Here is the essence of the problem with RUTs and the human condition. The sequence begins with your unconscious brain that is constantly on alert for danger and is much more powerful than our late-evolving language-based consciousness. Humans use language to give meaning to everything, especially to sensations generated from inside of your body (interoception). Danger, real or perceived creates threat physiology that generates various levels and kinds of discomfort, and we have created many words that describe how badly we feel. These unpleasant thoughts evolve into concepts. They originate from the brain and also are sensory input back into it that we react to with threat physiology. We are on a spinning wheel without brakes and our brains are on fire.

New Africa/AdobeStock

The conscious versus unconscious brain mismatch

So, we generate positive thoughts to counteract unpleasant ones. We work hard to develop enough self-esteem to feel better about ourselves. But the powerful unconscious brain can generate an infinite number of troubling thoughts with minimal extra energy expended whereas the conscious brain can only create a limited number of “good” thoughts that requires effort and expenditure of energy. It is a gross mismatch, your survival brain overwhelms your efforts to feel better about yourself, you experience cognitive fatigue, and you are worn down.

The root cause driving the creation of RUTs is your fired up inflamed brain. Once the thoughts are released, how can you put them back into the box? You cannot. It is like trying to kill a swarm of mosquitos with a fly swatter. What’s effective is calming down threat physiology (anxiety and anger), the RUTs are diminished, which lessens the threat load even more. This is a bidirectional process. The medical/ psychology world has primarily focused on the RUTs without addressing the physiological root cause. Over the last decade, that is changing, and many practitioners are using methods to calm people down as the primary focus. Why not drain the swamp?

Consider a hornet’s nest where the inhabitants are minding their own business. They are working together constructing a home, gathering food, watching out for danger, and reproducing. Then someone or animal comes along and starts poking at the hive. Appropriately, they sense danger and use the weapons at their disposal to fight off the threat. Swarms of hornets attack the predator with the intention to inflict pain and they do. What is the best answer? Is it trying to battle the hornets once they are in the battle mode, or would it be easier to quit prodding the nest? It is impossible to do battle with your innumerable RUTs. Why not calm down your inflamed brain? Your RUTs will quiet down. Then you have the ”space” to move into brain circuits where you can nurture joy, move away from pain circuits, and where the definitive healing happens.

schankz/AdobeStock

Dissolution of your ego

The final step of allowing your ego (self-esteem) to dissolve can’t happen until you are able to tolerate the painful thoughts arising from your unconscious brain. Emotional pain is processed in similar regions of the brain as physical pain. The reason we spend so much time and energy on our self-esteem is because RUTs make us feel so badly about ourselves and we don’t like to hurt. Once you have no more need to “defend” your identity built largely from cognitive distortions, you can live your life in freedom.

There is another layer to the devastating effects of RUTs. “Good” self-esteem is a cognitive distortion of labeling. It doesn’t matter whether your label is “better than” or “less than”, it is still a distortion and where does it end? Then think of how many aspects of your identity are determined by “stories” consisting of cognitive distortions. A major one is “should or should not” thinking, which is at the core of how we are programmed from birth. It manifests in perfectionism and self-critical voices. These voices become stronger with time and become embedded in our brains as concretely as physical objects. At some tipping point, we spend the rest of our lives processing our worlds though our life lens and it is continually reinforced. Many people develop mental rigidity as part of this process, and it is a trait that is at the center of almost any mental health problem. Defending and becoming attached to your own sense of self is the antithesis of awareness which is essential for successful human interactions.

RUTs are one of the expressions of threat physiology. Addressing this root cause allows definitive solutions. Humans must learn to navigate cognitive consciousness in ways other than a survival mindset. Understanding the nature of the problem opens up possibilities to thrive. It is the next step in our evolution of our species with dire consequences if we don’t.

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• Chronic mental and physical pain is a complex problem that requires a systematic approach to solve.
• How can you address the issues relevant to you without and organized approach?
• Reprogramming your brain requires repetition but not in a random manner.
• It is much more efficient to solve chronic pain with an organized approach.
• Being organized is a learned skill set, not an inherent personal trait.

