Impacting Body Systems By Suppression

Humans are peculiar in how they treat themselves.  We often negate the power we have inside of us to heal our mind and body.  We too easily give our power up to others, rather than going in and doing the hard work to heal.

Yes, I know - It isn't easy to heal.  It is pretty tough work and very hard.  Whether it is mental struggles, child sexual abuse, or physical illness - it just is not an easy moment in our life.

Please know, I'm not going to say that all medical procedures or healing paths you are on don't work.  No way!  There are many core truths within each path that help us get to the next point.  The only thing is, we tend to stop on the bench along the path and forget to get back up again on the healing journey.  If you don't do this, well - I do!

I was not going to settle...

I still remember back to the days I was paralyzed from Conversion Disorder.  I could have stopped on the bench and said "that's it" and no one would have thought badly of me.  Yet, I knew that I was not going to settle for where I was.  I was not going to accept the condition I had.  I was not going to accept that I could not walk, move and barely talk.

One of the biggest problems I see in how we heal our mind and body is pursuing things that suppress one body system over another.  They keep us hiding from the true nature of what is going on.  The fear that arises when we hit these horrendous moments of what seems like an impossible dilemma is enough to take the strongest person down in a heartbeat.  I know - I've been there!

Fear and numbness...

Fear and numbness in our mind and body keep us from seeing more.  They suppress our body systems and draw us toward the things that suppress our body systems.  When we suppress things in our body, other body systems are impacted.  When you impact other areas, then you start flipping the wrong light switches within the body.

Of course, it requires great courage to go deep into what is happening and find the awareness that we need, but in the end - it is your ticket out of hell.  The things that just numb the pain and or illness further are not as healing as we try to make them out to be.  They are more there to disconnect us from what is going on, which is not even close to being a healing moment.

Impacting body systems by suppression of symptoms and conditions in our life is the norm in healing these days.  Yes, I did those things too and they helped me get to the point where I started to see there is more.  So, don't discount their effectiveness, but don't get lost in them either.

Healing our mind and body is much more than 99% of the world understands.  I wish it was a lower percentage, but I really am saddened by how I see humans attempt to numb and disconnect themselves these days.  It is not health.  It is not healing.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

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We Are What We Take In

It seems like far too many humans go on autopilot these days.  I don't think they mean too, but they just do it.  It seems to be more of an unconscious action to me from what I observe.   When we do this, it keeps us from fully realizing what we take in and what we are.

We all seem to know that what we take in, we become.  It is like the old proverbial saying, "Garbage In - Garbage Out".

In fact, I remember learning that saying in a computer class where if you put garbage numbers in, don't expect something good to come out of it.

Healthy Body...

If you want a healthy body, but you put bad food in constantly and plenty of it, more than likely you're not going to get a healthy body.  If you don't read the labels and know what you're putting into your body, it is impossible to expect a healthy one.


Healthy Mind...

If you want a healthy mind, but you take in all the latest sensationalized headlines of the day, the latest bombastic political headline and all the fear that is propagated each day, the mind will definitely struggle.  You might be a little oblivious to how much it impacts you, but from observing others, I think it is pretty easy to see.


Healed Life...

If you want a healed life, but you fixate upon the horrors only, it will make it difficult.  No, I'm not saying ignore them because when you've been through trauma, ignoring it will not make it go away.  I know it isn't easy to reverse the impact of trauma on your life, but to have a healed life, you have to go in and take that control back, pushing past into and past the fear.


Peace...

If you want to have peace, but you constantly engage in the hateful rhetoric of the day, most likely you're not going to find peace.  There is far too much unconscious hate that is being spewed these days online and if you don't limit it, it will overwhelm you and take you as far away from peace as is possible.


Expanding Mind...

If you want to have an ever expanding mind, approaching life with excuses or reasons why something won't work, will keep your mind limited.  Far too often we approach new ideas and new ways of looking at things as foreign objects that are our enemies, rather than potential friends.  Yes, not every idea out there is a good one for us to explore, but if we automatically decry anything new, we're holding our mind back.


More Of A Human...

