• how hypnosis works
• why it’s so effective
• how you can use it to strengthen your mind and heal your body
• how you can develop more emotional control 

If you’ve read my award-nominated book, BEFORE THE WORLD INTRUDED: Conquering the Past and Creating the Future, then you will already have a sense of who Laura is since I wrote about her extensively and how our work together changed my life. In this interview you’ll hear her passion, personal story and why she’s committed to the work she does with clients from around the world. (Yep, that’s right, you can connect with her yourself for some brain training either in person or long-distance!)

MEET MY GUEST:

Laura King, CHt, NLP, Certified Hypnotherapist, Performance and Life Coach and Certified Hypnosis Instructor, has been a full-time, practicing hypnotist for over a decade and is the founder of Summit Hypnosis and Wellness Centers in Palm Beach County. She has helped hundreds of clients to overcome everyday challenges at all levels of their professional and personal lives. Hypnosis works to “retrain your brain” and it can be used to manage stress, boost confidence, curb negative behaviors such as over use of alcohol & eating unhealthy foods, reduce fear, improve athletic performance, enhance memory, manage pain, overcome sleep problems and cope with grief. It can advance your career, enrich your family life and help you exceed in your golf or tennis game!

With over 100 certifications in Hypnosis, Clinical Hypnosis, NLP, and Life Coaching, she is one of the most highly qualified instructors in the industry. Ms. King uses hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) for anyone who wants to improve their life. King has published five books on the subject of Hypnosis and NLP, with another book due out soon. She has appeared on Rachel Ray, and is a highly sought after speaker. Her books include her brand new book; Hypnosis for Moving Through Illness as well as The Power to Win, Perfect Enough, Perfect Enough Companion Book – the DISCOVER PROCESS(TM), and Awesome Golf Now.

King says that it has been her lifelong goal to teach everyone the power of hypnosis to create positive and lasting change. She credits hypnosis with saving her own life, which instilled a passion deep in her heart to help others overcome challenges. By teaching others to do what she does, she believes that she will be able to reach, and help, even more people.

Some radio shows don’t go at all the way you intended them! Today’s guest didn’t show up, so instead of talking about our planned topic I interviewed myself (well, not really, but sort of!) about the most necessary element in changing the direction of your life.

Listen up to hear:

• what that element is
• how it functions in the way you make change
• simple practices you can implement to engage change more efficiently and effectively
• how changing your expectations can change your direction in a heartbeat

What some have called ‘addictively readable’ and others have said is ‘incredibly moving and beautifully written’ BEFORE THE WORLD INTRUDED is available for only $2.99 on Kindle, or $8.97 in the softcover edition that you can grab here by inputting the discount code BH9YLATQ after you hit the ‘add to cart button’.

When I first started writing the book I was very deep in the chasm of posttraumatic stress. In fact, I began writing because I was so far gone in the hopelessness of recovery that I started writing with the idea that maybe finding a way to coherently tell my story would help me find my way out of the maze.

You don’t have to right an entire book, however, to benefit from writing in overcoming the past. According to James Pennebaker, a leader in the field of therapeutic writing, research has shown that short-term focused writing (i.e. just 20 minutes of writing about how you feel about an event or memory, done four days in a row) can have a beneficial effect, including strengthening your immune system, improving mental function, concentration and “working memory”, plus your ability to think about more than one thing at a time. You may also find you’re better able to sleep and that social connections improve, partly because you have a greater ability to focus on someone besides yourself.

My favorite thing about writing: it retrains your ability to use language. Translating ideas and emotions into words gives you control. When you let the negative emotion-generating words, ideas, thoughts and feelings out of your head you make room for other, more positive and supportive things to take their place.

Need some inspiration for why you might want to write? Check out what some people say about writing itself:

“A word after a word after a word is power.” -Margaret Atwood

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” -Maya Angelou

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” -Ernest Hemingway

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” -Mark Twain

Dr. Dow covered how to:

• change your nightmare by creating resources
• implement the Dream Revision Technique through various conscious, daily processes
• questions to ask yourself to apply the technique in your own life
• what changes to expect
• how long it takes to see results

MEET MY GUEST:

Bruce Dow, M.D. is a board-certified psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist with more than twenty years of experience in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 2011 he was named a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Dr. Dow became interested in PTSD in 1991 during his psychiatry residency and fellowship training at the San Diego VA Medical Center. This was the period of the first Gulf War, and many Vietnam veterans with PTSD were appearing at VA hospitals seeking treatment. Dr. Dow utilized a technique for treating combat-related PTSD by changing Vietnam veterans’ nightmares in a group therapy setting. The results were dramatic. Recurrent nightmares that had been present for twenty five years (1968 to 1993) disappeared following a single group therapy session.

Between 1994 and 2007 Dr. Dow was in private practice in the San Diego community, receiving referrals from the VA for outpatient treatment of combat-related PTSD, as well as referrals of police officers, prison guards, high school teachers, cashiers, construction workers, and others with PTSD from the civilian workplace. He was able to utilize the same dream revision techniques to treat both military and civilian PTSD, as he describes in a book currently in preparation.

