• A basic trait of human consciousness is to give meaning to everything from objects to experiences.
• These perceptions and concepts are embedded in our brains as concretely as physical objects.
• They are our individual version of reality, and we live our life accordingly.
• By definition, we are unable to be aware of them since they are our frame of reference.
• Understanding the depth of our individuality would allow us to better get along with each other.

Awareness is essential to stimulating healing neuroplastic changes in your brain in that you cannot stimulate your brain to develop in a given direction unless you know where you are starting from. Awareness is both a tool and foundation for moving forward with every aspect of your life. Of the different kinds of awareness, ingrained attitudes and thought patterns are the most problematic. By definition, you cannot see them without actively seeking them out.

Ingrained Patterns – Blind Spots

By definition, we are all programmed/ brainwashed by our past. Every action you take today is determined by your ENTIRE life experience up to this very second. Most living creatures are able to fend for themselves immediately or relatively quickly from birth. Humans are unique in that we have NO capacity to do so, and it takes many years to acquire even basic physical survival skills. Additionally, since we have a unique emotional life based on language, there is another layer of extremely complex learning that occurs throughout a lifetime. Each human being’s inner self has little in common with any other person.

David Eagleman, in his book, Livewired,¹ succinctly points out how the human brain develops by interacting with other humans. If you are raised in a richly stimulating and nurturing environment your view of the world is much different than someone who was raised in a chaotic and threatening household. It is also the reason that childhood trauma has such an effect on your quality of life and health.² A significant part of your brain development happens within the first few years of life.

Your life lens

As you continue to interpret your ongoing reality through this lens, it is reinforced. You’ll embrace confirmatory data and reject what is in conflict with it. The marketing term for this phenomenon is, “reactance”, and is the reason that facts don’t change people’s minds.³ Your life trajectory will be consistent with your outlook. If you have been programmed to constantly be on high alert, your whole body will be on guard even when you are actually safe. The severe consequences of early childhood trauma on your mental and physical health have been well-documented.² However, you also have to understand that even in the best of households, there is still a lot going on. Although you may have a more functional life lens, you still cannot truly see the world through other’s eyes. Of course, there is the ongoing trauma of dealing with life’s inevitable challenges for everyone.

These attitudes and behaviors we develop over a lifetime of exposure to our circumstances are what I call ingrained patterns. What makes all of this more challenging is that our perceptions are embedded in our brains as concretely as of physical sensations and objects, such as a chair or table. I used to say that thoughts are real because they cause neurochemical responses in our bodies. But they are not reality. I was wrong.⁴

Your ego blocks awareness

You cannot see these attitudes and behaviors because they are inherent to your identity or ego. This basic trait of human consciousness may be the greatest obstacle to people getting along. Although we are infinitely unique individuals, we don’t tolerate differences well. It is why we become so attached to our politics, religion, belief systems, etc. It is also the reason that humans treat each other so badly based on labels. One example, amongst an endless list, was how we locked up “communists” during the McCarthy era of the 1950’s and 1960’s. It is why so many minority groups are persecuted, but they also often treat each other badly.

We are hard-wired enough that we don’t recognize or “feel” these patterns; it’s just what we do. It’s behavior that sits under many layers of defenses and has to be “dug out” by each person – if you want to. Our family-influenced habits and actions are much more obvious to our spouses and immediate family than they are to us; we can only get in touch with them through counseling, seminars, psychotherapy, self-reflection, spousal feedback, etc. What you are not aware of can and will control you.

The Polyvagal Theory and autonomic nervous system

In addition to the ingrained patterns controlling your life, your body is constantly automatically picking up cues of threats in your subconscious mind. You don’t have to think about not walking in front of an oncoming car. You just don’t do it. It is similar for the emotional aspect of your nervous system. If a person or conversation reminds you of an unpleasant situation in the past, your autonomic nervous system sends out signals to increase your heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and level of alertness. This flight or fight response also fires up your immune system and inflammatory response. When this response is sustained, there is a high chance of becoming ill or developing a serious disease.

There is deep research measuring the deleterious effects of chronic stress transmitted throughout your body via the autonomic nervous system. It is the part of your nervous system that automatically monitors your body’s internal functions and continually sends out signals to adapt to the sensory input. One of the pioneers in this field, Dr. Steven Porges, has organized much of this knowledge in his dissertation called The Polyvagal Theory.⁵ There are various methods of measuring the state of your body’s reactivity and also ways of learning to calm it down.

