crushing doubt

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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.

In this episode of our How To Series, I concentrate on how to think about symptoms when the primary profile the sufferer experiences is through the lens of not being able to stop focusing on the symptoms. This video will help you make the crucial distinction between a focus on the symptoms that is driven by obsessional thinking and the same presentation being driven by fear. I note that the pathway to getting the symptoms to recede is different in these two cases and lay out a plan for each.

Mind body issues present in a variety of ways, but I have been getting a lot of questions, of late, about these issues of attending to the symptoms and not being able to move forward. When the focus comes from an obsessional personality, you need to use your emotions and power columns to refocus your thoughts in a more productive way. But when it is fear based, it is purely the work of the doubt column and the specific doubt needs to be articulated and contradicted with science and logic.

Each column has its function and can help you to locate the nature of your particular struggle within the system. While attentional mind body issues have a doubt origin, the solution is quite different for different presentations, and these ideas should help you to distinguish between varying types and choose appropriate action steps accordingly.

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, we’re back to the three amigos. We jump right into Old News, focusing on some celebrities who have been accused of thinking in narcissistic ways and discuss what makes someone an actual narcissist. Dr. Dan sheds some light on narcissism as more of a developmental issue than a built in flaw of the person, but also notes that it is very unlikely for these people to get the full help they need because they can’t recognize their problem and are motivated, in fact, to not even question it.

In Breaking the Mold, the brothers revisit the idea of mani pedis and note that it really did bring up some surprising, uncomfortable feelings in Dr. Dan and Eric that indicate what goes on in our expectations of ourselves as typically gendered beings.

Finally, in the segment that is the heartbeat of this show, Dr. Dan walks the walk again, talking about a very difficult experience in therapy with a psychoanalyst who proved to be threatened by him and abusive in some reality bending ways. Edgar and Eric show up, as always, to support and understand this process that Dr. Dan feared would not be understood by others because it isn’t as obvious a struggle, but Eric highlights how much of a violation it is to have a therapist fail you so badly that you are left doubting your own worth.

Today’s interview features Dr. Liz Croton, a general practitioner in the United Kingdom, who has caught on to mind body treatment and incorporated it in her work. Liz has practiced as a GP for fifteen years, but it is only in the last 6 years that she has folded mind body experience into her work, after learning about it with our Crushing Doubt friend, Georgie Oldfield.

Given the short amount of time any GP has with their patients — Liz notes that she usually only gets ten minutes with each — it becomes all the more imperative that doctors understand how to assess what is going on for people from an emotional angle, particularly if we are going to stand a chance at getting people diagnosed correctly and set on a course for the right treatment.

Dr. Croton is a fine example of what can happen in our society when a good practitioner continues to think scientifically and logically and even change their whole practice if required to do good work. She notes that it often felt scary to make such changes because it ran counter to so many of her colleagues, but she expresses being glad she did it and optimistic that it is helping those with whom she works.

Today, I got to sit down with Patty to discuss her recovery experience through her work in the seminars with me. She shares that she has engaged in decades of TMS/mind body work and has gotten certain symptoms to go away, but has struggled with others. We talked about her journey and how she decided to make the leap and take my seminar. In this video testimonial, you will hear how she managed with the large amount of information people get in the seminars and she wisely points out that you have to trust that the information will come together in time as they let it wash over them.

One really fun aspect of this interaction for me came from how this video came to be, since it was serendipitous. Patty had emailed me with a brilliant thought she had about the three columns system and compares TMS, through my lens, to the Wizard of Oz. The Tin Man needs a heart (the emotions column), The Scarecrow needs a brain (the doubt column), and the Cowardly Lion needs the power column. All the while, Dorothy has the resources within her to get home and to safety and all it takes is exposing the all powerful Oz (TMS) as a fraud.

In having her on to tell the story, I was not only happy to see her direct, vibrant telling of the analogy, but to hear about how she worked through the information in my system and in the seminars. She points out another valuable piece of the seminars, as well, in the observing of others asking their questions, getting settled about things, and making headway. It was a pleasure hearing from Patty and knowing the work had made such a difference to her after years of not feeling like she had entirely the right information.