Dr. Dow was born and raised in the Boston area. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1960 and spent a year in Europe as a Fulbright Fellow. His interests in the humanities and sciences consolidated during his year abroad and led him to attend medical school at the University of Rochester with the goal of becoming a psychiatrist. After an internship in medicine at Johns Hopkins he fulfilled his Vietnam War era military service obligation as a researcher in neuroscience at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He continued his neuroscience research from 1967 to 1989, ultimately becoming a tenured full professor at the State University of New York (Buffalo). He has published many articles on color vision and visual perception.

In 1989 Dr. Dow finally entered psychiatry, which had by this time evolved from its psychoanalytic roots to encompass neuroscience and psychopharmacology. Armed with his strong neuroscience background, he completed residency and fellowship training in psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He spent a year (1993-1994) on the UCSD faculty, setting up an inpatient program in PTSD at the San Diego, VA Medical Center. In 1994-2007 Dr. Dow was in private practice in the San Diego community, where he maintained a subspecialty in treating individuals with PTSD.

In 2007 Dr. Dow returned home to the Boston area, where he is employed as a community psychiatrist with a non-profit corporation (Vinfen), helping clients with significant mental illness, including PTSD, live independently in the community.

Working in several different settings, Dr. Dow has helped patients recover from PTSD by addressing their posttraumatic nightmares in a creative and constructive manner. Issues encountered in dreams can then be dealt with in waking life. Dr. Dow’s message for people with PTSD is a hopeful one: change and recovery are possible.

On this episode, I chatted with Jen about how and where her inspiration comes from and what has made her music career so successful — and how she keeps it on track. Plus:

• how to stay positive even when everything in your world is negative
• how to know what is the next right thing to do
• finding your purpose in life — and trusting it
• how to know if you’re going in the right direction
• how to change the direction you’re headed in

MEET MY GUEST:

A rock ‘n’ roll Texan living in Nashville Jen Foster is an award winning singer-songwriter, musician, performer, record producer, and owner of the label, “Fosterchild Records.” Her music incorporates elements of rock, pop, r&b, folk, country and dance. Jen has released 3 studio albums, 3 EP’s and has contributed to various film, television and multi-media soundtracks including “Venice Beach,” the theme to the Emmy winning web series Venice: The Series. Foster has garnered multiple awards for her songs, is the artist/writer representative on the very distinguished board at Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and has written with some of Nashville’s hit songwriter’s including Pam Tillis, Jeffrey Steele and Kristen Hall of Sugarland to name a few. Her special bond with her fans creates a captive audience anxious to hear her stories and take in her unique sense of humor. Foster tours regularly across the United States and has an international fan base as a result of being an early adopter of social media. Jen was featured in the 2012 December issue of CURVE Magazine and she is passionate about animals rights and environmental preservation.

I’ve been assessing my own style of interaction lately as I finish up reading my new favorite book: Adam Grant’s GIVE AND TAKE: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.  According to Grant, there are three types of people in the world: givers, takers and matchers. As Grant describes, givers prefer to give more than they get; takers try to get more than they give; matchers tend toward an equal balance of both giving and getting. 

While Grant approaches the give/take question from a workplace perspective all of the concepts and principles he discusses apply to life in general. He tackles the dangers and rewards of both giving and taking, how your style impacts relationships, community building, reaching your potential, energy maintenance, and the way others treat you.

My whole life I’ve been a giver, going all the way back to when I was a kid and gave up the last cookie so my little brother could have it. I love that I’m the kind of person who thinks of others before myself and strives to make the world a better place. Grant’s book, however, shows why we have to assess our style of interaction and work hard to balance it: On the ladder of success givers are at the bottom (you’d expect that, wouldn’t you?) and also at the top (that was a big surprise to me!). GIVE AND TAKE shows – through tons of documented research studies that are easy and fun to read about – that while givers sacrifice themselves in ways that bring negative results, when they know how to give the right way, giving actually catapults them to success. A great example:

Are you assertive enough to ask for a raise? Studies show that givers don’t like to look selfish, so they’re more apt to skip negotiating; therefore earning less than matchers or takers. However, when givers negotiate on behalf of someone else they procure almost 20% salary increases. The message: givers are just as talented in negotiation when their motivation is ‘other’ oriented.

Why does all of this fascinate me? Because when you want to create change you choose it’s not all about how to change the world around you or your own internal landscape; it’s also about changing how you interact with the world around you. Grant writes,

“…what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them.”

How would your world change, say, if you gave more of yourself than you do now? If you gave in ways that make you feel good and empowered versus exhausted and taken advantage of? If you were more aware of how much others give to you, and decided to give as much as they do? If exact tit for tat was less of a focus and you began to look for ways you could help others without thinking about how they’ll repay you?

I wonder, if all of us took some time to look inside, explore how and why and the amount we give, then balance it with ways that support both ourselves and others, what kind of change would we create? How would that impact the world?