A humbling and enlightening day at Hyde

Hyde is a boarding high school that emphasizes character over academics and includes the whole family in a learning process. I didn’t realize the depth of my own ingrained patterns until one weekend while attending a weekend Hyde parent’s seminar.

My regional West Coast Hyde group had already worked me over about some of my own issues. I wasn’t in a great mood and decided to not contribute much to the group dynamic. As a result, I actually ended up listening. I watched one father trying to be a perfect Hyde seminar parent. He was a great, well-intentioned guy, but these very qualities were clearly blocking him from connecting with his son. I realized how often my idealism had a similar effect.

One of the exercises was to write a final letter to myself about my core values. I decided to open up my mind a little more and asked myself the question, “If I have done so much personal work, why am I still such a workaholic?” During the session, a story kept popping into my head from when I was a first-year orthopedic resident in Honolulu, Hawaii. About three months into my training, I overheard one of the other residents talking about admitting a patient with severe back pain who also had an anxiety disorder. I asked him, “What do you mean by anxiety disorder?” I had no idea what anxiety was; I had to look it up in a textbook.

Eventually, I developed a severe anxiety disorder. As I sat in the Hyde seminar, I couldn’t figure out how I could have gone through college, medical school, two years of internal medicine residency, and not have had a clue about the nature of anxiety. Obviously, I’d encountered many anxiety-provoking situations.

Suddenly a bomb went off in my head. Anxiety was all that I knew. I’d been raised in an abusive household, never knowing when my mother would explode. Fear was the basis for most of my behavior. My energy as a child was spent trying not to set my mother off and/or calming her down. Most of my energy in adulthood was spent in avoiding unpleasant emotions. I dealt with anger by disguising and suppressing it. My anxiety was held at bay by the power of anger and staying distracted, mostly by obsessive work patterns.

Infinite variety

Think how different our world would be if humans understood the infinitely deep depth of differences that define each one of us. Yet somehow, we not only don’t embrace this concept, but we also actively try to change others into what we think we should be. Why? It is anxiety-producing to have your life views challenged.

Consider the atrocities committed throughout history as a consequence of this way of thinking. What if our focus was becoming as aware as possible of other’s views in contrast to ours, consider them, and continually work on finding common ground? World peace would actually be a possibility. It is ironic that we do completely the opposite with unspeakably severe consequences.

Recap

It is, by definition, impossible to recognize your own ingrained patterns without being open to outside input and having the desire to develop self-awareness. Usually, it takes some type of interaction with another person in an individual or group setting. Hyde was one example of a structured interaction that allowed me to realize my deeper patterns. The didactic aspect was critical, but my paradigm shift would not have occurred without the support of the people in that room.

You cannot see yourself the way others see you. You must first decide to learn more about these patterns from outside sources to understand their impact on you and others close to you. Life becomes infinitely more interesting when you choose awareness.

Questions and considerations

1. Consider the number of seconds in your life with each one representing a piece of data that is interpreted by your brain to create meaning for your actions and life.
2. Not only are there an almost infinite number of variables, but the analytical process is also based on your prior experiences. At some tipping point, you transition from being “open and impressionable” to developing beliefs and opinions that bias ongoing input.
3. As you age, your “filter” or “lens” becomes more reinforced, and facts essentially never change people’s opinions. You are asking someone to change the essence of their identity and being.
4. Consider how infinitely different each of us is and focus on trying to see the world through others’ eyes instead of unconsciously defending your own positions.
5. It is anxiety-producing to be completely open and aware instead of hiding behind your ego. However, once you learn to process anxiety by regulating your body’s chemistry, you’ll be free to live life on your terms – and be able to give back to others.

 References

1. Eagleman, David. Pantheon Books, New York, NY, 2020.
2. Fellitti VJ and RF Anda. The Hidden Epidemic: The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease; Chapter 8. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
3. Berger J. Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 2020.
4. Feldman Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions are Made. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, NY, 2017.
5. Porges, Stephen. The Polyvagal Theory. Norton and Co., New York, NY, 2011.

The post Awareness–Ingrained Patterns/ Your Life Lens first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Awareness–Ingrained Patterns/ Your Life Lens appeared first on Back in Control.