If you want to be more of a human, than it is best to learn what being a human means.  It involves respect and compassion for one another.  It involves seeing others through the eyes of love, not the darkness of hatred and fear.  Being human is more of an endeavor to realize that we are all on this planet to succeed and by working together in common bonds, we will be better than we are today.


We Are What We Take In...

We are what we take in to our body, mind, spirit, and overall existence in this world.  Even if we are unconscious of what we do every day in this regard, it is still part of us and still activity that we embrace.

It requires a conscious effort to be aware of all that we are in the mind and body, not just what we think we are.  Consciousness is born out of awareness and the more aware we become, the more fully our life shows up

In my view, it is part of the human existence to become more aware and more conscious of who we are.  It is part of our overall growth and experience.

Each day, we get the opportunity to discover a little more about the world we live in and who we are as humans.  May that process never stop and may we challenge ourselves to be more today than we were yesterday.

#Conscious

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

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The Trauma of Accepting Our Trauma

It can literally take five minutes of trauma to permanently affect a child’s life. It does not necessarily matter what the trauma is or if it happened only once or multiple times, the underlying damage can physically alter the development of certain areas of the brain thereby altering the development of personality. This is particularly true in cases of childhood sexual abuse.

During the trauma we simply do not have the capabilities to cope with the situation, so the natural instinct of the brain kicks in and the emotional center is quickly replaced by the instinctual (reptilian) portion of the brain. The mind does what it needs to survive the trauma at the time, which is basically to shut down and kick into survival mode, since our brains are entirely unable to process what has happened.

Fast forward an undetermined period of time and our brains are as developed as they are going to be and are now better equipped to cope with our childhood traumas and despite our desperate attempts to keep these memories repressed, they slowly start to exit their domain of safety and creep their way towards the front of our brains.

Those seemingly unexplainable actions and behaviors, the bad habits and negative coping skills and the diagnoses of whatever mental illness, all really do have an underlying reason. The emotional outbursts were not displays for show and the random and often harmful acts were not cries for attention. The lack of ability to fully bond and trust was in no way meant to be malicious. The darkness that you have carried in your heart and soul has cast a shadow that has dimmed your entire perspective of life.

Once the memory is at the forefront, we can either spend a tremendous amount of emotional energy trying to repress it again, or we can try to ignore it, but somehow it always seems to rear its ugly head. The process of accepting these memories as truths is not only the first and perhaps most difficult step in the healing process but is also multi-faceted.

To believe these atrocities happened to us brings about intense feelings of shame, confusion and anger. We question why this happened to us, or what we did to deserve it. We can’t accept that it isn’t our fault and self-blame torments us for years. Even our adult brain has trouble comprehending that these memories are actually real. We cannot understand how someone we knew or trusted or even loved could violate us in such a traumatic manner that it forever changed our views of the world, and of ourselves. It marred our ability to trust, set boundaries and have healthy relationships. The feelings of shame have weighed us down and burdened us throughout our lives and the emotional weight of the trauma that has held us captive for years finally breaks our back.

What alternative do we have aside from accepting these new truths that are not only completely overwhelming but seemingly impossible? We are almost forced by our minds to deal with our trauma whether we believe we are ready or not. We are guided directly through the middle of it as there seems to be no true detour.

Acceptance involves challenging the only values and beliefs we know, and puts into question our already fragile sense of self. It requires setting new emotional boundaries and learning to place the blame where it rightly belongs. It often means we will have to emotionally and sometimes physically remove ourselves from the lives of certain family or friends. It means taking a step back from life in order to get a different viewpoint.

Acceptance forces us to look deep inside at the shame we have been unnecessarily carrying around for a lifetime and realize it is actually not our burden to carry. It means opening up wounds that we have already formed scars over in order to heal properly. Accepting our abuse, however hard and trying it may be is the beginning to the end goal of healing.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly and Jody

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Being Authentic When I Don't Know Who I Am

I remember back to the early days of beginning healing as a male child abuse survivor.  For me, my entire life was turned upside down as the result of being paralyzed from a Conversion Disorder.  Now, Conversion Disorder has been renamed to Functional Neurological Disorder.