• knowing when and how to ask for help
• understanding why we tend to isolate during hard times
• developing flexibility + the two most important steps in doing so
• identifying a ‘direction moment’ + making the most of it
• asking yourself the most important question to move forward

MEET MY GUEST:

As a military spouse herself, Judy Davis aka ‘The Direction Diva’ is a Motivational Speaker, Author and Blogger that Specializes in advocating and supporting the Military community. Her “One Moment at a Time” philosophy is revolutionary and empowers those she touches with coping strategies that help ease the challenges that the ever changing military lifestyle brings. Judy’s mission is to inspire military spouses each day so they can become stronger and more resilient. No matter if you are a veteran spouse or new to the ranks, The Direction Diva can help you find your way.

Judy is an expert in the areas of stress relief, military empowerment and personal growth and understands that there are times in our lives when we need someone to help us get back on track and moving in the right direction. Connect with Judy’s blog (http://thedirectiondiva.com) for T.I.P.s (tools, information and perspective) that will help you make the most of your life.

• break negative thought patterns
• bust out of a feeling of hopelessness
• believe in herself and the changes she wished to make
• change the direction of her life

Plus, I’ve started answering questions asked in our social media outlets. If you have a question you’d like to hear answered on air tweet me @changeyouchoose, or post your question on our Facebook fanpage.

MEET MY GUEST:

Christie is the host of Soul Journeys Radio on AmericanFreedomRadio.com and a Holistic Health Coach, the Creator of My True Essence and maker of organic skin care and healing products as well as the Creator of Project Love Your Neighbor, Liberating Souls and a Volunteer at SWMO Free School.

Websites: http://souljourneysradio.com/ & http://www.mytrueessence.net/

Christie was born in San Diego, California. She excelled in sports and music, her sports career revered in the San Diego Sports Hall of Fame. A graduate of the School for Creative and Performing Arts at the top of her class gave her the necessary tools to the next chapter on her path. Later on she exposed a sex-trafficking ring in McGonigal Canyon in 2006 and paid a heavy price for her efforts with her 2 beautiful daughters ultimately being kidnapped at gunpoint while facing 56 years for her efforts in exposing the political criminal syndicate. This is where she began to see that she was living a lie. The illusion became eminent which forced her back on her spiritual journey which like most, was suppressed from her upbringing.

Christie went through many illnesses and countless injuries through her upbringing and conditioning in mainstream medicine. After decades of entrusting the “professionals” in the system, she found it getting her nowhere, but sicker, ultimately leading her into a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. In 1995 doctors told her she had 6 months to live. She took it upon herself to learn how to heal through better nutrition and clearly reaped the benefits of it completely healing herself and becoming a poster child of health, and inspiration to many, then on to help teach others how to heal themselves from all the so called incurable dis-ease they were suffering. She is not only walking now, which is something doctors told her would never happen, she has helped countless others on their healing path with her discoveries. She knows nothing is impossible and that ALL is curable and possible if the desire exists. She will share her experience, strength and hope so that others can achieve the same outcome if it is also their desire.

While no picnic, these experiences have little far-reaching consequences. Outside of the present moment’s frustration or disappointment once the experience ends you go on with your day very much still the same person you were when you woke up that morning. All of your beliefs about yourself and the world are still intact and with a little redirected focus and attention your mood shifts out of irritation and back into the who that you are. You wake up the next morning and start a new day without thinking about that unexpected event you didn’t choose from the day before.

Today though, in light of the Boston Marathon bombing and how both Boston and we as a nation are moving toward healing, I’m thinking about what we have to do when the experiences we don’t choose do leave their mark on us. For the people at the race what occurred would send shockwaves through an entire self and life that so alter thoughts, beliefs, goals and intentions that major changes are inevitable, physically, emotionally, psychologically and mentally.

After the news broke I was talking to a friend who was assaulted a few years ago. Now, she fears for her safety constantly. Any time she is alone – whether on the street or at home – she worries that another assault is imminent. The experience of her attack has not only stayed with her and changed her behavior, but it has also changed how she sees the world.

“Everyone is a potential threat,” she said. “Everyone I can see, and even everyone I can’t see. I worry all the time that I have to be prepared. And it’s not just about a possible physical threat to me as an individual, but to all of us – the world – as a whole. Nothing is predictable or dependable when it comes to safety.”

Of course, she’s right. We never know when some kind of danger is coming at us. We each have to figure out how to live in an unpredictable world. Especially when unpredictable and inexplicable things occur, like the Boston Marathon bombing… like Newtown, CT, Aurora, CO, 9/11, and all of the other horrors that leave us face to face with our vulnerability.

For my friend, it all comes down to acceptance. “I can’t accept that these kinds of things happen in the world,” she said. “It’s not right.”

I totally agree. And yet, those things have to exist. That’s yin-yang in its utmost and heartrending dichotomy. Because we live in a world where our differences are celebrated as much as our similarities there will always be brutality, death, tragedy and pain. Earth can be an awful place. It can also be a beautiful place; yin-yang again. It’s that yin-yang quality of the world the we each must strive to echo in our own individual lives.

We have no choice to accept the bad; we are powerless to prevent some of it. In that acceptance we also have the opportunity and even, I think the responsibility to be part of the force that balances it out with the good. It’s with that thought that I accept my vulnerability, how do you accept yours?