I had always thought that being organized was an inherent skill that people either did or did not possess. It was clear to me that I was not an organized person. During my college and medical training, it was such a challenge to keep on top of my “to do” list, that I did not need much more structure.

When I began my practice, the structure of rigorous training disappeared, and I realized I needed to learn organizational skills to deliver high-quality medical care. I started with a book, The Organized Executive,¹ and I learned that getting organized is an easily mastered skill.

I read additional books and took classes to deepen these skills.  There are many ways to add depth to it. As you learn tools to solve your pain, it is critical to implement them daily and also to continue to learn. It is hard to step back into the life you want to create without an organizational system. I would suggest the following steps.

• Pick an organizational system you feel you would like to learn. Take the time to learn it. Learn and practice the skills required to take advantage of it. Here are a few suggestions:
  • David Allen’s seminars and book, Getting Things Done (GTD)²
  • The Organized Executive¹ by Stephanie Winston
  • Franklin Coveyorganizational systems³
  • There are many others
• Decide whether you want to implement it on paper or use a computerized system.
• Use it and don’t let yourself off the hook.

Stimulating meaningful neuroplastic changes in your brain requires repetition. But it requires specific focused ones. It has been demonstrated that random repetitions that approximate what you are trying to learn is actually counterproductive.⁴ Getting organized, in addition to allowing you to implement effective interventions, allows you to control your schedule (life), which will also lower your anxiety (which is the pain).

Other options and considerations

Maybe the idea getting super organized doesn’t resonate with you. There are many successful people who have made it easier for themselves. An option is to carry a blank notebook and take notes as you go. It has ideas, issues, to do items, etc. The bottom line is that you can quickly scan it and keep track of what is going on.

A day planner is also an option. There are many formats, and you can plan as big or small as you would like to.

I happen to gravitate towards David Allen’s approach where he suggests over two to three full days, take every item in your personal and professional life, and get it into one place. If the “to do” item takes less than two minutes to complete, simply get it done immediately. Then he has many suggestions of how to arrange them. A core concept is that each and every project boils down to, “the one next step.” It allows you to simultaneously engage in multiple different arenas. Many times, excellent projects never get started because they seem so big.

One common theme is writing down your vision in general terms. There are categories of being doable and getting them started and others are just dreams. Write them all down regularly. All projects begin with a dream. One of my most impressive mentors challenged me that once you have written them down, the next question is, “am I thinking big enough?”

For example, with regards to your pain, don’t just try to get better. Do it. Pursue learning the tools to heal and practice them – with a vengeance. How long do you want to continue to suffer? What else is more important to your quality of life than your health. You have heard me repeatedly say that “you can’t fix yourself.” That is still true. However, you can gain many skills to better process adversity, spend less time in a defensive survival state, and allow your body to heal.

There is the issue of being computer based versus using paper. That is a matter of preference Many people, including me, have not seen a big advantage of being computer based (but I am old….).

Recap

My friend and forward-thinking cell biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton, has succinctly pointed out the huge mismatch between the unconscious brain and conscious brain. The unconscious brain is hundreds of thousands more powerful than the conscious brain. Over 95% of our actions are hard-wired and automatic and beyond our conscious control. We don’t have direct access to them, so what can you do? You can use your conscious brain to reprogram them from automatic survival reactions to more pleasant ones. That requires ongoing repetition. It also has to be focused.

Getting organized is critical because there are so many aspects to both your life and pain, and they all need to be addressed. Although you can improve without being organized, you can move forward more quickly with a plan. It also decreases your stress, which is anti-inflammatory, and decreases your pain – mental and physical.

If you step back and look at the big picture, consider that we have a choice of running our lives in an endless crisis management mode or methodically taking charge. Getting organized is not difficult and is the better alternative. Commit to getting better and learning an organizational system will help you honor your commitment to you.

