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.
In this video, Dr. Paul Canali and Jim Fazio discuss the Autonomic Nervous System, stress, and how it impacts our physical well-being.
Key Points In The Video
The Autonomic Nervous System is responsible for our day to day function.
Controls things like heart rate, blood pressure, hot, cold, sexual intimacy.
Almost every function of the human body is under Autonomic Nervous System control.
We're not always aware of it until something goes wrong.
Negative impacts of stress are expressed through the Autonomic Nervous System.
Sympathetic Nervous System
One part of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).
It increases and expends energy to meet the demand of the moment.
Increases
Blood Pressure
Heart Rate
The stress response
The survival response
Still in the "danger mode" so your body doesn't waste energy on digestion, sleep, rest, healing. Even dangers that have long past gone away.
Parasympathetic Nervous System
Helps slow things down and bring things back into balance.
If the threat, real or perceived, is still there, this will not engage.
Parasympathetic helps in
Sleep
Digestion
Rest
Healing
The longer we stay in stress or survival, the longer these systems will stay shut down and lead to constipation, inflammatory disease, and illness of all types.
Majority of doctor visits are due to stress or the maladaptation to stress.
Treatments will only do so much unless you deal with the stress.
If you don't correct your ways to adapt to stress, nature will take you out of the picture.
Re-regulate stress by dumping allostatic load, which is how the body adapts to a stressful stimulus.
Stress happens and it impacts the body, but in a short period of time, we should return back to a baseline called homeostasis. Unfortunately, we don't always do this.
Stresses can accumulate and keep us out of balance which ends up in situations where we are in severe pain, physical illness, and conditions that impact the body.
I have been in some kind of therapy or other since I was 18, due to a difficult and dysfunctional family life as a child. In addition, I was bullied at school and had an eating disorder that became a lifelong struggle.
It has, at times, been a rough and very rocky road to say the least. I knew that I had experienced some kind of abuse, but the memories of it were incomplete or vague. That made it difficult for me to know for sure if I actually was molested… and to let it go.
The questions were always, “what if”, “what really happened”, or “who was this person?” These questions haunted me, and were always in the back of my mind. I tried to recover the memory in different ways with different therapies over the years to no avail. I finally decided I would have to be ok with not ever knowing…until recently.
I worked with my last therapist for ten years, and he was wonderful. I will always be grateful for the work we did together and for the time and effort he gave to help me heal my past wounds. I reached a point where I was very happy, had left it all behind me, and felt my life was quite fulfilling for many years…and then, the bottom dropped out. I felt myself spiraling into a depression that I could not express or understand. I tried my best to manage it with all of the tools I had learned over the years. Nothing was working.
That was when I foundJim Fazio and Unified Therapy. I began to work with him, and reached a level of trust so quickly that I was able to explore the reasons for the depression I was experiencing in great depth. It is difficult to describe how the sessions go, but I can say there is very little talking, no advice or judgment, and all mind-body work in a safe, relaxing environment.
The sessions were intense and powerful... after each session was over, when I allowed myself to let go, I felt an overwhelming peace and joy that I had not experienced for a very long time. It was progressing so quickly that after a few months the memory became clearer… until one session when the answer came… I knew it was real, where the existing memory was leading, and that it happened.
The next morning, this poem was written in my mind in a matter of minutes, and I had to write it down.
Today, I Know
(c) 2017 By Marie Davino
Today I see the world through different eyes
Yesterday it was maybe, probably.
Maybe.
Today I know
Yesterday it was how could someone do that to a child
Today it is how could someone do that to my child
Yesterday I wondered why? (I suffocate!)
Why? (I can't breathe!) why? (I can't speak!)
Why? (Did I make this up?)
Today I know
The Angels gentle message
Floating on an ocean full of tears
drowning out my screams
Buried in sand up to my nose, hide my face from horror.
Can't move, can't breathe, why? (No one hears me.)
