There are multiple physical and mental manifestations of a chronically fired up nervous system. With engagement of the principles that calm it down, the improvements in my patients’ quality of life are consistent and frequently dramatic. The foundational step continues to be the writing exercises. I don’t know all of the reasons why it is so impactful, but its effectiveness has been documented on over 2200 research papers published since 1986.

Stimulating neuroplastic changes in the structure of your brain is key to healing. However, you must continually be aware of the impact of your past experiences on today’s actions. Then you are able to redirect and program your nervous system in the direction of your choice.

Reprogramming

There are three aspects of the re-programming process:

• Awareness
• Separation
• Re-programming

Most of us seem to be fairly enmeshed in our past, and it affects much of our current behavior. We all have many past negative experiences to process, and we do our best to deal with them. Strategies include:

• Suppressing
• Analyzing
• Ignoring
• “Re-writing” it
• Escaping through addictions
• Pursuing self-esteem

The expressive writing allows you to combine awareness and separation

Brain circuits are permanent

You cannot change the past, or the neurological connections to it. Memories may fade with time, but once a given memory is retrieved, it is completely present. Our inability to alter the past certainly doesn’t keep us from expending tremendous energy in trying to do so. It is more effective to connect and be with the past, and then release from it.

The Train

Picture a long completely loaded freight train. It’s impressive that engines have been developed to pull that kind of a load; even up a significant incline. It isn’t dissimilar to how we drag our past into the current day and can still function.

The writing exercises allow me to disconnect from the past—immediately. It creates an awareness of what is contained in the “train cars of my life”. The space created between the thoughts now on a piece of paper and me is the separation process. It’s as if I simply unhooked the first car from the engine.

Who Says I Have to Pull this Load?

There is no rule of life that says I have to stay connected to that huge load. And I still have the same power of the engines that is now pulling NOTHING. The available energy to be creative is almost limitless. I just regret that there is a physical limit to what my body can take.

Being “unhooked” from that load allows me to use the tools I have learned to more fully engage in the present moment, which is the re-programming part of neuroplasticity. The tool I use the most is “active meditation”. That is choosing a physical sense to become as aware of as much as possible throughout the day. I tend to choose sound or food at mealtime.

Writing Seems to be a Great Foundation

There are now over two thousand research papers documenting the effectiveness of various writing exercises creating a separation from these unpleasant neurological circuits. I still haven’t seen anyone be that successful without using the expressive writing as the foundational step.

Leave the past behind you—now. You can spend a lifetime trying to unload the freight in these cars, or you can take a few minutes to disconnect from it.

The post Unhooking from the Train first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Unhooking from the Train appeared first on Back in Control.

There are over 2200 research papers that document that expressive writing in some form is effective for improving both your mental and physical health. I have been adamant for a long time that you should write down just negative thoughts – not positive ones. That has also been the general feeling of many papers. Interestingly enough, I ran across several papers that documented that writing down positive thoughts is equally effective. It appears that expressing thoughts and emotions works. The debate is how and why it is effective. One theory is that it switches your thinking into a slower, more rational mode, than automatic fast thinking. For me, writing was the first and only effective strategy that pulled me out of a 15-year tailspin. I had been in psychotherapy for 13 years and continued to spiral downward. I am an advocate of psychological interventions but they have to be combined with some other tool that helps to calm and re-route the nervous system.

My first step with every patient is to have them write down his or her thoughts and instantly destroy them. Thoughts are only connections between neurons within your brain.  There is no substance to them – none. However, as your body secretes chemicals in response to thoughts, they seem like real and part of your identity. Your goal is to bring these thoughts to life as vividly as possible and then separate from them. Unhooking from the train Meaningful healing will not occur until you start writing. It has been the one common strategy of essentially every patient I have seen go to pain free. I ask that patients begin this process before they do much reading, as it is the true beginning of the program. Write Your Way Out of Pain

Much of the DOC program is based on neuroplasticity, which is the term for your brain’s capacity to physically change. It can grow new nerve cells, lay down myelin and form new circuits and connections at any stage of your life. In fact, it has been demonstrated that your brain physically shrinks in the presence of chronic pain and re-expands when the pain resolves. The basic steps of the reprogramming process is: 1) awareness 2) separation 3) reprogramming. I feel that the expressive writing accomplishes the awareness and detachment steps simultaneously. There is now a space between you and your thoughts that is connected with the physical sensations of vision and feel. Somehow the brain processes this separation. 

The reprogramming process begins the day you begin to write. Write anything – positive or negative. It is important to immediately destroy them so that you can write with complete freedom. I encourage people to write for 10 or 15 minutes a couple of times per day. I do not encourage writing throughout the day. What I do suggest is to combine the writing with active meditation. You choose a physical sensation to place your mind on for 15-20 seconds as many times a day as you can. You have now shifted your nervous system off of unpleasant pathways to neutral or pleasant ones. I would like to do it more but I probably am successful 20 – 30 times per day. Instead of doing battle with unsolvable circuits you simply shifting your attention to other sensations.

Creating New Pathways

Thoughts are connected with:

• Other thoughts
• Emotions
• Physical sensations
• Mental pictures

Each these associations creates new neurological pathways. With writing, thoughts are connected to vision and feel, which creates new circuits. It clarifies your thinking and it is also the staring point. The writing exercise is not the solution for your pain. You will discover your own solution as the process unfolds.

The post Write and Don’t Stop! first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Write and Don’t Stop! appeared first on Back in Control.

I personally used the book extensively for many years, and the three-column technique was a major factor in pulling me out of my free fall. In 1997, I realized that it was a tool I could use in my own practice, and I liked using it because it was so much faster than trying to get someone to see a pain psychologist. They could engage almost instantly and often aggressively. This book was the entire component of the stress management  for the DOC Project for many years. I originally told my patients that if they could obtain some stress management skills, they would cope with it better. I was surprised to see many patients report both a better quality of life and a significant decrease in pain. However, it was puzzling to me why some patients would respond so much better than others. It eventually became clear that the patients who did well were the ones who participated in the writing process. The results have been consistent. Patients who commit to a daily writing process, based on the suggestions in the book always have a significant response.

His book is a wonderful book, but I have them initially read only the first third of the book to get started in the “three-column technique.” He outlines ten “errors in thinking.” They cover the range of cognitive distortions. We all use them a lot, as that is how we were raised. Some of the categories he describes are:

• “Should” thinking
• Catastrophizing
• Labeling
• Minimizing the positive
• Emphasizing the negative
• Emotional reasoning

In the first column you write down your “ANT”.  That stands for “automatic negative thought. This step represents the first step of stimulating neuroplasticity, which is increasing the awareness of the disruptive thought.

Then you write down the “error in thinking” that the thought represents in the second column. As you categorize the thought and understand the effect it has on your peace of mind, it separates you from it.

In the third column you write down the more rational thought. The more specific you are the better. This is the phase of burning a new circuit.

For example, your son may have just flunked a test. Your first response might be, “He is lazy and stupid.” You would  write those thoughts down in the first column. In the second column you would note that represents “labeling”. In the third column you might write, “My son just flunked a test. I wonder why. Is he being bullied at school? Could he be depressed? I am going to try to find out what is going on.” Positive thinking would be represented by, “He isn’t lazy.  He is my son and I love him.” That might be it. Except, without writing the more specific rational response, your thoughts might start spinning around. By the time you actually talk to him, you might not be in a great frame of mind.

The technique is effective for most people and it certainly was for me. The key to keep in mind is that the writing is only a starting point in the healing journey.

The post The Three Column Technique first appeared on Back in Control.

The post The Three Column Technique appeared first on Back in Control.