Self-esteem

Every human is judgmental. It is an inherent aspect of survival.  However, it is not a trait that engenders close enjoyable relationships or peace of mind. It is made worse by our cultural programming that having self-esteem is essential for happiness. Nothing could be further from the truth. To attain and maintain high self-esteem requires endless comparison to those around you and also to norms that society, your family, friends, and you have set for yourself. You will eventually wear down and crash. There is not an endpoint to this process.

The pursuit of self-esteem can’t and doesn’t work. At some level, we all know this. Whenever your peace of mind and/ or identity is at the mercy of external circumstances, including other’s opinions, you’re at the mercy of them. Also, it gives others power to shut you down, which is one of their efforts to improve their self-esteem. You are riding on a universal merry-go-round that will never let you get off. The eye of the storm

Envy

As these attempts at “improving self-esteem” eventually and miserably fail, the next level of emotion is envy. It isn’t pretty and interferes with almost every aspect of life from work to your personal life. Although you may be on the same pursuit of happiness like the rest of us, it can’t happen if you are perpetually envious. Happiness and envy are not compatible emotions. What is even more ironic is that when you are judging someone else, you are just projecting your view of yourself onto someone else and broadcasting your insecurities to the world.

I have an exercise you may want to consider. Think of someone that you dislike. He or she usually isn’t too difficult to identify. Then in one column, write down as many things about them that you dislike. The to the right of each pronouncement, write down what you dislike about you in a similar area. You may not like his or her work ethic. Maybe you think they are lazy?  Do you procrastinate? Or are you in a reactive pattern where you are a workaholic? “He’s fat!” Are you happy with your weight? Maybe people think you are too thin. You don’t like her political views. Who is to say yours are more correct.

What is fascinating and disturbing is that many people are often unhappy about other’s success, even if they are a close friend.

Schadenfreude

There are two basic types of envy. One is being unhappy with another’s success, whether it is a friend or competitor. The other is silently rejoicing when someone you are envious of suffers a loss. The term for this second scenario is “schadenfreude”. Both elicit feelings of guilt because we know we shouldn’t feel this way. But when you try not to feel a certain way, it becomes worse. It’s even more problematic if you feel the person you have envied didn’t originally deserve his or her success.

In light of the current neuroscience research, we now understand the impact of sustained frustration on your body’s chemistry and the resulting physical symptoms. This unknown writer succinctly points out that good health is the essence of living a good life. Yet, when we spend our energies comparing ourselves to others, we are frequently frustrated. This chronic anger with the attendant elevated levels of stress hormones wreaks havoc with every organ in your body and you’ll eventually get sick.

Envy and pain

I’ve had as much of a challenge with self-esteem and envy as anyone. I came from a tough household and it seemed if everyone had a life that I wanted. I was envious of friends, accomplishments, adventures, families, and the list went on. What is now obvious in retrospect was that my mother was insanely envious and our family’s situation was never good enough. She would become unhappy to the point that our whole family would move to another town to start over. The cycle would begin again and she would complain about any and everything. By the time I was 18 years old, we had lived in 11 different houses. After I refused to move from my high school area in Napa Valley, they kept on moving. It’s clear where I learned this pattern of behavior.

When I ended up in chronic pain, it all become much more intense. It seemed everyone had something I wanted. The first thing I was envious of was not being in pain. Then it seemed that everyone had a better family life than I did. I become more and more socially isolated and I withdrew even more. Although, I wanted to re-engage with friends, my fear of rejection became almost a phobia. Holidays were particularly unpleasant. It seemed like every person in the world was having a better time than I was. Of all the terrible experiences I endured, the loneliness was crushing. It is one of the reasons I have described the world of chronic pain as, “The Abyss”.

Self-destruction

Additionally, anger is destructive, including self-destructive. One of the ways this plays out is disregarding your own health. All of us have a choice of how we choose to treat our bodies. Chronic frustration is possibly the main reason why you wouldn’t choose to feel physically great. It’s hard to really enjoy life if you don’t feel vigorous and energized. Ongoing self-neglect is a form of slow suicide. You’re angry and take it out on yourself. We all have some degree of self-destructive behavior and many of us have a lot. So, the emotions that you might be feeling from another’s success are sucking you dry. You now have less of a chance of “being successful” whatever that might mean. Jealousy and frustration aren’t solving much.

Moving forward

I have undergone many phases of healing. However, I have never forgotten the intensity of the loneliness and envy. It was the accidental discovery of the expressive writing exercises that halted the downward descent and it is still the one necessary starting point of the healing process.

One exercise I frequently discuss with my patients is similar to the one I presented above. I ask them in the room to visualize someone they dislike. They have read enough of the DOC process to quickly understand where I am going. I point out that they know the being judgmental is problematic and then I ask them what happens when they try to not be judgmental. Of course, you will become more judgmental. So, whether you are judgmental or not judgmental, your nervous system remains fired up. What can you do? Write down your specific thoughts and immediately destroy them. This allows you simply to separate from your thoughts, not to solve or change them. You may not become friends with this person or even like them. But in that “space” you’ve created, possibilities arise. Once you can see your judgements as a projection of you, you may be able see this person in a different light. At a minimum, it certainly makes life more interesting.

The Way to Love

So, the solution doesn’t lie in “not being envious.” Another key to dealing with it is to become more aware of it and the impact on your quality of life. I have now incorporated Anthony DeMello’s book, The Way to Love, into the DOC process. He defines love as awareness.  I frequently re-read a few pages. He’s clear on the consequences of being attached to your external circumstances for your peace of mind. Becoming aware is a critical step and a significant part of the solution.

Although, it’s a daily, minute to minute exercise in awareness, not being caught in the quicksand of envy has been a remarkably freeing experience. Try it. At least become aware of your resistance to living a different life.

1. I was going through some old files and happened to find this paragraph that I had clipped out over 30 years ago when I began my spine practice. It initially had a big influence on me and I would read it intermittently to remind myself to keep both feet on the ground regardless of major successes or failures. Life began to cave in on me and I lost touch with these concepts amongst many other losses. I don’t know the source but the wisdom of it struck a deep chord with me. A reader just let me know the writer was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
2. Schadenfreude: Understanding Pleasure at the Misfortune of Others. Wilco W. van Dijk, Jaap W. Ouwerkerk; Cambridge University Press, Jul 24, 2014.

The post  “Our envy of others devours us most of all” first appeared on Back in Control.

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• AI and the human brain both are blank slates whose functionality depends on what is loaded into them.
• Your capacity to navigate life depends on the quality of data and the “algorithm” loaded into your brain.
• Poor data or inept processing skills creates ongoing and progressive dysfunctional thoughts and behaviours.
• Your “trauma story” is not a “story”. It is a dynamic state, and you have a choice in directing it.

There is a striking similarity to computer-based learning called artificial intelligence (AI) and the human brain. AI has the capacity to process sensory input, analyze it, and arrive at conclusions as well as make decisions. There is also a marked difference in that AI cannot react to the internal sensations from the body’s physiology (body’s chemistry and function) because there are no neurochemical support systems for AI. Every living creature reacts to its environment through collecting sensory input, analyzing it by the millisecond, and the signals are sent out to regulate the physiology to that of “threat” or “safety.” These internal sensations are called “interoception,” and interpreting these signals is the basis for the evolution of human consciousness.¹

Co-regulate??

Thoughts are a major form of sensory input and emotions are what you feel; they reflect your physiological state (how the body functions). Much of human physiology is regulated through the vagus nerve, which is close proximity with your facial muscles. Through a complex set of interactions, we are able to “co-regulate” with others with the first step being that of determining if the other person is “safe” or not.

AI can only react to electronic signals and can process them without any sense of threat or safety. Even if facial recognition could determine safe or dangerous, there would just be an electronic response that mimicked this state, but there is no chemistry to feel.

AI vs. your brain

The cognitive capacity of AI to accurately analyze vast amounts of data, and arrive at new insights, far outstrips the human brain. It can create art that elicits emotions (physiology) in humans, but another AI machine will be unable to “feel” anything. It also cannot co-regulate with another machine or human, although it may appear that way on the surface. For example, when patients were evaluated by an AI machine compared to physician, the AI machine was much more effective in allowing a patient to feel heard and safe.²  Of course, if a clinician is stressed and feeling rushed, the co-regulation will be in the wrong direction.