Questions and considerations

1. It may be different now, but I was not taught any organizational skills at any point in my schooling or medical training. Were you?
2. I watched people that were organized accomplish a lot of excellent things, but I assumed that this was an inherent trait. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
3. Organizational skills are a learned skill set with many ways to attain it. Whatever one you connect with is going to help.
4. You don’t have to become incredibly organized to experience major benefits.
5. Being organized will give you control over your life and decisions. We know that a sense of control is anti-inflammatory.⁵
6. Chronic pain is a complex problem, and similar to fighting a forest fire, every aspect of it must be addressed. Being organized greatly increases your odds of success.

References

1. Winston, Stephanie. The Organized Executive. Norton and Co. New York, NY, 1994.
2. Allen, David. Getting Things Done. Putnam Books. New York, NY, 2015.
3. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Anniversary edition. 2020.
4. Coyle, Daniel. The Talent Code. Random House, New York, NY, 2009.
5. Dantzer R, et al. Resilience and Immunity. Brain Behav Immun (2018); 74:28-42.

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• 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.

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• Perfectionism is felt by many of us to be a virtue. It is reflected in terms of,
  “high standards,” “excellent quality,” and “strong work ethic.”
• It is actually a disguised version of anger directed at yourself. These ideas actually become translated our minds as, “not good enough,” “imposter syndrome,” and “why do I always do this?”
• Holding yourself up to impossible standards is a way of remaining in a victim role indefinitely.
• These “standards” also translate into judgments of others as you project your views of yourself onto them.
• The most disturbing aspect of this issue is that all of this arises from the unconscious brain, are hardwired circuits beginning from birth, you have no control over them, and are unresponsive to the conscious brain.
• They have to dealt with by reprogramming the unconscious brain.

Perfectionism may be the most common, almost universal disguise of anger. I had been raised with the idea that it was a virtue, and this perception was dramatically reinforced during my medical training. It was at the core of my burnout and journey into The Abyss of pain and I had no idea it was problem until well after I had crashed and burned.

Perfectionism fits into the anger cascade in the following manner.

• A given situation, person, or you, are less than your concept of ideal.
• You blame one of the above for being “less than perfect.”
• You are now a victim of “less than perfect”
• You will perpetually exist in some state of conscious or unconscious agitation.

David Burns in his book, Ten Days to Self Esteem,¹ points out that the gap between your concept of perfect and your reality is the degree of your unhappiness. Perfection does not exist in the human experience. Since perfection is unattainable, why do so many of us continue to embrace it? I will offer a couple of observations from the perspective of an extreme perfectionist.

Why do we keep holding on to “perfect?

First of all, we are programmed to “be all that we can be.” We are also taught that “pushing yourself” is the best way to accomplish this goal – except that pushing often evolves into punishing in the form of self-criticism without limits. Since this strategy often achieves impressive short and medium-term results, it seems like a reasonable pathway. It’s not. Using the medical profession as an example, the burnout rate amongst physicians is over 50% in every state in the US and has risen between 5-10% in the last five years. The burnout rate in neurosurgeons, in one study, demonstrated that it was over 65%.² The same driving energy that pushes you up the hill takes you down the other side. Striving for perfection becomes a deeply-established programmed pattern of thinking and behavior.

A second reason is that the victim role is so powerful that humans will do almost anything to create and hang onto it. Since perfect is unattainable, you are able to remain a victim of imperfection indefinitely. It is self-flagellation. The DOC Journey is about letting go, allowing yourself to repeatedly “fail,” and continuing to move on. Perfect does not allow for failure. BTW, much of your capacity to create a wonderful life is dependent on your ability to deal with adversity successfully and efficiently. Your body will spend less time being exposed to threat physiology. Also consider, “what is failure?”

