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| Written by Don Shetterly |
Showing posts with label body. Show all posts
Showing posts with label body. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
What Shows Up In The Body
Friday, October 6, 2017
Hurricane Stress On The Mind Body
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| Written By Don Shetterly |
The week leading up to the storm you could feel the anxiety and fear in everyone, even in the strangers you didn't know. The stores were a frantic pace. The hoarding and greed were evident in people buying supplies. It was clear no one had prepared for a storm of any magnitude.
Fortunately, we had prepared already as we do every summer. We tend to stay stocked up on nonperishable foods and supplies. However, just trying to buy regular stuff for the week like a loaf of bread was not possible. We went out early and attempted to finish stocking up on supplies, but it didn't make the process for storm preparation any more manageable.
I saw the story where two guys got into a fight over plywood for their windows. Stores had to position employees at pallets of water so everyone could get water. There were stories of people hoarding so much and then returning it after the storm while others went home empty-handed.
Yes, stress plays a role in all of this. I get it. I know what it is like to face a storm the size of Irma and wonder if you would have a house standing after it was over. Instead of preparation that everyone in Florida should do, most resorted to greed and hoarding.
The stress in the mind was clearly evident in all of this, but there is also the stress in the body. From the headaches and muscle tension to the pure exhaustion, it was so evident. That's what the general population does not understand.
We sat through five days without power, and it was so difficult to find out what was happening or when power would be back on. For two days, we didn't have home phone service. For most of the five days, our cellular service worked poorly at best. Trying to keep a phone charged was difficult, and internet access was even more challenging.
In those five days, we had to endure loud generators and the carbon monoxide that hung in the still air of a Florida night. It made us sick. It made us want to scream. With every night we could barely sleep from the noise, fumes, and heat, it compounded a difficult situation.
My body grew weary and tired. I longed for sleep, but it was difficult to get. I believe after a few days, I just started checking out in life. I think I was somewhat delirious.
Finally, some businesses were starting to open, and so we made our way through the hottest hours of the day to the cold air conditioning in their places. It helped, but we still had to come back to a night of heat and nothing more than a cold shower. It was tough and stressful on the body.
After we got power back, the first night we tried to sleep, but the stress was so high we spent most of the night awake. It took time to start adjusting back to what we considered was standard in life.
The first day after power returned, we were mentally and emotionally and physically exhausted. We were so tired, we took many naps, and I found out we weren't alone. Other friends were going through the same thing.
The next day, we weren't as tired, but the stress was still weighing hard on the mind and the body. We worked at restocking our refrigerator and finding food to eat. We started to begin the clean up of the house from all the storm supplies we had placed here and there.
This is the third day we've been back from power, and I noticed my body slept more peacefully last night. I feel more energized today than I have for some time now. I did struggle with muscle tension and a headache last night, but that is now easing. I need a massage badly!
We all store stress in our mind and body. In very stressful moments of hurricanes, it increases many times over what is normal. It impacts us in the body in ways we don't often see because we're not as connected to our mind and body as we think we are.
I'm allowing myself to adjust and get back to normal, recognizing that with time and rest, things will come back to balance. It isn't a smooth transition back into our daily routine. The one thing I know is that having no power indeed gives you time to focus on what really matters in life.
I sure didn't miss the media hysteria about politics and other ranting and ravings of the day. I didn't miss the mindless interaction on social media. I didn't miss the one sided and fake care for others that is sometimes exhibited far too much.
As difficult as the hurricane stress was on the mind and body, it really felt good to get away from all the social media noise of the day. Now, I'm looking at how I can continue that and limit the time I give myself for the noise of our day.
In the meantime, I'm trying to honor my mind and body and taking care of myself through self-care. Some things matter in life, and then there are the basics which genuinely matter the most.
As I post this, my heart continues to go out to Puerto Rico, The Caribbean Islands, Texas and now Las Vegas. My heart is saddened by all these events and the lack of genuine care and concern that doesn't end when the cameras leave.
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
- Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form.
- You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
- Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form.
- You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.
Monday, August 28, 2017
Our Bodies Are Not Made To Be Sick
(Written by Insights Into Healing, Barbara)
My grandmother was the one who introduced me to natural healing. When I was around 11, she told me what most people say about sickness is wrong… and if you believe them, then you are giving in to that part that doesn’t have to be true. She taught me I could heal any stomach ache, and almost any pain. That’s where that belief stuck with me.
We need to teach children at a very early age that it’s not normal to be sick. Our bodies are not made to be sick. They’re made to be well! Sicknesses often come from the misguided part of our beliefs, and that comes through from generation to generation. You have parents that have a child who gets a headache, and they’re running them to the emergency room. You’re teaching them at a young age that no matter how you feel, if it’s uncomfortable, there’s something wrong with you. On the other hand, if you’re taught that you are well, that there is no sickness inside of you, then the opposite will happen.
Create and Reverse Illness...
Not only can our minds create illnesses, but they can also reverse them. That’s how powerful our minds are. We are the creator of our story, our life, what we carry inside us.
People buy into surgery and drugs as the norm. Surgery puts your body through all kinds of trauma, instead of letting it heal on its own. People are also tired of the medical field telling them to take this or take that pill. You’re only meant to take them for a very short time, not a lifetime, and they give them to you for a lifetime. Then they add to it because it no longer works.
The Mind Is The Power...
