Its a good philosophy for sure. But where to start?

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

Well, I'm here to tell you that it runs much deeper and actually speaks to a less noble stance in that many people often prefer to address and tend to the needs of others than themselves. The reason is that they feel better equipped to understand the needs of others because there is no barrier in place to thwart such attempts. Do you see my point here? Let me share with you that many such people are actually so drawn to this human characteristic that they seek out an occupation whereby they can exist within a target-rich environment and immerse themselves in the case of others to their heart's content. It produces great accomplishment and sense of reward. The unfortunate flipside to this engagement is that they nevertheless overtly exhibit signs of suffering from their own difficulties, sometimes quite dramatic in nature. What initially feels like a curative effect, is entirely incapable of penetrating deep within to redress one's own unique point of origin of their problems. Thus, the symbiosis constitutes a drug of sorts needed to place distance between the sufferer and their plight.  

People who experience daily conflict often become quite keen in recognizing it in others to the extent that they do, in fact, miraculously relate very well and this fact tends to reinforce their participation in the active engagement in the matters of others, not realizing that what they are actually doing is extracting a sensation that constitutes a compelling need or drive. Now what I've just described is going deep into the psyche of the people I'm describing, but I did so more importantly to illustrate how important it is for you to both recognize and work to avoid this common human tendency, particularly where it involves seeking out the source of your problem. I also highlight this phenomenon to support my statement to you that the brain doesn't always speak the language you expect nor deal with conflict in the manner you might believe or even regularly experience. It deals with matters in a sometimes very complex manner and to some extent, we're going to explore some of those strategies, pitfalls in many instances, in order to reach our ultimate destination by improving your accuracy to understand yourself from both a physiological and cognitive vantage point.

Okay, I think we've got enough here to contemplate for now. Soon, we'll get beyond this staging aspect and it will be up to each of you to use this knowledge to venture down the yellow brick road toward the land of Oz and into the realm of self-discovery. As we do so, I want each of you to try employing some imagery by giving thought to what new character among the cast of group in that film you might create for yourself that best represents what you believe you are seeking out. You might find it silly or irrelevant to do so, but I assure you that it's both effective and utilizes a very critical pathway that the brain engages to speak its true language.

So let's begin exploring what I've discussed with you and talk among yourselves or even pose questions concerning any of the points I've made which don't seem clear. It's critical that you fully understand the roadmap before we proceed further. If you resort to old habits, you'll detour rather quickly to an all too familiar place so stay keen and I'll be right here to address any concerns you may develop.

Best regards and Good Health

I need to digest what you have written RLR...but from first read I had this sudden thought.


A very long time ago, I once had a positive view of a relative. It was so positive that when a few people had pointed out that this person was actually being manipulative and doing and saying quite negative things to me, I could not hear them and stood the relative's ground as though it was my own.

After years of therapy, one day, and quite suddenly I saw this person for what they were...this revelation, which came inside led me to look back at past events in a changed way.

But it was not just the thinking that changed. Something inside me switched - that's the only way to put it...I felt lighter, happier; different.

Of course my own journey led me to may more insights but I would say that one had the most impact on how I felt about me.

Could this be anywhere near what you are implying, or is it more technical than that?

From that point I became more confident

Okay, it's highly critical to take your time here. Read these passages as many times as you need to in order to formulate what you believe they represent to you. By all means, ask questions if you are experiencing difficulty.

This is absolutely not somthing that is going to bring sudden and instant revelation. We're got some work to do together, so take a breath and relax. We've going to take all the time necessary so that everyone wishing to be involved moves along with the general tempo of this exericise.

Best regards and Good Health

i fell the same  i have had palpitations for 15 years now and at times really affected my lfe  now for the last year i have awful stomach problems as well which aggrivate them  and my anxirety is at an all time high  that i think i have been having panic attacks   certainly getting a grip on the anxiety is the key   carol

ckgage wrote on Aug 18^th, 2010, 10:34pm:

I think the reason no one has really spoken about anxieties over other health issues is because most of the people here do not have existing health conditions to be concerned about. I have talked in a previous posting in this thread about Crohn's disease and how it has played a role in my mental health and anxieties/stress. In fact, I'll talk about it again because it was probably the tipping point with regards to anxiety onset.

