Hey everyone, I wanted to let you know about a movie documentary a good friend of mine is trying to bring to this area. He does excellent therapy work called Unified Therapy around Melbourne, Florida. Anyway, he is trying to bring the movie documentary, All The Rage, here in October.
They have a minimum number of tickets they have to sell to make this work. The more people who sign up, the more this becomes a reality. If you live in the central Florida area, don't miss out on this.
It is an excellent movie documentary on the story of pain - back pain that is! Many people suffer with back pain and there are so many dollars spent trying to treat it when some simple concepts can do so much.
Dr. John Sarno found a way to address and deal with back pain, without medications and surgeries. That's where the story starts in this documentary. In fact, many years ago, John Stossel did a 20/20 interview with Dr. Sarno about his practices. He was so helped by the procedures that he wanted to share this with everyone. Even Howard Stern sings the praises of Dr. Sarno.
I won't get ahead of myself on what all this movie is about, since the link below shows a trailer and gives more information on it. I've seen many of these theories implemented and I know this stuff works. In the link to movie tickets, look for the trailer.
Go ahead - check it out and reserve your seat. You won't regret it. The movie documentary is getting some great reviews from people who have already seen it. The more that sign up, the more this can happen and it will be a big help to my friend, Jim Fazio.
Some days I scratch my head at how people approach issues in life. Healing back pain is one of those. I grew up with a father who had constant back pain, and I'm still nauseated by the smell of Absorbine Junior. For some reason, I was one of the "chosen ones" that got to apply this to him, but that's another story for another time.
Of course, I know his back pain hurt, and I know it bothered him. He tried every product known under the sun. They all promised "relief" of course, and if they did, he bought them. However, very few if any worked. Those were the days before back surgery, and before Oxycontin and Opioid usage were prevalent like it is today.
Today, it is the just about the same as it once was then. We do all kinds of "procedures" and "surgeries" and "pain meds" to relieve the pain. In the alternative therapy world, there are many "healing procedures" that promise to get rid of the pain. Unfortunately, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but so many of these things just don't work. Why? Because they aren't approaching the entire body and mind together.
In a recently released movie documentary called ALL THE RAGE, Michael Galinsky showed through his own life history how much Dr. John Sarno, M.D., helped heal back pain. Sarno's ideas were revolutionary at the time, and he was ostracized by much of the medical establishment, but he did help many people. John Stossel and Howard Stern cannot sing high enough praises for Dr. Sarno, claiming he helped save their lives,
Dr. Sarno's concepts were not packaged in a once daily, ready-to-take pill, yet they worked! They worked because he understood how our feelings and emotions, stresses and experiences in life impacted the physical body in ways that defied medicine. He saw beyond the physical, and connected the body and mind together.
Unfortunately, when you try to share this with people, they are skeptical at best and dismissive at worse. They don't want to hear what you have to say. They ignore it, dismiss it and look at you like you are crazy. You don't know their pain, so you know nothing.
The same thing happened to Dr. John Sarno. People would bring in their medical tests, X-rays, and CT scans to prove that there was something physically wrong with them. Yet, that was like looking through a pair of glasses and only seeing the color green and nothing else. He looked beyond it and saved many people from surgery while helping them find lasting relief.
Many years ago, reporter John Stossel did a 20/20 story on Dr. John Sarno. Even though Stossel knew how effective Dr. Sarno's concepts were, his own brother, who was a doctor, didn't believe it. I remember in that report how John was saying, "but it helped me", yet that was not proof enough for his brother. It appeared that his brother's paradigms were getting in the way.
I recently shared this with someone I know, and they immediately dismissed me. This individual did not even take the time to check it out. I was wrong, and they were right. I didn't understand what their pain was about, they told me. I didn't know what I was talking about, they said. They called me crazy. They called me a few other things.
Then I remembered that in the movie documentary, All The Rage, Dr. Sarno said to someone that people just would not listen. He advised them to move on and let it go. I'm paraphrasing here, of course. He reasoned that if someone would not listen, there was not much you could do and you were wasting your time.
In the case of Conversion Disorder, which I have dealt with in my own life, many have laughed at me and thought I don't have a clue what I was talking about. They have mocked me, dismissed me,and flat out just told me how wrong and stupid I am. Yet, I see them continue to struggle with Conversion Disorder. I know you can heal from it. The help is available but far too many do not want to go in and do the hard work required to heal. They just want the magic pill to make it all go away.
When presented with information, we can either dismiss it and turn away, or we can see how it could apply. We can call it crazy and ill-informed or we can see if there is an element of truth in it. Now, I'm not saying everything is full of truth, but there are elements of truth in everything. The rest is filler material and beliefs.
Whether we go further into our own awareness and healing, or we sit back in our lounge chairs watching the same old life movies play over and over., is up to each of us. I can't make that decision for you and neither can anyone else. That has to come from within you, and whether you are aware or not, you're making a choice each day in your own life.
Be sure to watch out for the movie documentary, All The Rage, because it is a good movie to see.
We all have stress. Unless you're superman or Jesus or someone that is no longer alive, we all have stress. Yes, there can be good and bad stress, but I'm talking about some of the normal stress we experience in our life.
For each of us, stress shows up differently and in different parts of our body. No two people are alike, although there are similarities between one human to another.
Here's a little secret that you might not be aware of while we're talking about stress showing up in the body. If you get real busy and have yourself burning the candle at both ends, there's a good chance you won't feel the stress in your body. Your body just automatically numbs and disconnects from the stress.
As humans, we are good at numbing and disconnecting. Imagine if a doctor had to work a 48 hour shift in an emergency room, but could not do it because he was feeling stressed out in his body. In that case, numbing and disconnecting would be a good thing. Yet, like the doctor, we all do this and when our 48 hours shift is over (if it ever is), we forget that it is time to feel.
