NBA Champion John Salley talks Mental Health and Suicide Prevention

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Hi, everyone. I wanted to update you all on where to find the latest content for the Crushing Daily Podcast. We have shifted over to a paid subscription on Spotify of $5.99 a month. There is already new video content on YouTube, but the audio version of that content will be arriving on Spotify in the next week or two. In addition, new episodes will be coming out weekly from now on, and I will update you if there will be a break in the schedule. Looking forward to bring you all of the mind body information you need.  

In this episode of Brothers in Arms, Edgar, Eric, and Dr. Dan welcome Rob Davon-Butler to the show and the brothers discuss the many facets of fatherhood. Rob shares a concern that, in an effort to correct all of the things about which he suffered as a child, he may have taken things too far and not prepared his kids for the reality of the world. Dr. Dan encourages him that he has done a good job putting all of his love into them and that he can always now make adjustments.

Eric brings the stats, as always, and we find staggering numbers on the impact of the absence of fathers — something 1/4 of all children experience in not having a father figure in their lives at all — as the likelihood of jail time, teen pregnancy, and more gets much higher in these circumstances. The brothers explore the different angles that can make being a father tough, including how we can be tough on ourselves. Dr. Dan puts the emphasis on learning to let your kids be exactly who they are, trusting in that, and focusing on listening to who they are in an effort to be there for them best.

The conversation shifts, when Rob walks the walk, as the group dives in deeper to his concerns about how he has done as a father, and Edgar shares some similar worries in relation to his son. But the whole group can agree that they best way to be is to recognize that, while no one is perfect, the thing your kids most need is for you to be ‘perfectly you.’

In this interview, I sit down with Rita LaBarbera and Tamara Gurin, two former CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome) sufferers who are now both devoting a big part of their time and work to bringing hope to people with similar ailments. Rita and Tamara talk about the plight of patients who do not have just one symptom and how the literature focuses so much on back pain that some can feel even more discouraged about their ability to get better.

Both describe their stories here and each are harrowing tales of crippling pain experiences and the seeming loss of all kinds of function and hope. Luckily, Rita and Tamara each found their way and even found each other on the TMS Wiki, which calls to mind how important it is to continue building community among pain sufferers so we can support each other and continue to bring hope to the sometimes difficult process of recovery.

Rita talks about being a mind body coach now, while Tamara shares more about the book she wrote on CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) — formerly known as RSD (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy). They partnered and created a website where they share their knowledge and success stories with CRPS patients: http://www.defeatcrps.com. Both echo the sentiment that, while doubt can be larger with such a symptom profile, it really is no different than the other symptoms and that this is a message the entire pain and symptom sufferer community needs to hear in multiple ways.

In this episode of our How To series, I do a deeper dive into the nuts and bolts of how to expose doubts as illogical and hard to continue believing once looked at in the right way. In specific, I help the viewer consider laying out two theories next to one another so that we can see which ones hold up to scientific and logical scrutiny.

Today, we look at level one doubt: when you are not sure if your symptoms are mind body issues or if they might be structural in some way. I lay out the mind body interpretation of a specific doubt — that we might just be re-injuring an initial injury over and over — versus a structural theory of what is happening. As we look at the structural theory, we find that science is, decidedly, against it, and then the logic starts to fall apart as well. One of the things I point out is that, to keep supporting such an illogical theory, a secondary theory is usually required and the process continues until there are so many assumptions required to keep it going that it becomes obviously false.

This is a major way that I engage in using logic against each one of my doubts and I am hopeful that, in your being able to see it in action, you can make further headway in winning the many battles against doubt, just as I have.

This is a live Q&A about mind body symptoms with Crushing Doubt host Dr. Dan Ratner. If you have chronic pain or other physical symptoms that haven’t been able to be explained or helped by medical doctors or other alternative treatments, this information can change your life. By changing the way we think and feel, we can change our actual physiological processes to relieve — or even cure — many symptoms, from head to toe.

