Tag Archives: mind-body

Self-Doubt and Jealousy

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I have a fear. I have a fear that it’s all in my head. What would that be? What’s in my head? Many things.

That food really matters. That I don’t feel good after I eat sugar, bread, and milk. That I can influence how my children develop. That I deserve time to myself as a mom. That I’m any different than anyone else. That I can write. That I know anything that I am talking about.

It is self-doubt. I’m not good enough. I haven’t done enough. Everyone else is smarter. They know what they’re talking about and I don’t. I’m flighty.

All my life I’ve fought it in any way that I could. I’ve fought the quiet little girl from podunkville whose parents (the best parents for me, I would never trade them ever) live exactly where they were born and never wanted more than what they had. Heck, they’re probably related for all I know.

(I remember these two doctors for my med school interview. I had to list on the application where my parents were from and even went to high school. Oh, man. They noticed that right off. “So, your parents went are from the same county? Went to the same high school?” I think I replied, “Yeah! They were first cousins.” No, I didn’t, but I felt the implied insult.)

Each day has been spent in not failing. If I do this well, maybe then I’ll believe in myself. But no matter what the measuring stick, whether you raise it to ten feet tall or drop it to 4 feet 6, my self-doubt persists.

I try to pass it off in nice terms: humility and goodness. I’m supposed to strive to be humble and good, yes? Right? It’s my religion. (Shame on me. I’m sorry. Wrong religion.)

Beginning yesterday, finally, after all these years, I see my self-doubt for what it is.

Pride.

I am too proud to allow room for failure. I am too proud to risk room for being wrong, not doing it right.

The real changers aren’t too proud. They change the world. They change ideas. Their pride doesn’t interfere with what they think they know and want to share, what they’re called to share. The good ones, the humble ones–they just re-work their theories and thoughts as people expand or rebut their ideas.

The best ones DO without attaching the results to WHO they are.

Oh, don’t confuse my self-doubt with lack of self-confidence or low self-esteem. Honestly, I don’t want to be anyone other than who I am. Hand me lots of things, and I have confidence in my abilities to pull them off. (But someone else can always do it better…)

Lately, I’ve noticed sometimes that I have these strange pangs of envy and jealousy. They are not common themes in my life, and I haven’t understood them. I’m not normally that type. Because normally I’m living up to my full potential in each area of my life. Probably living up to my full potential in areas of life I shouldn’t be.

(What do I mean? Well, I’m not naturally neat, but I keep my house neat. I’m not naturally the science type, but I’ve culled myself that way for 26 years.)

I really couldn’t give a drop more in most places. And guess what–I’m not jealous in those places.

But there are a few places—places that make me characteristically me—that I’m not putting myself out there because of self-doubt, and as I stepped back to look, I saw jealousy telling me exactly that.

My self-doubt has taken me from a place of caution, which is probably good, to a place of fear and holding back, to a place of developing jealously. I see it now.

So today I say thank-you to my self-doubt and jealousy, both “BAD” feelings, for teaching me. For telling me to live up to my potential and to stop making excuses.

(“I don’t have enough time… My kids will feel neglected if… I couldn’t do that… I’m not good enough… It has already been said… I’ll look stupid… People will think I’m a fruitcake… I can’t post that blog post without a picture… I don’t run a clinic, so what I have to say isn’t important… Another real expert has a blog on this, so what is one more… Homeschooling, inspiration, and nutrition science on one blog is weird… I’ve spent 42 years of my life learning to keep my mouth shut—a very hard task for me— to look smarter, so I can’t possibly open it… My grammar isn’t good enough… Sometimes I don’t eat the way I should… Of course they can do it, they have more time. They understand computers better.”)

My self-doubt has been keeping my childish pride safe, the part that wants to prove I can do it, the part that says bicycle falls hurt. The jealousy is my inner parent telling me I’m not living up to my own potential in areas that I am called to.

Are you feeling self-doubt? (No worries! So am I–for writing this post!) Are you feeling jealousy? Despite feeling content in life? Then, my friend, you have some work to do.

Get on it. YOU have a difference to make.

Terri

The Difference A Mind Makes

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Okay.  Here we go.  Hold onto your logical, little scientific brain like you’re about to lose it.  Because you just might.  I promise you; I have not.  Although I have decided even healthy minds need some remodeling to keep up with the different times of life.  Life changes, so must my mind.

Anyhow, I was talking about Dr.  John Sarno’s Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS) (here and here).  I decided to try his techniques mostly, but not exclusively, to manage headaches related to food sensitivities I have to common, healthy foods I’d like to add back into my diet.  I’m pleased with my success.

Dr. Sarno feels many, many symptoms and described medical syndromes are related to our subconscious beliefs.  His books are just averagely long, and the treatment description takes up, oh I don’t know, maybe a mere, simple five pages of the book.

