr. Fred Luskin. Although patients had done pretty well with the tools I was offering, it is when Forgive for Good entered the picture that people began to go pain free. Pain and anger pathways are so intertwined that you cannot calm the pain pathways until you can let go of anger. “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

Dr. Luskin and I have become friends and have put workshops on together. He taught me that forgiveness is an ongoing daily process. You will be frequently triggered. They key is becoming aware when you have slipped into the victim role and use your set of tools to come out quickly. This poem is especially relevant in light this concept. It is also humbling that each time you are triggered, you always hit the concrete floor. It is a powerful reaction.

Your deepest wounds

It also must be forgiveness of your deepest wounds, or maybe better stated, “your deepest wound.” Otherwise your nervous system will remain fired up and the pain switches will remain “on.” I cannot remember a person who broke free from the grip of chronic pain without letting go of anger.

It happened again last week. A member of the weekly Q & A groups had been struggling with chronic pain throughout her body for many years. She had a difficult relationship with a close friend. She was diligent in doing the expressive writing and relaxation exercises, which had helped. But somehow, in listening to other people’s experiences she suddenly was able to completely let go and her pain was gone the next day. She was shocked and I am always surprised when these breakthroughs occur – and it is ALWAYS around anger. She will be triggered again and have more pain. But once she has tasted the experience, she’ll find her way back quickly. It the reason I am so passionate about this project.

Alec is a friend and classmate of my stepdaughter. He was 26 and talented in the performance arts, as well as writing poetry. His poem above is remarkably insightful for any age. Think what the world would be like if we practiced the concepts he simply lays out. How often does the word, “forgiveness” cross your mind?

You cannot forgive too deeply or too often. Could you sing while you do it? Think what your life could be like.

The post Forgiveness as a Habit first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Forgiveness as a Habit appeared first on Back in Control.