crushingdoubt

I’m thrilled to be joined on Crushing Doubt with Dr. Drew Pinsky, the famed doctor and addictions specialist known for his shows, Loveline, Celebrity Rehab, and the Adam and Dr. Drew Show. But there is so much more people don’t know about him that makes him stand out. He is an author, a deeply empathic person, and an exceptional critical thinker.

Dr. Drew and I explore our understanding of some of the key problems of the day — from chronic pain to addictions to the homelessness situation in America — and I have rarely found someone with whom I have such a similar take. I even found a co-hater of Descartes and post modernism — two philosophical lines that have led to profound misunderstandings and a denigration of truth and objective reality.

I also got to hear about his new book with his daughter, Paulina, working to challenge the notion that talking about sex has to be awkward. Along these lines, he and I agree that we have many assumptions to challenge to bring real change to o ur country and the world and we both will keep working to shine a light on the real causes and solutions we face, including my realm of chronic pain and symptoms relief.  All is of his ventures and links to his efforts can be found on drdrew.com

Edgar and I met for the third of our four mins body consultation meetings to discuss the power column and how he can understand it and utilize it. We first noted how far he has come in a short amount of time — having his emotions column not only pretty well organized, but in usable form that is working, and bringing down his doubt consistently. He relates the very clear link between an uptick in pain when he went to Las Vegas and we connected this to his not being happy being in that environment. He could see that, because the pain also left when he left Vegas, mind body experience is very, very real and this is a lesson he will carry forward with him wherever he goes.

We then turned to building his core narrative, taking his emotional themes and developing a sort of super theme that describes who he is and we found that this focused on his not feeling accepted or valued for who he is at heart — most notably in his family not accepting his comedy as a legitimate enough pursuit. We explored how this impacted him and what he can do about it to feel more powerful.

One of the key objectives in the power column is to recognize that it isn’t as complicated as it seems. Whether with self, others, or symptoms, feeling powerful feels good and feeling not powerful feels bad. With this information, we can pinpoint what makes us feel more powerful and take appropriate action steps.

When it comes to working with the columns, I’ve instructed everyone to keep their questions coming until they are answered to their satisfaction. This mind body connection series is a good addition to the podcast collection in that regard, as it captures how to understand each column when you are actively ‘in trauma’. The point being that if we can recognize traumatic experience popping up in the present day, we stand a much better chance to not buy into this thinking, which can often distort and send us astray.

I outline how the columns are different during an activated time of trauma, including the emotions column becoming hazier and more of a challenge with which to find success. The doubt column is also elevated at such times, but it is, in that same vein, all the more important to use well, since combatting doubt is so important for managing mind body symptoms.

Interestingly, it is the power column that affords the biggest chance to not only work as normal but to even further our deep understanding and full acceptance of our trauma. The system still works when in trauma, but you’ll need to recognize it to not fall prey to the doubt, fear, and misdirection it causes. On top of recognizing it, with a few modifications in each column, you can continue using them in very similar ways. But if it goes unrecognized, you may become convinced in the hopelessness of the mission and more. This is why recognizing trauma is of paramount importance.

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 my second interview with Dr. Arlene Feinblatt, I focused on learning about the collaborative relationship between Dr. Sarno and her. It was a pleasure to get to hear directly from someone who knew Dr. Sarno so well about his attributes and how his personality contributed to the success of this duo. Arlene acknowledges how she and Sarno had to band together to keep getting through the criticisms lobbed their way as they tried to make progress.

We talked about the importance of a particular characteristic in the beloved doctor with which all at Crushing Doubt should be able to identify: certainty. On top of that, Arlene notes that being able to accept anger and rage as an emotion is key to recovery, especially if we can focus on deciding what to do with it, rather than getting stuck on judging it. I noted with Arlene one of the key variables she brought to the table in helping people as well in the form of her curiosity and capacity to keep asking questions.

Overall, we talked about the baseline idea of getting the patient to think emotionally, which then builds on itself. The information begins to do the work all by itself and we talk about why a short term therapy that is more active really helps in this process.