Sarno, Terri-style

I’m going to show how I interpreted and used his recommendations.  This is MY interpretation of his treatment plan.  You’d better read the book to get your own take.

1.   Mandatory:  I must accept that TMS is causing my symptoms as a diversion from unconscious beliefs/thoughts.  I don’t really know about this requirement.  TMS?  I get a headache from eggs as a diversion from deep repression?  But if I don’t eat eggs, I’m okay?  I just don’t know about this… HOWEVER,  I can totally accept that my brain is capable of shutting down the headaches that cause me problems AND that repressed emotions will create a chemical interference that blocks optimal, ideal physiology.  So I tell myself that “TMS” is just a name for my brain not doing what it’s capable of doing for me.  Or overdoing what it is capable of.  In this way, I agree I have TMS.  Check.  I’ll go with it.

2.  Talk to my brain and tell it I don’t need the physically distracting diversion(s) anymore.  (Herein lies the chuckle for you.)  Tell it I’m onto its strategy.  For example, when I’ve been getting a headache, I’ve literally been talking aloud to my brain like this, often in the shower while distracted by shaving or while doing dishes.  (Apparently low-grade distraction times are good times to talk to your deep brain.)

“Oh, brain.  Why are you doing this?  This headache and fog are simply diversions for something deep in there that’s bothering you.  I don’t need this diversion.  It’s worse than dealing with whatever is deep in that limbic system and amygdala emotionally!  I’m old enough, mature enough, and I’ve got a great support network to help me through anything troubling.  STOP THIS.”

And if it doesn’t stop, seriously, I get a little louder and firmer in my talking aloud.

“This is RIDICULOUS.  I’m strong.  I’m healthy.  My body is sound.  STOP this nonsense and show me the problem.  Even if you won’t stop,  you MUST STOP this pain.  There’s nothing wrong with me.  It’s not the eggs.  It’s not the nuts.  It’s YOU.  And I’M TIRED OF IT.  You can heal up the problem and you’d better get on it ASAP.  Yeah.  Parts of life sucked.  I’m mad.  I’m angry about that.  Sure I am.  There’s deep, dark secrets in there.  Sure there are.  Being a mom is stressful.  Absolutely.  But none of this needs to cause these symptoms.  We’ll work on it together.”

Right.  That’s what I do.  (You still with me?)  And you know what?  Usually over the last two months, that’s been enough to talk down a headache.  Weird.  Next step.

3.  Journal all “stressors” from throughout all of your life, past and present.  Both internal and external. (Internal stressors refer to personality traits you have that seem to cause conflict in your life.)  I know.  You want to see mine.  We all want to know others have deeper trash piles than we do.  Well, I’ll share some.  Not all.

  • Homeschooling right now is not going the way I want it to go.
  • The house is messier than I like it.
  • It feels like I always have work to do which I can’t escape because I live in it.
  • I’m a perfectionist in just about all areas of my life.  And sorry, when perfection is the expectation, failure is your reality.
  • I like everybody to be happy and comfortable yet I’m very truthful.
  • Writing publicly exposes me more than I feel comfortable with and I’m afraid.
  • My toddler demands nearly 100% attention, making cleaning, doing school, sleeping, talking/being with my husband, cooking, running errands, and even thinking exceptionally difficult.
  • I like time adequate alone to collect my thoughts and recharge.  In a family of six, this is a near impossibility.
  • I am ALWAYS interrupted.  I hate being interrupted.
  • My parents and in-laws are aging and requiring significant health interventions.
  • I hate to ask for help yet am finding I need help more and more.
  • Friends have hurt me.  Family members have hurt me.  Life has given me some bad eggs to deal with along the way.  I’ve hurt friends.  I’ve hurt family.  I’ve given out some bad eggs for people to deal with along the way.

I guess that’s enough stuff to keep the adrenaline and serotonin and acetylcholine in constant flux daily, not allowing the brain to function to control other symptoms.  (I dare you to make your list.)

4.  After you write your present, past, internal, and external stressors, you continue to elaborate and expand on them and walk through them in your journal daily.  He suggests somewhere in there about doing this for around a month.  Just journal all you can about them.  I’m to the point when I flare, I just write any stressors going on around the time.  If one stressor seems to get lots of lines in the tablet, then I know that’s where my money is.

5.  Start to recognize the repeated thoughts, phrases, and physical actions that cover for uncomfortable emotions that you don’t handle well.

  • Chuckling, laughing, or smiling kind of inappropriately.  Like when you laugh about something your husband does that drives you crazy.  Really you’re mad, but you “laugh it off.”
  • “Well, that’s just the way it is.”
  • “I don’t like it, but it’s okay.”
  • “I might be a little mad at ________ for doing that.”
  • “Someday I’ll get to do it.”
  • “Overall, things are fine.”
  • “I just can’t do this.”
  • “I think I’m going crazy.”
  • “If only…”
  • “This person is irritating me.”
  •  Running to the bathroom to get away from your kids.