I’ve learned over and over again that our mind is the power. If we can correct our mind to let go of the false beliefs, the ego, and what is dictated to us, then we can turn inward to discover whatever is inside our body, be it cancer or any illness at all, and literally heal it. But it takes a lot of work. Is it possible? Yes, it’s possible, it happens all the time. It’s about our inward communication.
The more I go in, the more work I do inside of myself, in my body, the more I discover that memory is stored everywhere. It’s not just the stomach, it’s not just the heart, it’s everywhere, and our life stories – the things that have been painful to us, that have hurt us, that have created anger and hate -- are stored in all areas of the body, just waiting to come out and be healed. The cells tell the mind what to do.
Going inward and surrendering to it will open the story. It will pop a memory in your brain so fast. To surrender does not mean to forget. Surrendering is the part that says you just let go, and it comes out. It’s not that all of a sudden the memory comes into your head and you decipher it. When you do that, you’re putting It back into your body.
What you want to do is heal the pain, not just take it away. The pain is there to remind you not to forget that there’s something that needs to be healed. When you have the pain, you have that opportunity to go in and see what it is. Is it a certain memory? Is it a certain emotion? When you find what it is, don’t take it and see what you can do with it. Acknowledge it. That’s it. It’s in acknowledgment that the body releases it. You no longer need to carry this.
You can release it!
- Barbara (Insights Into Healing)
Read all of Barbara's Columnist Posts
(Editorial assistance by Jeff Lemlich)
Columnist
Unified Therapy
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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly and Barbara
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Thursday, August 17, 2017
Feel Your Body
Okay, the title of that blog post might be raising a few eyebrows and if it is, I'm okay with that. There is nothing wrong with the statement, and I'm not trying to dupe you into something that is not. Trust me, the statement "feel your body" is pure, and it is helpful.
Most of us humans go through life not feeling our bodies. Yes, we think we do, and that we are in touch with it. Unfortunately, we are very good at fooling ourselves far too often. I know, no one wants to hear that, but it is true.
There are reasons why we don't completely feel our bodies. I don't want anyone to be too hard on themselves for not feeling their body because, in many ways, this is part of being human and aware.
Some of the reasons that we do not feel our body include the following:
- Past experiences.
- Stress in our lives (whether we create it or it is around us).
- Physical issues we are struggling with.
- Diet.
- The level of exercise and activity.
- How we learned to deal with stress in life.
- Trauma.
- Abuse
- Rape
- Childhood Sexual Abuse.
- Unconsciousness.
- Numbness.
- Keeping ourselves busy all the time.
- Not taking the time to feel.
- Being afraid to feel.
- Dealing with an overwhelming life.
- Dealing with chronic pain.
- How we connect with the world around us.
- Immersed in the latest news and issues of the day.
- Avoidance
When I was working a nonstop schedule of weekly travel and handling 400 to 600 emails a day. plus being the lead tech support person for a project, I found myself feeling almost no pain. However, even though I didn't feel it, the pain was taking its toll on me through exhaustion.
It was when I finally stopped for a moment that the pain caught up with me, and it was not pretty. I had suppressed it so much that I didn't feel it.
I'm amazed at what our bodies do to us and for us when we are oblivious to reality. I saw this play out when Conversion Disorder paralyzed me. I have observed it play out in other people and at other times in my life.
Recently, I went through some major healing work because anxiety, depression, despair, and pain were getting to be too much for me. I could hardly go on in life. I did not realize how painful my hamstring area was until I got in that session and allowed myself to feel. Of course, the muscles were exhibiting the reactions to trauma from years past, but I was completely oblivious to it.
I see people talk about stress being all in our heads, but that could not be farther from the truth. Stress is everywhere. Yes, some don't feel it consciously, but it is there. Stress impacts us every day, and if we hide from it and ignore it, then it will build up. As stress continues to build, it will get our attention at some point in life.
If you're going through chronic pain and other conditions, you may be feeling pain but there is so much other stuff that has been blocked. It pushes the limits of pain to levels that are extremely difficult to endure. It is as if one side of life has been pushed to the max while another side of life has been forgotten and numbed.
Feeling your body can be scary and frightening. We have plenty of medications and drugs out there to prove this. There are enough wine, alcohol and OTC pain relievers so help us disconnect and numb from what is going on.
Sometimes past experiences impact us more than we realize, and they start suppressing one side of our body systems while elevating other parts. The more this happens, the more the fear increases and when it gets to be too much, we are shutting down our connection to what is going on in our bodies.
It is natural for humans to do this. It is part of our survival mode, but unfortunate the survival mode doesn't get turned off after stress or experiences or past abuse and trauma. Our brain then gets hijacked by all that happened to us or all that we experience, leaving us as puppets, rather than in control of our lives.
The more we can stop and recognize all of this, the greater the chance we have to overcome so much. Experiences in life, stress, and trauma that we have endured suppress the healing power we have within us.
Just recognizing this in the mind is not enough. It is only part of the equation. We need to go in and feel our bodies. We need to go in and feel every fiber of every muscle and each cell of every tissue. It is through that connection to the body that we give ourselves the greatest hope of being more than we are.
The more we feel in the body, the more we can enact change and make better choices for our lives. If we don't do this, the stress and trauma will take over and leave us as bystanders in our own life. We have the option to connect more than we do and if we do this, the payoff is far beyond anything you most likely can comprehend in this moment.
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Healing The Physical Trauma of Child Abuse
Written by Don Shetterly
This Unified Therapy session wasn't easy. It was tough beyond any words that I can write. In fact, just getting myself to see Dr. Canali was more than difficult. I procrastinated. I tried to wish it away. I tried to numb it away.