But here is the real problem with the human condition that is being highlighted by AI. It is clear that the effectiveness of AI depends on two core factors. The first being the quality of the data being inputted and second that the “rules” of processing the data or the algorithm.

Jinho/AdobeStock

For example, if you simply download the rules of chess into AI without any strategies of how to use it, nothing of significance will happen. For AI to develop a mastery of chess, the data and the approaches need to be “taught” by a chess master. Then it can analyze the approaches, mistakes, good moves, and eventually become a better player than the master.

What if you inputted the wrong rules or if you trained it with someone like me who really only knows the rules and can only see one or two moves ahead. There is little or no chance of the computer gaining enough experience to compete at a high level, much less become a grand master. The computer can improve on good and also enhance incompetence. In the business world, inputting bad data into AI costs industry a lot of money. AI is developing tools and approached to understand when bad data is being gathered and the results are not going in the right direction. Could it salvage my chess game someday? Maybe.

The human database

Let’s get back to the human brain. I often refer to David Eagleman’s book, Livewired, where he clearly describes the incredible neuroplasticity of the human brain.³ It will adapt to almost any input to optimize your chance of survival. But what he describes so well is how dependent we are on our parents for physical survival compared to most mammals. Even more clear is that ALL of our consciousness is constantly programmed every second from birth by sensory input from inside and outside of us. We are who everyone thinks we should be and eventually those “voices” become our own. There are an infinite number of data points and most of it is around molding our “identity”, behaviors, accomplishments, and surviving. Additionally, most of us are not taught effective coping skills and even fewer are taught to nurture joy.

Consider the extreme form of poor input and coping skills of being raised in an abusive environment. All a child needs from his family is to feel safe, be safe, educated, taught relationship skills, and feel nurtured. That’s it. That is not what many of us get. So, the download in our brains from the beginning is “flawed data,” we are not taught to process it, we are too busy surviving to feel safe, and we don’t have the skills to nurture creativity. So, our processing system is full of bad data, analyzed by the wrong set of rules, and our life trajectory may spiral out of control.

OlegD/AdobeStock

The real trauma story

Trauma is stored in your body, but maybe in a different way than you might think. There is a trend to develop a “trauma” story. The real trauma story is reflection of the trend of your entire challenging life. Your “personal AI” will continue to add dimensions and depth to it. You may be rapidly evolving in the wrong direction depending on what “data” has been loaded into it. This is especially true if your “processing system” is also flawed. It is ongoing until you become aware of the nature of the data that is contained in your brain up to this second and you learn more effective methods to process it.

There is good news in that by changing the nature of your input and the way you process it, you can program in any reality you wish. What doesn’t work is trying to rearrange the old data and “fix” the flawed operating system. The first step is becoming aware of the nature (not the details) of the data that has been downloaded into your brain. Equally important is understanding the ways of processing your input to break into these swirling circuits and get your brain moving in the right direction.

To have a good life, you must live a good life. It requires skills and practice.

References

1. Damasio, Antonio. Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious. Vintage Press, 2022.
2. Ayers JW. 2023. Comparing Physician and Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Responses to Patient Questions Posted to a Public Social Media Forum. JAMA Internal Medicine.https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2804309
3. Eagleman, David. Livewired. Canongate Books, 2021.

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• We are trained that if we can solve enough of our problems, we’ll have an “enjoyable life.”
• Life’s challenges never stop, and we may slowly sink into darkness, “The Abyss.”
• We become desperate trying to escape; especially from our RUT’s (Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts)
• The most effective way to dispel darkness is turning on light.

We are born as blank impressionable slates full of openness, curiosity, playfulness, and eagerness to learn. There are innumerable sources of learning, and we trust those who we perceive as having wisdom to teach us way to live an enjoyable and productive life.  Words and concepts are important but imitating actions are more powerful ways of learning. The possibilities are limitless.

But what often happens? In a protected and nurturing environment, the light may remain bright for many years and sometimes indefinitely. But for many of us, the light becomes progressively dimmer and at some point, we tip into the Abyss of chronic mental and physical pain. The light is extinguished, and it is a dark place without the slightest hope of escape. This is not what any of us planned when our spirits were shining.

A famous quote

It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old. 

They grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.

                         Gabriel Garcia Marquez¹

I modified this famous quote based on my personal experiences and observations of anxiety:

It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old. 

They grow old because their dreams are crushed by anxiety.

                         Gabriel Garcia Marquez

                          (Modified by Dr. David Hanscom)

Darkness

How quickly does darkness descend when you never felt safe and nurtured? Maybe you never felt the light that exists within you. Even if you had a great start, what about the onslaught of life?

• Unmeetable expectations
• Bullying – peers, coworkers, siblings
• FOMO
• Social media
• Poor diet/ no exercise
• Never-ending to-do list
• Lack of resources – housing, food, education, finances
• Job issues
• Difficult parenting
• Unrelenting Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts (RUT’s)

The darkness settles in to the point where we can’t see a way out and eventually, we might forget what the light even felt or looked like. Additionally, there is the relentless wind, that also wears you down. Life keeps coming at us, especially the RUT’s.

So, what do most of us do? We are used to problem solving and we either keep working at fixing our lives (getting rid of the darkness) or many of us give up. Nothing seems to be working. Where do we go next and how can we get out of a place that seems to have no definition or limits? It really is an Abyss.

You cannot “fix” darkness”. It is simply absence of light. You also can’t control most of your thoughts (RUT’s) and stresses (the wind).

Darkness disappears with light. A small match is lit, and you must protect the flame from the wind. You may have to keep lighting it many times. Eventually, you are able to protect the flame and allow it to grow. Even when the light is dim, it still penetrates the darkness. As you continue to add fuel, the flame becomes a fire, then a large bonfire that can hardly be contained. The wind will eventually fan the flames and make them stronger.

“The fog rolled in.”

Many years ago, I was discussing chronic pain with a patient who was also a physical therapist. She related that she had an idyllic upbring with her parents and two siblings enjoying each other. Family outings including scenic drives, trips to Coney Island, music, and playing board games. There was a lot of fun and laughter. Then when she was 12, her father lost his job and her life permanently changed. The fun was replaced with verbal abuse, drinking, rages, and hardly even coming home. She described it as “the fog came in,” and life became dark. It never changed. I only saw her a couple of times recall how sad she was. I did not know much about chronic pain at that time and was perplexed how life could change so quickly. I did not understand the physiological nature of anger and that the thinking brain does not work is well. I don’t know what eventually happened to her.

Healing happens by moving forward towards your vision

It isn’t logical for us to spend so much time and energy fixing the dark and not paying attention to the light. But it is the only way that healing occurs. You are the only one who can light the match over and over again, protect the flame, and create a fire that can’t be put out. Knowing the tools to process darkness are necessary and are a separate skill set from connecting and nurturing your light. That is why there is a sequence of healing: 1) connection, 2) confidence, and 3) creativity.

Recap

Why do we feel that focusing and fixing our troubles is going to give us the life that we want? Not only can you escape from The Abyss with light, what about walking outside and soaking in the warmth of the sun?

Your dreams and play are always within you. Connect with and nurture them and allow your body to heal.

Questions and considerations

1. Our biological imperatives are to first survive and then pass our DNA to the next generation. Our unconscious brain evolved to look for trouble and resolve it in order to physically survive.
2. Humans are more complex in that we possess language and must deal with emotional pain, which is processed in a similar manner as physical pain.
3. Instinctively, we are programmed towards problem solving.
4. Although we also develop through play, it often gets buried in the ongoing chaos of life. We also have the human problem of our inability to escape from our unpleasant thoughts.
5. How much of your life is consumed w ith fixing problems versus nurturing joy? Have you created any “space” for joy?
6. If you wish to live a different life, you must create some “space” to nurture creativity and joy. Light will dispel darkness whereas all the fixing in the world will not pull you out of it.