Today, I met with Edgar for the second session in our four part mind body consultation to discuss the doubt column. He shares that he has already made a lot of progress in some ways, thinking in very different ways from before. Most notably, he was able to have a vastly different experience of getting pulled over by the police, finding that he was much more available for a full human to human interaction with the officer and he marveled at how the officer was also very different because of the trust Edgar was radiating out.

Edgar shares that he has begun to see a real correlation between his symptoms and his emotional life and we processed how this can bring his doubt down even further. It was exciting to see how far he has come in such a short amount of time, even without having known about mind body issues beforehand.

This is an example of what happens when the system and the mind body process just rings true to an individual -- they are able to make rapid progress in some ways and maximize the gains of the information. I look forward to seeing where he goes when we meet next week for the power column.

In this week’s Mind Body Connection Series, I take a close look at the meaning of sadness within the context of the power column. One of the most important distinctions to be made is between trauma and sadness. I give to examples of recent sadness in my own experience that show that feeling sad can also be understood as an arrival somewhere good! Each sadness has a potential correlate in your life that can signal something good, such as missing someone meaning you are connected or a sadness signaling a new insight.

In the Power Column, we work to understand the central, defining characteristics of each person and their experiences and a huge part of the goal comes in accepting the fullness of the trauma we experience. Once this is accepted, sadness is now a real option, rather than grief, loss, mourning, and a sense that life is irrevocably damaged. In this way, sadness can be seen as the actual endpoint of trauma and the beginning of having sad things get processed just like any other emotion.

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 our How To Series, I took a request to create something to explain the columns and why they are necessary and helpful in a more basic form. The main point you will hear about is how the organization of the columns allows us not only to understand the mind body experience better, but helps us break down the problems we encounter into manageable parts.

Because each column is well defined and has its own rules, people can use them to figure out which part of the mind body problem on which they are working. Each column also has a simple and clear set of goals.

In the end, the columns system is designed to give you the most accurate information in an organized and accessible way. While it may start off as complicated for some, as I address your questions, the system becomes not only easier but automatic with increased understanding.

Today I am joined by Rose and Tovah, two mind body practitioners who have linked up in the last year or two to provide collaborative treatment for mind body issues and also created a podcast called the TMS Roundtable. We talk about how the two of them — Tovah, a chiropractor, and Rose and ISTDP (Intensive Short Term Dynamic Therapy) psychoanalyst — came to meet through their mutual connection, All the Rage director, Michael Galinsky.

We discussed how who each practitioner is informs how we work in the mind body field and how the two of them work together with their very different styles. The three of us all marveled at how short term work is providing such relief for so many people out there and that the body informs us so much about what we feel inside that we can make a huge leap forward, very quickly.

I very much enjoy talking with Rose and Tovah and putting our heads together on how to organize the healing process and to trust the body to tell us what we need to know. I found tons of common ground with these talented women, including our awareness that unleashing our personal narratives and power is so important.

In this third iteration of my mind body consultation sessions, I begin the mind body map and developing the emotions column with comedian and chronic pain sufferer, Edgar Rivera. It’s been a rough year for Edgar and he comes into the process without any prior information on the mind body process — having not heard of Dr. Sarno or anyone else in the field.

We lay out some of his main emotional themes and consider what contribution to his pain they are having. Regardless, Edgar took to the process well and seemed to make an immediate leap forward in understanding his emotional pain and how it is leading to its physical expression.

As always, my role in the mind body consultation is to find out how the three columns are operating in the given sufferer and that means adjusting the system to fit the individual mind of the person with whom I’m working. Edgar is open and curious and I look forward to seeing how this develops for him and getting him much needed relief.

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.

On this week’s episode of our How To series, I discuss the vital importance of getting angry on behalf of others. One of the hardest parts of mind body suffering comes in the form of others not being ‘in it’ with us. But whether we are talking about mind body suffering or any other kind, it is often the best way to show that you care by getting in touch with anger towards the people and experiences that hurt the person about whom you care.

One way I look through this lens is to help people recognize that being angry is often judged harshly, rather than seen as a sign of how much we care. I distinguish between bringing that anger to the external situation and simply expressing that form of empathy to the sufferer.