Or what if you had to get to your job, take care of your kids and care for someone that is elderly. Most likely, you wouldn't have time to feel pains and illness in your own body. You would numb and disconnect from it in order to function. Yet, when we need to do this we forget to stop and reconnect with the stress in our body to let it go.
When stress in my body kicks up....
For me, I feel stress in a couple of places, but sometimes it shifts to other places in my body. I'll really feel it in my neck and shoulders at times. Boy, when that kicks up, I feel like punching things and some days that really gets painful.
I've also had times where it shows up in my low back or comes on as a headache. There are many different ways it shows up including sometimes causing digestive issues and stomach pain.
Yes, there are some that say if this part of our body hurts, it means x, y, and z. While it may be connected to that and I don't discount that it is, you have to be careful that as the observer, you don't impact the observation. Sometimes simplifying life down to these little "facts" becomes more detrimental than helpful.
I remember doing chair massage in an office one time and one of the people would complain of constant low back pain. Sure, I could have applied the simple truth to why she had backpain because it was something in her life causing it. However, I would just observe her at her desk.
I noticed that she had the computer monitor to the right on her L-shaped desk and her keyboard to the left. She was constantly twisting her body all day long, but was not aware of it. Once I pointed it out, she relocated stuff on her desk. He body physically changed as a result. Before this, you could physically tell the spine was twisted and after it, the spine straightened out more.
Sometimes we have feet issues and there are many times that when you see feet pain come up, the individual is struggling with where to go in life. They are having difficulty finding the right steps in their life. Now, it may not have to mean something as simplified as what I just made it, but I've seen this show up many times.
For me, when frustration hits me and I'm struggling to figure out what is going on, I feel it in my body as if someone was punching me. Often I've been told that I beat myself up seeking perfection in what I do. Many times I have to stop and realize that if I just give myself a break and quit beating myself up, my body feels better.
There is a word for converting stress into physical symptoms and that is called somatization. Yes, you can literally create pain and illness in your body by allowing the stress to continue. We do this to ourselves while hardly recognizing that we are doing it.
So instead of trying to apply facts that other people come up with to explain pain, go in and become acquainted with who you truly are and observe what is going on. When you feel the pain in your own body and connect to it, you're really given yourself some good information that is very useful in life.
The next blog post on March 16, 2017 will tell you more about how to deal with stress showing up in the body. Make sure you read Dealing With Stress Showing Up In Your Body.
From the talk I'm giving on Sep 12, 2012 at Southern Technical College, this is a quote from the book The Divided Mind, by Dr. John Sarno
Everyone is under pressure or stress of some kind or another, and we all have both internal and external reactions to these pressures, and then physical symptoms manifest in response to these feelings. (The Divided Mind By Dr. John Sarno)
One of the things I have been thinking about lately through the tooth pain, is just how much I ignored it. I really didn't think I was ignoring the pain, but as I look back, I realize that I was. It took such an intense pain that would not give up, to push me to actually do something about it. Imagine the depths I went to just to avoid the inevitable of going to the dentist.
At first, I was having a painful wrist, where it was hard to do anything with my right hand. I was trying to explain it in my mind as carpal tunnel or spending too much time using the mouse on my computer. Little did I realize at the time, my body was compensating for me during my sleep time at night. It was helping me to avoid laying on the side of my face that hurt by using my hand to shield me from the pain. I was completely oblivious that this was going on. Yet, I felt the wrist pain.
Then there was the sore throat and the barely felt tooth pain, which I just passed off to heat stress and allergies from yard work. However, the tooth pain and pressure in my jaw persisted days after these stresses. Yet, I did not allow myself to connect with the pain. I was oblivious to it.
Even the days leading up to the start of the horrible tooth pain, I tried to ignore the nuisance of it. I remember using ice packs on my mouth to help relieve the pain. This was all done in silence and away from the view of house guests we had staying with us.
For I could not let anyone know the truth about how bad the pain was. If I did, then everyone would have seen the shame that I harbored deep within me, I reasoned. I didn't want anyone to see that. The shame I felt from being triggered to things in my past was nothing I wanted anyone to know about. I suffered in silence, hoping that all of this would just go away.
The thing is, the pain got so intense that I had to push through the fears and shame to make an appointment. I was so scared to call the dentist office that I sat with the intense pain for many days. For in my mind, it was not about the tooth that needed attention. It was about the shame that it connects to that my mind so badly wanted to hide from. While that may sound "strange", it is at the root of what is behind my avoidance of the dentist.
Just image though, what my mind and body was willing to do to avoid the pain and not deal with it. It did everything it could to pretend the pain was not there. My body completely disconnected from the pain. It found ways to compensate and shift the pain to other areas, but it was still there. It tried to cover it up and act as if it did not exist.
We all do this in our lives to on degree or another. It may be back pain, neck pain, illness, disease, colds and flu, headaches, financial stress or just about any other situation we face in life. If this sounds too far fetched, read any one of Dr John Sarno's books and see what the body connects to and how far it is willing to go. Times of pain, discomfort and frustration in our lives, is the way in which our body, mind and spirit try to get our attention.
It is the wise that listen to these messages from the body and not ignore them. For they show up for a reason. They help us grow, heal, move forward and evolve our lives. If we medicate them or compensate for them, we may alleviate the pain and discomfort temporarily, but it is still there. Not until we go in and deal with these things, will we get to the true source of the pain.
It will be like a tiger waiting in the brush, ready to pounce upon its prey at an unexpected moment. The slightest trigger or unrelated event may begin a cascade of situations that once again bring us front and center with our pain. May we then have the courage to embrace and allow it, instead of compensating and running from it. For when we embrace courage, we truly give ourselves the moment to change our lives forever.
