26
May
Posted by Marty in Rick Hanson(Buddhas Brain). Tagged: ANALOGY, AWARENESS, C-PTSD, FEAR, HEALING, MINDFULNESS, PTSD, THOUGHTS, TRAUMA. Leave a Comment
“Anxiety, dread, apprehension, worry and even panic are just mental states like any other.
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Recognize fear when it arises, observe the feeling of it in your body, watch it try to convince you that you should be alarmed, see it change and move on.
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Verbally describe to yourself what you’re feeling, to increase frontal lobe regulation of the limbic system (Hariri, Bookheimer, and Mazziotta 2000; Lieberman et al. 2007).
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Notice how the awareness which contains fear is itself never fearful.
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Keep separating from the fear; settle back into the vast space of awareness through which fear passes like a cloud.
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The mind has the ability to understand fear, staying totally present when fear arrives.
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It is similar to pain-like an alarm going off, a bell being rung.
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Real harm to our bodies does not come from pain or fear.”
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PTSD is a disorder using false fear and cortisol, that is all.
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24
May
Posted by Marty in My Favorites. Tagged: ACCEPTANCE, MINDFULNESS, TOOLS, C-PTSD, FOCUS, EFFORT, HEALING, EXERCISE, THOUGHTS, Breathing track. 1 Comment
Breathing Track
Print this Breathing Track Model for practice. Now with eyes open, trace your breath on the model. Follow your finger as you slow the breath.
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Notice how much cooler the inhale is. Can you now close the eyes and complete a few breath cycles.
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When a scary thought arrives pull out the model and trace your breath. Can you focus on the model and the breath?
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Now, close the eyes and complete a few cycles. Practice often and improve.
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With eyes open, we can still focus on the breath instead of the story. Try it.
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This simple exercise can improve calm, dramatically!
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3
Aug
Posted by Marty in Rick Hanson(Buddhas Brain). Tagged: C-PTSD, MINDFULNESS, STATISTICS, SUPPORT, THE BRAIN, THOUGHTS, TOOLS, TRAUMA. 6 Comments
Celestial Tree by Robert Venosa
From the book Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson:
The brain is the primary mover and shaper of the mind.
It’s so busy that, even though it’s only 2 percent of the body’s weight, it uses 20–25 percent of its oxygen and glucose. Like a refrigerator, it’s always humming away, performing its functions; consequently, it uses about the same amount of energy whether you’re deep asleep or thinking hard.
The number of possible combinations of 100 billion neurons firing or not is approximately 10 to the millionth power, or 1 followed by a million zeros, in principle; this is the number of possible states of your brain.
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder limits our choices to trauma thoughts exclusively on some days.
But there are too many choices to settle for a few.
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17
Feb
Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: ACCEPTANCE, ACTION, ANALOGY, C-PTSD, HEALING, PTSD, THOUGHTS, TOOLS, TRAUMA, TRIGGERS. 3 Comments
Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900)
The need to be understood needs to be put away for a while.
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We will heal ourselves, accepting all of our challenges, or we will suffer.
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First, begin practicing the breathing track, everyday.
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Trace the model with eyes open, slowing the breath as we steady the mind.
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Next, accept yourself by repeating loving affirmations, along with the cessation of negative self talk. Simple, so thought is not needed. Not needed or wanted!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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28
Feb
Posted by kaitlots in Assorted. Tagged: ACCEPTANCE, ACTION, AWARENESS, C-PTSD, FOCUS, HEALING, MINDFULNESS, THOUGHTS, TOOLS, TRAUMA, TRIGGERS, UNDERSTANDING. 10 Comments
This is how I felt Friday.
I had an interesting day Friday and would like to share. I’ll start by telling you I get chronic headaches, and recently find out I grind my teeth at night.
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I woke up Friday feeling terrified and in a lot of pain. My neck, upper back, jaw, and temples were throbbing… was this a tumor? Pressure in my skull?