• A significant aspect of your healing journey is stimulating your brain to create a new set of circuits that are pleasurable.
• The sequence to change your brain is 1) awareness 2) separation (create some “space” 3) redirecting or reprogramming.
• None of this can happen without you being aware of where you are starting.
• Four levels of awareness are presented.

It is interesting how most of us want to become aware of the details of a product or situation before we feel we can make a good decision. It is only logical. Yet we tend to make quick reactive decisions about our own health or body. Part of this is because when we are trapped by anything, especially pain, we go into a reactive mode, which is irrational, hardwired, and powerful. Reactive patterns of thinking preclude awareness. The blood supply of your brain shifts from the neocortex (thinking centers) to the lower parts of the brain (survival) and your automatic circuits are in play. This scenario is the opposite of being aware.

With your brain “on fire” it requires specific skills to deenergize these circuits to allow the possibility of better awareness. Awareness also becomes one of the basic tools to calm down your fight or flight response. It is tricky in that somehow you have to penetrate back into your thinking brain and realize you are in this state of mind. You’ll eventually understand, with practice, that deep awareness is an incredibly powerful tool and platform for living your life.

Awareness is the beginning

Awareness can be defined as, “Being fully connected to the present moment.”

Why would awareness be brought up in the middle of a project dealing with chronic pain? First of all, no problem is solvable without understanding it. Chronic pain is incredibly complex and becoming deeply aware of the nature of the neurochemical nature of it is critical. But awareness is also a powerful tool in solving it. Awareness is the first step stimulating your brain to rewire (neuroplasticity). You can’t change something you can’t see.

Awareness is a powerful tool that will be critical throughout your Journey and eventually your life. There are four perspectives to consider:

• Environmental
• Emotional
• Storytelling/Judgmental
• Ingrained patterns

Environmental awareness involves placing your attention on a single sensation – taste, touch, sound, temperature, etc. When you switch your sensory input from racing thoughts to a different sensation, it dampens the stress hormone response. This is the basis of mindfulness – fully experiencing what you are doing in the moment.

I use an abbreviated version that I call “active meditation,” which is placing my attention on a specific sensory input for 5 to 10 seconds. It is simple and can be done multiple times per day. Eventually, it becomes somewhat automatic and a “go to” resource for calming yourself throughout the day.

MEDITATION

Meditation is an advanced environmental awareness that taps into emotions, judgments, and even your ingrained patterns. There are various methods and schools of thought to connect fully with the present moment. One basic technique is to focus only on your breath, becoming aware of as many aspects of your breathing as you can. As you do this, you’ll become immersed in the moment. Various distracting thoughts will enter your mind, but instead of becoming enmeshed with them, you simply watch them come, and then watch them leave. The goal is not to ignore these thoughts, but to learn how to not react to them. This is the process of detachment. After the momentary distraction, you gently pull yourself back to your breathing as quickly as possible.

When you meditate, you don’t try to slow down or control your racing thoughts. Instead, you “de-energize” them so that they have less control over you. As you develop the ability to stay in the present moment, the thoughts become less relevant and decrease—often dramatically. The key is to not try and edit, fix, or control them; that will only make them stronger.

Emotional awareness is more challenging. Allowing yourself to feel all of your emotions is a big step in healing; you can’t change what you can’t feel. However, you have to train yourself to tolerate feeling vulnerable, which most of us hate. We are programmed to be tough and take care of ourselves. Being vulnerable is not rewarded in the rest of the animal world and is often punished in the human experience.

One of my colleagues coined a phrase, “You have to feel to heal.” If you are intent on avoiding pain, you’ll become worn down. The key is to assimilate unpleasant feelings into your day-to-day life.

Judgment/ Storytelling is a major contributor to creating mental chaos in our lives. Dr. David Burns in his book Feeling Good¹ outlines 10 cognitive distortions that are a core part of our upbringing. Some of them include:

• Labeling yourself or others
• “Should” thinking – the essence of perfectionism
• Focusing on the negative
• Minimizing the positive
• Catastrophizing
• Emotional reasoning

You can’t fix these “errors” in thinking, since they are deeply embedded in our brains. But gaining awareness allows you to substitute more rational thought patterns. This is the essence of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).¹ Another approach, called Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT),² creates an awareness of these distortions and then you train yourself to just be with the emotions created by them. As your reactions to disruptive thoughts decreases, you are able to re-direct your attention and calm your nervous system on your terms.

