Earlier this year I had some negative fearful thoughts creating a breeding ground for depression which lead to some anxiety, and my first panic attack. I’m working through reprograming my old mind with new happy thoughts. I like to get nerdy and go deep down rabbit holes; this can be both great and dangerous if used negatively. 

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” 

Albert Einstein

I wanted to learn how to get rid of anxiety and fear without pharmaceutical medication, which for me acts only as a bandaid sidestepping any emotional work that’s to be done. Let’s call it emotionally exercising. Just like physical exercising, but for the brain and mind. These thoughts and feelings put my nervous system into a state of dysregulation; in other words an incoherent state. I knew our relationship between emotions and physical disorders is still relatively misunderstood by today’s western medical model, which typically prefers to treat only our symptoms and not the root causes. For some people, medication may be needed to start, but you surely don’t need it for life. 

Through this journey I’ve learned about pain reprocessing therapy. Reading a few books on the subject as well as literature on the mind-body connection opened my eyes to what I was actually doing. I was catastrophizing the symptoms in my head along with magnifying thoughts of jealously, fear, abandonment, loss of control, isolation, shame, and guilt. I also realized I’ve been a perfectionist for my adult life along with having a people pleaser attitude. I held my identity wrapped up in being a perfect people pleaser; think “not upsetting anyone” and doing “things perfectly” for others. 

My personal recovery currently involves addressing my emotions, trauma and retraining my brain away from the fearful mindset I’ve developed around my post surgery symptoms. Instead of focusing on the symptoms themselves I focus on what I can actually control, my thoughts! 

Here’s the science of our thoughts and feelings. First realize that our thoughts are the language we use in the mind and feelings are the language we use in the body.

More specifically neurotransmitters are chemical messengers primarily from the brain and mind. Neuropeptides and hormones are the chemicals responsible for our feelings.

Neuropeptides are chemical signalers that serve as a bridge between the brain and body to make us feel the way we think. The hormones are the chemicals related to feelings primarily in the body.

Putting it all together in an example: Imagine we have a thought from last week (notice it has already happened, that’s how powerful this system is) about an intense disagreement we had with someone. In that exact moment within milliseconds, our mind had the thought, our brain recognized it and makes a neurotransmitter that goes to our neurons. The neuron creates neuropeptides, which in turn travel through our blood to the respectable glands and signal to make hormones to match that thought! So now our body is feeling the way we think. This now get’s us thinking the way we feel and this becomes a feedback loop. 

You can see, following the example that we relived a past disagreement’s feeling in the body from a past memorized situation. The solution is to then unmemorize the toxic memory stored in the subconscious mind. This is the journey I’m currently on..a journey which requires meditation and a through understanding of this reprograming process.

“Knowledge without experience is philosophy.

Experience without knowledge is ignorance.”

Dr. Joe Despenza

My journey of 2 years post surgery is on July 15th: I still present double vision and don’t sense temperature on my left upper side, also some upper limb coordination challenges I’m working through. I no longer work a traditional job, do outdoor chores (which is my favorite), drive, or independently walk long distances outside the house. This “old picture” of my identity before surgery is what I would carry around and kept using as my lens for life. Today I recognize, for the time being, I need to alter the way I look at my life. I choose to focus on my intelligence, determination, passion to help others, creativity, ability to research and connect fields of study. My job is now my recovery, emotionally and physically. I choose to live life experiencing the present moment, unremembering negative past memories and creating positive future moments to look foreword too.

I started changing by expressing to my wife, “who by the way is the most supportive person in my journey emotionally and physically” that I can no longer live todo things or activities to make her happy in my eyes. I found that I put a lot of stress on myself doing things to make others happy. That change of thought process was a major turning point to begin my emotional healing. 

Conclusion

All of this took months of daily reading, journaling, and listening to podcasts, to peel away the layers of my own personal reality. This allowed me to discover why my thoughts were negative based and what triggered them. I now know where the roots are and can address them accordingly. This is a work in progress however, I am now in much better control of my thoughts and know what to do with those random ones that pop in often. I can now notice them and move on, knowing I’m in control of my reaction.

keep the faith,

Recommended Further Reading

Pain Reprocessing Therapy 

The Way Out 

By Alan Gordon

Reprograming Yourself 

Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself 

By Dr. Joe Dispenza