Back to the topic though...

At the time, I thought I had life figured out.  I thought I knew what my career path was.  Each year, I listed my top goals for the next year, two years, five years, 20 years, and so on and so forth.  I had my job that took me from early morning to late at night almost 7 days a week.

All of this was who I thought I was.  It was my identity and I thought I was being authentic.  Yet, when you're losing control of every physical part of your body and you start seeing that final white light as you're body is leaving this world, it tends to slap you pretty hard, waking you up to see more than you see in that moment.

I had buried so much...

This moment brought me front and center to all that I didn't know about myself but I thought I knew.  I had so buried all of the stuff that happened to me because it was horrible.  It was too horrible to see or even think about or even allow myself the remotest of connections.

As I began to heal, I began to see more of the true side of myself, the authentic side.  It was parts that I didn't even realize existed, but they were there.  It was parts that quite surprised me.

Even as I began to heal and start to discover what being authentic meant for my life, I realized that I had just reached the tip of the iceberg.  There was so much more for me to discover.  There was so much more that I had no way to see.  It all seemed like a fog and a mystery, but beyond that point, it was who I was.

I've gone through some tremendous healing work connecting not just my mind in healing, but the physical body as well.  What I have found is that as much as I thought I healed and discovered, there was much more than I could even see.

What we cannot see in this moment...

Being authentic is in my mind about learning to let go and become aware of that which we cannot see in this moment.  It is allowing myself to go further, grow in awareness and consciousness so that I can know myself from deep within.  It is about learning to connect to the deepest parts of my body, including the pain so that I can regain all those parts and discover more of myself.

As I continue to progress in my healing, I'm learning that the more I discover, the more I realize that further possibility exists.  What I know today about being authentic is no where near what I will probably know tomorrow or the next day.

There is so much out there that I have found.  There is much more to myself that I never realized.  Along with all the pains and experiences in life, I'm learning how to become more authentic.  For as I am becoming authentic, it is then that I truly discover what authenticity means.

We have to reach further for who we are, past all the horrible stuff that happened.  We don't need to ignore, neglect, or numb to all these things, but we need to squeeze them so hard that they have no life left in them.  It is then that we reclaim the power from them enabling us to being more authentic in our own life.

I realize that this may sound like new age philosophy or mumble jumble, but I can tell you from healing in my own life, this is at the heart of what propelled me forward.  It took me out of the depths of despair and into moments that I never could imagine existed.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

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How Fast Can I Heal?

I remember asking this question myself many years ago and sometimes I still do.  How fast can I heal?  How quickly can I get beyond this?  Why do I have to go through this stuff over and over with sometimes no end in sight.

There are times when the difficulties mount in life and it is all you can do to hold your head above water long enough to get a gulp of air, before the next wave crashes over your head.  Sometimes, that is enough and all that you need in that moment.  Sometimes anymore than that is setting expectations a tad bit high.

Even in the moment where you think, when will this be over - it is in those moments that your body, mind, and soul are finding a way to connect together and align for your continued development.  It is like each part is trying to come online and sync up with the other.  To hurry that along, may mean you are only operating with partial systems functioning, rather than your entire self.

Rebuilding Neural Pathways...

Sometimes, I think that as you endure the difficult moments for what may seem like an eternity, it is then that you are really going in and processing all the neural pathways.  From all those moments in the past where you built the neural pathways up to survive, you are now going in silently and without knowing as you rebuild and re-evaluate each and every one of them.  This takes time.

I have found that so many times on this path of healing, that I've had so much to deal with and I can only deal with so much at one time.  If you try to force that too quickly or rush it before it is ready, then there's a chance you can just overload your system.   Your system stays in survival mode, rather than learning and growth mode.  Sometimes being okay with taking things slow allows your growth and enhancement mode to take over which really benefits you.

Hurrying the process will exhaust you...

The more you have gone through and experience, the more there is to sort through.  Just like clean up after a storm, you can only accomplish so much at one time.  It literally takes time to complete the storm cleanup.  Trying to hurry through the process will most likely only exhaust you and serve little purpose.  If you pace yourself and take it one step at a time, you'll find the storm clean up goes much better.