It is also becoming increasingly clear to me why the concept of self-esteem is such an incredibly damaging idea. It represents an attempt to counteract the deeply unpleasant feelings generated by your unconscious brain’s need to keep you alive and it is gross mismatch. What is also apparent that much our “self-esteem” is based on various combinations of the above-mentioned distortions. The good news is that once you understand the nature of these distortions, there is nothing you have to do. They are not real. The sequence is becoming aware of them (not ignore), create some space with the tools that you connect with, and then just move on to what you want. You don’t have to change your life. You alter your reactions, and your life will change. It is remarkable how powerful this approach is in light of how little effort is required.

Ingrained thought patterns are the most problematic. Another term for this aspect of consciousness is “blind spots.” Recent neuroscience research has revealed that thoughts, concepts, and ideals become embedded in our brains and are just as real to you as the chair you are sitting in.^3, We are all programmed by our pasts – every second up this very moment. In fact, higher level mammal’s brain development is dependent on interactions with the environment. Primate experiments have shown that monkeys that are raised from birth in isolation cannot interact with others and are a threat to their offspring.⁴Case studies of people raised in severely deprived homes cannot learn to interact with others or feel appropriate emotions. The behaviors are irreversible. We are hardwired to survive but not to thrive.⁵

Your thoughts and beliefs are your version of reality. That is why people often engage in aggressive behavior when their belief systems are challenged. Or the opposite scenario may occur, which is becoming passive. There is a reason why passive aggressive behavior is so prevalent. Either way, challenges to your core life outlook are deeply disturbing. By definition, your belief system is your “filter” through which you interpret your environment and take the best actions to survive and hopefully thrive.

But while in pain, many of our behaviors are less than ideal. How could they be otherwise in the context of so much suffering and misery? But since these deep reactions have always been there from infancy, you can’t see them or understand the impact they are having on those close to you. Having a strong support system is an important part of your recovery from chronic pain because positive relationships have a calming effect. Unfortunately, many of us who experience chronic pain also drive people close to us away. Only awareness of your own patterns can grant you freedom from this cycle. By definition, you are not going to be able to see these patterns without outside observation. Seeing how others see you is challenging.

 Recap

Understanding and practicing awareness is the first step in reprogramming your brain. Your brain’s structure is physically altered. The sequence is as follows: awareness, separation, and re-programming.

Environmental awareness is the foundational first step. Spending time with “active meditation” both changes the sensory input from unpleasant and disruptive to neutral or pleasant. Regardless of where you are in your journey, practicing awareness will help calm you down.

When you are ready for the second level of emotional awareness, simply watch your emotions pass by. Then, pull yourself back into seeing, hearing, and feeling as quickly as possible. It is a little challenging, as emotions often evoke powerful reactions. Training yourself to be with these feelings instead of fighting them is a learned skill and may require some support from a professional.

The third level – judgment – is a lifetime journey. The key is to be persistent in not judging others or yourself. A good starting point is understanding than whenever you place a positive or negative judgment on someone else, you have simply projected your view of yourself onto the world. As you become aware of these cognitive distortions, you will be able to regain control of your life.

Remember that in the fourth level of ingrained patterns, it is impossible to see yourself through your own eyes. This is where resources such as psychologists, good friends, spouses, children, and seminars are helpful. The key is being open and willing to listen. You will also learn humility.

While it may feel like a monumental task, there no greater freedom than living in awareness. Once you are in control of the narrative, it is important to ask – how do you want to live the story of your life?

Questions and considerations

1. Developing a deep awareness is an important step in moving on. The opposite energy is suppression thoughts and emotions, which is not only counterproductive but has also been shown to cause damage to the memory center of your brain.
2. Challenge yourself to see yourself the way others might see you. You may not like it at first.
3. Then begin to look at the way others see themselves vs your perception of them.
4. There are infinite variations of awareness, and these four categories are only suggested to help organize your thinking about the topic.
5. Once your consciousness begins to kick into this mode, life becomes incredibly more interesting. At some point, we all become worn out with our versions of the world. Just sit back, listen, and enjoy.

References

1. Burns David. Feeling Good. Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2008.
2. Schwartz Dick. No Bad Parts. Sounds True. Boulder, CO, 2021.
3. Feldmann Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions are Made. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. New York, NY, 2017.
4. Blum Deborah. Love at Goon Park. Perseus Publishing. Philadelphia, PA, 2002.
5. Eagleman David. Penguin Random House, New York, NY, 2021.
6. Hulbert JC, et al. Inducing amnesia through systemic suppression. Nature Communications (2016). doi: 10.1038/ncomms1103

The post Flip Your Consciousness – 4 Types of Awareness first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Flip Your Consciousness – 4 Types of Awareness appeared first on Back in Control.

