I am happy to announce that I have been recognized as an Official Guide and Expert in Mind Body Healing through Self Improvement.com. Please check out my expert page at
www.selfgrowth.com/experts/maggie_phillips.html.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to help people with chronic health conditions or persistent atypical health symptoms (the ones that are not easily diagnosable). I am excerpting an article written by me and recently published by Self Growth.com
"Seven Keys to Change: A Mind Body Approach to Creating Permanent Good Health." To read the entire article
click here.
SEVEN KEYS TO MIND BODY HEALTHKey #1: Defenses are Important StrengthsFirst, think about how your body might be trying to protect you, such as bracing against pain, or creating warning signals and distress to keep you from sitting in one place for too long or engaging in repetitive motion. It's important to identify and accept existing protective defenses no matter how much pain or stress they may be causing. One of my cardinal rules is to insist that you not remove or dismantle whatever you've invested in to protect yourself from feeling any more vulnerable than you already feel.
Key #2: Consider What to AddNext, think about what already helps your symptoms, even if a little bit. Ask yourself where you carry the most stress in your body. Then ask, what has made even a little bit of difference in helping you cope with that problem or symptom?
If you have nerve pain, for example, you might answer "cooling gel that I rub on the area." If you have panic attacks, you might answer "feelings of looseness or comfort in my chest." If you struggle with queasiness or upset stomach, you might answer "relaxation in my abdomen when it feels like things have quieted down and I can go to sleep."
Take a moment and identify the healing resource you want to focus on.
Key #3: Generate Healing Resources That Make A Difference Match what you've already found helpful with a resource that your body might be able to create. For example, your body can easily create heat, loosening, sleepiness, relaxation, and coolness. The question is how?
I have found that application of appropriate breathing techniques is generally the best place to explore as a foundational resource. For example, right now, just follow the movement or flow of your breath through your body. What do you discover? If your breathing is constricted or shallow, it may help to press down gently on your chest or your diaphragm with both hands (or press both with one hand on each) and then let go of any tension you're aware of as you exhale.
When your breath itself feels relatively comfortable, practice scanning your body to see which area holds the most warmth, looseness, coolness or other sensation you are searching for. While you're exploring, you might want to find out how you can move this resource feeling into the area where you experience discomfort or distress.
Explore the use of the resource you have chosen -- whether it's rest or calm or relaxation or heat or light or any other possibility -- and then modify it as needed. Give yourself permission to try ANYTHING to generate positive change in the direction you are looking for. And if you don't find much change with your first try, try again.
Key #4: Record and Track Your Results, No Matter How SubtleMany people make the mistake of believing that if they can't create an intensely positive healing experience on the first try or two, they aren't going to be successful. The trouble with this approach is that it's destined to defeat. Perfectionism rarely creates change that the mind and body can work together to integrate.
A more effective approach to healing is to track your results for several days faithfully. If you're good at computer graphics, you can even make a graph to follow positive trends as well as negative ones.
If that idea doesn't appeal to you, use a simple scale from 0-10 to track changes in sleep, optimism, comfort in one area of your body, using the resource you have chosen to study, such as an image or a type of breathing.
Write down the number that reflects any change you are noticing, no matter how small. (If you're stuck for ideas to try, see my online study course at
www.reversingchronicpain.com, which is overflowing with specific techniques).
One important rule about tracking results is to observe only one change at a time. Otherwise, when neutral or positive change happens, you won't be sure what created the change and how to work with it further. The most effective approach to mind body healing is
trial and error. That is, you try something that is already helping you; you practice a way to make an even greater positive effect (such as breathing to create deeper relaxation when you are feeling stressed, for example). You notice the results of that step (for example, 10 diaphragmatic breaths seem to help you turn off feelings of stress more rapidly than other ways), and you make modifications accordingly.
For example, if diaphragmatic breathing is helping you turn off the stress response, you can begin to practice more frequently or earlier when you first notice the stress reactions. If diaphragmatic breathing does not seem to make much of a difference, then try another kind of breathing such as "the calming breath." (You can find many types of breathing techniques in my book,
Reversing Chronic Pain, which covers many types of mind body problems including persistent pain).