It is easy to want to heal and get things over with because who would want to stay in the mess that they see their lives in at that moment.  However, healing is not a linear step 1, step 2, step 3 scenario.  It is going in and finding the root of the pain and despair and hopelessness, trying to turn that into something that is hope, possibility and joy.

Healing takes time.  It is not a race even if we try to make it into one.  It is a matter of continued growth and evolution because I believe that when you've been through horrific experiences in life, there is something that you will see when the rest of the world turns a blind eye.  It is a part of you that is needed for the universe because you will have an understanding far beyond what most people do.

Allow yourself to grow and evolve.  Allow yourself to surrender into the pain and be okay with where you're at in the moment.  That is the point that really gives you the option to go forward, because the more you fight it, the more difficult it gets and the longer it takes.  Both ways get you to the final result, but one will exhaust you quicker than the other.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

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The Aftermath Of Flashback Memories

I have been struggling lately.  When those flashback memories surface, it is all I can do to hang on.  The aftermath of these can make life pretty rough and some days, it gets rougher than I can even imagine.

Flashback memories are not fun.  If you've been through traumatic experiences, war, torture or child sexual abuse, you know full well just how tough this can get.  They will about take you under and leave you huddle in a corner begging for mercy.

I've been through more than my share of trauma and child abuse and torture in life.  I'm not sure how I survived.  Most days I do pretty well as I've spent considerable work to try and heal my life from all that I endured.  Most days go by and I'm fine, but lately it has been anything but normal.

Last week, I finally sat down and tried to write about what was going on.  My intent was to publish it, but at this moment, I cannot bring myself to do it.  In fact, I had not read what I had written until yesterday and it was too much. It was too intense.  It about took me under.

I could feel the anger...

I could feel the anger and heat and anxiety rise within me.  I could feel the shame and despair.  I was angry, but hurt.  I wanted to cry, but felt too weak.  I finally shared it with someone I trust but even that was almost too much.

For now, it is shelved and filed.  I'm not sure I want anyone to read it at this moment.  I feel horrified and embarrassed at something that happened to me a long time ago.  For now, it will remain hidden.  I just can't bring myself to share it with anyone.

Struggled with pain in my back...

This morning and last night, I struggled with pain in my upper back, shoulder and neck.  I felt it and I know its connected to what I wrote.  It feels like a big keg of dynamite sitting in my shoulder, neck and arm full of emotional anger.  It feels like I could just break down and cry, but I can't.  It feels like I could punch my hand through someone, but I won't.  It's like dynamite, ready to explode.

Yes, I'll go get some healing bodywork done on me to release it, but right at this moment, the physical pain is intense.  I feel such a sadness to what I experience.  I feel like a thousand years of emotional pain is built up inside.

If this one area of my body could completely heal from all the physical flashback memories, life would be so much different.  Yet, it took me many years for this flashback memory to surface.  It is not an overnight - forgive and let go process like too many make it out to be.

My body has been through a lot.  How I've survived all these years, I'll never know.  I've made it and as one person told me, I turned out pretty good.  Not all have that same good fortune.  Some never make it.  Some get pulled under.

Flashback memories are hell to live through and they keep the suffering going for a long time after the event happened.  Thankfully, I've found someone and a form of bodywork called "Unified Therapy" with Dr. Paul Canali that has helped me find greater peace with my past and my body.  It is still an ongoing process and one that has gotten better.  Unfortunately in times like this, it tries to take me down.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

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The Shock Of The Orlando Massacre

I'm numb.  I can't focus.  I want to cry.  I do cry. I can't cry enough.  My heart aches for all those in this horrible massacre.

I'm afraid to go out.  I'm afraid that others might think I'm gay and shoot me.  I want to hide.  I want to sleep.  My heart aches for all those in this horrible Orlando Massacre. 

How do I make sense of this?  One individual wants me to blame a group of people.  Another individual says, "no, blame this!"  Yet, others are quick to tweet and judge and pronounce condemnation on the world, on a country, on religion, on gays or whatever else they think it is.  They are all experts of course, in their own minds.  Yet, their logic has hid under a rock.