No matter what, as hard as I tried to wish it away, my avoidance was not helping the issue at all. I was begging for mercy. I wanted relief. I could not find it on my own no matter what I was doing. As I wrote a few days earlier in a blog post, it was the Rash That Won't Stop that got me to the point where I finally went to see Dr. Canali.
My life had become one of so much difficulty with little sleep. The burning and itching I described in that blog post were no lies. It was all too real. My anger was hard to contain with everyone and everything. I did not know at that moment before the session if I could make it through this. I was not sure if I could make it through this. The session with Dr. Canali had become my last hope.
What I had written, I shared...
I shared with him what I had written in that blog post. I couldn't even manage to get the words out. My voice would not articulate them. As he sat down beside the massage table and read them out loud to me, my eyes welled up with tears. To most people, they are words on a page. To me, they were heartaches and pain from the abuse I suffered.
As we began to go into what was coming up in my body, it was evident to Dr. Canali and myself just how locked up my pelvis and abdomen were. In fact, most of my pants were not fitting at that time. They felt like 5 sizes too small. The itching in this area was intense. Any touch anywhere close and the pain would shoot through my body like there was no end.
Moving through things, everything from the itching to the heat in my body and the pain would kick up. We would take it as far as we could, and then Dr. Canali would allow me to drop back down. It felt like a physical workout. It felt like there were moments that were almost too much. However, I knew that this was part of the healing process.
An empowerment boost of healing...
The more I started to see that we could go into all of these things and then drop back into a more peaceful state, the more empowered my body became. It was as if pushing into these difficult moments and then dropping back was an empowerment boost. A boost that kept me taking on more of the trauma my body had been holding for many years.
Some of these trauma memories of abuse that I was dealing with, I have seen in other forms and ways at various times. However, this one was the more physical side of being raped and held down with no way to stop it. It started by the time I was around six years old and continued until I was much older.
As we moved through the session, we discussed those things, and I was allowed to share them. It wasn't easy to say the words. It wasn't easy to recognize just how much the evil and darkness of these abusers and tried to squash any hope for light and existence I had.
The Body Shows The Trauma...
The physical trauma resides in the body. The body remembers even if we attempt to keep it from reliving memories from years past. The brain will try to block it, but when the body shows the evidence, it is then that the brain is in survival and numbing.
As we went through the session, I could feel the physical tension leaving my body. It was more than if I had gotten a relaxing massage. It was where my body goes into that deep peace and rest that it desperately needs. The itching came down. The pain came down. The elevated body temperature I was feeling dropped down.
I noticed as we left the office and went out into the summer heat of a South Florida afternoon, that I was tolerating the heat much better. Before this moment, I could barely stand in the summer heat for a few minutes.
I noticed that the world around me seemed more at peace. I sensed the quiet stillness accessible to me even though the hustle and bustle of the city continued. I felt lighter and more joyful. I felt more hopeful and alive than I had a little while earlier that day.
As we left to go back to the hotel, I started to notice that the pants which were tight on me before the session, were now needing a belt. There was so much physical tension in my abdomen and waist that had released that I could barely keep my pants up. It shocked me because it showed me just how much trauma I was holding in my physical body.
I went from not wanting anyone close to me touching me to allowing myself to be touched. I went from wanting no intimacy to welcoming it happily.
In that session with Dr. Canali, so much physically changed in my body. It was like I was coming back into my body and learning to live life again as was meant for me to experience.
Healing Is More Than A Mental Exercise...
Once again, the work and concepts that Dr. Canali has discovered are helping me understand what trauma does to the body and how we store all of this for years and years. It is not just a mental exercise. It is an exercise where you connect the mind with what comes up in the body and then you are gently guided in different ways how to let go of it all. It is a process that helps you find deep healing and peace, that is more than a quick point of change. This healing is lasting.
As I write this, several days after the session, I can still feel my body letting go and processing all that went on in that session. I can feel how little moments in life kick up the body temperature or the itching while being able to talk myself back down and put reality in perspective with what I am feeling.
Yes, I've had moments of anger and frustration, but I can deal with them more appropriately than I was. I'm able to go in and stop and rest and allow my body to just be in the moment. I've been able to be in a hot tub and sauna, be outside in the heat of an afternoon and not feel like I was going to lose my mind or pass out and drop on the ground.
I'm working to take care of myself, changing how I see things in my life and observing how I react. I want the reactions to be from a more mind and body centered approach than feeling like an unwilling participant. I'm focusing on the bigger picture of my life much more than I have been and seeing how all of this plays into where my life goes.
I'm monitoring how much I let in from the world that is full of screaming, anger, rage, and disrespect because the actions I see every day do nothing to help me in my own life. I'm allowing myself to disconnect from them and replace them with things that are genuinely helpful. I know that if I get caught up in the darkness of the day, it will do nothing positive for me.
Most of all, I feel better. I feel more empowered. I feel more centered. It is like there is now hope where I thought I had lost all hope.
I'm thankful for Unified Therapy and Dr. Paul Canali and what he knows and how he helps me. He is one of a kind. If there are others beyond him (and a few other practitioners) that can do what he does for me, I have not found them. He is a pioneer in the field of healing trauma.
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
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Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Fearing The Fear
Written By Don Shetterly
If you've read much on my blog, you'll see that this subject has been one of my most challenging experiences in my life. Fearing the fear consumed my life at one time, but over the years and through my healing, I've learned more how to deal with fear.