In the long run, we need to get more comfortable, as a society, with anger and, in addition, we have a chance to recognize how to channel this anger towards good. If you can let people know that you are angry on their behalf, they will feel better cared for and, on top of it, if you receive this kind of care from others, you’ll feel a level of empathy you hadn’t known was possible. This key skill helps conquer doubt about the legitimacy of our own suffering.

In my latest interview, I sit down with board certified dermatologist, Dr. Roy Seidenberg. Roy is another very helpful doctor in the mind body community, having learned about Dr. Sarno’s methods during his training. We discussed his own experiences with TMS/mind body issues and what he thought about Dr. Sarno’s work when he first encountered it.

Roy and I also talked about the various types of skin conditions that tend to come from mind body experience. We explore the state of the field and medical training in relation to these ideas not being well known at all.

As always, it is important to check with a medical doctor first and Dr. Seidenberg can be another valuable resource to get you cleared of anything medical and ready to do the mind body work!

Pat is a chronic pain sufferer who discovered the Crushing Doubt channel and my system over the last year. She had been struggling with sciatica and fibromyalgia, among other symptoms. After searching through many mind body programs and ways of thinking about things, she gravitated towards my work, as she put it, because it was logical, organized, and finally made sense of what she was seeing and experiencing in her own body.

Over the last two weeks, she took my eight session seminar and says now that she has taken another several leaps forward, including a sense of real emotional peace. This is the work that we do in this community — you don’t only get the chronic symptoms to abate, but you learn about what makes you who your are, and about how to get peace with yourself that hadn’t previously been possible.

Pat shares many aspects of her experience in this interview, which even I found to be inspiring. It’s very exciting to see such progress in a short amount of time, particularly when we can have confidence it will now last, because we understand how the symptoms have been behaving and why. Understanding it all is the key and my system can help put to rest the constant sifting through too much and too little information all at the same time. Take it from Pat!

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 week’s How To Series, I look at a major breakthrough you can have in your power column: the power of aloneness. When you feel lonely or alone in a bad way, it obviously doesn’t feel good. But the upside of aloneness comes when you are living in the power column.

When your core narrative is in place, you will understand who you are at your essence and you’ll remember that no one else has a say in any of it. Through having that fully formed relationship with yourself, you can unlock a great power: you are on your own journey and no one else is in charge of anything!

In a sense, this is true self-empathy, because you recognize that only you CAN be fully empathic to yourself. You are the only one who knows it all and, don’t forget, it’s your body that knows and represents it best of all. Your body is never wrong about your journey!

Today, I sit down with Barbara Kline, a licensed clinical social worker who just recently retired after helping countless people recover from mind body issues over the course of her career. Among the many topics we discuss, Barbara and I agree that our symptoms are a communication even more than they are a distraction and she found this to be true personally.

Barbara shared her experience talking to Dr. Sarno and getting help from Dr. Andrea Leonard-Segal. She notes that these doctors helped her turn things around with one of my favorite phrases: ‘it might hurt, but it won’t harm you’. We talked about working through triggers and the way progress moves along in this ‘last stop on the train’ intervention for pain.

She and I also saw eye to eye on the power column and how society tries to make us doubt our own ability to craft a life that is exactly as we want it to be. Barbara’s story of a patient getting in touch with the fullness of their anger also resonated deeply. It was a great pleasure connecting with her and I can see why she has successfully helped so many people get better with her warmth, clear thinking, and inner strength.

On this episode of the Mind Body Connection Series, I look at one piece of logic that reveals how we’ve gotten to where we are with MRI and other imaging techniques and why we are so far astray: we seem to have forgotten the unbelievable power of our own brains. When we look at technology and what it can do versus the brain, we can see the illogic in underestimating the mind, making doubt about a mind body connection seem downright silly.

Think about it: your computer can barely function for more than a day without needing to reboot, it becomes obsolete in five years, and it has literally no emotional intelligence at all. The brain, in the meantime, is managing millions of times more functions than a computer, unconscious and conscious alike.

All of this is to say that we have thousands of reasons to believe, without a doubt, that our brains are not only capable of generating mind body symptoms, but it would be strange if they couldn’t, given the functionality already being there physically and the brain having such immense power, adaptability, and functionality.