Do you say or do any of these?  These are clues to what we are repressing or clues to limiting beliefs we have.  (After Sarno, I have kept reading more on how to recognize these thoughts, intercept them, and retrain them.  Sarno is great, but I want “TMS” gone.  Once I realized how badly I was pushing down lots of thoughts, I decided I needed more knowledge in this area.  I needed/need my mind working FOR me.)

6.  Read Sarno’s books daily.  Pay attention to passages that describe you.  Remind yourself his techniques helped many, many people, and you’re not crazy.  My brain likes to tell me I’m crazy.  I know I have a fear of being crazy.  So the fact that thousands and thousands of patients have really, truly, honestly also gotten relief helps me feel validation.  I’ve moved beyond Sarno’s writings to discover more on what he introduced psychology-wise.  Invaluable.

7.  Start giving up the limitations that helped you control your physical ailments.  For me, that means bringing back in foods.  So far, I have been able to do this.  Yes, several times I’ve gotten headaches.  But they always have backed down either immediately or within an hour or two of doing all this stuff above, instead of lasting a few days like before.

8.  When the symptoms flare, try to do all these things.  Even though it feels hard.  Even though you don’t have time.  And if your symptoms move around, call it TMS (after you make sure to get medically cleared!!!!!!) and get down and dirty again to see if something is hanging in that deep mind that’s doing you no good.

Where does God fit into this?

When you move into discussing the subconscious, it makes people uncomfortable.  Especially Christians.  I fit under the label of Christian.  For me to have given up white flour, gained a truly healthier grip on food, and write questionable stuff on the internet,  I know God is in charge here.  For me to explore my anger, fear, sadness, and shame and how they relate to my physical body and brain which serve Him, well God is in that too.  I know He delights in my drawing nearer to Him as I peel off the layers that separate us.  So do I.  I move forward confidently in this realm; my beliefs are only illuminated by what I am learning.  But on Sarno step number 2, when I’m supposed to talk to my brain, sometimes I feel like throwing in a full gospel “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ.”—- and a bonk on my head with my palm to make it more Christian-like.  Right.

Conclusion

Well, that’s my introduction to mind-body medicine.  I’ve added a few more books to my mind-body reading list thanks to the live studio audience.  Thank you!  This series was a little scary for me.  But, so is writing on constipation (which Sarno didn’t help, although he mentions that a patient of his did cure his constipation–and I am trying some other mind-body stuff for my slow GI but still on magnesium).  It’s one thing to tell your husband and best friends and family; it’s another to share it with the world.  My hope is it maybe benefitted someone.  If not, writing keeps me motivated, and that’s the important thing to me.  Health matters.  Go get it.  And don’t be afraid to ask your mind for some help.

Sorry for the length.  Hope you were on a laptop.  If not, that’s impressive that you’re still reading!  Questions and comments always welcomed.

Terri

Are You a Head Case?

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Once, my high school softball coach called me a  “head case,”  which kind of hurt my feelings.  Hard stop.  Pull up short.  Take a quick 15 second life review.  In no way, shape, or form did any decision of my utterly responsible, conscientious, sixteen year-old life seem to deserve this condemnation.  Coach, I’m a head case?  How could you declare this?

Sure!  I wear my heart on my sleeve probably unlike anyone else you know–on happy days as well as sad days.  (As well as mad days.  I’ve always proclaimed that this openness keeps me from becoming a head case.)

Sure!  I was the starting pitcher and some days I pitched strikes–and other days I didn’t. (Okay.  Some batters I pitched strikes to and others I didn’t.)

Sure.  Okay.  Maybe sometimes my head did get in the way of my already horrible pitching.  But, dang, coach.  I wasn’t a good pitcher, and I didn’t want to be the pitcher if I wasn’t a good pitcher.

The pitcher’s circle.  Who put me there?  I didn’t ask to be there.  And what a place to be.  All eyes on you.  Throw strikes consistently from inside a circle drawn in the sand.  Everybody else standing or sitting and watching…

And judging you to be a head case.

Strike three!  Success.  Ball four.  Take first base.  Failure.

Head Case and Health

I’ve been thinking about this head case stuff as it plays a role in health.  Back when I played softball, I could never tell if it was going to be a good pitching day or a bad pitching day.  (Poor Coach.  Poor team.  Poor Terri.)  Just couldn’t tell.  Despite being perfectly capable of pitching strikes, something unconsciously interfered with my ability to do so many times over.  Trust me.  I didn’t like standing in that circle walking batter after batter after batter.  I wanted to pitch strikes!  So, I’ve been thinking about Coach’s words from so long ago and chewing on the idea of “head case” (and also “psychosomatic” and “in your head”).