Awareness is the essence of healing in that you cannot stimulate your brain to develop in a given direction, unless you know where you are starting from. Awareness is both a tool and foundation for moving forward with your life. There are four patterns of awareness that work for me.

Environmental awareness is placing your attention on a single sensation – taste, touch, sound, temperature, etc. What you are doing is switching sensory input from racing thoughts to another sensation. This is the basis of mindfulness – fully experiencing what you are doing in the moment.

I use an abbreviated version that I call “active meditation,” which is placing my attention on a specific sensory input for 5 to 10 seconds. It is simple and can be done multiple times per day.

Emotional awareness is more challenging. It often works for a while, but then it doesn’t. When you are suppressing feelings of anxiety, your body’s chemistry is still off and full of stress hormones. This translates into physical symptoms.

Allowing yourself to feel all of your emotions is the first step in healing because you can’t change what you can’t feel. Everyone that is alive has anxiety. It is how we survive.

Judgment is a major contributor to creating mental chaos in our lives. Dr. David Burns in his book Feeling Good outlines 10 cognitive distortions that are a core part of our upbringing. Some of them include:

• Labeling yourself or others
• “Should” thinking – the essence of perfectionism
• Focusing on the negative
• Minimizing the positive
• Catastrophizing
• Emotional reasoning

Becoming aware of these errors in thinking allows you to substitute more rational thought patterns.

Ingrained attitudes and thought patterns are problematic. By definition, you cannot see them without actively seeking them out.

Our family interactions in childhood are at the root of how we act as adults. The behaviors we develop over a lifetime of exposure to our environment are what I call ingrained patterns. They stem from our upbringing and the fact that our brain is somewhat “hard-wired” during our formative years. We now know from recent neuroscience research that concepts and attitudes are embedded in our brains as concretely as our perception of a chair or table. I used to say that thoughts are real because they cause neurochemical responses in your body. But they are not reality. I was wrong.

It turns out that your thoughts and ideals are your version of reality. Your current life outlook continues to evolve along your early programming or your “filter.” It is why we become so attached to our politics, religion, belief systems, etc. It is also the reason that humans treat each other so badly based on labels. One example, amongst an endless list, was how we locked up “communists” during the McCarthy era of the 1950’s and 1960’s. It is why so many minority groups are persecuted, but they also often treat each other badly.

It is critical to understand that these are attitudes and behaviors that you cannot see because they are inherent to who you are. It is also maybe the greatest obstacle to people getting along. We are hard-wired enough that we don’t recognize or “feel” these patterns; it’s just what we do. It’s behavior that sits under many layers of defenses and has to be “dug out” by each person. Our family-influenced habits and actions are much more obvious to our spouses and immediate family than they are to us; we can only get in touch with them through counseling, seminars, psychotherapy, self-reflection, spousal feedback, etc. What you are not aware of can and will control you.

Awareness in the operating room

Here is one example from the performance arena while at work. (My wife could give you dozens in the personal arena.) A few years ago, in the operating room I became aware that I consistently started to speed up towards the end of each case. I also realized that over the years, probably 80% of my dural tears (the envelope of tissue containing the neural elements and cerebrospinal fluid) had occurred in the last thirty minutes of a long case. The fatigue factor is an issue, but the speed issue is more critical. I still often didn’t notice that I was speeding up; I needed feedback from my partners or assistants, so I asked them to act as my “coaches.” I’d stop for a few seconds and say, “The difficult part of this case is done. It would be easy for me to relax and hurry to finish. Please speak up if you see me starting to rush.” Every move in spine surgery is critical, so I had to make the choice to consciously slow down. The end of a case is just as important as the beginning and middle. My complication rate dropped dramatically.

This is a brief overview of how awareness plays a role in successfully navigating daily life. It’s something of a paradox in that when one is truly immersed in the moment there are no levels of awareness. It’s just complete “engagement-in-the-present-moment” awareness. There’s many layers to this discussion, but I hope this is a good starting point. Life does become much more interesting.

The post Awareness–Ingrained Patterns first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Awareness–Ingrained Patterns appeared first on Back in Control.