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Who knew. But my ego sure wanted me to think that I was dying. I struggled with anxious symptoms, thoughts, feelings and fears. But here’s what I did.
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I breathed. All day. I tried to just acknowledge that yes, I was in pain – but I am not going to run with this.
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I also noticed the fearful thoughts and did not act on them. I didn’t leave work, I didn’t hide under a rock (kind of wanted to). I took my day one moment at a time, noticed the sensations and stayed present. And I got through it.
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6
May
Posted by Marty in My Favorites. Tagged: ACCEPTANCE, Breathing track, C-PTSD, EFFORT, EXERCISE, FOCUS, HEALING, MINDFULNESS, THOUGHTS, TOOLS. Leave a Comment
Breathing Track
Attitude: Calm, relaxed, no right or wrong, all is safe and secure, slowing down the breath, rhythmically.
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Goal: Focus on the breath without thought, worry, doubt or ego involved.
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Action: Copy, print and place on the car dash, freezer, computer, work station or home! Etc. Habit works with small time frames, applied like this.
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Application: With every trigger thought in our space!
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Results: Life becomes opportunity with peaceful fulfilling moments.
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My Experience: The mind has miraculous properties without doubt and our fears, opening up the universe. Please join me!!!!
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25
May
Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: ACCEPTANCE, MINDFULNESS, TOOLS, PTSD, C-PTSD, TRAUMA, AWARENESS, HEALING. Leave a Comment
Many think they lack the time and energy to heal properly. No problem.
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We will use the time we waste thinking and engaging our thoughts!
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When a thought appears, we use this time to ride the breathing track and observe.
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Simple, The same time used to get worse now is spent healing.
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Takes mental action to heal. Simple, concrete, laser like skills attract the mind.
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24
May
Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: ACCEPTANCE, ACTION, Adrenal stress response, ANALOGY, AWARENESS, C-PTSD, FEAR, PTSD. 2 Comments
Isaac Ilyich Levitan
The mind does not handle our adrenal stress response moment well.
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Unfortunately we know that tunnel vision, loss of fine motor skills, raised BP, heart rate and respiration along with blood pumping to our exterior limbs frightens us dramatically!
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We need a skill that will perform under this stress of a trigger jolting us firmly.!
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Our first impulses are to run, avoid, recoil, tense up or panic quickly. Seems like the building is on fire mentally. Panic shuts down cognitive skills, sometimes we are frozen in place.
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The Breathing track easily allows us to focus with some daily practice. If you practice everyday in a week it will be much easier. Anything new is awkward at first.
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24
May
Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: ACCEPTANCE, AWARENESS, C-PTSD, DISASSOCIATION, EGO, energy, FEAR, PTSD, THOUGHTS, TRAUMA. Leave a Comment
Pick an emotion today with a story attached and observe its behavior through the body. Follow the sensations, unique quirks and where this emotion settles inside us.
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Our mind has patterns and habits that are activated subconsciously at times. We do not notice these patterns or habits of the mind and body!
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It takes daily awareness to investigate the inner world. I explored my inner world everyday to find my patterns and the center where my emotions settled inside. For me, most of my anxiety and anger settled in my solar plexus.
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Fear was a warning signal, cortisol was part of my sympathetic nervous system and my amygdala was disordered. All my body functions were thinking I was in eminent danger.
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This is a simple explanation and one looking back fits perfectly. I was not injured, my personality had parts stuck in childhood. Realize what is going on is natural just disordered. Nothing wrong with us.
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We are perfect when this trauma is integrated and the amygdala integrates our past to the present moment. healing is bringing those parts to current time frame. Our trauma is disordered because it is stuck. We can change that.
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23
May
Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: ACCEPTANCE, AWARENESS, C-PTSD, Judging, PTSD, THOUGHTS. 1 Comment
Can we explore our process of judging situations, people and things? Bring awareness to any judgment of good or bad, right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant.