I am not going to sit here and write that fear is an easy thing for me to overcome. I'm not going to give you some platitude or meme that says you can wave a magic wand and be in control of fear. Those things are not helpful to healing and our growth. They are stumbling blocks if we subscribe to them.
When I was in a healing session the other day, I started to notice the little things where fear would come on strong in me. In these Unified Therapy healing sessions, we are encouraged to bring the fear up, not shove it down or hide from it or numb it. It is the time to bring it up.
The "oh no" mode...
For me that day, the office air conditioning kicking on sent the fear going sky high. It wasn't easy, and at first, I could notice my breath going into fear mode. I could feel my body begin to tense up. I could see that my mind was starting to go into the "oh no" mode. It felt like everything was going to come crashing down on me and that my life at that moment would come to an end.
Fearing the fear was where I was in that particular moment. There are reasons that all of this was coming up, but that detail is for another blog post. Just recognizing how strong the fear was getting and how much was coming at me, my body went into the defensive mode of survival.
In a Unified Therapy healing session, you don't stay in this moment. You are taken through it by Dr. Canali gently guiding you to feel in your body, sense what is going on, and remind yourself that it is fear, not the end of the world.
As you go in and begin to connect with the fear in your body, there are often emotions or physical sensations that appear as they did for me that day. The anger and pain surfaced. The emotions of sadness and grief showed up. The point of not being able to stop what had happened to me as a kid was the dynamite ready to ignite.
In this session, I also did one more thing, and that was telling myself that what happened to me many years ago is not happening now. Dr. Canali, of course, was coaching me through this, but just that realization in that particular moment was a big one for me. It helped me to connect reality with fear. It helped me to see that I feared the fear, but that the current reality was different.
Yes, there is a mental exercise in stopping how you deal with fear, but this approach that is so healing and empowering is body centered. If I didn't deal with what was going on in my body, it would be nothing more than platitudes about how to treat fear.
Most of the time in healing, we deal with fear from an intellectual mind-centered level. However, fear resides in the body, and if you fail to go in and touch the depths of it within the cells, you're only working with half the healing potential.
The further you can go in and feel it within the body, the more you will supercharge your healing. Healing from the core of your cells in the body is lasting and life changing.
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
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Friday, August 4, 2017
Sorry But Stress Is Present In Life
Written By Don Shetterly
Sometimes I see things stated and my eyes bulge out of my poor little mind. I am amazed at how unconscious and aware we can be even by those who claim to be conscious. I believe that the things we preach to the world especially when they are our beliefs have serious consequences, and we need to be far more aware than we are.
I had to read the quote a few times to make sure I saw the statement that I did. Yes, that is the statement that I read, and it boggles my mind.I saw a quote online that said, "there is no such thing as stress in the world. It is all in our mind."
I had to read it and do a double take to make sure I saw what I did. Yes, that is the statement.
This statement could not be further from the truth. In fact, it and truth are strangers in distant galaxies.
There is stress no matter where you look. Some of it is positive stress which we need in our lives. Some of it is toxic stress. No matter what you think your thoughts can do, stress is present.
- If you walk outside in the hot sun, the stress of the heat makes your body work to cool and find equilibrium.
- If you get in the car and drive down the street, there are cars not obeying the traffic laws and rules of driving so that they can present stress to you.
- There is the boss that yells at an employee in front of a meeting for something beyond their control. That is stress on your mind and body.
- There is the demanding boss that wants you to follow their every whim and demand with no respect for you. That is stress.
- There is the stress of the kids needing help with homework, or to take them to every activity meeting they have.
- There is the stress of trying to get your family fed and answering emails and texts from the boss.
- There is even stress from moments gone by in how it impacts your current thought processes on a million different subjects and points.
- There are the financial consequences of spending too much and dealing with your ever changing budget that creates stress.
- There is that rude person who tries to ruin your day or just get in your face for the stupidest thing that they can.
- There is the stress of a significant other feeling left out or putting demands upon your time that causes stress.
- There is the stress of all those things you were taught and learned as a young child that now sometimes makes current moments not seem reasonable to you. In the process of those connections that happen unconsciously every minute of their day, they create stress that we don't often see.
- Learning and growth are most likely stressful moments because it takes you out of your comfort zone and into something new.
There is hardly a day that goes by where we have no stress. If we walk around not recognizing the stress in our lives, we're not as awake and aware and conscious as we think we are. We may be able to talk the talk, but if we can't connect the talk with real life action or the places in our bodies that it resides, we're only fooling ourselves.
If you don't recognize stress in your life, you're only setting yourself up for a big fall later on in life. At some point, it will build up to a breaking point, and it will get your attention. You can mark my words on that. I've lived it.
We can't go through life putting the happy smile on our face while we ignore stress and connections to the past. If you try to do this, let me tell you from first-hand experience that the result will not be a good one. I don't say this out of belief. I say it from experience.
Learn to recognize stress for what it is. It is present. Instead of trying to act like it doesn't exist, go in and allow yourself to see it for what it is. Allow yourself to find ways to acknowledge and let go of it.
It is not just an exercise for the mind because stress finds a place within our body. If we don't see its existence, it takes us permanent residency and then crowds out the joy and peace and love you so badly desire for life.
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
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Thursday, July 27, 2017
The Felt Sense
By far, we under-utilize this part of human biology and healing. The felt sense is critical and powerful to changing the direction of our lives, increasing awareness, and consciousness and helping us heal the experiences of our day.