 References

1. Gabriel García Márquez. Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude. 1967. Editorial Sudamericanos, S.A., Buenos Aires.

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• Mental and physical pain are processed in similar regions of the brain.
• Our inability to escape from RUT’s relentlessly drives flight or fight physiology, and people may become ill.
• There is a healing sequence to solve them – separation of identity, thought diversion, lowering anger, moving into creativity, and dissolving your ego.
• It is a dynamic process with all of these happening daily. Eventually, as it becomes automatic, and you are free to live your life.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is manifested by extreme anxiety that is driven by Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts (RUT’s). Most people associate it disruptive compulsive behaviors such as hand washing, climbing up and down stairs, following a rigid daily regime, and the list is endless. However, there is also a form of OCD called, “internal OCD” where a person has an unpleasant thought and “counteracts” it with a pleasant thought. Either form has no endpoint and is considered a diagnosis to be managed and not solved. That is simply not true.

RUT’s are universal

Essentially every human being has some level of RUT’s. At what point do they become severe enough to be considered OCD? Why not discard the diagnosis and consider the process on a spectrum of human consciousness. The classic definition of OCD is when the thoughts/behaviors interfere with your capacity to carry out activities necessary to live a functional life.

What about enjoying your life? With internal OCD, there are no outward manifestations, but your quality of life might range from unremarkable to miserable. There also many “acceptable” behaviors such as working hard, overexercising, “passionate pursuit” of a hobby or vocation. All of these can be just fine, but what is driving them?

As I have talked to patients carefully over the 40 years, I gradually learned that mental pain is a much bigger problem than physical pain. I would ask patients that if could get rid of their physical pain with surgery and they would still have their ongoing anxiety versus resolving their anxiety and living with the pain, the majority of people wanted to get rid of the mental pain.

Related behaviors

There are also come cousins of OCD. Consider them in the context of behaviors to cope with the unpleasant sensations created by anxiety (threat physiology). They include:

• Hair pulling
• Nail biting
• Eating disorders
• Excessive attention to physical appearance
• Hoarder’s syndrome
• Skin picking
• Cutting
• Extreme convictions regarding religion, politics, or any social issue
  • Imposing these “ideals” on others is the next step because control lowers inflammation. The more power the more control.

Any addiction is an attempt to mask anxiety.

Avoiding anxiety (threat physiology) drives most human behavior

Avoiding anxiety is the driving force keeping all living creatures alive. It is the result of stresses and challenges, not the cause. Amongst the many stressors in our lives, the inability to escape from our thoughts is a major one, maybe the worst. Although we cannot control our thoughts, many activities create sense of control. Suppressing RUT’s just makes them-worse.

“Worrying” seems normal to many people. But is not particularly enjoyable. Why do we spend so much time worrying about so many things, many of which we have no control over? One reason is that it provides a feeling of control. Somehow, worrying enough will help solve the problem. What it does is that it keeps your brain and body fired up and you have less energy to effectively deal with challenges.

Or maybe you have an “anxiety disorder.” Everyone has anxiety, so why would we call it a disorder and why would you personalize these intentionally unpleasant sensations that evolved to keep you alive. It is what you have, not who you are.

What about those who don’t have any of these behaviors. Even many well-adjusted people living normal enjoyable lives can experience a level of RUT’s that interfere with their quality of life. Actually, when life is relatively calm, these repetitive thought patterns can significantly increase. Then as one pursues pleasurable activities to distract themselves, it doesn’t work and is actually highly inflammatory. The data shows that a hedonistic lifestyle creates aggressive inflammatory cells called “warrior monocytes.” In addition to attacking viruses and bacteria, they also go after your own tissues. The other factors that stimulate their formation is social isolation and CHRONIC stress.¹ Your body knows how to effectively deal with acute stress, but it needs a break to rest and regenerate.

Degrees of OCD

Obsessive thought patterns are inherent in human cognitive consciousness. There are degrees of intensity, and they vary day-to-day depending on the level of your stressors and the state of your nervous system – calm or hyperactive. Again, even if your life is relatively calm, they can also be problematic.

OCD, the extreme manifestation of this situation is considered a diagnosis to be managed and can’t be solved. However, medicine has not consistently addressed the body’s physiology. When you are in a flight-or-fight state, your brain also becomes inflamed and these thoughts will fly out like clay pigeons at a shooting range, except there are trillions of them. The medical profession has also not acknowledged the seriousness of the effects of less intense RUT’s on people’s sense of well-being and health. They still drive threat physiology. They are often referred to as a “monkey mind” or he/ she is just having a nervous breakdown. These thinking patterns are a problem and our inability to escape them is even more problematic.

Solution principles

There are four aspects of solving RUT’s and each of them will be discussed in detail in future posts. They all happen simultaneously and indefinitely. Eventually, as your brain evolves away from them, you no longer have to “work at dealing with them. They are:

• Diverting, not controlling, them – mindfulness, expressive writing, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
• “Turning down the heat” – when you are trapped by anything, your threat state fires up even more, and you are angry. Anxiety is activated and anger is hyper-activated threat physiology.
• Nurturing creativity and joy. This is where the real healing occurs as you move away from these spinning circuits.
• Dissolution of your ego – we work hard to attain enough self-esteem to feel better about ourselves. However, most of it is based on cognitive distortions that drive RUT’s even more. Without an ego to defend, these racing thoughts will abate – often dramatically.

This set of approaches evolved from my own 15-year ordeal with severe “internal OCD.” Not only do I not experience these vivid, almost visual thoughts, I don’t seem to have the random distracting thoughts I had before I became ill. There is also a vast amount of research looking at the mechanisms of why and how they occur, and now there is lot of neuroscience data supporting these ideas. The challenge is to present them in a manner so you can pursue your own healing journey. No one else can do it for you.

As your brain heals, your body heals. As your body heals, your brain will heal. The reality is that they are just part of one unit – you.

Recap

Our inability to escape our unpleasant thoughts is inflammatory. Since half of your brain has inflammatory receptors, it also fires up. The diagnosis of OCD is considered to be relatively uncommon, except many people suffer from RUT’s that interfere with the quality of their life. Obsessive thought patterns are considered to be unsolvable and just managed. However, medicine is not generally addressing the physiology. There are four aspects of dealing with OCD that will lower the intensity of these thoughts:thought diversion, lowering anger, moving into the creative part of your brain, and allowing your ego to dissolve. They are solvable.

 Questions and considerations

1. What percentage of your waking hours are you occupied with racing thoughts?
2. Do you find yourself avoiding thinking about certain things? Do you notice how often they keep popping up?
3. Are you aware how common they are and how many people are bothered by them?
4. The medical world doesn’t consider OCD a problem that can be solved and the lesser issue of RUT’s is not often addressed. By using all of the approaches presented, they are not only solvable, but you can move into a wonderful life
5. RUT’s are a function of the mechanics of the mind. Talk therapy alone is ineffective and it can be likened to having a conversation with the engine of your car.
6. It is important to understand that these “stories” and thoughts become embedded in our brains as concretely as any physical object. The problem is that since this is your frame of reference, how can you really see the problem? They become normalized.

 References

1. Cole SW, et al. Social regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes. Genome Biology (2007); 8:R189. doi:10.1186/gb-2007-8-9-r189

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Chronic mental and physical disease are connected by a common root cause – stress. How and why?

Stress (threat) creates chemical (physiological) changes in your body (fight or flight), which creates mental and physical symptoms. When you are subjected to chronic stress, the ongoing inflammation and increased fuel consumption (metabolism) breaks your body down. Hence, you’ll eventually develop illnesses and disease.

Stress kills

It is well-documented that stress kills. The Holmes-Rahe stress scale was developed in the early 1960’s with points assigned to life events – both positive and negative. If your score was 300 or more, there was an 80% chance of developing a major illness within two years.¹ I have a close friend that I took the test with recently. His score was 463. Guess what? He developed cancer in his spine.