One Veteran’s Heroic Journey From Vietnam to PTSD Recovery

Daryl J. Eigen, PhD, is a Vietnam combat veteran, a business innovator, and yoga teacher who has written a book that will give veterans everywhere support. In ‘A Hellish Place of Angels’ Daryl talks about his heroic journey through Vietnam to his equally heroic work at healing his own PTSD. This is a must read for anyone who works with trauma, or who wants to know what our troops went through and how one man found a way to conquer the past and create a new future.

Daryl served honorably in Vietnam from 1966 to 1967 in the Marine Corps’ 3/26 and 2/9 combat infantry battalions. He was awarded 3 Purple Hearts and fought in over a dozen operations against enemy forces in and around the DMZ. He received BA and MS degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a Ph.D in Engineering from Northwestern University and a MArom Sofia University. Daryl lives in Portland, Oregon with his lovely wife Lucy. He is the proud father of Tony and Molly and grandfather to Amelia, Sophia, and Zoe.

During the show Dr. Parker explained:

• ADHD definition and diagnosis
• the concept of ‘metacognition’ and why it’s so important
• two types of anxiety (mental cognitive vs. affective somatic) and the difference between them, plus their implications for treatment
• how to heal ADHD when it exists alone, plus in conjuction with trauma

MEET MY GUEST:

Neuroscientist and author, Dr. Charles Parker’s mission is to translate brain science into common sense applications in your daily life. Focusing on cognitive and emotional balance, his insights open a path for you to discover how to reclaim your sense of inner homeostasis. His book, “New ADHD Medication Rules”, deals with the over-medication, missed diagnoses and imbalanced medical treatments used today in the treatment of ADHD. Dr. Parker shows where and how these imbalances occur, provides the data and explanations for why treatment is often incorrect, and then simplifies and explains insightful methods for dealing with ADHD.

As an author [Deep Recovery, New ADHD Medication Rules, CorePsych Articles], a neuroscientist certified for SPECT brain imaging, and a practicing child and adult psychiatrist, I’ve repeatedly witnessed the limitations of imprecise thinking for years. Travel with me to begin changing outdated, reductionistic thinking. For a Complimentary Special Report on missed diagnosis and imprecise treatment: Predictable Solutions For ADHD Meds. Current guesswork and imprecision with meds often create harmful outcomes, while scientific precision maximizes predictability. Together we can make a difference.

I’m enormously honored that in the past year my book, BEFORE THE WORLD INTRUDED, was nominated for a Books For A Better Life Award, and our radio show (recently retitled, CHANGING DIRECTION) was picked up by a terrific sponsor. Now, this summer I’m looking forward to expanding what we do here in ways that offer you even more options for how to redefine who you are and reclaim your life. For starters, my next book, CHANGE YOU CHOOSE: How To Point Your Life In A New Direction, will be released in July.

You see, I’ve decided to celebrate your whole life and the whole you that exists beyond your trauma and its recovery process. All too often (and I was guilty of this myself!) we believe that trauma defines us. That’s a falsehood! Who you are is so much bigger than the trauma – even though it often doesn’t feel that way.

Trauma brought into your life change you did not choose. Celebrating your survival and yourself includes creating change you do choose. That’s the new direction I’ve decided to include as we move forward together! (Scroll down to check out this week’s new article about neuroplasticity, an idea that proves change is very possible for you.)

While we’ll still be talking about how to heal trauma and posttraumatic stress, we’re also expanding the conversation to include how to rebuild life, from recovery to relationships, health, careers, spirituality, fun and recreation, finance and personal development we’ll be covering it all to offer you even more ideas and perspectives for how to conquer the past and create your future.

You know I do all of this because in my mind:

You have enormous healing potential; the goal is learning to access it. You can do this. Dig deep. I believe in you!

On this week’s show I chatted with two men who have ideas about how to shift more towards the you you want to be by helping your mind and body both function more optimally. We covered:

• what do we mean by “attention” and how does it become dysregulated after trauma
• what parts of the brain affect attention, and how they are respond to trauma
• what it means to be “sensitized to threat” and how to reduce that sensitization
• what, exactly, chiropractics is, how it works, and how it helps reduce stress on the body

MEET MY GUESTS:

Dr. Andrew Hill

Dr. Hill received his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA in 2012, studying how attention operates in the brain and how to modulate it using neurofeedback (EEG biofeedback). He is currently lecturing for the Undergraduate Education Initiatives program at UCLA, teaching a course sequence in gerontology, including the neuroscience of healthy brain aging.

Dr. Hill has published chapters on measuring and modulating human attention, and continues to research self regulation. Prior to UCLA, Dr. Hill obtained extensive experience working with both psychiatric and developmental populations as well as gaining experience in high technology areas.

Currently Dr. Hill is the Director of Neurocognitive Services at Alternatives Treatment (www.addictionalternatives.com), a non-traditional model of outpatient substance abuse treatment, and Lead Neuroscientist for truBrain.com, a cognitive nutrition startup.

Dr. Ray 

For over a decade, Dr. Ray has dedicated both his personal and professional life to promoting and teaching fitness as a lifestyle. Drawing on his extensive education and experience in sports, fitness, Chiropractic, and nutrition, Dr. Ray has developed a unique approach to personal training & Chiropractic care—one that holistically integrates challenging physical exercise and body “rebalancing” via adjustments.

Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, Dr. Ray grew up playing various sports and bodybuilding competitively. During this time, he learned that focusing on fitness, health, and self-care lead to dramatic gains in both his self-confidence and performance, which in turn ignited a passion to dedicate his life to helping others achieve ultimate inner health & physical vitality. Dr. Ray went on to attend the University of Southern California, where he earned a B.S. in Kinesiology, and then on to the acclaimed Cleveland Chiropractic College, where he gained his Doctor of Chiropractic degree.

During and after college, Dr. Ray worked as a personal trainer at the legendary Gold’s Gym in Venice, California, and subsequently Equinox Century City, where he honed his skills as a master when it comes to maximizing weight loss results and the building of lean muscle while limiting strain on the body. After achieving his Chiropractic license, Dr. Ray also incorporated various adjustment techniques to further assist clients in reaching their utmost physical potential.

Currently, Dr. Ray serves as the Doctor of Chiropractic at the prestigious Biggest Loser Resort in Malibu, California. There, he utilizes his vast knowledge of the human body to assist in transforming the lives of resort guests who have chosen to dedicate their time to improving their health in a dramatic fashion. His work at the resort is exceedingly vital in the recuperation and revitalization of guests as they are undergoing their intense daily exercise regimen.

• Can watching the traumatic images of the Boston Marathon bombing cause secondary trauma?
• How do we reduce the emotional overwhelm after watching too many media outlets?

If you’re wondering those things, this interview I did for our local NBC affiliate has some answers:

One of my favorite things is to talk to trauma survivors who have healed – and then have decided to shine the light to help other survivors make the same journey. My guest was one of my new favorite people, Rose Caiola, the founder of Rewire Me, a new website whose community is committed to helping everyone along the healing path by combining the most useful ancient practices with the latest scientific discoveries.

As the website says, “It’s the impact of the “aha” moments that truly lets us rewire ourselves. Seeing something in a new light can be a catalyst for recognizing and pursuing transformation and growth. We believe there are many ways to accomplish this, but that it comes about when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, experience true gratitude, and commit to the process.”

In addition to discussing Rose’s mission with the new site we also talked in depth about neuroscience and how the brain begins to make change.

MEET MY GUEST:

For Rose Caiola-Musacchia, Rewire Me is a dream realized. Her goal is to build a community where together people can learn, grow, and transform into their best selves. Rewire Me is a place for mutual inspiration; a resource to enlighten and guide you on our journey toward wholeness and balance

Rose says, “Each of us has our own unique journey. We believe that there is no one path to self-awareness.”

You also would have heard me interview Dr. Bruce Dow, a board-certified psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist with more than twenty years of experience in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He’s an expert in the Dream Revision Technique and even worked with a live caller during the show to illustrate how the technique works.

The show was so popular we’re bringing Dr. Dow back to work on-air again  Wednesday, May 15th, 2-3pm EST. As a matter of fact, there’s been so much interest in this process that Dr. Dow and I are hoping to share the show in a presentation at this year’s annual International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS).

If you’d like to participate in this upcoming episode and receive free coaching on the dream revision technique from Dr. Dow himself live on-air, please send an email to Michele@YourLifeAfterTrauma.com with the following information:

1 – Describe your recurring nightmare (must be related to some kind of helpless or powerless feeling, i.e. being chased, the approach of a tidal wave, etc. Please, no content related to graphic violence.)

2 – Identify your professional support system: Do you have a therapist, counselor or other professional person helping with your post-trauma progress?

3 – Your stability: Are you now or have you ever a) had any suicidal thoughts, b) made any suicide attempts or, c) heard any voices in your head? If the answer is, yes, please explain.

4 – Willing to share: This broadcast will be taped for the possibility of sharing with trauma professionals interested in learning how the dream revision technique works and can be applied to survivors in a variety of formats. Please indicate your willingness for your segment of the episode to possibly be shared at the ISTSS conference.

That’s all that’s required! Send your answers to these questions to Michele@YourLifeAfterTrauma.com. We’ll be selecting three people to work live on-air with Dr. Dow.

How do warriors transition out of the military and into life after trauma with PTSD/TBI? Not easily! But there are some terrific organizations that help, support and clear the path. The transition out of trauma and into the world is also a challenge for civilians who find themselves hating more than loving themselves.

When you find yourself stuck in who you are and not sure how to become who you want to be, what do you do? On this week’s show I’ll talk to two guests who have some great ideas:

For our military listeners, in our first segment Ashley Lambert-Wise discusses how she came to found BattlingBare.org, plus its mission to support veterans in transition. In our second segment Roberta Mittman talks about her free telesummit, LOVE YOUR MIND, LOVE YOUR BODY, and the expert guests she’s giving you access to so that you can start to transition out of hate into love for both your mind and your body.

In our first segment Ashley Lambert-Wise shared her personal story of trauma and PTSD and how those experiences motivated her to create BattlingBare.org, an organization designed to help spread the word not only about PTSD but about recovery as well.

Then, in our second segment, my pal Roberta Mittman gave us the low-down on how and why acupuncture can help you heal after trauma, plus she filled us in with an overview of her LOVE YOUR MIND, LOVE YOUR BODY telesummit (it’s free!) .