Today I know.
Paul sings it was far away… but it was here all along
He sings it will stay forever, but now I know
I will fight till I can let it go
These words of a million wounded souls, spoken a million times
Nothing new here...I am just one more broken heart to heal.
Freezing cold. Burning up.
No more shadows. No more darkness. No more silence. Today I weep.
Today I bathe in the soft lightness of mourning
In the gentle hands that hold me
Because now, I know.
Tomorrow I will see the world through different eyes.
I am sharing my experience on Mind Body Thoughts because through my work with Jim Fazio I found Don, and we have become good friends. What he writes on his blog is courageous, open, and honest, and helps me find the courage I need to continue to heal through some very difficult times. Many thanks to Don, for sharing so much of his life with us so we can see there is always hope…and to Jim, for holding on tight and going through the darkness with me.
In this video, Jim Fazio of Integrative Bodywork sits down with Dr. Paul Canali of Evolutionary Healing Institute to discuss the topic of actual healing versus symptom relief. All too often we focus on symptoms rather than true and complete healing.
Dr Canali understands that as you go through healing, you begin to learn how to interact with the pain and suffering you are experiencing. It is a whole new body knowledge that takes us beyond just treating symptoms and finding temporary relief from symptoms.
As Dr. Canali notes, you hear people say that if it wasn't for what they had been through, they would have never become who they are at this moment. When you're in the middle of the turmoil, despair, and agony, you just want it to go away, but as you heal deeper, you find that there is more to your suffering than you realized. It is a deeper progression of healing.
To see the interview, watch the VIDEO or click the video image above.
Join Jim Fazio as he discusses "how pain is felt in the brain" with Dr. Paul Canali of Evolutionary Healing Institute. This is part of an ongoing series of interviews Jim did with Dr. Paul Canali on chronic pain, PTSD, Healing Trauma and Unified Therapy.
Do you ever have one of those cartoon moments, where steam comes out your ears after reading something? Well, today was one of those days.
When I read the following quote, it made steam come out of my ears. No, I'm not going to name the source because far too many people think this way and quite frankly, they are only seeing "part" of the story.
The quote is:
Lifestyle is the cause of chronic illness and lifestyle is the only evidence-based solution for the prevention of, and recovery from, chronic illness.
In addition to the entire premise of this statement being short-sighted and downright wrong from my own experience, when you use the word "ONLY" as the foundation for your statement, you are standing on melting ice in the middle of a lake. This is one of the things that is wrong with our health care system and why people don't get better. I know the place that wrote this means well, but there is more to the picture than this "belief" about chronic illness.
Inadequate at best and harmful at worst...
I will not disagree that chronic pain often has lifestyle choices that are not healthy. However, that is like telling a person with depression, to just be happy or a person who has sleep issues, that they should just go to bed at a set time. These forms of advice and counseling and help are inadequate at best and harmful at worst. They don't assist the person and help them. They only cement the judgment and shame deeper into their consciousness.
In many of the chronic pain and chronic illness, there is something more below the surface. There is something that set the person up for the situation they are now facing. Maybe no one can see it. Maybe no one can even begin to believe it. Maybe it is something that no one is even thinking about, but it is there. I've worked with far too many people and seen evidence of what I am saying, to not be able to believe that lifestyle changes along can help every situation.
All too often we've seen people look for help that isn't there. We've seen this person or that product offering the "cure-all" for their condition. I used to work in research evaluating products for a company before we took the plunge and spent millions to find out if something worked or not. Of the products that were backed up by science and research and trials with big name companies, approximately 85% of them did not show a statistical improvement for whatever it was that we were testing.
Needless to say, these companies and even colleagues of mine would rip my research to shreds. Yes, it was meticulously done and yes, myself and other individuals reviewed it before the data was released.
I find the same thing in the health and healing communities. Some of the "products" out there make my eyes do flip-flops and the claims make me vomit. Sorry, if you're one that does not want to hear this, but from my experience, it is the truth.