In this episode of Brothers in Arms, the brothers are back to look at some of the most difficult to explore topics — today, toxic masculinity. Eric brings the research, as always, and we find out where the term toxic masculinity comes from in the first place (shout out to the 80s). One of the most enlightening moments comes in our exploration of how men can be toxic to themselves, as they feel tied into preconceived notions about what it is to be a man. We also consider the effects this can ultimately have on others, as these men can take that toxicity and bring it to each other in groups or to women in violence.

In Breaking the Mold, the brothers discuss actor Terry Crews having had the courage to report a production executive for inappropriate sexual touching and how he must have had to get past caring what people might think of him as a big, strong man. We talked about the bravery of breaking the mold in any way and that this is one of the keys to getting away from toxic thinking — to be yourself and be aligned with yourself no matter what people might think of who you are.

This is also a special episode because Edgar, Eric, and Dr. Dan take a step back to take stock of how they have grown together in sharing some of their hardest experiences. This segment shows, more than any other, what men learning to talk to each other for real support can reveal about who we are and who we can become.

Dani and I sat down to talk about our respective mind body recoveries and journeys and we continued our bond over the power column and how important it has been to each of us. As we both note, power is something that must be addressed on a moment to moment basis, but is always available to anyone to make an adjustment in their lives that can help them.

We start out by exploring Dani’s mind body history that hit a crescendo in 2015 with the most typical TMS symptom of back pain — crippling, scary, and deeply frustrating in the confusion of it all. She and I also share a very similar story of recognizing ourselves in the works of Sarno and this cementing our belief in what he was saying, but then wanting more on how, exactly, to go about doing the work.

Dani’s conquering of her pain, which included getting herself used to movement again, and her interest in yoga has led her to create a program for pain sufferers of all kinds (not just back pain!) to learn how to calm their central nervous systems, learn trust in their bodies, and regain functionality. But, as she and I noted together, it is in the growth as a person — whether in understanding our emotions, reducing our doubts, or in finding our powerful path — that we get the most out of living. It was a pleasure to see her continuing to make gains and know how she is helping others in our community.

When trying to get better from mind body symptoms, the key is having the right information and feeling clear on what is happening in your mind that is helping you or harming you. In this episode of our How To Series, I distinguish between two types of questions — ones that come from a genuine desire to understand more and find advancement in the work and ones that, unbeknownst to the asker are driven by fear and doubt and are designed to get you even deeper in trouble with symptom life.

I name these A and B questions so that we can start discussing this concept and how it may be affecting your ability to get better. A questions are the ones that come from a motivation to understand things better. You might think that all of your questions are like this, but this is one of the ways that doubt finds a way to bite you — by hiding in a question that really doesn’t have an answer and is only designed to create confusion, fear, and a dead end. These types of questions are B questions.

We all ask both kinds of questions, but it is vital that we learn to recognize when our questions are serving doubt and not ourselves. What we end up doing with these questions is also totally divergent, so the distinction is crucial. B questions are not to be taken seriously, because they actually have no good answers (by design, in fact…the more baffling they are, the happier doubt is with having this question on your mind), and aren’t even questions, really. What they are is worries, fears, and doubts. Learn to ask the A questions and you will always make headway in your understanding, because that is their goal.

This is a live Q&A about mind body symptoms with Crushing Doubt host Dr. Dan Ratner. If you have chronic pain or other physical symptoms that haven’t been able to be explained or helped by medical doctors or other alternative treatments, this information can change your life. By changing the way we think and feel, we can change our actual physiological processes to relieve — or even cure — many symptoms, from head to toe.

I continue to connect with as many people in the world of mind body practitioners as I can, in an effort to unify our message about these important issues. I would be remiss if I did not include Dr. Bob Evans, a therapist in New Jersey who trained with Dr. Sarno and Dr. Feinblatt, as they pioneered the TMS treatments in the early days.

Much to my surprise, I found out that Bob did not get into mind body work because of his own suffering, but more because of proximity to NYU Langone and running into Dr. Sarno. But his interest in spirituality, mysticism, and buddhism ended up fitting very well with a psychological approach that incorporated the body and a sense of holistic work.

Bob and I noted together how each clinician has to fold our understanding of the mind body work into who we are as therapists and talked about the ways that this unfolded for him. We consider the direction of the field and what we find to be important as things continue to expand.