Third, your self-critical voice is part of the powerful unconscious brain that is not subject to conscious interventions. There is a phenomenon called “the ironic effect” that sabotages your best intentions. When you try to focus on noble ideals and concepts, your brain focuses on ways that you might not attain them. In other words, the more you try to think about something positive, the less you will think about it. You’ll develop anxiety from the futility your efforts. We tend to take these voices personally and we should not. They are your brains automatic programmed patterns. We can “talk” to them as much as we want but there is no one there. It is tragic that we try to quiet these voices that are just repetitive circuits. The more of well-intentioned person you are, the louder they are.

Perfectionism is rampant

85% of people in chronic pain have not forgiven the person, employer, other driver, etc. who caused their pain. Interestingly, the person they are the most upset at is themselves.³ If your intention is to live a life filled with peace and joy, how can you accomplish it by holding onto resentment, especially if it is directed at yourself.

Starting a new life

I was talking to a friend of mine who had recently lost his wife. He was a high-level professional and trying to meet someone to start a new life. Invariably, his internal dialogue was “inadequate,” “boring conversationalist, narrow interests, unattractive, and the list went on. Then it came out that he placed these same labels on his dates. What he wasn’t aware of is that your mind projects onto other people and situations the way we feel about ourselves. The term for this behavior is projection. So, when you are in a judgmental mode and expressing it to others, you are revealing to the world the way you feel about yourself. This is particularly true when you are upset (in pain).

Hard on his family

I was talking to one my colleagues who had experienced a lot of success using the approaches in The DOC Journey with a marked decrease in his anxiety and stomach pains. He found the expressive writing and relaxation tools the most helpful. He had also read Dr. Luskin’s book, Forgive for Good.⁴

He had returned from vacation and stopped the expressive writing since he felt so good and relaxed. The day he walked back on the job his symptoms returned. It came out in further conversation that he is extremely hard on himself. He was an ex-baseball player who almost went pro. I asked him if he was critical of his kids. He admitted that he was. I pointed out that he was not going to be any easier on them that he was on himself and that in the big picture he was not being that nice to either. What he held up as “high standards” was really intense perfectionism. Was this really the world he wanted to create for himself and his family? It is antithesis of creating a haven of safety. Dr. Luskin is clear that forgiveness has to begin with forgiving and accepting yourself? We all sort of know this, but down deep we don’t pull it off very well.

Letting go

So what is the solution? These are not pathways that you can intellectually solve. They are mindless endless loops. Your body is also chemically reacting to these thoughts and creating n. Suppressing them makes the situation even worse. The key is to become aware of the depth and nature of your critical self-talk and create some “space” between you and these circuits. Writing down your thoughts down an awareness of them and also creates this needed space. Then you can use your conscious mind to redirect your attention to more pleasant choices. Just understanding the magnitude of the impact that perfectionism is having on the quality of your life also helps.

Finally, decide to be happy. You have to use repetition to reprogram the unconscious. This is different than positive thinking, which is a form of suppressing. It entails creating a positive vision. You cannot get to happy while remaining perpetually judgmental. Then choose to program your brain with positive alternatives and solutions. Paradoxically, you will possess an endless amount more energy to achieve your goals.

I hold a Q&A session a couple of times per week. Perhaps the most common topic that keeps coming up is “not feeling good enough” and self-criticism. I joke that we could call our roundtable, “The perfectionist’s club,” except it is not funny and actually is tragic. The accomplishments of this group are remarkable, yet there is a limited capacity to enjoy their successes. Perfectionism is what was the essence of my personal demise.

Recap

Creating a vision of excellence is much different than having “high standards.” You understand and accept where you are along with your resources. Then you create a plan to pursue your vision of what you want your life to look like. This involves filling your brain with positive solutions as well as accepting and processing  the inevitable failures. This is a different journey from wasting your energy flagellating yourself for your inadequacies and failures. If you are not willing to fail, then don’t attempt the journey. Paradoxically, you will have an endless amount of additional energy to achieve your goals. Happiness is only possible while pursuing a vision of excellence.