I've learned about the felt sense through the work of Dr. Paul Canali, known as Unified Therapy. Felt sense, in my understanding, is about feeling the emotions and what is going on in life in the body. It is the connection between those emotions and the body, including the mind.
All too often we only focus on what we feel, or that emotions are present. We tend to focus on it from a mind approach where we are in our heads, but not in our bodies.
Emotions are outward manifestations of what is going on in life. They are our reaction to events and experiences, originating from deep within us.
Felt sense takes us into the moment where we feel the experiences and emotions in our body, not just observe them in our reactions. When we stop and allow ourselves to go in and feel them, it is then that we have the power to change them.
Most of us will feel the emotions, and feel pain in our bodies, but we don't connect the two together. The felt sense is where we are able to do this.
Being aware of how these things connect to our body and our mind is the key to working with them. The more we can work with the experiences and emotions we face, from a connected mind and body interface, the more we can make major changes in life.
These changes are not limited to physical only, but our increased consciousness and awareness.
A good quote from Eugene Gendlin's book, Focusing, puts this in perspective.
"The change process we have discovered is natural to the body, and it feels that way in the body. The crucial move goes beneath the usual painful places to a bodily sensing that is at first unclear. From this new vantage point, the traditional methods of working on oneself are seen to have been mostly pain-centered. People get into and repeat over and over their painful emotions, without knowing how to use the body's own life-centered and inherently positive direction and force." (Focusing)
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
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Thursday, July 6, 2017
Anger Bubbling Up
I'm beginning to understand just how much of an epidemic this is not only in the country I live in, but the entire world. Anger is alive and growing. We see evidence of it through violent actions committed everywhere.
No one seems to know how to get rid of the anger bubbling up within them. Society doesn't allow it. Parents don't teach how to let go of it. Schools don't teach it. Churches don't teach it. We all hide our heads in the sand as if anger is a problem for someone else.
In fact, we hide behind anger. We stuff it down. We paste it over with happy thoughts and condescending statements toward others for even feeling anger. We tell others how they should not have anger in them because it means they are "less than" or "not the way a human should be".
None of what is being done in this world helps to alleviate anger. When it acts like a spring bubbling up within us, we just stuff it down. We smile to the world, while hating our innermost self. We smile to the world while we try to numb the pain.
I'm wondering when we are going to start waking up as a human civilization and understand that we are our own worst enemy. We are inflicting so much pain on our lives through what we do. We as a society are trampling upon others because we are not leading authentic lives.
Anger is a poison that permeates our body, our cells, and our tissues. Anger when not allowed to come out festers as an infected wound upon our body, only this one is silently hidden from view.
How often do we hear that someone just popped and no one would have expected they had the anger in them to do what they did? How often do we see people's rage show up, but we hide it from our reality and act as if it didn't happen?
We have to get real with ourselves and with others. If we continue to let anger bubble up with no method for release, we're harming ourselves so badly. It takes a physical toll on our body and mind. We end up hurting the world in ways that we cannot even imagine.
If we continue to hide from our anger and minimize it or numb it, we're doing the human civilization a major injustice. There is no honor in being inauthentic. There is no honor in minimizing and numbing one's life, rather than being real and human.
Anger is a hateful energy. It is one that alters how we see not only the world, but ourselves. When we find it hiding within us, it is then that we no longer consciously connect to the deepest parts of our soul. It is then that we have lost our connection with humanity and the world in which we live.
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Asleep To Feeling Pain In Our Body
Here's a part from Donnie's statement on the blog post Are You Asleep: After all, he doesn't have time to deal with pains in his body. There is just too much too accomplish. His body is 100% pain free. Unfortunately, that's a good sign of how asleep Donnie is.
We are so oblivious to pain in our bodies that even saying we are asleep is not a strong enough statement. Of course, I'm sure you're probably eye-rolling me right now, wondering if I just fell off my rocker and hit my head on the floor.
Safe to say, I'm okay. I didn't hit my head on the floor.
For a long time I was traveling every week and going almost nonstop. I hardly felt pain in my body. There was no time to feel it and if I felt it, it had to disappear because I could not function and do what was required of me. Pain relievers were the go-to if that happened.
However, most of the time I didn't feel pain. In fact, that's how most of us are. We are oblivious to pain in our bodies, even though it is there. Yes, even if you don't notice it, it is there.
How do I know this? Well, when I finally get myself to stop or I go in for a deep healing session with Dr. Paul Canali, the first thing I'm asked to do is feel what is going on in my body. Of course, one thinks that we know what is going on, but until you do this - much of it is hidden. Let me repeat that - much of it is hidden.
The more you stop and notice, the more you'll exclaim like I do in a session, "Oh, I didn't know that was there." We are so unconscious and disconnected that most of the time the pain (and the warning signs of the mind and body) go undetected. We just fail to hear them because we are asleep.
They keep ratcheting up the alarm, and we keep dousing them with unconsciousness and other substances in our day. Then when the alarm has gone as far as it can, the body gets our attention. Usually by that point, things aren't good and require much more medical intervention than we would have had to do if we'd listened to the pain in the first place.
I had someone once tell me that they were sorry to hear I had pain. I'm like, but everyone does - they just don't listen to it. It is messages our bodies are trying to get through our asleep thick skulls.
Pain can be good if we do something conscious with it. If we hide it, then we've inflicted a world of hurt on ourselves. Rather than hiding it, the better thing to do is to go in and feel the pain. Yep, I know - you've probably thought I've fallen again from my rocking chair. Rest assured, I have not.