I’ve come up with a temporary, evolving idea for “head case” (and “psychosomatic” and “in your head”) which I think will apply to health matters too:

Head Case, Psychosomatic, and In Your Head:  The conscious brain cannot undo the activities of the unconscious brain no matter how hard it tries.

No matter how hard I tried consciously, I just couldn’t throw strikes.  Now the thought has been (and was) ever-present that overall, I was simply a bad pitcher.  Period.

But then why, some days and innings, could I be a “good” bad pitcher?  And other days and innings a “bad” bad pitcher?  Why can a headache calm down when you lie down?  Why does rheumatoid arthritis sometimes have good days and bad days?  Why does a Morton’s neuroma sometimes hurt and sometimes not?  Why can’t the brain always modulate success?

Am I a Head Case?

Fast forward.  No matter how hard I try, I haven’t been able to budge my food sensitivities and gut issues and strange stuff keeps popping up like joint effusions.  (I’ve been evaluated by doctors and tests, and so should you be.)  I don’t like suffering body and brain aches and pains.  I don’t like to run kids around with a headache.  I don’t like restrictive diets. I don’t like the taste of my magnesium supplement I have to take.  I don’t like wondering if today will be a good day or a bad day for my head because I ate eggs and nuts yesterday.  I’m stuck.  Despite eating right.  Despite trying certain supplements.  Despite gratitude journals.  Despite yoga.  Despite prayer.

Am I a head case again?  Do we all have a case of head case?  Do we all have symptoms where our awesome, magnificent, all-powerful, all-knowing cerebral cortex (the conscious brain) cannot override unconscious activities that lie deeper in the brain no matter how hard it tries, short circuiting health and normal function?

I’m not sure.  I’ve been super impressed with the significance of food in health.  Definitely my family’s experimentation with real food tweaked for food intolerances has been highly successful.  But what about using the untapped power of the murky brain (unconscious or subconscious) that lies under the brain that I call me (the conscious) to control health?  The part that controls my heart rate.  My sweating.  My gut motility.  My blushing.  My sleep.  The part that responds to and generates fear and anger.  The part that has deep, primal memory that I’m not consciously privy to–that honestly, maybe I don’t really even want any part of.

Can a person gain health by exploring their mind?  By trying to recognize “thoughts” that you don’t really think?  By appreciating how many times a day you squash yourself down when you didn’t even realize it?  By trying to intercept subconscious thoughts and remodel them and nurture them for good, thus allowing the biochemistry and circuitry of the brain to actually change?

“La, la, la, la, la–I’m not liiisssst-uh-ning…”

I know what you’re thinking, “No.  My pain is real!  My symptoms are real!  These are not in my head.  I’ve got tests and X-rays and MRIs.  I’ve tracked everything.  It’s all objective.  I see you’re headed for whack-o.  This is your final leap.  I’m going to stop reading now, thank you very much, Terri.  Appreciated the brewer’s yeast, iodine, and butyrate posts you wrote–but I’m not going where you’re going anymore.”

Well, I’m impressed you made it this far.  I hear you!  I have many, many memories of working-up patients with headaches and stomach pains and joint pains and finding nothing!  Nothing!  The patients would feel so disappointed because they KNEW something was wrong!  Something HAD to be wrong!  This couldn’t just be an “in my head” issue.  But everything was saying, “There’s nothing wrong.”

Because I saw this particular, discouraging clinical situation often enough, I had a standard spiel for it.  It went like this:

“Hey.  Look at me.  It’ll be okay.  You’re okay!  We know there’s nothing BAD there that’s going to kill you.  That’s important!  That’s good!  It’s not cancer!  I know you have pain!  It’s real!  This doesn’t mean something won’t turn up eventually, so you have to watch out for us!  Anything new or different, you get right back in here because that may be the clue we need to figure this thing out.”

Honestly, not much ever turned up.  So I have never been surprised when my own tests come back inconclusive.  Colonoscopy for severe, unrelenting constipation–negative.  Specific antibodies for celiac and rheumatoid arthritis–negative.  Blood tests for premature menopause–negative.  Lymes–negative.

Following a strict food plan with some basic supplements has kept me decently controlled from whatever it is.  It’s a tight diet though, and I want to share, if I can, good, healthy foods with my daughters, husband, mom, sisters, and friends.  Perhaps I should just let food go, and I will if I have to, but if I can move forward from this place, I’d like to.

So mind-body digging it is.  I’ve got some posts (about four) typed up about what I am learning and what I think about this mind-body disco.  They’re not scientific posts.  But if I have success, I’m going to be thrilled to dig up the research like I did for food and some supplements and eventually get them posted here.

Stay in the circle, pitch after pitch after pitch.  It’ll be okay.

Terri