References

1. Burns, David. Ten Days to Self Esteem. Harper Collins, New York, NY, 1993.
2. Kurapati, Rajeev. Burnout in Healthcare. Sajjana Publishing, 2019.
3. Carson JW, et al. Conflict about expressing emotions and chronic low back pain: Associations with pain and anger. The Journal of Pain (2007); 8:405-411.
4. Luskin, Fred. Forgive for Good. Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2003.

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How can you access your unconscious brain? One necessary step is to first develop an awareness of what is currently being embedded into it. I was staying in Half Moon Bay after our day of shooting videos and I began to notice the signs.

Repetition

One of the traits required to access and alter your subconscious is repetition. I realized that much of what is presented to us is negative. If it was verbal, it would be considered nagging. We are subjected to an endless number of “You” messages and we are so used to it that probably most of us don’t notice it happening.

You might feel that even considering this topic of our environmental messaging to be a complete waste of time. Maybe it is. However, it also strikes me that most people have an ongoing voice in their heads saying, “You are not good enough.” Where did that come from?

“Not good enough”

We hold a Q&A session every Tuesday and Thursday and one theme that keeps arising is endless forms of self-critical messaging that have heard from childhood from their parents, teachers, and friends. Some people call it “setting high standards.” Unfortunately, that is not true. It is one thing to have a “vision of excellence” and take action to pursue your goals. It is another to “never be good enough.” It does drive many to “achieve”, but at what price? This same energy that took you to the top of the hill is what often takes you down the other side. This voice is so deeply programmed that there is not an easy way to turn it off.

Then the marketing world does its best to continue to feed us this message and then presents us “solutions” to improve our appearance, clothing, body, athletic skills, etc. It is impossible to comprehend the effects of this ongoing messaging. Then look at these signs. I am walking on a beautiful beach walkway and these “you messaging” signs are everywhere. I gave up taking pictures.

Whatever………

Additionally, it really doesn’t work to change behavior. We become immune. We all know better than to litter. We don’t need signs to remind us. Even the threat of a fine doesn’t really stop people from doing it. The people who don’t litter don’t do it because they have some level of consideration for property that belongs to all of us – the view. The ones who will litter, will do it anyway. Guess what I found on the pathway right below “clean up after your dog” sign? Threats and punishment create only short-term behavioral changes. We know that children become desensitized to the word, “No” and continue to act out. They also understand they have captured the adult’s attention and they are the ones with the power.

Step back and look around you. We are surrounded with negative messages from every direction. Be assured that they are having an effect on you. “I am not OK the way I am right now.” “You can’t be trusted to do the right thing.” Do you have to hear what to do about suspicious objects every 15 minutes on the airport loudspeaker?

Choose carefully

I am not going to spend a lot of energy on the reasons why this is happening. None of us have a say in how our society continues to assault us with these messages. We can’t change our past regarding the way your parents, teachers, coaches, or bosses “motivated” you with endless criticism. But what about this moment forward. What messages are you choosing to program your brain with? What do you read? What movies do you watch? What about your ongoing self-critical input with your own mind? Are your critical of your spouse, partner, or children? What are they hearing from you?

The other point that Bruce Lipton made was that in order to access your subconscious, it requires repetition. It is clear that the negative input for most of us far exceeds the positive. But you have a choice and you can choose to input you whatever you would like. Positive outlook and vision is a different energy than positive thinking. No one is asking you to be happy about something that is unpleasant. If something is bad, it is bad. But when you are not in a crisis and have a choice, why not choose something enlightening and fulfilling. It will eventually become a habit, and your brain physically changes structure.

Then a little later that weekend, my wife and I were riding our bikes past a small shop that exuded much different feeling.

I don’t have a solution today for this problem. We are exposed to incessant negative messaging from the time we develop consciousness. But there are effective means of dealing with it. They begin with awareness. Once you become aware of the nature of what your brain is being bombarded with, you can observe your body’s response. Now you have choices. One of them is to use strategies that train your brain to focus in a different direction and calm your neurochemical reactions. This is a different process than positive thinking. It is creating your vision.