Bruce Lipton is a developmental biologist who stepped out of academic medicine in 1993 because what he was observing in the lab did not conform to the standard thinking in mainstream medicine. He understood that all life is possible because living organisms were able to transform energy into functional forms. Atoms, the building blocks of life and substance consist mostly of space and are powerful energy fields. Biologists embraced the role of quantum physics in biology in 1927, but mainstream medicine has been slow to adapt. His views have not historically been well-received, but it turns out that he was not only right but was decades ahead of his time.

Beliefs and your body

He is the best-selling author of The Biology of Belief. His work is now well-documented regarding the effects that beliefs exert on your body’s physiology. Negative belief systems fire up the fight or flight response and keeps it there. The common link to chronic mental and physical disease is sustained threat physiology and healing happens when you are in safety. Here is a small sampling of some data that supports this perspective.

• Dantzer in 2018² published a review on resilience. He documented the effects of stress on inflammatory molecules called cytokines. There are four factors that lower inflammation.
  • Optimism/ Hope
  • Sense of control
  • Positive outlook/ vision
  • Sense of social connection and community

Notice that when suffering from chronic mental or physical pain that all these factors are compromised – badly.

• Cole in 2007³ documented that chronic stress and social isolation caused the production of aggressive monocytes that he called, “warrior monocytes.” These are white blood cells that attack foreign bodies such as viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells. But these monocytes also attack your own tissues.
• Lisa Feldman-Barrett runs a large neuroscience lab in New England. She has documented that thoughts and consciousness become embedded in our brains as concretely as any object.⁴ So, each person views the world completely differently regarding threats vs safety and body’s coping resources are also infinitely unique. It doesn’t matter if the threat is real or perceived. If your perception of a situation doesn’t match the reality, you’ll have a stress response and your beliefs have to adjust for similar scenarios in the future.
• Note on the Holmes-Rahe stress scale that most of the stresses are not physical. They are real because they are events for which your body has to mobilize resources to deal with them. Unfortunately, perceived stress also causes your body to be activated.
• Consider ACE (Adverse Childhood Events) scores. The score is a rough measure of childhood trauma and higher scores cause inflammatory markers to remain elevated for decades.⁵ When you are raised in an abusive environment, you are programmed to see much of the world as dangerous, and that doesn’t change unless you thoughtfully reprogram your responses.
• Systemic chronic inflammation (SCI) is a state of inflammation that cannot be measured by blood tests.⁶ The problem arises from the breakdown of small structures in each cell called mitochondria. They are the engines whose chemical reactions create the energy of life. The “fuel” leaks outside the cell and is highly inflammatory. Over 50% of all deaths and diseases are caused by SCI. Chronic stress is one of the drivers.
• Pain reprocessing therapy (PRT) is a process where patients’ fears and beliefs about their pain are acknowledged and connected to the actual experience. Patients are reassured that the nature of the pain or problem isn’t dangerous, and then gently taken through a process of reassurance while performing actions that would normally cause pain. By feeling safe while engaging in activities they considered risky, they are able to calm down, feel safe, and the pain decreases or resolves most of the time.⁷ Again, the structure of their body hasn’t changed, it is their beliefs about it.

Why did Bruce and David team up?

It is clear that anxiety and anger are hard-wired automatic reactions that we have not control over. Bruce has pointed out that you might as well have a conversation with the hard drive of your computer. But he has pointed out for a while that you can reprogram them.

I have been on this course of action for a while but have not stated it as clearly as Bruce. I have seen so many “hopeless” patients heal that I am convinced that you can reprogram your brain around almost anything. Our brains are incredibly adaptable.⁸

Getting there

The DOC Journey course and app take you through a sequence that first teaches tools to calm down your nervous system, helps understand the principles of healing chronic disease, presents the problem of anxiety being the pain, explores awareness, teaches anger processing strategies, emphasizes repetition, and then helps you visualize and act on building your future.

The final answer to chronic mental and physical pain is shifting into joy, and where Bruce presents a wonderful picture of what that looks like.⁸ A significant aspect is programming in this outlook. We both agree that positive thinking can’t and doesn’t work. The DOC Journey course and app present practical strategies to achieve the state of consciousness that allows us to not only heal but thrive. Once you flip your beliefs to the future you want, your brain and life will follow, and it will become your reality.

Bruce and I created this four-part video series along with a lesson plan that presents an overview of the healing journey as well as suggestions how to start. We are excited about them in that we did not realize how close we were in our thinking until we made these videos. We hope you enjoy them and welcome to your new life.

References

1. Holmes TH, Rahe RH. The Social Readjustment Rating Scale.J Psychosom Res(1967); 11:213–8. doi:1016/0022-3999(67)90010-4
2. Dantzer R, et al. Resilience and immunity. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (2018); 74:2842. https://doi.orgl/10/1016/j.bbi.2018.08.010
3. Cole SW, et al. Social Regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes. Genome Biology (2007); 8:R189. doi: 10.1186/gb-2007-8-9-r189

4. Feldman Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions are Made. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, NY, 2017.
5. Dube, SR, et al. Cumulative childhood stress and autoimmune diseases in adults. Psychosomatic Medicine (2009); 7:243-250.
6. Furman D, et al. Chronic Inflammation in the etiology of diseases across the life span. Nature Medicine (2019); 25:1822-1832.
7. Ashar YK, et al. Effect of pain reprocessing therapy vs placebo and usual care for patients with chronic back pain. JAMA Psychiatry (2021); Published online 9/29/2021.
8. Lipton, Bruce. The Biology of Belief. Hay House, Los Angeles, CA, 2016.

The post Connecting the past and present to the future – Bruce Lipton and David Hanscom first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Connecting the past and present to the future – Bruce Lipton and David Hanscom appeared first on Back in Control.

Disneyland

While in medical school, I was at Disneyland with several of my friends. I had been there many times and one of my favorite rides was “Pirates of the Caribbean”. I enjoyed the music, art, and the general excitement of it all. The sensation of quickly sliding down to the next level in a boat was also a lot of fun. For some reason, I suddenly looked at the pirate scenes more closely.

“Pirates of the Caribbean”

As we entered the large room with a captured ship, there was a terrified bound woman getting ready to walk the gangplank. Behind her, several pirates were gleefully observing while getting the next victim ready. The scene of the captured town in flames showed a group of young frightened women on a platform being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Three or four women were being chased around the burning buildings attempting to escape their pirate pursuers. Several pirates were lying on the ground drunk, disinterestedly watching the whole scene. Another prisoner was trapped in a burning jail cell trying to persuade a dog to come closer, as the dog had the keys to the cell in his mouth.

We entered the main pirate’s lotto, which had piles of loot scattered everywhere. There lay the drunken captain, lounging in the midst of it. Many personal items were depicted in the middle of the mass of treasures.

“Pirate’s Cove”

Many years ago, I was in New England on a family vacation. We were playing miniature golf at a “Pirate’s Cove”. I looked up and there was a cage that housed prisoners until they starved to death. On each hole there was a continuing story about Captain Blackbeard. Part of the tale involved his marriage to his 12^th wife who was 16 years old. The governor of the state attended the wedding, as it was a major societal event.

Why?

What is it about pirates that we admire and romanticize so much? What characteristics should we embrace? The aspect I find particularly disturbing is that their terror is guised under the cloak of light fun and entertainment. This exposure begins in childhood for essentially all of us.

They rob at will. They not only just kill their victims, they often use perverse methods of torturing them to death. What is admirable about raping and selling women and children? The prisoner potentially being burned alive did not seem much of a concern to them. Why did the governor of a Southern State attend the marriage of a brutal older man to an underage girl? Why did I need to learn about that story while enjoying an evening of miniature golf with my family? Society has frowned on divorce for centuries. What about 12 marriages?

Do we admire what the Nazis did to their prisoners? Are their unspeakable deeds minimized in children’s rides or miniature golf courses?

My relative as a pirate prisoner

In the late 1700’s, I had a distant relative who was captured by pirates. My genealogist brother researched the story. He was one of 30 prisoners that were allowed to live, but they were enslaved. The conditions were so harsh that after three years only three were left alive. Thomas Jefferson finally paid his ransom. He was so brutally treated that he was disabled for the rest of his life. He passed away a few years after his ordeal. Another entire Hanscom family was murdered in a different pirate raid.