If pain is overwhelming, we want it gone. That's human nature. However, if you can find body work like what Dr. Paul Canali does, then you learn that by going into the pain, you take control of it and transform it. When you do, a whole new world opens up.
Is that easy? NO IT IS NOT! Is it good in the long run? YES IT IS. Being asleep so much that you don't feel the pain is not a recipe for health and wellness. Too much in our society is built around numbing the pain, rather than going in and interacting with the pain. Too many health conditions are a result of not feeling the pain.
It is past time our world wakes up and begins to deal with pain in the right way. First, we have to recognize it is there and feel it. Once we've made it that far, then we need to go in and have a conversation with it through not only the mind, but through the felt sense of the body. When we learn to interact with it in the body, that's when pain becomes our friend, rather than our foe.
Make sure you check out the next part in this 11 part series
Part 11 is "Asleep By Happy Thoughts"
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
- Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form.
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Thursday, June 22, 2017
Asleep To What We Put In Our Body
It is one of the most common examples of being asleep that I think there is. Most people do not even realize they do this and even if they did, they have no clue how to get out of it. Diet programs and practices rarely help because people are not as conscious as they want you to believe.
Here is an excerpt from the blog post, Are You Asleep about Amy Lou. Yes, she is health conscious because she drinks her diet sodas and consumes the low fat snacks and food as stated on the packaging of the food item. Her body reacts with headaches and fatigue, but she blames this on stress and age, not on being asleep.
For a long time, I thought drinking soda was just as good as drinking anything else. It was liquid and I knew my body needed liquid, so why did I need anything else? I'd drink an occasional glass of water or some iced tea that had water in it, and thought everything was fine. I didn't realize that I was just fooling myself.
Our bodies are made up of around 70% water, and yet we deprive it of one of the most basic things it needs. All these other forms of liquids just don't do what our body needs. It has to process and try to pull out useful water from what we consume. This requires much more work and is often not very effective.
Drinking water is one of the best things you can do for your body. It is mainly what I drink now, but it took me some time to make the shift. If I don't drink enough water in a day, not only do headaches show up, but I feel the fatigue and fog in the brain.
Another part of being asleep in what we do to our body is the food we put in it. Far too much processed food is consumed as being "nutritious" when really it is not. We fail to put whole foods into our bodies, instead hijacking with sugar and processed stuff that has little value. I'm sorry if the food industry does not like that statement, but if you want to be healthy - increase whole foods you consume, not frozen and packaged and processed stuff.
Another asleep behavior is not reading the contents of what you buy. If you do read labels, you are ahead of the curve, but you have to read every label. I swear, they sneak stuff in all the time that makes me scratch my head. Why we are obliterating our food, I'll never understand. It is being asleep at the highest levels. I'm not even talking about GMO's here. This is more than just GMO.
You've most likely heard that what we put in us is what we get out. Yet, we shove the unhealthiest junk into our bodies and then wonder why they can't keep up. We've heard it a million times, but we discount and neglect it as something we should tell others, but not practice ourselves.
Even though I try hard not to be asleep, I still fail on this one too. Yes, I do the smoothies every morning packed full of phytochemicals from whole foods. That helps, but I still need to be aware and conscious of what I eat, and make sure whole live food is a major part of my day.
Make sure you check out the next part in this 11 part series
Part 8 is "Constantly Connected To The Job"
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
- Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form.
- You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Stress Set Point In The Emergency Danger Zone
If you haven't seen Part 3, go there first.
In Part 4, we will be discussing the stress set point in the emergency danger zone.
So what can you do if your set point has entered the emergency danger zone?
The first thing is to recognize it. You can't keep running from the body and the mind. You can't keep pushing your body past its limits. You can't keep running from your past even if it is so horrible and painful to see. Okay, you can keep running, but sooner or later, it will take you down to your knees and trust me, it gets much harder to come back. I speak from experience on this.
In the early stages of recovering your set point and reducing allostatic load, you may need to take drastic measures for your own survival. This may include medications and life saving procedures, but you must be careful that these do not become a crutch that is misinterpreted and misrepresented as healing. It is far too easy to do this in your mind. If you stay in this mode, it will not go easy for you in the physical side of your mind and body.
Support and stress reduction activities can be helpful, but they will only take you so far if you ignore what else is going on underneath. Yoga, QiGong, and other movement activities can also help, but again, you need to go to the root cause. It requires traveling into the pain and difficulty, not just treating the surface.
Even massage and bodywork of different flavors can help you to begin the process of balancing out and resetting the set point of your life. Keep in mind though, these things can become the healing crutch rather than the healing. They may often be good for you, but they can become a routine that keeps you at arms length from that which is raising the alarms within your body.
The best thing you can do to help reduce the allostatic load is by going in and learning to connect with your body. Through the felt-sense, breathwork, and movement connected together with someone who is trained, you can begin to feel your body deep within. You can begin to go into the outer edges of what is comfortable, thereby training your mind and body to increase your resilience and take back the power of what is draining your life.
This is not just a mind exercise. It needs to happen at the cellular level to bring about true change in a body. If you don't engage the body and nervous system at a cellular level, you're just putting a band-aid on a gushing wound, hoping it will stop the bleeding.
Sometimes this process is not easy in the beginning, but it is like an Olympic athlete training for the Olympics. They don't start out on day one being able to run 25 miles. They work their way up to it and often through the process, there is muscle discomfort and pain. If they keep training and allowing for recovering, their muscles and body will be ready to do more and to take on more.