MEET MY GUESTS:

Ashley Lambert-Wise – Founder, BattlingBare, Inc.

The mission of Battling Bare, Inc. is to provide a network of support for the spouses, children and family members who silently struggle to carry the burden of PTSD with their beloved Service Members. By creating a safe place to band together and share our stories, we will raise awareness about PTSD and create positive programs of true healing for families affected.

Battling Bare, Inc. strives to be a unique, positive and encouraging community resource for spouses of all military Service Members who struggle with PTSD. We are dedicated to eradicating the stigma in order for the family as a whole to achieve the help and healing they deserve.

ROBERTA MITTMAN, L.AC. (HOLISTIC HEALTH COUNSELOR, ACUPUNCTURIST)

Roberta Mittman, L.Ac., a dedicated alternative health care practitioner and licensed acupuncturist, is the founder of the Park Avenue Center for Wellbeing. She serves her local community of New York City as well as those around the world who connect with her virtually online and through telephone coaching to help them achieve their optimal health, balance, energy, and weight. An author and self-proclaimed chocolate enthusiast, Roberta brings patient-tested, timeless, and cutting-edge information to successfully integrate the two worlds of traditional and alternative forms of medicine for long-lasting results and inner confidence, all designed to inspire you to be your own best healer.

For a long time I just thought (and accepted the fact) that I was crazy. Some people are just meant to me insane; I believed I was supposed to be one of them.

Imagine my surprise when I finally found the right professional input and I began to understand that I wasn’t insane, I was struggling with a completely reasonable response to trauma! Once that idea was illuminated it led me to start asking the question, “Where do I go from here??”

Deciding to get treatment for any post-trauma issues means you have to figure out, for example:

• what treatment means
• what options are available to you
• which approaches resonate with you
• how and when and with whom you want to begin the path to feeling better

In this quick clip, I interviewed a trauma treatment expert about how to define what treatment means. This is a great place to begin as she describes how it’s different than regular therapy. Take a listen:

Research suggests that one way to rewire the brain is to allow it to have positive experiences. How often do you give your brain that gift? It’s tough to be positive after trauma. Recovery offers its own slew of challenges that can make anyone extremely negative. Alan Cohen, co-founder of The Positivity Project sheds some light on how to be more positive and simple strategies to begin honing that skill.

Did you know that obsessive-compulsive disorder is the most common anxiety disorder? Did you realize that there are very hands-on ways to reduce and even eliminate it? Did you know that feeling positive can actually rewire your brain? Did you know that positivity doesn’t just mean looking on the bright side but is a way to access deep resilience? We covered all of these topics on this episode (our first of the show’s new name, CHANGING DIRECTION), plus:

• The top 2 treatment approaches for OCD
• What is a negativity bias, plus how to change it
• 3 core steps for making change
• What positivity is and how you can use it to move forward

MEET MY GUESTS:

Dr. Robin Zasio, Psy. D., LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She has been specializing in treating anxiety and related disorders for the past 14 years utilizing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure and Response Prevention techniques. After developing a thriving private practice, she developed The Anxiety Treatment Center, Inc. in 2005, and more recently, The Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center, both located in Sacramento, CA, which she currently owns and directs. Dr. Zasio continues to maintain her private practice providing individual, group and family therapy services, in addition to supervising interns who are learning to treat anxiety conditions. Dr. Zasio was the President of the Sacramento Valley Psychological Association from 2003-2005 and currently remains on the board as the Continuing Education Chair and Media Representative. Dr. Zasio also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board, Clinical Advisory Board, and the Speakers Bureau for the International OCD Foundation, and is on the Advisory Board for the Sacramento Chapter of the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill where she writes a “Doctor’s Column” for their monthly newsletter. She is a member of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation, American Psychological Association, Trichotillomania Learning Center, and Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Dr. Zasio is also a featured doctor on the hit series Hoarders, airing on A & E.

Dr. Robin Zasio, Psy. D., LCSW is a specialist in treating OCD and related anxiety disorders utilizing CBT and Exposure and Response Prevention techniques. She developed The Anxiety Treatment Center, Inc., The Compulsive Hoarding Center, and The Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center, all located in Sacramento, CA. Dr. Zasio serves on the Scientific Advisory Board, Clinical Advisory Board, and the Speakers Bureau for the IOCDF, and is the Author of The Hoarder in You: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life. Dr. Zasio is currently a featured doctor on the A & E hit series Hoarders and Host of My Extreme Animal Phobia on Animal Planet.

Alan Cohen, President, Acts of Balance Executive Coaching and Training, MBA, Professional Certified Coach (PCC) is the Co-Founder of “The Positivity Project: Expanding Global Optimism — at work, at life,” an online speaker series featuring the world’s leading experts in positivity and change (www.thepositivityproject.info). He is the author of “Those Difficult Talks for PR Pros ™: How Best to Say What Needs to be Said to Clients, Colleagues and Employees,” and has more than 25 years of business experience in the areas of public relations, marketing, human resources, and leadership training. As executive coach, trainer, brainstorm facilitator and speaker, Alan serves professionals in public relations, marketing and the media, as well as other industries, to help them better navigate their ever-changing business landscape and thus achieve greater success, fulfillment and balance.

