Crushing Doubt

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 share my rules of thumb for recognizing when you are ‘in trauma’, so that you don’t let this altered state of being lead you down the wrong path in dealing with your symptoms. First and foremost, being in trauma just doesn’t feel good, so this is the first sign to look out for when assessing your state of mind. But you can also look for the following experiences that suggest an activated trauma system:

Foggy thinking, feeling unsafe, increased symptoms, feeling angrier or sadder than the situation seems to call for, being dissociated (meaning, not able to be fully present or present at all), emotionally numb, having slowed thinking, sometimes craving some sort of drive being satisfied (eating, sex, alcohol or other drug cravings, etc.), feeling the need to please someone or desperate for them to accept you or forgive you or text you back or respond to a message of some other kind, etc.

By knowing the things for which you need to look out to recognize trauma, you will be able to avoid the pitfalls of believing your own thoughts at such times — a key thing, because trauma related thinking can be not only skewed, but quite convincing. To use science and logic and have a clear head with which to combat doubt and fear, you will need to consider the likelihood that you are, at times, ‘in trauma’. This video can give you the guideposts to follow so you don’t fall prey to thinking that doubt can use against you.

I am excited to be joining comedian Edgar Rivera’s new show, Brothers in Arms, as a co-host along with Edgar’s comedy brother, Eric Nieves. This show will discuss everyday life, get to the heart of what makes men tick and how we can live better, more open lives. We will have real discussions on topics about which men usually don’t want to open up to break through the stigmas that usually prevent talking

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 today’s How To Series, I take a look at how you can disentangle yourself from others in times of anger. This is no easy feat, as anger leads to a whole set of physiological constellations that perpetuate the feeling. In the meantime, it’s hard to let go of anger because it often feels like it depends on how the other person handles it.

This is one of the key variables in the whole experience of anger as we sort it out for ourselves: we need to get to a place where we do not need the other person for anything at that moment. Included in that, we have to get to a new understanding of the person that isn’t based on the meaning their actions would have if WE did them, because they will often be operating from a completely different set of variables.

Once you are able to settle into a new understanding, the entire experience changes and you can get focused on other parts of your experience again. In addition, when you recognize your own mission in life, you can recognize anger as a sidetracking from where you need to be.

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.