Packaging evil deeds in fun – normalizing abuse

It’s my feeling that when horrible deeds are packaged and presented in a way that minimizes the severity of their effect, it has a corrosive effect on who we are as humans. It becomes easier to ignore things around us that are unacceptable. Verbal abuse would be one of those amongst an infinite list.

Might this be confusing for children? They are taught to treat those around them with respect, yet simultaneously are being presented with the idea that being a pirate would be somewhat of the ultimate dream – freedom to do whatever you want to whomever you want without consequences.

I have worked with a medical system in Alaska that provides high quality medical care to a population of Native American Indians. They have recognized that abuse of any kind is detrimental to one’s health and the data is clear that an abusive upbringing is associated with poor mental and physical health. They have committed to eliminating abuse within this generation and have developed a remarkable infrastructure to address the problem. Several of the programs are focused on victims telling their stories. What I had not realized was the severity of the abuse and it is so common that in many villages it is the norm. The population had become de-sensitized to the problem although they weren’t de-sensitized to the suffering. It’s a terrible cycle. Bringing the abuse into awareness through telling their stories has been a major step in defining the problem and solutions are being implemented. Awareness is always the first step in solving a problem in any domain.

Aced out

Awareness of suffering

I have become acutely aware of my own suffering and those around me. It was a rough experience that brought me to this awareness. It is now clear to me how violence mixed with entertainment contributed to my inability to really appreciate the depth of others’ pain. Do you find pirate tales and violent movies entertaining? I did for much of my life.

Chronic pain is misery that is endless. Put yourself in the shoes of those poor pirate prisoners and imagine how they must have felt. Consider the suffering of other people around you who are in chronic pain. There are plenty. In the U.S. alone there are over 100 million people in chronic pain.

Awareness

The first step of reprogramming your nervous system is awareness. There’s nothing noble about pirates or the suffering they inflict. Become aware of how becoming desensitized affects your connection to the pain of those around you. If we are to evolve, issues such as these must be addressed both individually and as a society. Calling out the damage inflicted by packaging bad behavior under the guise of entertainment would be a significant concrete step.

The post Romanticizing Pirates – Normalizing Suffering and Abuse first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Romanticizing Pirates – Normalizing Suffering and Abuse appeared first on Back in Control.

• We are programmed by every second of our life up to this moment with most of it being around survival. We are inundated with internal voices warning of us danger. We are, “not good enough”, “FOMO” (fear of missing out), unattractive, are just a few examples.
• Predictive coding, inherent in human consciousness, causes these voices to become our version of reality and they are not responsive to logic.
• The only, but effective option, is to reprogram your brain to look up and keep looking up. As you move towards your vision, your nervous system will respond with powerful positive changes.
• This is much different than positive thinking where you are suppressing your past and pretending it is not as bad as it was.
• Be aware of the influence of your past on the present and when it is playing out. Then choose to move forward – quickly and consistently.

Positive thinking is a global form of thought suppression. If a situation is bad, it is of no benefit to pretend otherwise. A research study demonstrated that thought suppression damages the hippocampus of your brain, which processes short and long-term memory.¹ It is also been well-documented that when you try not to think of something, not only will you think about it more, there is a trampoline effect and you will think about it a lot more.² None of us like negative thoughts or emotions, so we naturally try to suppress them. Some of us may even shut the door so hard that we disassociate. The solution lies in learning to separate from them, and then choose to move forward into a positive vision. You do have an option of responding to it in a positive way.

Positive thinking

That is exactly what I did my freshman year in high school. In the eighth grade, I was indescribably insecure, to the point that I was stuttering and could hardly talk without choreographing each sentence before I tried to speak. I decided I was done with my chaotic existence and created a new life for myself.

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” 

 “Forget about it.” 

”I can deal with this.” 

“What are you complaining about?”

These kinds of thoughts were what ran through my head from that day on. I worked hard to create my identity and, of course, had no idea that I was disconnecting from who I truly was. Instead of leaving the past behind, I was battling with it.

 I became the ultimate positive thinker and felt that that there was nothing that I couldn’t accomplish. My “identity” was being cool under pressure. I was also nicknamed, “The Brick,” by a few people, which I took as somewhat of a perverse compliment. It wasn’t.

This approach worked for about 20 years and seemingly brought me a lot of “success.” Until one day – suppressing my thoughts no longer helped. Within five minutes, I went from not really knowing what anxiety was to having a panic attack. Then I experienced multiple other physical and mental symptoms. There is a huge mental and/or physical price to pay for this kind of thinking. It will inevitably make a person ill well before their time.

Positive substitution/ vision

One of the traits that emerged from that time period of middle school through college was being hypervigilant. I was analyzing every move I made compared to everyone else. I read every self-help book and was committed to improving myself in every way possible. I was open to therapy, tried meditation, studied Buddhism, and attended workshops.

It is fine and necessary to be aware of your past and understand how it might be playing out in the present, but then it is critical to move on. Many of us are intent on improving ourselves only by analyzing our flaws. We also try to “find ourselves” by deeply discussing the past and then try to fix our faults. This approach can’t work in that you are focused on the problem and not the solutions. It is like placing your hand into a hornet’s nest. Your brain will follow familiar patterns, and the more you look backwards into your pain, the more you will continue to sink into those negative circuits.

Positive substitution/ vision is basic to neuroplastic reprogramming. It has been challenging for me to sort this out from positive thinking. You have to first understand where you are before you can move forward but doing battle with your past does not accomplish this. If you are in a surviving and fixing mode, you stagnate. However, creating a vision of where you want to go and taking steps to get there is a much different approach

I was able to pull out of my 15-year tailspin into chronic pain by using the basic writing and relaxing tools, getting better sleep, and dealing with deep anger issues. But I have struggled with the concept of positive substitution. Additionally, I lived in a medical culture that is demanding and tends to focus on what we have done wrong. I have been fortunate to encounter some wonderful mentors who have role-modeled a better way to think, and I am continuing to learn.

My tennis lesson

I was introduced to another level of positive substitution during a remarkable tennis lesson that I took from Mark Johns, owner of The Tennis King, in Great Neck, NY. Normally I would be focusing on my technique, analyzing every shot, and trying to make the next one better. Instead of working on the position of my follow through, body position, footwork, etc., he just had me focus on inhaling during his backswing and exhaling all the way through my swing. I struggled and I was not thrilled with him for the first half of the lesson.

During the second half of our lesson, it hit me how brilliant his approach was. My whole nervous system was focused on his every move, including the position of the racket. Instead of thinking of correcting the flaws on my last shot, I could anticipate the next shot; my body was unconsciously adjusting and the chances of executing the next shot were much higher. This is not to say that focusing on solely on technique is incorrect, but it allowed me to trust what I had and maximize it. The results were remarkable and without a single additional technical thought. I learned to accept that no two tennis shots are the same. Are there any aspects of life that are identical?

Vision of excellence

One of my best friends and mentors, David Elaimy, has been instrumental in teaching me to create a vision of excellence instead of driving myself with self-criticism. The process involves assessing where you are, along with your resources, and then decide where you want to go and what are the steps to achieve that goal.

He is a remarkably enlightened person and has been coaching athletic performance principles for over 20 years. He coached my son, Nick, to 5^th on the North American mogul ski circuit in 2007. Nick was poised to win the 2008 National Championship when he blew out his knee on a warm-up run. David was instrumental in coaching Nick’s best friend, Holt, to the US Moguls championship in 2007.

While watching him work with these two, I realized the implications for my practice and engaged him as my surgical performance coach. He had a dramatic effect on my performance both in and out of the operating room. My complications decreased as my enjoyment increased. He coached my spine fellows, who are residents taking extra training to better learn spine care. His input resulted in the young surgeons having fewer complications during the fellowship and into their practices.

University of Washington Women’s Golf Team – 2016 National Champions 

David was also a volunteer assistant coach for the University of Washington women’s golf team. I have watched him coach the coaches, and also coach players. He had a similar impact on them as he had on me and my fellows. The team was in contention for the National Championship for a couple of years and in 2016, they won it. There were many factors, but here are some of the core strategies:

He had the whole team do expressive writing and immediately rip it up. It has been well-documented that simply writing down your thoughts, positive or negative, somehow breaks up the anxiety connected with thought suppression. Tearing it up allow you to write with freedom.