Through his coaching, he helps executives and small-business owners become meaningfully engaged and to communicate more effectively, powerfully and positively, resulting in leading their organizations to greater performance, innovation and highly improved business results.

Prior to starting his own coaching business, Alan served as the Director of Communications for The Broadway League, the national trade association for the commercial theatre industry, presenter of the Tony Awards. As Communications Director, his most notable contribution was leading the crisis communications team during the Broadway stagehands strike.

Prior to his position with the Broadway League, he served as Director of Corporate Training and Development for Scholastic, where he established and supervised the company’s management training curriculum. At Scholastic, he was also Director of Publicity and led the publicity team promoting the acclaimed Harry Potter book series. As Vice President at Serino Coyne and Rogers and Cowan public relations, Alan supervised public relations and cultural sponsorship activities. At Robinson Lehrer Mont- gomery, also as Vice President, he led consumer publicity campaigns for United Airlines, AOL’s “Find A Job” service and AOL’s Small Business and Life Management programs.

Alan holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Theatre from Connecticut College, and an MBA from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business, where his focus was leadership development. He is an accredited member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) and is one of only 2,000 Professional Certified Coaches in the world

How do you do that? Great question!

I was recently asked to present a teleseminar on this very topic.

If you missed the live event you can listen to the replay below to learn:

• The #1 mistake people make in response to unwanted change
• How to develop your best asset in personal transformation
• The most essential action to kickstart reconstructing your identity
• 3 ways to create change you choose
• Proof that change you choose is always possible
• the key to launching your identity overhaul
• how to redefine yourself and move into the future with empowered strength, clarity and confidence

Whether you’ve experienced trauma or Trauma the impact of life’s negative events can leave you feeling ineffective, fearful, sad, depressed, helpless, hopeless and powerless. If any of that describes you then it’s time to learn the first steps to conquering the past and creating your future. The good news is, it’s all ultimately under your control. Take a listen…

To learn more about how to transform yourself after trauma and start doing work that points you in the right direction, check out the full TRANSFORM program with 24 core strategies to help you create change you choose.

On this show I chatted with anger expert, Janet Pfeiffer, about:

• how to cope with the flood of anger
• how to manage behavior when angry
• ways to defuse/reduce/eliminate inappropriate anger
• the TECO Magic and SWAT Strategy techniques
• the difference between anger triggers and causes
• the three roots of your anger
• forgiveness as an anger management technique
• what to do if you’re on the receiving end of anger

And that list only covers part of the show! After hearing the podcast you’ll have tips for how you can develop a practice of control over your anger immediately.

MEET MY GUEST:

Janet Pfeiffer, international inspirational speaker and award-winning author has appeared on CNN, Lifetime, ABC News, The 700 Club, NBC News, Fox News, The Harvest Show, Celebration, TruTV and much more. She’s been a guest on over 100 top radio shows, is a contributor to Ebru Today TV and hosts her own radio show, Anger 911, on www.Anger911.net.

Janet has spoken at the United Nations, Notre Dame University (for the NACSDC National Conference), has served as committee member and keynote speaker for the YWCA National Week Without Violence Campaign, and is a member of the National Police Suicide Foundation and past board member for the World Addiction Foundation.

She is a former columnist for the Daily Record and has been a contributing writer to Woman’s World Magazine, Living Solo Magazine, Prime Woman Magazine and N.J. Family. Her name has appeared in print more than 100 million times, including The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Fusion, Alaska Business Monthly and more than 50 other publications.

Janet has authored 8 books, including the highly acclaimed The Secret Side of Anger (endorsed by NY Times bestselling author, Dr. Bernie Siegel). Her latest work, The Great Truth: Shattering Life’s Most Insidious Lies That Sabotage Your Happiness Along With the Revelation of Life’s Sole Purpose is also endorsed by Dr. Bernie Siegel and NY Times bestselling author, Marci Shimoff.

A consultant to corporations including AT&T, U.S. Army, U.S. Postal Service and Hoffman-LaRoche, Janet is NJ State certified in domestic violence, an instructor at a battered women’s shelter and founder of The Antidote to Anger Group. She specializes in healing anger and conflict and creating inner peace.

Janet is a member of several speaker’s bureaus and professional networking organizations. She can be found on Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Referral Key and Pinterest. She writes a weekly blog and bi monthly online newsletter.

Janet@PfeifferPowerSeminars.com
www.PfeifferPowerSeminars.com
www.Anger911.net
www.FromGodWithLove.net

I completely disagree! And so should you if your goal is to feel better. One of my favorite things to do is talk to experts who know, see and help survivors overcome the effects of trauma posttraumatic stress. This week, my guest, Mr. Tom Cloyd, and I will discuss how possible it is to heal trauma and PTSD. As a clinician, Mr. Cloyd has a fantastic story, plus examples of success.

