Reverse Thinking

Banishing pain with awareness

This will be the first (and probably) the only time I review a book on this blog.

That book is: Teach Us To Sit Still by Tim Parks.

Not only is this book written with great power and emotion (I came close to tears at some points; it also echoes most of the work we are doing in Reverse Therapy.

Tim Parks is an award-winning English novelist who lives in Verona. But this book is not a novel. It is a personal story with the subtitle: 'A sceptic's search for health and healing'.

Tim Parks suffered excruciating pain in the pelvis, as well as a urinary disorder, for twenty years, for a problem which none of his doctors were able to diagnose accurately, or to provide a cure. Sometimes his problem was called Prostatitis; at other times Pelvic Floor Pain Syndrome. Whatever it was, Tim Parks spent years in pain and embarrassment, slowly getting more and more frustrated and demoralised by the failure of medical science to solve the problem. At one point he was offered drastic surgery for removal of the prostate gland: an option he wisely refused since, as it turned out, this would have achieved absolutely nothing except mutilation and the loss of his sex drive.

Tim Parks is funny, sad, highly intelligent, and ruthlessly honest. He describes himself as something of a Headmind-dominated person: 'a worrisome, dissatisfied individual': intellectual, sceptical and a control-freak, living most of his life spinning around words in his head.

After years of pain and useless advice (two doctors advised him to masturbate twice a day in order to relieve congestion in the prostate gland) Tim Parks turned to alternative medicine. He consulted an Ayurvedic practitioner in Delhi who shocked him:

    'This is a problem you will never get over, Mr Parks, until you confront the profound contradictions in your character.'

This is the clue which leads him to seek a non-medical solution. Interestingly, he describes how he resisted what he saw as a 'psychosomatic' explanation for his pain before coming to realise that the term 'psychosomatic' is nonsensical; the mind is not separate from the body and people can suffer from real, painful, symptoms (as in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, M.E, and Fibromyalgia) simply because the connection between the conscious mind and Bodymind has broken down. Or, to use my terminology, because Bodymind is at war with Headmind.

Incidentally, it is high time that we replaced the term 'psychosomatic' with the phrase 'HPA Disorder' (or something similar), as I have written before in other articles and in some of my books.

The solution Tim Parks discovered came from reading A Headache in your Pelvis, by David Wise and Rodney Anderson, in which he learnt how to use Paradoxical Relaxation. In this technique he learned not to resist the pain but to exercise Awareness on it. Simply, to let the pain be, without trying to interfere with it. Doing this twice a day he discovered that the pain simply disappeared. As Bodymind noticed that he was paying attention the pain switched off. Within months he was 'cured'. 

I have written about Awareness elsewhere on this blog and in Reverse Therapy we have long noticed the effect of exercising awareness, not resisting them, just letting them be, and simply 'listening to them'. It is surprising, in this respect, how many of my clients have told me that just doing this can banish fatigue, pain, tension, and many other symptoms besides.

Why guilt is useless

Guilt is a delusionary state. It doesn't serve you at all and is a creation of the imagination; of Headmind's drive towards conformity.

Here's how Headmind creates Guilt:

1. Headmind is stuffed full of judgments about the person you could be, should be, should not be, etc. Those judgments were not originally your own but inherited from other people. But gradually you internalised them and they became self-judgments.

2. These judgments are re-activated by parents, teachers, priests, employers, children and partners who may be exploiting you.

3. Your Headmind buys into those judgments because it seeks acceptance, conformity, and admiration (even from people who don't deserve your respect).

4. Dwelling on occasions in which guilt comes up - and Headmind judges you - creates uncomfortable Bodymind reactions: cringing, agitation, distress. Although Bodymind creates that discomfort in order to warn you not to indulge in guilt, Headmind interprets this as a signal that you are, indeed, a 'bad' person, worthy of punishment.

Here's another way to understand 'Guilt':

1. Earlier societies did not recognise a psychological state known as 'guilt'. For them 'guilt' was simply another word for 'debt' (as in the German/Saxon word: 'gultig'). It simply meant that one person had harmed another and was unable to put things right. For example, one person stole another person's property but was too poor to pay it back - therefore he was 'guilty' and subject to the penalties of the community.

2. Religious influences gradually changed this original meaning of guilt into 'personal sin'.

3.  When Psychology started up in Germany and America in the 19th century it took over religious ideas about 'sin' and reinterpreted them in terms of 'good' and 'evil' actions. So doing one 'bad' thing made you an 'evil' or 'guilty' person - instead of someone who simply made a mistake.  

4. Mistakes and 'bad' actions you committed in the past were based on the knowledge you possessed at the moment you committed them, no matter how daft. For example: you shop-lifted, knowing you couldn't afford something but that you 'had' to have the item anyway. You let the Headmind state of greed get the better of you.

5. Therefore your past mistakes were based on inadequate knowledge (you thought it was ok to steal, or that you wouldn't get caught, or that it wouldn't matter if you did get caught). Your predictions turned out to be wrong, although you didn't  realise that at the time.