Key #5: Understand How Your Mind Body System WorksRecent neurobiological theory suggests that we have three nervous systems or circuits that direct our reactions to stress. The
ventral vagal system, the most recent nervous system to develop, is in charge during nonthreatening situations and assists us in relating to others and to our environment. It also helps us to use our relationships to regulate our fear and aggressive reactions and keeps us in a safe window of tolerance.
When stress overwhelms the resources of the ventral vagal system, our brains automatically activate the
sympathetic/adrenal branch of the nervous system to help us fight off the stress or to successfully flee or avoid it. If this fails, then we collapse into the freeze or immobility response, regulated by the
dorsal vagal nervous system.While we are in the freeze state, we are not necessarily uncomfortable because we dissociate from the stress or whatever is threatening us. The problem comes when we cannot surrender fully to, and complete, the freeze response. A full surrender, which animals accomplish when they are threatened, allows the body to help us complete and come out of the freeze naturally. Completing the freeze response, as well as related fight or flight processes that led to the freeze, helps to reconnect us with our full energies and keep an inner balance or equilibrium.
Why is this information important? When we are in a zone of balance, stability, and security, we are within the limits of what we can tolerate and ultimately accept in our body experience. We need to understand our triune brain and triple nervous system so we know how to reach and remain within our
window of tolerance.Take a few minutes now to analyze one or more of your stress episodes. What can your reactions teach you about your window of tolerance? How can you use this information to help you remain within your comfort zone? What, if anything, seems to widen or shrink the window related to this problem? Practice any of the strategies that you discover whenever you notice that your window of tolerance to stress begins to shrink. What happens?
Key #6: Examine Your Beliefs About Change and CommitmentIn my experience, the single most important change agent is
commitment. Being in committed partnership with yourself is the fastest, most powerful way to forge positive beliefs about your ability to change.
The ingredient of commitment is a crucial factor. Are you a "fair weather" friend to yourself? That is, do you give up at the first sign of a setback? Do you hide behind excuses for your lack of progress, or do you blame others for poor results?
The truth is that we are not in control of every aspect of health -- genetics plays a role, financial circumstances influence some of the treatment choices we have, and so on. Yet dwelling on these immovable factors can drain your reserves of the positive energies that can help you move forward.
So at this point, make a commitment to yourself that you
know you can keep. For example, decide how many minutes you are willing to devote for how many days to practice a new technique that might help you create new mind body pathways. Even if you are only willing to devote 1-5 minutes on one occasion to try one mind body healing technique, change is possible and can become the foundation on which to build for larger, more lasting changes.
A second level of commitment needed to embody positive beliefs about healing is the partnership between mind and body. Although we know now through neurobiological research that mind and body are not separate entities, our experience of "mind" and "body" remain different. We need to use our minds to regulate our body experience. Without using reason and relevant information, our primitive body experiences of pain and terror would destroy each spark of positive possibility. And, we also need to train our minds to trust our somatic intelligence about what strategy or method might be workable or even possible. If our minds override our bodies on these issues, we are doomed to failure.
Key #7 The Practice EffectMany people have an initial positive experience with a healing method that feels almost miraculous to them, but then they begin trying to practice and find that the practice effect is not nearly as strong as the initial effect. So they often give up practicing, and the change does not become permanent.
It's very important to expect this difference, and to understand that when you are working with a professional guide or product, you are required only to receive the benefits of the healing. When working by yourself, however, there is a dual requirement to be the director of the change process as well as the receiver. This dual requirement often creates a sense of more effort.
Because we are often trying to change habitual patterns that have been in place for many years, frequent practice is required to create shifts that are permanent. Without regular practice, this type of mastery over time is not possible.
There is no teleseminar scheduled for this month. I hope you will join me in a commitment to scheduling some summer restorative time with yourself, family, and loved ones outside the usual box of your life. 