More importantly is to understand the effects of what you are choosing to upload into your computer (brain). If your brain is stuck on negativity, you’ll continue to reinforce it. Once you change the way you look at and process information, you’ll be able to stimulate your brain to physically develop in the direction of your choice (neuroplasticity).

1. Lipton, Bruce. The Biology of Belief. Hay House, 2016 – 10th anniversary edition.

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Reality

The first step in this process is for your brain to define reality. There is nothing inherent in any receptor that defines anything. A cat is a cat because your brain has unscrambled visual signals and has determined the nature of this animal. A cat’s meow is analyzed from the auditory receptors and the signals travel to a different area of the brain. Your nervous system then has to link these two inputs together to associate this sound as one that emanates from a cat. This complex sequence occurs for every aspect of your reality. Whatever you call “real” is only your individual interpretation of the world. Although there are close similarities, no one sees even one object exactly the same.

Next, all of your senses keep combining input to determine other properties of objects, such as hot, cold, smooth, red,  yellow, loud, bright, etc. Other people are a basic part of this identification process. Your infant has to first recognize you as a human before other layers are added.

Identity

At some point, a child recognizes that he or she is separate from others and then realizes that the closeness of the bond with mother/ father hopefully not only represents a haven of safety, but also the link to life itself. Any threat to this connection is unacceptable. Identification of self, relationship to others, social awareness, ideas, concepts and abstract thinking all will progressively follow with age.

It is only so if I say it’s so

The reason why I am presenting the obvious, is to make the point that nothing exists without your brain gathering data, unscrambling it, and determining what is. (1) It is based on your prior programming. Somewhere in the midst of all of this, babies have to learn to survive on their own, which means that one basic function is determining what is and isn’t safe. However, that can’t happen until some sense of separation and definition of the world has happened. A newborn can’t determine that a hot stove is dangerous until it knows what a stove is. He or she can only instinctively pull away from too much heat but can’t know enough yet to avoid it in the future.

This is how every creature stays alive, with many species being able to care for themselves much more quickly than humans. The essence of this skill is avoiding danger and gravitating towards rewards. What drives this action? One of the main factors is the state of your body’s chemical makeup. If the brain has determined something or someone is a threat, it will compel you to take action to solve the problem.

Compelled

One of the responsibilities of the central nervous system is to maintain the delicate balance of the body’s chemistry. There are numerous chemicals to monitor. When there is a threat, hormones will be secreted that increase your chances of survival. Some of the core stress response hormones are adrenaline, noradrenaline, endorphins, histamines and cortisol. I won’t list the effects of each of these, but the net result is an increased capacity to flee from danger. Much of this is modulated through the autonomic nervous system, which also has many direct effects such as increased heart rate, rapid breathing, dilation of certain blood vessels and constriction of others.

All of these allow you to leap into action, but what compels you to do so? It is a feeling of dread that we call anxiety. It is so deep and uncomfortable that you have no choice but to take action. Once the threat is gone and the body is back in balance (homeostasis), you can go on with your life. Anxiety describes the cumulative sensation of a threat. It is symptom, not a diagnosis, disease, or disorder. Therefore, it isn’t treatable by primarily addressing it as the problem. Once you understand it is only a warning mechanism, you can address the root causes that are unique to you.

Seeking rewards

Conversely, survival also depends on engaging in behaviors that allow you to flourish and procreate. It is enjoyable to eat, quench your thirst, inhale a breath of fresh air, take a nap, empty a full bowel or bladder, make love and spend time with close friends and family. When you are lying in the sun or holding your newborn baby, your body is full of reward chemicals such as oxytocin (love drug), dopamine (rewards), serotonin (mood elevator) and GABA chemicals (anti-anxiety). Your heart rate is slower and your muscles are loose. What a great chemical bath. It isn’t as critical to survival to be in this state, and we aren’t urgently compelled to act.  We aren’t avoiding an imminent threat. Many words encapsulate this scenario and I will choose, “relaxed.” Relaxed is a description of this state and also not a diagnosis, disorder or disease.