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Vacate the story behind the judgment, following the body sensations today. When we judge someone, where do these body sensations settle.
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Does the feeling change when we vacate our judgment of someone? Do we see differently without judging someone? Absolutely!!!!
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Example: A man with his kids hop a bus where the kids are misbehaving, being loud and boisterous. We are annoyed and harshly judge this father as lacking. Someone actually says something to him about his kids.
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He responds that they just buried their mother and he was preoccupied in grief. Now, let us explore that judgment.
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We now look at our judgment differently. We feel bad that more was going on than we could see.
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Why limit ourselves with owning judgments we can drop. Each judgment is a small wall that isolates the mind from its capabilities. Drop judgments and free your mind.
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22
May
Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: AWARENESS, C-PTSD, DISASSOCIATION, MINDFULNESS, PTSD, UNDERSTANDING. 2 Comments
Swiss Cheese Therapy
This is my new fancy super-duper therapy. It may look and sound funny however it works. Here is how.
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Anytime a fearful emotion or thought arrives in our consciousness, focus on our breath (Breathing Track). Then let the emotion flow on through one of the holes.
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Observe the body sensations of the fear without the story. Our trauma flows on through when we use the Swiss cheese to let go.
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If trauma emotions flow on through, we stay calmer with less cortisol in our nervous system.
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The Swiss cheese may make you laugh and break the spell of trauma fear. Honoring the thoughts as real is as silly as Swiss cheese therapy to me.
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22
May
Posted by Marty in Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation. Tagged: C-PTSD, CORE BELIEFS, DISASSOCIATION, FEAR, FOCUS, PTSD. 3 Comments
Negative core beliefs:
Chronically traumatized people often suffer from persistent core beliefs. These are deeply rooted convictions that typically involve all-or-nothing thinking without balance or nuance.
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“Things never work out for me,” “People always try to hurt me,” I am completely stupid and unlovable,” or ” There is no safe place.”.
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These beliefs often contain words like always, never, or none. Such thoughts and beliefs can profoundly influence, reinforce, and intensify negative emotions.
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Negative core beliefs are reinforced over time by negative emotions, perception, and predictions, and by additional negative life experiences.
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The same is true for positive core beliefs and attendant receptions, emotions, and experiences.
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21
May
Posted by Marty in Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation. Tagged: AWARENESS, C-PTSD, Feedback loop, PTSD. Leave a Comment
“As we noted before, emotions, cognitions, perceptions ( how you interpret a situation ), and movement, predictions ( what you expect will happen in the future ), and decision making all work together in a seamless feedback loop.
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Each gives and receives feedback from the others. In this way, we can develop relatively fixed and closed ways of being in and viewing the world.: We are in a negative feedback loop.
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For instance, negative core beliefs promote and maintain overwhelming emotions and vice versa.
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This is exactly why we use only positive self talk and add affirmations. Awareness is the opposite of this loop.
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Being able to come back to now stops the loop and breaks the cycle. With daily work the loop will fade.
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20
May
Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: ACTION, C-PTSD, FEAR, MINDFULNESS, PTSD. Leave a Comment
First let us establish fear as a warning signal, doing no harm on its own. Even if fear is real, no harm happens with the fear alone. Eample: While walking a bear appears in front of us. He stands up, growls sending our fear into high gear. Then, without warning the bear turns and leaves.
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What damage has been done? Are we harmed? What is the difference between real fear and trauma fear? Physically almost nothing.
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The amygdala activates our fight or flight mechanism whether we feel this is real or trauma. This danger exists only in our heads from past stored events. Trauma fear is a delusion. It is not real. My body was the last to accept this fact. It must be experienced and observed.
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Why should you even consider what I am saying about fear. Maybe because my same trigger thoughts and fear stimuli still exist. They fade with a total lack of interest now. They must be delusions or I would still be filled with anxiety and fear.
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