To me my symptoms showed up out of the blue and for no reason around about the time I was extremely worried and scared for my health. My Crohn's disease was responding badly to drugs, I had been on 2 eight week courses of corticosteroids, was on immunomodulators and was also having an 8 weekly infusion of a biologically active drug designed to suppress inflammation. Steroids were never a long term option because of their negative effects on health and my doctor was not going to keep me on them because of my age (22). Immunomodulators are a viable long term treatment but didn't seem to be having the effect that was desired so I stopped taking those. The infusions had also stopped working because I have developed antibodies to it. So here was me in a bit of a predicament, drugs weren't helping me and my life was apparantly going down the drain. My gastroenterologist asked me to think about surgery, but he said there were also other drugs that could be tried aswell.

I wasn't advised to stop taking my drugs (immunomodulators were all I was taking at this time) as my disease was (and is) active but I did anyway, much to the dismay of my doctor. They weren't doing anywhere near enough for me to keep taking them, coupled with the fact that they literally suppress your immune system and leave you vulnerable to getting ill, so I decided to stop them and try something else. I went through some phases that I think everyone with an illness goes through, such as trying diets, natural herbal stuff, lifestyle changes, etc., needless to say nothing really worked. I have found a couple of 'natural anti-inflammatory' supplements that have helped me beyond a placebo and I still take some.
The 'protocol' with my kind of disease is to control the symptoms and try to achieve long term remission, based on the fact that the cause is unknown to medical science (or anything else, for that matter) at this time. With this obvious logic in mind I decided I wanted to do exactly that, suppress the symptoms. So now I take an anti-diarrheal and wind-eze and my Crohn's is well under control, I think. I have also made some important self discoveries such as all the pain and cramps that I've suffered with over the last 3 years is apparently not even caused by the ulceration and inflammation, just by the diarrhea alone!! I literally have no pain or discomfort now that I am on this so basic of a 'protocol'.

Sometimes I wonder if the doctors taking care of me and my disease really even care enough to try and get to the bottom of it or just want to follow the standards regardless of how well they seem to be working. I just can't fathom why I was never given some anti-diarrheals, seeing as how that has been my main symptom of Crohn's for years. His [GI doc] protocol is: suppress the inflammation and the diarrhea will resolve itself. While that's great, it never worked for me they way he expected. A simple anti-diarrheal and anti-flatulant all those years ago would have spared months of weight loss and pain.

I also don't understand something else. The drugs I currently take are very safe drugs, wind-eze is not even absorbed in the bowels making it extremely safe with only limited GI side effects. The other drug I take, immodium, is also only minimally absorbed (1-2%). Compare these two drugs with the drugs I was put on: corticosteroids, immunosuppressants and biologically active drugs with horrific potential for dangerous and lifelong side effects and I just don't know where I went wrong.

Okay, we've got a couple of good points to draw out of the general postings here to help move a bit farther. Mention was made of "being fearful." You'll recognize this to be a very common theme among most all who visit the site. The focus, however, must extend beyond any specific issue which makes you fearful and more toward why the fear itself seems to be universally present regardless of whether it's your health or other circumstances. This is the direction I would like you to proceed. Give thought to why fear would be produced without associating it with the palpitations or similar focus.

The second point made that needs to be highlighted is that positive thinking is not the remedy for negative thinking. This is precisely true and does more to elevate or intensify circumstances rather than diminish them because negative thinking is merely a side-effect of the actual underlying problem and you're not about to bring about resolution with positive thinking. Granted, negative thinking is not productive and can lead to certain outcomes, but trying to combat it with something erroneously preceived to be the opposite will do absolutely nothing to produce true insight and actual resolution. If you doubt this to be true, try it for yourself. Try to extinguish negative thought patterns with positive thinking. It will bring the negative content to the forefront to the point that it exceeds any attempt to block it from awareness. The harder you try, the seemingly more intense the negative thoughts become. This is purely because one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

Here we have to examine why the negative thinking is being produced by actively listening to yourself when it occurs. Many times, these negative ruminations represent fragments which don't really represent much, so you have to pause when they occur and do your best to create a plausible context from it. Do you understand what I mean here? In other words, these thoughts are rehearsed so often that you rarely attend to them anymore and they more constitute an abbreviated form strictly necessary to produce the associated emotional response. Do you best to define these ruminations into statements that are clear. Once you can establish a complete form of the ruminations, you will be better able to begin tracking their origins.