Then, he had them practicing active meditation while in competition. This exercise involves placing your attention on any sensation for a few seconds. In the midst of the cameras and crowds, they would listen to the sound of a bird singing. With active meditation you are shifting from disruptive thoughts more pleasant sensory input. We also used these strategies during surgery by focusing on light touch in challenging situations.

Visualizing success and vision of excellence

Visualization is also an important tool in stimulating your brain to change and perform. It was a key aspect of Holt winning his National moguls’ championship. He visualized every detail of his winning run while he was in the starting gate, and then connected to sounds and the feel of the snow. One of the U of W Huskies sunk a 60-yard clutch shot in the winning round. She had also used the practice of visualizing the ball going into the hole.

David’s vision of excellence also included that the team was going to have the best time possible, whether they won or lost. They all committed to being the happiest first or second place team in the field and they stuck to it. Winning it all was a bonus.

Visualizing success improves the chances of making it happen. And how to you define it. It is much more than just winning. One of my most important and successful mentors taught me that no matter what project he started, the first question he would ask himself was, “will it bring my joy?” A vision of excellence that includes “failing” allows you to perform with freedom. He also viewed “failures” as opportunities to learn and figure out a better way.

Recap – Put the hammer down

It doesn’t’ make sense to live your life while thinking about the past or trying to compensate for it. Although understanding when programmed reactions come into play is important, it doesn’t create a bright future.

I ran across this song, Better Not Look Down, by BB King that sums up this discussion, “Don’t look down or back. Just look up and put the hammer down.”

It is your life and you have a choice about how you want to live. What is your vision of excellence and where are you placing your attention?

Questions and considerations

1. Many of us became successful by trying to run away from our past. We can accomplish many things with this approach, but there is a price to pay – becoming ill and you also cannot outrun your mind.
2. Consider your vision of excellence. What is it? Is it focusing on winning at all costs, or living life with connection and purpose? Does your vision include happiness? We all know that achievements bring satisfaction, but that isn’t happiness.
3. Can you visualize your life without crippling anxiety and destructive anger? If it is your baseline, this can actually be somewhat challenging. If you are raised or living in a chaotic environment, you may not even recognize anger or anxiety, since it is your baseline state
4. Living life based on excellence is much different than focusing on your problems. .

References

1. Hulbert JC, et al. Inducing amnesia through systemic suppression. Nature Communications (2016); 7:11003/ DOI: 10.1038.
2. Wegener DM, et al. Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1987); 53: 5-13.

The post “Better Not Look Down” first appeared on Back in Control.

The post “Better Not Look Down” appeared first on Back in Control.

• Awareness is at the center of life. You cannot make good decisions without understanding the relevant variables.
• It is also an important tool in and of itself. By understanding the different types of awareness and knowing where you are in given moment, you can navigate life’s challenges more easily.
• The “circle of life” represents three states of the human experience and reflects the state of your body’s physiological state.
• Combining awareness skills with the “circle of life” allows you to selectively use tools to regulate your body’s chemistry.
• You can navigate life on your terms.

Awareness is both at the core of survival and also thriving. These are learned and separate skills. Survival is instinctual and whatever tools you have become embedded over your lifetime. However, many of our actions are not only ineffective but can make situations worse. Acquiring effective stress processing skills is important.

Thriving is not as instinctual and it must be cultivated and nurtured. If you are trying to use pleasant experiences, power, and material possessions to compensate for unpleasant survival emotions, it can’t and doesn’t work. You cannot outrun your mind. They key to thriving is developing a “working relationship” with anxiety and anger, and then you are able to create the life you want. Solving problems doesn’t yield a good life. You have to live a good life to have a good life.

Additionally, awareness is critical to processing life. You can’t solve problems in any domain without understanding details from both your perspective and also that of other involved parties. If you are projecting your views onto a given situation, you are not going to come up with consistently viable solutions. For example, you may have repeated troubles with relationships at home and work and can’t figure out why.

Putting awareness to work

The first necessary step in using awareness is looking at clues that you are not as aware as you think you are. BTW, if you think you are “aware” or “enlightened”, then you have already demonstrated that you are not aware. Any labels, positive or negative, block awareness.

Then seeing your unawareness will allow to deepen your awareness and start you down the pathway of using awareness as a tool.

Second, understanding and nurturing the different types of awareness enables you to learn skills in each of these arenas. Here are four suggested types to use as a baseline.

• Environmental
• Emotional
• Judgment/ “The stories”
• Ingrained patterns

Environment awareness a tool to be used daily and as you train your brain to connect to specific sensory inputs, it takes your attention away from disruptive thought patterns. As you continue to practice, it becomes more automatic, and your mind can calm down.

Emotional awareness is difficult in that you are training your brain to experience pain that you have been suppressing and repressing. Remember, emotions are what you are feeling in various physiological states – safety versus threat. They drive your behavior in order to avoid danger and seek safety. Since mental and physical pain are processed in a similar manner, emotional pain actually hurts. So, why would you want to feel it? Because suppressed/ repressed emotions fire up your body’s nervous system and chemistry even more.

Awareness of the stories you create about your life to make sense out where you fit into the world is particularly deadly. Many of these stories have been programmed in by your family, friends, and society. A high percent of them are actually cognitive distortions that continue to keep you ramped up even when your circumstances are good. The good news is that you don’t have to do anything about them because they are not based on reality. You can just become aware, separate, and move forward. If you choose to prove them wrong or ignore them, you have inadvertently reinforced them.

The ingrained patterns are the essence of who you are, make up your life view, and evolve to become the lens through which all new information is processed. Since the human brain is programmed by interacting with others, each individual is incredibly unique. The early input is critical as it sets the trajectory for the rest of your life. By definition, you cannot see these patterns without outside help as they are your frame of reference. Creating a clear awareness of your past programming is a necessary powerful way of switching your life from a reactive to a creative mode. It is also a much more interesting way of interacting with others, as opposed to constantly projecting your views onto them.

Third, once you become more familiar and skilled in developing these levels of awareness, you can actively use them as tools to calm down and re-direct your nervous system. Some people make the strong argument that awareness is the only tool you need to heal. We know that you can’t “fix” yourself. Your attention is focused on the problem and from a neuroplasticity perspective, you are reinforcing it. With awareness, you can watch yourself respond, somehow you are getting out of your own way and allowing yourself to heal. You have become an observer of your own healing. Remember, the steps required to create neuroplastic changes in your brain are: 1) awareness 2) separation (create some “space”), and 3) redirecting your attention.

Finally, the “circle of ife”, which contains the “ring of fire,” can be used as a foundational template for implementing awareness into your daily life. On a given day or moment, you can quickly assess your relationship with any of the four kinds of awareness and see which part of the “circle of life” you are in. You then have a choice of using your tools to move in the direction of your choice. But you can’t redirect unless you know where you are starting from. You will notice that moving easily between all aspects of your life on your terms is the goal of The DOC Journey. Then you are beginning your real journey of life.

The” circle of life” is the signature tool of The DOC Journey. The challenging aspect of this tool is that you must allow yourself to feel everything – but only as you can tolerate it. Allowing yourself to feel anxious is difficult because no living creature is programmed allow vulnerability. The consequences are harsh. Yet with language, we have the capacity to develop complex relationships, which requires vulnerability. It is a frustrating aspect of the human condition.

The good news is that once you are aware of where you are at in the circle, you do have choices. You can remain where you are – even if you are in the red, take a “refueling break by entering the green center, or move on by engaging in blue activities.

Freedom is being fully immersed in every element of your circle of life – on your own terms. It begins with awareness.

Recap

The essence of chronic mental and physical disease is being exposed to sustained levels of threat physiology. Your body is consuming resources for survival, and you cannot heal in this scenario. Healing can only occur when you feel safe enough to replenish your reserves. But a major block to seeking safety is not recognizing your body’s cues that you are in flight or fight. There are many ways of it covering it up, but your body is still in high gear.