The same goes for healing your life and dropping the allostatic load you are under. This is not pie-in-the-sky thinking. It has been proven many times over with those that know how to take someone in and guide them through the process of waking up. The important point though is that you have to go through the process to wake up and stop disconnecting from your life. Anything short of that pushes the set point further and further toward the danger zone, past the point of no return.
The process I've gone through with Dr. Paul Canali of Evolutionary Healing Institute in Miami is called Unified Therapy. In this process, he draws on the core truths of many modalities and then applies them at the right time. He constantly keeps the person engaged through the process and keeps them feeling in their body. When you are feeling in the body, you are in control, but when you have disconnected and are not feeling, that is when you're heading for the cliff.
It sounds so simple and yet complex to go through this, but I know for a fact that many people, including myself, have dropped the allostatic load in their lives. It isn't just a one time moment of healing. As you go through the process you learn to become more aware -- and the more aware you become, the more life shifts so that you can adapt better to stress, heal your life, and keep yourself from maladaptive problem solving.
Make sure you check out the next part in this 5 part series.
Part 5 is "The Best Part Of Dealing With Stress"
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
- Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form.
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Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Disconnected From Allostatic Load & Stress
If you haven't seen Part 2, go there first.
In Part 3, we will be discussing being disconnected from allostatic load and stress.
At first, we find some over the counter meds to take that disconnect us a little more from what is going on. Our body is trying to get our attention with the pain or physical issue we are experiencing, but we ignore it. We've got no time for it. There are work deadlines to meet, travel and meetings to take place, kids to take care of, bills to pay and so on and so forth. There are a million reasons we come up with, and we say that tomorrow we will take a few hours and stop to rest. Tomorrow comes and goes, but we keep pushing on so that we can get caught up. Unfortunately we never catch up.
The body tires to hang on. It tries hard not to adjust the set point of allostatic load, but it has no choice. We keep pushing and pushing. The body continues to degrade and wear down. Our mind becomes more disconnected to what reality is and our perception becomes our new reality.
We then turn to doctors and their procedures, demanding they find the label for the condition we have. We demand that the doctor cure us and we ignore and fail to listen to what the doctor is trying to tell us. Often, doctors and other health practitioners don't have a good handle on how to deal with allostatic load, so in frustration and despair in between seeing many patients, they give us a prescription and a diagnosis.
We get our prescription filled and we exclaim to our friends, this label is what we have. Our friends show sympathy and gasp at the difficulty we face. We feel supported, and we temporarily feel like we've found help and we'll get better. The prescription, of course, reinforces that it is best to disconnect from reality, and it reinforces what our perception is, even if it is misguided.
The body however has still not won. It has tried to get our attention and tell us that our set point is way out of the range of normal. It begs us to take a good hard look at our life, but we're too busy for that. We've got too much to do. There is just no time for self evaluation and besides, doing something like that is for those new age people, not for serious people. That's what we tell ourselves and that's what we make ourselves believe, but there is no truth to it.
Our body continues to stay on alert because we've never allowed it to come to any other conclusion. We've revved up the motor and kept it in neutral. Our allostatic load continues to increase into further degradation of the mind and body, taking us dangerously close to the point of no return. We continue to ignore it, knowing that we've got the diagnosis and prescription. What else do we need, we ask ourselves amusingly. There is nothing. We've got this, we exclaim.
We interject some happy memes and positive thoughts. We say some extra prayers. We project to the world around us that all is okay and we're managing this. To be strong is what this life requires us to be, we are taught. We can't show weakness. We must show we're strong and in control. Again, we are feeding ourselves a false perception in life, not the reality that actually exists.
At some point, our body will get our attention. It may be pain that is so great we can not take it any longer. It may be some physical ailment that demands emergency care. It may be anxiety and depression that disorients our life to the point of not being sure which way is up or down. If we continue to ignore it, our body and our mind will keep throwing up the flares in the hope that we listen.
Picture it like a spring getting wound up more and more, tighter and tighter. At some point, there is no more winding left. The only thing remaining is that the spring has to unwind. It has so much kinetic energy locked in waiting to bombard its way out.
When you get to this point, the only hope is that you'll not be past the point of no return. Unfortunately with the health issues we are facing today, it is more common for people to push allostatic load to the outer edge of possible limits.
Most doctor visits are related to stress and studies have been done to prove that. Doctors know it, but patients demand they help feed the disconnect between reality and perception.
There is so much more that interconnects with allostatic load, and while I'm trying to simplify it into something that's easy to understand, I know that it is more complex than this. Yet, I know it can be as simple as what I describe. I've been there. I've pushed my own body past its limits and you can read more about that in my book, Hope and Possibility Through Trauma.
Make sure you check out the next part in this 5 part series.
Part 4 is "Stress Setpoint In The Emergency Danger Zone"
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
- Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form.
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Tuesday, June 6, 2017
If You Don't Deal With Stress
I really enjoy how he explains allostatic load.
If you have not seen Part 1, go there first.
I have always said that if you don't deal with stress, stress will deal with you. We all will probably shake our heads and agree, but that's about as far as we take it. We don't fully understand and comprehend what that means. We are disconnected from what it means, in many ways. However, I keep attempting to write about this so others can begin to understand it more. I realize it is a complex subject that tends to sail right by, but it is important.