6. Your present self-judgments are based on a false premise: your present self blames your past self even though your past self did not possess the experience of knowledge your present self now has.

Here is the truth:

1. You did not actually have free will back then when you committed your error of judgment. You did what you had to do at the time because you lacked Awareness.

2. Indulging in Headmind worry (i.e. analyzing over and over again about what an 'evil' person you were/are) may actually get in the way of your attempts to put things right.

3. If you have really done somebody wrong you could connect to the emotion of remorse and get on with making amends, rather than wasting time on guilt.


Image by Jsome1

Schopenhauer - a philosophy for grumpy people?

In my last article - Can feeling grumpy be good for you? I mentioned one of my favourite philosophers - Arthur Schopenhauer - who was a grumpy old man already by the age of 19. I first read him at 15 and developed a 'bah humbug' attitude which was delicious and self-indulgent while it lasted although I no longer think it is clever - or even profound - to be pessimistic about life. Even so, I still think that Schopenhauer possessed a genius for philosophy. (He also wrote a lot about sex).

Here are a few gems:

After your death you will be what you were before       your birth.    

Everyone takes the limit of his own field of vision for the limit of the world.

The conscious mind may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells within the body.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the sight of a letter/email from that person.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

Console yourself by remembering that the world doesn't deserve your affection.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

There is no absurdity so obvious but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to introduce it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

The closing years of life are like a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.

Compassion is the basis of all morality.

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.

The greatest of mistakes is to sacrifice health for any other kind of reward.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome.

In my next article I will write about the advantages - and disadvantages - of pessimism for life.

Zen

In my last post I mentioned that Zen has been a strong influence on Reverse Therapy and here's how.

When I first started teaching people Reverse Therapy it wasn't called that then. Instead it was called 'Anti-therapy'. The idea was that it would be the complete opposite of traditional therapy. It wouldn't waste time on analysis or belief-checking, or your 'relationship' with the therapist, or working out what happened to you at age four-and-a-half.

The other thing that made it anti-therapy was that we made friends with symptoms (or rather, with the Bodymind that produced them). If we could find out what made symptoms necessary we had a good chance of helping clients find a healthier way to deal with the situations in which symptoms came up.

All this was inspired, in part, by Zen. The Zen attitude to problems is to exercise awareness on them. Becoming fully aware - in the moment - of what is happening, without pre-judging anything enables you to see what is going on. So when you see why symptoms are necessary you are on the symptom path to enlightenment.

Another thing we learnt from Zen is that Headmind gets in the way of enlightenment. Thinking doesn't make you aware (in some cases it can just make you stupid - which is what Buddha is partly getting at). Zen exercises are designed to help people bypass Headmind. When you see that there is no answer to the absurd question 'What is the sound of one hand clapping' you are enlightened in that moment (although not necessarily in other moments). You have realised that thinking gets in the way of your experience, your awareness and your direct access to the way things are.

It is for that reason that Reverse Therapy teaches people to practice quietly sitting and sensing the way the way things are for them in each and every moment.

I have to admit that what also attracted me to Zen was its irreverence. It believes in no final wisdom, or teachers or even in the Buddha. There's no better saying for that than the provocative Zen slogan: 'If you meet the Buddha on the road - kill him'.

The Fibromyalgia mystery

In my last post I mentioned Chris Moran's observations that over three-quarters of his Fibromyalgia patients had first sufffered from whiplash and other injuries. This has been amply borne out by my own experience. To take 4 recent cases:

Case 1. A client in her 40s whose Fibromyalgia started following surgery after a car crash went wrong and left her with permanent nerve damage to her face.

Case 2. A client in her 30s whose Fibromyalgia started up after breaking both legs in a ski-ing accident.

Case 3. A client in his 30s who developed Fibromyalgia after a whip-lash injury from a car accident left him temporarily disabled.

Case 4. A client in her 60s with Fibromyalgia who had also suffered from Trigeminal Neuralgia for over 10 years.

Yet in each case the Fibromyalgia pain (although not always the other pain source) reduced or disappeared with changing circumstances. Case 1 found her symptoms were less when not caring for her very old mother. Case 2 at weekends when with her family and friends. Case 3 when not cooped up at home (he worked part-time). Case 4 when away on holiday.

So how does chronic pain link to Fibromyalgia? Here is my theory for what it is worth. Injuries and illness create pain in the first place and also a restricted, frustrating, life-style. This, in turn, leads to increased emotion (not only frustration but also sadness, anger and fear) as well as a reduction in joy. At this point the HPA axis is activated and eventually creates the further symptoms of Fibromyalgia - effectively prompting the individual to pay more attention to her emotional needs and change the way in which she has adapted to the pain.

Chronic pain is one of the most distressing experiences we can have. I well remember the pain I suffered for years from an undiagnosed appendix problem - as well as the intense pain that occurred the week before I was rushed into hospital when it ruptured. And yet my experience was small-scale compared to some of my clients. It's no wonder they are emotionally vulnerable.