Everyone wants to help, donate, make a difference - and that is good.  Yet, no act you can do seems like it is enough.  No amount of money can make up for the pain you feel watching all those who went through things that are hard to imagine.

We become angry...

We become angry at the shooter.  We become angry at those who minimize, or we blame the ones that are suffering.  What kind of God delights in punishing a group of people in this way, as some off-balance religious people would say?  I'm not going to give them their self-gratifying sense of ego by glorifying the name of these religious zealots. 

We blame ourselves.  We blame everyone.  Yet, blame is never enough.  Yet, blame will never heal, but we have more than plenty of it.

We cry out for change...

We cry out and hope for change, but yet we do nothing.  We cry out that things must change, but they seldom do.  We cry out for the our friends we will never see again, but yet it feels like the forces against making this right are more concerned with lining their pockets with cash, than they are about making something happen.

We go through our day as zombies, thinking about all those lives which were taken in a second;  the remaining tweets, the last videos and the last voicemails.  That is all that's left - beside our memories.  They were our sons, daughters, lovers, partners, husbands, wives, friends, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.  They are now gone. Nothing will bring them back. 

What's next?

What's next?  No one can say!  Where do we go from here?  No one knows.  How do we begin to heal?  That is difficult question to answer.

The foundation for many gays has been shaken in the shock of a massacre.  Is it safe for gays to live in this world or will others be killed just for being who they are?  The only crime these people committed was loving life and having fun while being themselves.  One hateful and judgmental ignorant fool made that determination because of his own beliefs and from that which he had been taught.   It almost looks like he did it to please his father but I could be wrong.  That's only speculation, not fact.

The shock of a massacre doesn't just go away.  It will be with the Orlando community for a long time.  It will permeate every area of life and become a hidden poison locked away in the minds and bodies of those left behind.  It is part of the LGBT legacy now.

Yes, we can and will find ways to heal, but it comes at a price.  It comes at a price that was too high.  The price is raised every time we hear the political grandstanding of the day.

Together we will make it...

Together is the way we will make it through this.  Together as we look out for one another and feel the love and companionship we all share, may our hearts not close with bitterness to all people.  May the pain we feel, not only be replaced with a new awareness of life, but motivate us to remember in ways we cannot imagine.  May those ways be positive for the world.

Let us not forget that this process will not end tomorrow.  It will not end next week.  It may never fully end, but in all things, let us remind ourselves that we have to take care of ourselves.  We have to reach out when we need to, because this pain is great and no one should have to bear it alone.

May this Orlando community become stronger and may we stand up against the hate and intolerance and religious judgmental fools of our day.

To leave everyone reading this with something that I find helpful to do, please read "The Importance Of Breathing" or click the image below.  It is something that we forget in times like these.

The Importance Of Breathing (click image)

Please feel free to leave your comments below if you want.  Keep them respectful as I do moderate all comments. 

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
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Writing Heals Trauma

Writing exercises are one of the ways that I have helped heal trauma that I've been through in my life.  In this blog post on Somatosync.com, I have shared a way that has been taught to me to help deal with stuck energy that is in our body from the trauma, abuse, or painful experiences.

There are undoubtedly many ways to help heal from trauma, but writing has helped me.  It can  be very powerful and effective.  Sometimes all we need is a little nudge to move beyond that which is holding us back.

Blog Post Article:  Writing Moves Stuck Energy Of Trauma

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Blog Post And Images (c) 1/12/16 by Don Shetterly

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Helping Others Helps Us

I've been facing my own demons lately and I had a therapy session to give, but I thought I would not be up for it.  The only thing that motivated me to continue with the therapy session, was that the person was counting on me and really needed it.  Sometimes helping others when life is tough is not easy.

Going into that session, I wasn't sure if I could be there for that person.  I wasn't sure if I would have enough to give to make a difference.  I saw the issues in my own life more than I saw the possibilities.

Yet, what I found after I got done with the sessions, I actually felt better about my situation.  It was almost like (in fact it was like) by going in and being there for the other person, I actually helped heal myself as well.