I speak from my own experience and that of what I have learned from Dr. Paul Canali of Evolutionary Healing Institute. He understands this far better than I do , but I have experienced it firsthand in many ways.
Trauma can be simple everyday stuff...
In the video from part 1, Dr. Bosch talks about the set point and how the further we veer out of allostatic load, the further this set point gets moved. It does not have to be trauma or child abuse or war or other means to cause this set point to shift. It can be as simple as office work stress, caring for others, or just dealing with life when you were not taught great skills in adapting to stress that comes along.
We all like to think that we've got life by the horns and we are in control. We all like to think that if we have a beer or a glass of wine that we've relaxed and the stress has all vanished. We all like to think that if we manage to squeeze in a day off here and there or maybe a few days for a vacation once every couple of years that we're in charge of the stress in our life. "We're handling it" is what we tell ourselves.
Daily buildup of stress is as harmful...
However, this could not be further from the truth. The daily build up of stress is just as harmful as if we encountered some traumatic event in our life. If we don't discharge that, it finds a home in our mind and body. It moves the set point just a little further away from homeostasis. Our body ends up staying in that constant state of alertness ready to handle what is bombarding us in life. We have ended up pushing our allostatic load to the point where it is getting so far into the danger zone that turning back gets more difficult with each passing moment.
It happens before you know it. It takes place in the blink of an eye. It is not like you wake up one day and go, wow - I've pushed my set point way too far. Okay, it can happen that way but more often than not, it goes unnoticed. It goes undetected until something in our life happens that tries to wake us up.
In the meantime, we maybe experience things like headaches and muscle pains. Sometimes we find out in a routine doctor visit that our blood pressure is high or our pulse rate stays at a constant high rate instead of dropping down into rest and repair mode.
We may experience fatigue, sleeplessness and nervous stomachs, acid reflux or other conditions. Chronic health issues may set in and begin to become more pronounced. We may encounter all kinds of health conditions as issues progress.
In worst case situations, we may go into Conversion Disorder like I did or experience health situations that are life and death. It varies by person and it depends upon so many factors. I'm not trying to say that there are not other underlying factors in the exhibition of illness and pain, but I am saying that allostatic load is the cart pushing the horse over the cliff.
Make sure you check out the next part in this 5 part series.
Part 3 is "Disconnected From Allostatic Load & Stress"
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
- Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form.
- You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Allostatic Load with Dr Don Bosch
For more information, visit their website at www.headington-institute.org
This is part 1 of a 5 part series where we will be discussing Allostatic Load and what I've learned in my own life. I have gone through work with Dr. Paul Canali called Unified Therapy that has helped me deal with Allostatic Load.
Notes From The Video
- Allostasis is achieving stability in the midst of change.
- Researchers helpful on Allostasis
- Bruce McEwen - Rockefeller University
- Teresa Seeman - UCLA
- Allostasis is closely related to Homeostasis
- Homeostasis keeps our body within very narrow limits that allows us to survive.
- Body Temperature Example: If our body is too hot, we sweat to cool down. If our body is too cold, blood gets pulled back into our vital organs to keep us functioning. The set point of our body temperature does not change. If it varies too much, we are in serious danger.
- Allostasis is similar to homeostasis
- It is our response to some challenge outside or inside ourselves.
- Our response is a way to get us ready to handle the challenge.
- With allostasis we can respond and the set point can change over time.
- When the set point changes, it becomes allostatic load.
- Dangerous for us in the long run.
- Flight or fight response initiated by the amygdala
- Danger is sensed and the amygdala initiates a major response in the brain and body to prepare for the action.
- Things like blood pressure and heart rate increase to get blood into our muscles to be ready for action.
- Breathing increases to get more oxygen into our cells and body.
- The immune system goes into emergency mode to flood our body with proinflamatory substances which enable us to respond to infection or injury immediately.
- Blood sugar, insulin and cholesterol all go up in the bloodstream to provide us energy to respond
- Enables us to survive the flight or fight and even chronic stress
- Problem is when it does not turn off and we get stuck in this state of allostatic load.
- When we are stuck in allostatic load
- We are not aware of it.
- You may be cold and freezing to death but in allostatic load, you don't necessarily know you are there.
- This is where the risk lies.
- It is very easy for us to get into allostatic load, no matter what your job is or where you are or what situations you may be experiencing life.
- We need to find a way to turn it off.
- We need to find a way to be aware of it.
- Resiliency is anything that helps us turn allostatic load off
- Things that help us manage allostatic load
- Social Support
- Physical Exercise
- Sense of meaning and purpose
- Allostatic load in the long run is dangerous
Make sure you check out the next part in this 5 part series.
Part 2 is "If You Don't Deal With Stress"
Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly
- Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form.
- You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Chronic Stress Affect on Body and Mental Health
We all know that stress is not good for our body, but as Dr. Canali discusses, chronic stress does affect the body and our mental health. New healing paradigms attune our attention inward and deal with not only the mental aspects but physical sensations.
Emotions are not something that are purely in your head. They are physical body states. Anything that you can feel, you can re-regulate or change.
Most people are afraid of what they feel in their own body whether it is disease, illness, anxiety, depression or other things. The immediate response is "please doctor, take it away." Most are not necessarily interested in how it got there or how they can take it away. They just want it gone!
Now we are realizing though that to make long term changes, one must be brought into that point to interact with what is going on within the mind and body. Because we are so afraid of what we are feeling, we tend to numb and disconnect, rather than go in an interact with the physical body.
Listen to the entire video interview to learn more.
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