These shifts in your body’s balance occur by the millisecond. Disease does occur when this balance is disrupted by sustained levels of stress hormones. This data has been known for decades. (2)

“The Curse of Consciousness”

The universal problem of being human is what I call, “The Curse of Consciousness.”  Recent neuroscience research has shown that threats in the form of unpleasant thoughts or concepts are processed in a similar area of the brain as physical threats with the same chemical response. (3) The “curse” is that none of us can escape our thoughts, so we are subjected to an endless stress chemical assault on our body. This translates into more than 30 physical symptoms and many disease states. These include autoimmune disorders and early death. (4, 5) However, the worst symptom is relentless anxiety. In my personal experience and working with thousands of patients in pain, the mental pain, manifested by anxiety, is beyond words, intolerable. It is the reason why the only description I could come with for this state of being was, “The Abyss.” It is the essence of human suffering and the additional physical symptoms are the final insult. It is a universal phenomenon, varying only in intensity and styles of coping – some much better than others.

Since this unconscious survival mechanism has been estimated to be a million times more powerful than your conscious brain, it isn’t responsive to rational interventions to manage or control it. The solution lies in the fact that this is an unsolvable problem. Without anxiety that is unpleasant enough so as to compel you take action, you wouldn’t survive. Neither would you or the human species survive without the drive to seek physiological rewards.

Solution principles

The first step is to understand the nature of anxiety, and it is simply feedback indicating the levels of your stress hormones. View it as the fuel gauge in your car. It simply lets you that you are being threatened, whether it is real or perceived. It doesn’t matter. But, you do have to allow yourself to feel it before you can deal with it.

Second, if anxiety is the measure of your body’s survival hormones, then the only way to decrease it is to lower them. This can be accomplished in two ways with each category requiring different tools:

• Directly through relaxation techniques
• Indirectly by lowering the reactivity of your brain to dampen the survival response. This is accomplished by stimulating your brain to rewire so the response to a threat results in a lower chemical surge and is of shorter duration. The term for this is, “neuroplasticity.” Your brain changes every second with new cells, connections and myelin.

By not wasting energy trying to treat or solve your anxiety, you now have the energy to pursue a new path with a remarkable surge in energy, life forces and creativity.

DOC is a framework

How is this accomplished? Learning tools to calm and rewire your nervous system is the core of the DOC (Direct your Own Care) project. These are approaches have been known for centuries and have been buried under the weight of modern information overload and pace of life. The DOC process is a framework for you to understand the nature of pain, your relevant issues and you can figure out your own version of a solution. The clarity will allow you to connect to your own capacity to heal by developing skills to auto-regulate your body’s chemistry from anxiety to relaxed. Consider anxiety as the fuel needed to take quick action and relaxation and is what we want for our baseline and cruising.

Success in learning to adjust your body’s chemical makeup is based on awareness and openness to learning so change can occur. It is remarkably simple and consistent. Join me in living your life in a manner that you could not conceive was possible – even better than before you were crushed by pain.

Is “relaxed” a diagnosis? No!! Is “anxious” a diagnosis? No!!!! To read your body’s chemistry gauge, you first have to allow yourself to feel.

References:

1. Feldman Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions are Made. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. New York, New York, 2017.
2. Rahe R, et al. “Social stress and illness onset.” J Psychosomatic Research (1964); 8: 35.
3. Eisenberger N. “The neural bases of social pain: Evidence for shared representations with physical pain.” Psychosom Med (2012); 74: 126-135.
4. Torrance N, et al. Severe chronic pain is associated with increased 10-year mortality: a cohort record linkage study. Eur J Pain (2010);14:380-386.
5. Song, H, et al. Association of stress-related disorders with subsequent autoimmune disease. JAMA (2018); 319: 2388-2400.

The post Anxiety is a Symptom – Not a Diagnosis first appeared on Back in Control.

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