When I went into that healing space with them, I was part of that space that helped heal me.  It was like there was plenty for everyone and all I had to do was to step in the moment of helping others.  When I did, it helped me.

Feel To Heal

So often we do exactly the opposite of what we need to do to heal our body and our mind.  We shut down and numb to everything going on.  In order to heal, we must feel.  When you feel, you heal.

Honestly, that's one of the major truths in life and it isn't because I'm writing a fancy slogan.  Numbing out is a way of disconnecting from all that is going on.  Feeling is a way of listening to the messages of your body and your mind.

Numbing takes you further into despair and pain and illness.  Feeling takes you out of those things.  Yes, I know that in order to feel, you will need to go in and confront the ugliest parts of life.  Its a built in biological mechanism that is truly there for us.

If we were feeling, we would see that there is so much that we have numbed in our body.  In fact, most of the time we are so numb, we can't even being to see this.  It is when you stop and listen and sense, that you will be able to see this.

Panic And Rage

That moment that happens in your day.  That second when you go from complete stillness to all our panic and rage.  That moment where you feel that you are losing control and you become so angry with yourself that you can't modulate life better.

If that describes you in any way, just know that you're not alone.  I've worked for years on this issue and while I've made progress, there are still moments that panic and rage happen before I can even think about what is happening.  Some moments in life are worse than others and some are better than others.

There are certain triggers like the thumping of a bass sound from a car stereo that will drive me absolutely crazy.  There are triggers like being in a store with the isles having several people or shopping carts in them leaving me feeling trapped.

Change To Heal

Its easy to just go with the flow and think the skies will part and the birds will fly.  Yet, in order to heal, we often need to make changes in our life and our beliefs.  Some of these changes to our beliefs will be met with resistance unlike anything we have ever attempted to do.  Yet, if we hold on to everything that continues us to live in our despair, how will we change?  How will we heal?

From the moment we are born, we are brought into a world of beliefs, opinions and teachings that we soak up at a record pace.  What our caregivers, parents, siblings and those around us do, we soak up as a sponge soaks up water.  We crave to know more about this world we have been born into and inhabit.

Unfortunately some of the things that we are taught really don't serve our life well.  Some times they are limiting to us and throughout our life, we will come to know that we must shed them if we want to discover more about our self. 

When we come upon moments in our life where healing is being held back, sometimes we have to go in and change our life from these core moments so we can heal.  Sometimes it requires us to step out in faith and change core beliefs because while that belief got us to this point in our life, it may no longer serve us going forward.

Healing Abandonment Issues

This blog post is actually the second part in this series and was written that way, but since it was so long, I decided to split it up into two parts. To understand more on what this post is about, I would suggest that you read the blog post from April 18, 2013, Healing Abandonment Experiences.

I could go on about different experiences of abandonment that I have been through in my life, but these are the main ones.  They show in a broad manner what can happen.  However, it is the issue of how abandonment follows you through your entire life.  It is not something you can easily walk away from or ignore.  It permeates every relationship, every job, every social contact, and all parts of life.

In the post, I Have Abandonment Issues, from the blog Together We Heal, I was struck by one of the portions of text.  I would like to share this with you because I think it goes to the heart of what abandonment is all about.

For quite a long time, I had the false belief that “people always leave.” As a result, guess what, people around me often didn’t stick around for long, because I would pretty much act in a way that ensured they would not want to! It is hard to acknowledge, but we have to be straight about the role we play that leads us to re-create the experience of being abandoned over and over again. - Together We Heal Blog

Healing From The Core

This can be one of the most difficult parts of the human experience.  We all want to heal ourselves and lead a more fulfilling life, but sometimes healing from the core is beyond our desire and comprehension.  It is easy to subscribe to feel good thoughts, mantras, and happy filled pictures, but unless we go within and heal, we will be like the man that built his house upon the sand.

Most likely you have heard the story of the man who built his house upon the sand and when the storms of life came, it knocked it down.  There was no strong and solid footing, but for awhile in life, he had a beautiful home.  Much is the same way in our life where we build our days upon feel good thoughts and mantras or we numb ourselves to reality.  Either way, it is like building upon sand.  If you have ever been to the ocean and stood at the edge of the water, you will know for sure just how stable your footing is.