You must learn to become aware of your physiological state and choose where and when you want to go or stay . Whatever set of tools you decide to implement begins with awareness. Where in the “circle of life” are you at this minute?

Questions and considerations

1. There is a tendency to look for a definitive cure for pain, which doesn’t make any sense. Your body’s interaction with the world is dynamic and your physiology changes by the millisecond. Life keeps coming at us.
2. When you are in fight or flight, you simply aren’t going to feel good. You are not supposed to, as the sensations evolved by creatures paying attention and taking action to survive. The species who were not aware enough did not survive. So, anxiety is intended to be so unpleasant, we’ll do almost anything to avoid it.
3. That is what makes awareness so challenging. You must feel and acknowledge your threat physiology before you can change directions.
4. Your tools will allow you to process stress more efficiently so as to minimize your time in threat physiology. Healing occurs as you learn how to feel safe.

The post Awareness as a Tool – The “Circle of Life” first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Awareness as a Tool – The “Circle of Life” appeared first on Back in Control.

Objectives

• Human consciousness precludes suppressing thoughts and emotions without experiencing physiological consequences.
• You may intellectually understand that being judgmental is unkind, but it is universal and embedded in our existence.
• Judgements of others, positive or negative, are projections of our own self-opinion, much of which is based on cognitive distortions.
• But when you try to become “enlightened” or non-judgmental, you have made the problem worse as thought suppression fires up your nervous system even more.
• Endless judgment (or suppression) becomes tedious.
• Simple awareness of these disruptive thoughts allows you to separate from them and learn to move past them in a powerful way.

The psychological process of projection is an aspect of human conscious where we transfer our personal life outlook onto another person. Whether the projections are positive or negative, it is the same process. We see the world through our ow lens, which has been programmed into us from birth. This mental “filter” is embedded in our brains as concretely as our physical perceptions of our environment.¹ Our ideals and life outlook are our version of reality.

For example, a person who is highly critical of others may feel fearful, agitated, and negatively judge him or herself. Another self-confident and secure person may view the world in a similar positive manner but may not be able to see or understand darker characteristics in others. It sounds better than negative judgment, but he or she may be prone to being taken advantage of.

When we judge people around us—either positively or negatively—we are projecting aspects of ourselves onto them and have lost awareness of the details.

 Desperate

I had my first personal insight into this phenomenon a few years ago, after I emerged from a severe depression and burnout. While I was deep in the Abyss, I experienced an endless barrage of negative self-judgments. With repetition they became my “story,” my identity. My assessments of everyone else was also not great and my personal life fell apart. Of course, I blamed everyone else but me. All I wanted was to have a few positive thoughts about myself—any would do.

A few years after my life turned around, I realized that positive self-judgment was almost as disruptive to my peace of mind as negative self-judgment. My mind was still racing. Like negative thinking, it prevented me from experiencing the present moment. That realization was a major shift for me. After I had worked so hard to be successful and to acquire the things that would allow me to view myself in a more positive light, I realized that any judgment is still judgment. They are two sides of the same coin.

Awareness

Anthony De Mello, in his book, The Way to Love,² points out that as soon as you have labeled anyone—either positively or negatively—you have lost awareness. You can no longer see who he or she is. A comment, appearance, or opinion has triggered a reaction in you, and your response has little to do with who the person is. How well do you know them? What is going on in their life? What reasons do they have for feeling the way they do?

Going back in time a couple of thousand years, the Greek Stoic philosopher (and Roman slave), Epictetus, observed that it is different to call someone a drunk, as opposed to saying, “This is a person who drinks too much.”³ One is a disparaging label while the other is merely a description. Think about your experience about being labeled a “pain patient.” It would be more appropriate for the medical profession to consistently use the phrase, “This is a person who is suffering from chronic pain.”

Joy?

It is impossible to experience joy when you are in a judgmental state of mind. If you really stopped and took stock while you are judging someone, you might eventually notice how tedious and joyless you feel. You are merely endless projecting the same views—yours—onto others.

Yet, judgment is and always has been necessary for our survival in order to assess safety vs. danger. So, judgment is here to stay; you cannot stop judging. What can you do to keep judgment from robbing you of the joy that is your birthright? Become aware. De Mello’s solution is simply to become aware of the effect your judgmental nature is having on your quality of life and relationships. Awareness not only dissolves judgement, it is the only effective option.

Not being judgmental

An exercise that I offered my patients in the office was to think about someone they really disliked. (It usually doesn’t take long.) I said, “Look, you now understand the effects of labeling, and you no longer want to judge this person. What happens when you try to stop being judgmental? They would look at me and quickly realize that this was a form of thought suppression, which makes us even more judgmental.” They were often perplexed.

I pointed out that one of the major benefits of writing down these judgements and immediately destroying them was that they were separating from their thoughts instead of reacting to them. They were being “de-energized.” Although they may have still disliked this person, possibilities could open up for more careful listening and greater understanding of the other’s perspective. Being no longer trapped by your thoughts opens the door for more joy to enter your life. It  is a great feeling to find common ground with someone you historically regarded as an adversary.

I have also occasionally written down in detail what I think about a specific person – positive and negative; and then in the next column note how I feel about myself on these same topics. It’s enlightening and humbling.

Peace??

The great majority of us want peace in this world, but peace is improbable unless each person takes responsibility for his or her contribution to the collective consciousness. Is your consciousness one of peace or war? No matter how justified you feel about your position, anger is still anger and labeling is still labeling. Those behaviors are far more combative than merely liking or disliking a behavior, viewpoint, or person.

Why am I writing about being judgmental? Because ongoing judgments will keep you in a state of agitation. The adverse effects on your body’s chemistry increases your physical and mental pain⁴  with the additional ongoing pain being even more upsetting.

You don’t have a choice about being judgmental and suppression is even worse. You do have a choice of becoming aware and learning strategies to separate from and process it. As you move forward, it builds on itself, and positively affects your close relationships. Becoming aware is the one contribution each of us must offer to the human experience to move it to the next level.

Recap

Judgements of others reflect our internal view of ourselves. It unavoidable, as we must make endless assessments to remain alive. Most judgments are negative and are disruptive to our capacity to enjoy our day. By trying not to be this way worsens the situation in that suppression of thoughts activates your threat physiology even more.

So, what can you do? Just becoming aware of your inherent judgmental nature, will open up your thinking to endless possibilities. Then you can proceed along your healing journey. The definitive answer for chronic pain is embracing joy. Again, you must break loose from your established reactive patterns in order to move forward.

Questions and considerations

1. Self-awareness is challenging because thoughts are suppressed for a reason. Many of them are extremely unpleasant and don’t fit the image of who we want to be. They are there and are playing havoc with your body’s neurochemistry.
2. Suppression is a conscious effort to keep thoughts at bay and repression is an unconscious automatic process. Both require specific stepwise approaches in order to become aware of them and assimilate these unpleasant repetitive thoughts into your daily life.
3. Expressive writing is the one mandatory step to begin the separation process so you can head in the direction you choose. Healing occurs with moving forward, not with “fixing.”
4. Have you considered that positive judgments also block true awareness? They consume a lot of energy that detracts from you just living your life.

References

1. Feldman Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing, New York, New York. 2017.
2. DeMello, Anthony. The Way to Love. Bantam, Doubleday, Dell. NY, New York, 1995.
3. Lebell, Sharon. The Art of Living: Epictetus. Harper Collins, NY, New York, 1994.
4. Chen X, et al. Stress enhances muscle nociceptor activity in the rat. Neuroscience (2011); 185: 166–173.

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There are two ways of stopping a deadly pandemic. One is through developing immunity, either by exposure to the virus or by inoculation with a vaccine. The other is to prevent people from dying. The key is to prevent the inflammatory response from reaching a level that destroys tissues and its host’s organ systems. The graph below illustrates the issue.

Cytokines

Cytokines are small signaling proteins that transmit higher-level signals and coordinate activities between cells. Consider them as the final off and on switches. They are central to modulating the immune system and inflammatory response. There are two categories of cytokines: pro-inflammatory (Pro-I) and anti-inflammatory (Anti-I). While Pro-I’s protect us by warding off acute perils, Anti-I’s keep us safe by allowing us to regenerate, thrive, and prepare us for battle with environmental enemies.