In this episode of the Mind Body Connection Series, I cover the topic of judgment and how it can impact your recovery adversely. When looking at the themes of the emotions column, it is of paramount importance that you learn to do so without judging yourself. As I now say regularly, the emotions column needs to be a ‘judgment free zone’.

This video looks at the potential consequences of judging ourselves for themes that we did not choose for ourselves, continue to operate the way they do whether we like it or not, and, when you look more closely at them, have no inherent reason to be judged anyway. We look at how to recognize when you are judging yourself, because it can be a very slippery slope towards judgment with the slightest bad feeling about yourself.

After learning to identify judgment, you will need to turn your attention to that ever-important question with respect to what to do next: How do I stop myself from judging? I go over my way of thinking about the emotional themes you develop and how and why you can set those judgments down and never look back. I hope this proves useful in your recovery process, as I know it can make a big impact on the using the emotions column much more effectively.

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 welcome Momo Rodriguez to the the show. Mom lost his mother to Covid this past year and Edgar and he bonded over having had the same thing occur to him and a very similar experience of these tragic events. We begin with Eric providing some research numbers, including the fact that men are more likely to die of Covid and, even more so, when they fall in the age rage of 40-59. Edgar, Eric, and Dr. Dan explore with Mom why men tend to put themselves in vulnerable spots out of stubborn pride, and more, but the group settles on their being less likely to talk about vulnerabilities as the centerpiece of the risk.

In Breaking the Mold, Momo blows the doors off of the segment, sharing his unabashed love of romantic movies — and how they inform writing more than other genres — and he and Edgar bond further over getting mani-pedis. While Eric and Dr. Dan can’t personally relate, all four applaud letting something fun and positive into their lives if it feels good to them.

Momo walks the walk this week and tells the story of losing his mother and needing to put off the grief so completely to get through that he ended up sinking into his acting role as Steve to the degree that ‘Momo’ wasn’t really there. The Brothers consider how mourning processes work and the key way that others can help, not with empty words, but by being able to stay present, with or without words.

In this interview with mind body coach Fred Amir, I got to enjoy a taste of Fred’s effusive spirit, logical mind, and engaged planning as we hear the tail of his recovery from 25 months of full body suffering during a bout with mind body issues. Fred shares that he did need to find the right information to begin getting better and that he did so in Dr. Sarno’s work, just as I did, but we also agreed that there are other aspects of the healing that require people to find their own system to make it work.

One of the main things on which we bonded was the now laughable notions of structural theories, as they do not fit with even the most basic observations we can make so easily. Fred shares that he got a lot of what made him better simply by asking himself to find joy and excitement, rather than fear and worry. His nine step process that he crafted for himself can now be found in book form, as he, in his own words, became an ‘accidental author’.

Fred’s ideas on how to get better have freed up hundreds, if not thousands of people to get better, and his sense of humor, along with the inspiration of Rocky soundtracks helped him make rapid progress once he understood the mind body process. His system shows that it isn’t always what you do, so much as what you come to believe from what you do. It was a pleasure having him on and I look forward to more time with this energetic mind body coach.

In this testimonial, Marc R. shares how he was able to get better from his latest mind body suffering using the Crushing Doubt Podcast, alone. Marc has recognized his mind body experience many times over and is even a veteran of Sarno reading and book cures, which makes it all the more honor that he sees the added value in my system. As he discusses here, what he can often find missing in the rest of the mind body literature is an organized way to understand what is happening.

Perhaps it isn’t a surprise that a long time veteran of the Air Force — with the military’s penchant for precision and organization — took so well to my system. But Marc also showcases many of those great qualities that can also lead us into some difficult places. His goodist tendencies, his empathy, his intelligence, and more had left him with too much information and not enough information, as I often say.

Marc also makes the crucial point that he did not get my system right away. He had to work it through, keep asking questions, and give himself time. But I am extremely gratified to see that he was able to use it to conquer his latest symptom which had taken hold with a stronger level of doubt than previous ones. I am grateful to him for sharing his success story so generously highlighting my work in such a positive light.

If you aren’t making the breakthrough the way Marc did, fear not! There are many ways to get the system to click. Just keep asking your questions and get them answered to your full satisfaction.