So now we have two points which we must carry beyond the area of specifics and look more broadly at this point to discern what the mean generally before we seek out any more precise meaning or interpretation. Do you see? The more focused you remain at this point, the quicker you arrive at the answer so to speak. The problem is that there is only one answer and it's lying much farther away than your ability to reach at this stage. In analogy, if you wish to locate a red hydrant on the corner of 5th and Main Street in the town of Hampton in the state New Jersey in the United States of America located on the continent of North America, you will never be able to visualize it from where you stand on the other side of the world. You must proceed in an orderly and logical fashion and bring your final destination within reach a little at a time, turn after turn along the journey until you finally arrive.

The very same is true for the journey we are taking together. We must think globally and in general terms long before we begin seeking out the regional area, the local area and then ultimately our final point of destination. We must gain a certain level of insight about the continent within you, then the country, then the state, the region, the city, the street and finally the red hydrant. Just as it is with a roadmap, we cannot skip any step along the way, for it requires the insight of prior surroundings in order to be equipped to properly and accurately understand any subsequent turn and location. Are you with me?

Folks influenced by anxiety feel compelled to skip intermediate steps and instead try to predict the final outcome. This is true in this instance as it is with daily life. I encourage all of you participating to recognize this tendency and pause when you detect it. I'm here to help you learn how to properly introspect, to actually discover circumstances about you that you are likely entirely unaware of and to draw into the open, issues that are presently masked or suppressed as a means to diminish the anxiety otherwise being produced. In this early stage, you will find yourselves constantly breaking old routines in order to regain sight of the yellow brick road rather than a multitude of detours. You're not alone and I'll be here to help guide you if you run aground.

If you can become determined enough, I'm going to gently provide you guidance to the extent that you and you alone create the much desired change in your lives. It will happen. Don't lose hope and don't turn away. We're embarking on something extremely real here and extremely challenging. You'll be astonished, however, when you arrive at your ultimate destination.

This endeavor extends light years beyond merely providing you with reassurance concerning your medical concerns and we're going to head straight into the heart of the matter, in a manner of speaking and one day soon, the reassurance that you now so diligently seek from an external source like this forum, will actually return to its rightful place within you.

It's going very well. Let's continue.

Best regards and Good Health

If you're experiencing doubts like those described, then you're progressing just fine. You must realize that it's going to require to you look at yourself from a very objective point of view and that sort of engagement is very difficult without practice. You're at the surface of recognizing factors exist, but it would be impossible for you to have already reached the level necessary to truly recognize and understand what lies at the base of your difficulties. This is evident in your posting as well.  

Nothing detrimental is going to happen to you as a consequence of introspection and self-discovery. It is root of the irrational beliefs being generated that you're after, not the patterns themselves. Again, you have to refrain from cause-and-effect thinking patterns which draw innacurate conclusions. The only premise which will result in being "stuck" is to once again employ the same characteristic patterns which have produced the contemporary issues that concern and trouble you.

You're doing fine. Just relax and participate to whatever level makes you comfortable. It's of no surprise to me that folks will even step away for a period and subsequently return. This is a normal evolution and I'll tell you straight up front that many people here do not participate because they are extremely afraid to do so. It is this very premise which they must overcome in order to finally experience change in their lives, but again I cannot simply produce the answer for them or provide them with a hat to wear. They must be ready and willing. True and lasting change is a transformation that absolutely must take place from within, based upon insight. My objective here is to merely guide you until you reach that goal. It's been done successfully on many occasions and your circumstances are no different.

My suggestion is to slow down and take more time to understand the circumstances in a more global sense. We're far from getting ready to move to the next level. We're still examining the continent, so to speak. If you feel anxious in already anticipating your final destination, I would submit that you need to reflect upon this heavily and to what extent it defines patterns in your life to a similar extent.

This sort of activity is not easy by any means and the answer you seek does not lie within reach in the manner being inferred. You should be producing far more questions than answers at this juncture, so don't feel as though it's necessary to produce a summation at this point. Again, you're doing just fine.

Best regards and Good Health