Because of our ego, it is often times difficult to go in and embrace our healing from the core.  It is much easier to make up excuses as to why we can't do this or plainly to just not go there.  Our ego attaches us to every distraction under the sun to keep us from doing this, including health conditions and new age practices or the busyness of our daily life.  The ego wants the control and it does not want to do anything that will give up any control in our life.  It is crafty and cunning, hoping to mesmerize you with shiny lights and neon signs.

Don't Tell Me It Isn't Possible To Heal

I've been through quite a bit in my life and if you have been reading my blog for any time, that is most likely obvious.  None of these things have been easy and in fact there were times that I never thought I would make it as far as I have today.

For a long time in my life, I had people tell me that I would never get to the point I'm at.  Everyone said, you will always be on antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications.  Most thought I would always suffer from severe depression.  When it came to migraine headaches, no doctor out there ever suggested that I could get past these so that I would not suffer from them for the rest of my life.  During the rash that I had, it seemed like all hope was lost and I there was nothing that could cure me.

When I was in high-school and I had an ulcer (nervous stomach), the doctors didn't tell me that I could cure this.  They only told me to quit worrying and prescribed another pill.  When I had nightmares because of the trauma I had been through, I begged for my life to end.  During the many suicide attempts, I hoped that one day I would be successful.

Buck The Movie

I finally got a chance to see a movie that had been recommended to me.  The movie documentary, Buck, is an excellent one to see.  Essentially Buck Brannaman, the horse whisperer is able to get horses to do things that most people could never dream of getting them to do.  It is a story about his life growing up in some very difficult circumstances and ending up living a life that makes him feel fulfilled.

In the movie, it shows how Buck is able communicate with horses and observe the smallest things in them that most people do not observe.  Through his closeness and ability to understand the horse, he is able to be one of them and accomplish so much. I am seeing the same thing in Unified Therapy that I have experienced and am using to learn to heal others.  It is those subtle moments that most people do not see, but if you can notice them and work with that, you will find a way to unlock so much trauma in a person and release it.  It is life changing, just like what Buck does with horses.

Depressed Mothers Wake Babies Up More

Project Siesta Study On Infant
Sleep at Penn State University

A recent study at Pennsylvania State University project Siesta looked at the sleeping patterns of depressed mothers and infants.  The study performed by Dr. Douglas Teti along with many other researchers, collected data on 45 infants and their mothers ranging from one month of age to 24 months.  The study was performed for seven days that included a sleep diary kept by the mother and web cams to monitor entry into the baby's room and areas the mother might take the infant at night.

There were several findings in this research, but what they found was that depressed mothers tend to go in and wake their babies up at night, even if they are sleeping.  It appears that the mother may need comforting and the close connection of the baby, to help calm her anxiety and depression.  Mothers who were depressed, tended to worry about their infants at night.  When the mothers sought out their babies at night, the baby was in no need of parental help.

The researchers feel that if an infant is not experiencing any stress, that by disrupting the sleep of the baby, it could have a negative consequence on the parent-child relationship.  Sleep problems in infants can result in attention deficits, conduct problems, day time sleepiness and academic underachievement.  These problems in the first year of an infant's life, can affect them for many years to come. 

Top Book Reviews, Jan 2012 - Meditations To Heal Your LIfe

Meditations To
Heal Your Life
Louise Hay

I really love this book by Louise Hay.  Meditations To Heal Your Life has been around for sometime and my copy dates back to 2002.  Many people I know have enjoyed the book as one that really speaks to them.  It is filled with positive messages of light and hope.

One thing that I love to do with this book is whenever I feel prompted or led to pick it up, I randomly select a page in the book.  Often I just allow the book to open to whatever page it does and then I read the contents of the page.  Usually, the page I read is something that I need to see at that particular point in time.  I'm always amazed at how this happens.