One term used to describe the excessive elevation of the inflammatory cytokines is “cytokine storm.” It is unclear whether there really is a “storm” or whether the normal rise of already elevated cytokines pushes people over a critical threshold into tissue edema and destruction.

Any real or perceived threat elevates Pro-I’s. That is the desired, normal response and is usually successful in protecting you from harm. However, COVID-19 virus can induce a powerful reaction that can kill you. The goal of treatment, aside from defeating the virus, is to prevent the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines from crossing that fatal point of no return.

There are two ways to accomplish this goal. One is to arrest the activity of Pro-I’s before the level of inflammation reaches a crisis point. In the graph, the horizontal dotted line represents the level of inflammation where cytokines cause severe damage to body organs. Once that threshold is reached, mortality rate is high. The asterisk (*) represents the point where interventions to halt this “cytokine storm” are being explored. There are definite possibilities.

Graph by D. R. Clawson, MD

The other approach is to ensure that patients begin with a lower cytokine load in the first place so that, should the Pro-I’s rise as expected when faced with COVID-19, the level of elevation does not cross the critical threshold. There are strategies to this end that can be easily pursued by any of us. Presenting these approaches is the goal of this paper. First, it is important to understand the nature of threat. Download pdf for detailed discussion

 Threat

Any mental or physical threat is going to be met with a defensive response from your body. Much of this is mediated through the vagus nerve, at the core of the autonomic nervous system. The response is the well-known fight, flight, or freeze reaction. Dr. Stephen Porges has wonderfully presented the sequencing in his well-known, Polyvagal Theory. (Porges)

We are familiar with the physical manifestations of an increased heart rate, sweating, rapid breathing, muscle tension, elevated blood pressure, etc. But what you may not know is that the immune system also gets fired up and mobilizes many types of cells that fend off predators such as bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. The result is inflammation where the “warrior cells” exit the blood stream through widened openings in the blood vessels to destroy the invaders (antigens). Cytokines are small proteins that are the “switches”, which activate and deactivate this activity.

Threat always activates pro-inflammatory (Pro-I) cytokines. Physical threats include allergens, parasites, bacteria, viruses, lions, tigers, bears, and people we perceive as dangerous. Less obvious but even more inflammatory are mental threats, because we can’t escape from them. The sustained inflammatory response destroys tissues and is the basis for chronic mental and physical disease. Examples of mental threats are memories, negative thoughts, suppressions, repressions, insecurities (social, financial, health, etc.), cognitive distortions, loss of life perspective, and purpose.

Discovery and acknowledgement of all our threats–whether real, imagined, anticipated, or repressed–is the first step towards addressing them. The second is choosing an adaptive rather than a maladaptive escape to safety, whether the threat be physical or spiritual. We are better at physical escapes to safety than we are at spiritual ones (Fredheim). If you don’t feel safe and peaceful, you are carrying elevated levels of cytokines. If you encounter the additional threat of a COVID-19 infection, you will have less chance of surviving, since you’ll already be closer to the critical threshold.

Lowering your cytokines

I am going to present an overview of the approaches and you can access this booklet that discusses each strategy in more detail. Each one has been document in medical research to lower your pro-inflammatory response (Pro-I’s) and improve your chances of surviving the COVID-19 infection. Using as many of them will increase your odds of surviving. Conversely, ignore them at your own risk. You may have noticed in the news that the people who are dying have “risk factors.” Every one of these causes an elevation of inflammatory markers. Poverty is one of them and there are a multitude of problems connected to living in this environment. But the essence of the problem is that it is a tremendous ongoing stress directly affecting your body’s ability to defend itself.

Below I have outlined ten areas to address in order to reduce your inflammatory cytokine load. I am going to summarize them, and you can access a more detailed discussion in this pdf.Each strategy will lower your pro-inflammatory response (Pro-I’s) and will improve your chances of surviving the COVID-19 infection.

1. Understand and treat anxiety. Anxiety is simply your body signaling danger. It is the sensation generated by elevations of your stress hormones, activation of the sympathetic nervous system, elevated Pro-I’s, and the inflammatory reaction. It is not a “psychological issue,” although mental threats are more likely to over-stimulate the nervous system than physical ones. With the correct approach, it is solvable.
2. Get adequate sleep. At least seven hours a night of restful sleep lowers your threat response and inflammation.
3. Employ expressive writing. You can’t control your thoughts and emotions but writing them down, tearing them up and discarding the paper separates you from them. The practice has a remarkable impact on both mental and physical symptoms.
4. Practice forgiveness. Anger creates a powerful neurochemical reaction with marked elevations of Pro-I’s and inflammation. There is no shortcut to overcoming anger but it needs to be dealt with quickly. You also must address your deepest wounds. Do you want the person or situation you hate to be what ultimately kills you? Who would win?
5. Follow an anti-inflammatory diet. This can make a remarkable difference in lowering Pro-I cytokines. This is a separate goal than from losing weight.
6. Decrease stimulation of your nervous system.
   1. Limit watching the news.
   2. Avoid watching violent and over-stimulating shows, especially at night. Just witnessing violence will increase Pro-I’s (ref).
   3. Stop negative talk, such as complaining, gossiping, discussing your medical problems or care, giving unasked-for-advice, and criticism.
7. Maintain an exercise regimen.
   1. At least 30 minutes a day
   2. Moderate and enjoyable
8. Stay on top of your medical problems.
   1. Control your diabetes.
   2. Take your blood pressure meds.
   3. Comply with all of your recommended medical treatments.
   4. Stay in touch with your doctor, even about issues you consider minor.
9. Directly address family issues. Families trigger each other, but there are effective ways to create structure that will minimize conflict.
   1. Living in chaos is not only unpleasant; it also has a negative impact on your health.
   2. Your family is usually the source of your biggest triggers.
   3. Be nice! Any member of your family who feels trapped is at higher risk for an illness or chronic disease.
10. Having fun is one of the most powerful ways to stimulate the production of Anti-I’s and relaxation hormones.

 Life is tough

 It is easy to drop into living life in a survival mode. Life is tough, competitive and challenging. For animals without consciousness, it is far more simple. You either learn the skill and cunning to survive–or not. There is also a lot of luck. Humans have the additional characteristics of language, socialization and can deal in the abstract. One of the curses of consciousness, is the only thing we know for sure is that we are not going to live forever. It is the ultimate fear. Yet we spend a lot of time distracting ourselves and trying not to think about it.

The paradox

Here is the paradox. The more anxious and frustrated you are, for any reason, you are adding to your threat load and there is a much higher chance that you will develop a severe disabling disease and die earlier. Additionally, while living in this state, your capacity to enjoy the time you have been given on this earth is compromised. You are living a chaotic and reactionary life and even forget to ask yourself, “where is the endpoint?” There is none. You cannot outrace your mind.

Instead of surviving and hoping to thrive someday, it is necessary to flip the paradigm. Thriving is a learned skill similar to learning a new language. Once you have learned it, your odds of surviving improve, regardless of the circumstances–including COVID-19. Thrive and survive.

Plan A: Thrive and Survive COVID-19 pdf

1. Porges, Stephen. The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, Self-regulation. Norton and Co. New York, NY, 2011.

Contributors: Polyvagal Work Group

David R Clawson, MD–Physical Medicine and Rehab, Seattle, WA

Stephen Porges, PhD––“Distinguished University Scientist” Indiana Univ Bloomington

Les Aria, PhD–Lead pain psychologist, Kaiser Northern CA, Sacramento, CA

Steve Overman, MD–Rheumatology, Seattle, WA

Matt Lederman, MD–Internal Medicine, Co-founder of Kinetin.com

Steve Lederman, MD–Cardiology

Ray Bunnage–Database and Visualization Developer, U of WA Medicine, Seattle, WA

Hara Marano–Senior editor-at-large, Psychology Today, New York, NY

James Taylor, MD–Anesthesiologist, Pain physician, Pinehurst, NC

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