Chronic conditions have deep layers...
Chronic pain and chronic illness is present for a reason. It has deep layers which I don't think we truly understand today. However, there is new pioneering work that is being done and can often reverse these conditions or have a significant impact upon them. Situations and health conditions that we thought were not treatable are now being seen that we can influence them.
Yes, lifestyle choices does make a difference, but if there are underlying situations and stresses below the surface, then you can beg someone to change all day long with little results. Heck, even the person suffering from Chronic Pain and Chronic Illness can hope something changes, but unless the underlying pressures are released, this will be nothing but a prayer.
A message from our body to our brain...
Pain is there for a reason. It is a message from our body to our brain trying to get our attention. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, it is difficult to understand how this could even be true, let alone how we can solve it. The answers are not from feel good statements, but are through interventions that takes us deep within where we feel our body. It is not where we escape it.
Here is a good video by good friend Jim Fazio as he interviews Dr. Paul Canali about Chronic Pain. Dr. Paul Canali is a pioneer in the treatment of trauma, pain, and anxiety and offers a new approach that is highly effective. This is not belief or theory, but actually applied therapy that has helped thousands of people he has worked on.
I want to push each one of us, whether we suffer from chronic conditions or we are in the healing community try to help people deal with these conditions. We cannot sit back and expect the tired and old practices that have become our paradigms to continue being ineffective in our healing modalities. We have to be more and often that starts where we least expect it to begin.
Instead of limiting your healing beliefs to lifestyle changes only, find out what makes the person tick from the inside. What is it that holds you or them back?
I used to think that Dr Canali had some special gift, but now I'm beginning to see that what he has learned resides in each one of us. It was not just him that could help others. Yes, it may take another compassionate and caring individual without judgment to walk through the healing fires with us, but healing comes from within us. Let us not look at it through simple eyes, missing the deeper moments.
Chronic pain and illness is not easy. However, there are therapies emerging that can help so much, if we allow ourselves to go check them out.
We all hold on to so much in our day, in our lives and in our bodies. We carry this through each moment as tension, pain, numbness, fatigue and various other ways. Letting go in life is not easy. It is difficult for most people to do.
We are all masters at holding on to things in life, but letting go is much more difficult. Have you felt the tension in your back by carrying too great of a load in life? Has your life become tiring because you felt like you had to keep plugging away and not stop or let up? Do you just not feel life fully because you've carried so much around your neck for so many years?
Holding on in our life shows up in many ways and it usually shows up in the body. If we are attentive and conscious, we will see it. If not, we will hide it through numbness. Even if we smile a lot and recite mantras all day long, it does not mean we have this under control. In fact, it might most likely be the opposite. Again, letting go in life is difficult but holding on is the norm.
In a previous post, I shared a video about emotional fitness done by Dr Paul Canali and Jim Fazio. I understand what Dr Canali and Jim are talking about, but as they know so well, it isn't always that easy to do this. Being okay with the uncomfortable takes some work to get there.
For me, this has hit home front and center. From being paralyzed by a Conversion Disorder almost 25 years ago to the physical pains I sometimes go through, I struggle with these moments. I still struggle with my memory and that's not always easy for me. I'm not always comfortable with these things.
Being okay with the uncomfortable is something I'm learning. In every Unified Therapy session I go into, I learn more how to not get myself overwhelmed by what is coming up on the table. I learn how to stop and stay present with it as long as I can. Of course, I can't always do this for a prolonged period of time.
Emotions can be overwhelming and draining. I know, because I'm one of those people that can easily be overwhelmed by feelings and emotions. Especially if you are a highly sensitive person, it can be much more for you.
In life, if we don't process all that goes on in our day, these moments can build up and get the best of us.
Take a moment and check out the latest newsletter from Jim Fazio of Integrative Bodyworks where he and Dr. Canali discuss emotional fitness.