I'm sure that there are people that think it is just coincidence and probability for the right page to open at the right time.  I guess if one wanted to, that belief could be valid.  However, when you see this happen over and over again among many different people, than I would begin to rule out  that it was the luck of the straw.  Whatever someone chooses to believe reading this review is completely up to them, but I know deep within me the results that I get.

A Time For Everything

Normally I don't quote the Bible in this blog, but I think the following from Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 is appropriate based upon the post from yesterday. Sometimes, there are parts from the Bible that just speak so eloquently of what is on my mind.

Most likely we have all heard this in some form or another but I thought it was a good time to just state the obvious.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heave:
a time to be born and a time die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace




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http://www.donshetterly.com

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Medication Side Effects, Part 5

This is a continuation from part 4 of the Medication Side Effects series. It is the final part in this series. Please read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 before reading this part so this particular blog entry will make sense. Again, this is for information purposes and is not meant to be considered as medical advice. Please read the disclaimer below for more details.

While I realize I am not a medical professional and that I don't know all there is to know about health and medications, the one thing I do know is that when you look at all the drug advertisements on TV, the list of side effects is frightening.

According to KaiserEDU.org, health care costs rose 2.3 trillion dollars in 2008 from 714 billion dollars in 1990. This equates to about $7,681 per resident and about 16.2% of the nations GDP. It is among the highest of all industrialized nations. Those numbers are so staggering that one can hardly put them in perspective.

Yet, as we have spent great amounts of money to heal us and make us well in this country, we are still not healthier than we were back in 1990. We have continued down the same track and I would suggest that we have done this in a blind fashion.

You see, when we fail to take care of ourselves and heal our life from the inside out (the mind body connection), we then end up running to the doctor and hospital for tests to determine which type of medication we should be taking. Yet, in our quest to be "healed" and to "get better", we fail to see just how harmful the side effects of these medications are to our bodies.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers want you to keep coming back and they want you addicted to their drugs. For if you don't, than where will their profits come from for their shareholders and where will increased earnings come from for the stocks? When over 16% of our GDP is spent on health care, something is completely wrong with the picture.

I offer that we cannot continue down this path. There is going to be a point of no return for our civilization and our bodies. When you take some medicine to alter the function of one part of your body (get rid of the symptoms you are experiencing), you impact other body systems. The impact may go unnoticed for some time but eventually it will catch up with you.

We can continue to go down the path we are on or we can begin to wake up and question what it is we are doing in our life and to our bodies. Accepting the status quo or going along with what the establishment tells you to think is no longer good enough. It does not support optimal health. Of course, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know deep down inside but of course when fear gets ahold of you, these words become nothing more than garbled noise.

My hope through this series of blog posts is that it will being to wake you up to medications and how we treat our bodies. I'm not asking you to immediately stop taking any medication you are taking. That is not my intent. My purpose is to get you to look at this and begin using your conscious brain to make the best choices possible for your life.

Within humans, we do have the genetic code to produce healthy cells but every time we douse them in poor nutrition, habits, exercise and health care, we are altering how our cells function. We can continue to spend trillions each year on the latest health care fad or we can begin to change who we are and evolve our awareness. This is up to each one of us to discover but if we sit there on our butts, we'll be like a long lost voyager lost at sea.



Here are the links to each of the parts of the series on Medication Side Effects.
Part 1 (Posted 4/22/11)
Part 2 (Posted 4/23/11)
Part 3 (Posted 4/24/11)
Part 4 (Posted 4/25/11)
Part 5 (Posted 4/26/11)



Further Information:
1) Drugs.com
2) Forbes.com - The Most Popular Prescription Drugs
3) High Pulse Rate and Heart Disease
4) KaiserEDU.org - US Health Care Costs



Disclaimer:
This blog post series is not meant as medical advice nor is it meant for you to stop taking medications prescribed by your doctor. You should always make those decisions with a qualified medical doctor. I am merely pointing out information my own study of a different way to view the body. Remember, the more you understand about how your body works, the more impact you can have upon your life. Just to make this crystal clear, consult your medical professional before making any changes with your medications and health. This is meant for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice.



Blog Post & Images (c) 4/7/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com