Tom and I covered such a wide array of topics in our quest to pin down whether or not trauma and PTSD are possible to heal, including:

• statistics on who heals + a discussion of why you will or won’t
• what makes your odds of success good
• 2 evidence-based treatment ideas, and what to do if they don’t work for you
• questions to ask a new therapist + how therapists screw up
• 1 test you can use to assess whether or not your recovery is working
• how trauma impacts identity

Clearly, there was a lot to cover – this is only a partial list!

MEET MY GUEST:

Tom Cloyd says: I specialize in psychotherapy of trauma and dissociative disorders. This necessarily means that I also do a lot of work with anxiety, depression, and couples-in-crisis. I use evidence-based, “best practices” approaches, and often use ego-state psychology to augment and facilitate these approaches. My focus is on treatment of adults, but I am experienced in treating adolescents and children as well. I have recently moved to Utah, and I will be re-opening my private practice in Cedar City & St. George in late Winter of 2013.

I have a particular interest in under-served and neglected populations affected by psychological trauma. I have identified what has to be the largest such population, found in every country in the world, and routinely ignored. They are all but invisible, and their neglect has grave consequences. I am presently designing an intervention demonstration program, to be implemented locally, where I live, to show that initiating a reversal of this problem is within the reach of most local areas, certainly in first world countries, and possibly in second and third world countries as well.

Formerly Director of Admissions at Pacific Gateway Hospital (Portland, Oregon), and Program Manager & County Designated Mental Health Professional (CDMHP) at Grant Mental Healthcare (Grand Coulee, Washington), I’ve also been a subcontracted mental health services provider to agencies on the Colville Indian Reservation (WA), the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation (ID), and the Lummi Indian Reservation (WA).

I am the founder/moderator of the EMDR Resource Cooperative Internet Discussion List (for professionals), and of the Google+ Trauma and Dissociation Education and Advocacy Community (https://plus.google.com/communities/106042234820400717450) and website (https://sites.google.com/site/tdadvoc/home). My professional website (http://www.tomcloyd.com) contains a number of my articles.

PROLOGUE

When you survive a life-threatening experience you become another person justlikethat. It happens in an instant. If it’s happened to you, you know exactly what I mean. One moment you are minding your own business, aware (or, if you’re a child like I was, vaguely aware) of who you are and what it means to be you – and then, Wham!, all of a sudden that self is gone. That self is who you were ‘Before’. Suddenly, it is ‘After’ and a new self exists. Of course, it’s natural for an identity to evolve. People change all the time without distress from newborns to infants to toddlers to children to adolescents to adults. It’s a gradual progression through stages. Changes occur slowly; they do not occur justlikethat.

For survivors of abuse, violence, accidents, natural disasters and combat, however, things change quickly. In a matter of moments, everything that ever felt safe, familiar, secure and normal disintegrates, to be replaced by a world that is dangerous, unpredictable, hostile and untrustworthy. The self that understood its surroundings and its place in them is suddenly thrown into question. A new figure takes control, one that is full of fear, anxiety, distrust, chaos and confusion. Many survivors go through this process and not long afterward emerge with strength and resilience. Many let go of the past, live in the present and look toward the future. I am not one of those survivors.

I was thirteen years old when I lived through an illness so rare none of my doctors had ever seen a case. For the following twenty-five years I was always looking over my shoulder, trying to go back to who I was Before, trying to make sure I was safe After. I survived in the present by being able to see what happened in the past. I verified, understood, marked consequences, guaranteed history did not repeat itself. I kept panic at bay by remaining alert. And all the while, I searched for a way to make the whole experience meaningful.

Instead of succeeding, I descended into deep depressions. I contained an enormous rage. I suffered recurring nightmares, occasional flashbacks and nightly insomnia. I existed in a state of emotional numbness, hyperarousal and hypervigilance. I avoided anything that reminded me of what I had survived. I found it difficult to concentrate. I had trouble remembering simple things. In order to relieve the enormous stress I grinned and screamed and gritted my teeth. I cried and talked and howled. I sank into silence. I saw therapists, healers, Chinese doctors, a slew of Western medicine specialists, or: I refused all medical attention. I went out every night of the week, or I collapsed into a hermetic existence. I quit or was fired from eleven jobs in five industries in thirteen years because I was unable to decide what I wanted to spend my life doing and because sometimes, I just wasn’t functional enough to work. I refused to love, and then knowingly chose to love the wrong man. In order to purge myself of the stain of one life-altering experience I swung along a pendulum of extremes. Traditional therapy and popular alternative techniques didn’t free me. I vacillated between feeling a little better and feeling a lot worse, going through the motions of a young woman’s life and suffering dire new inexplicable physical ailments or complete emotional meltdowns.

And then something in me snapped. Or, something decided it desperately wanted to be free. Finally, I couldn’t bear to live in the Before/After gap. I decided to haul myself out. It all began with the need to put into some chronological order the many fragments I carried of my past. I wanted to understand what had happened to me, plus how I had become the lost woman I was. When I started writing this book I was physically debilitated by stress symptoms and in a dark fog of emotional and mental disturbance. As I wrote, however, circumstances began to change. This is the story of how I finally found freedom from horrific memories, terror, fear, anxiety, chaos, confusion and powerlessness. This is the story of how I found myself ‘Now’, and the very unexpected way it happened.

This week, my guests were Brian Harvey and George Carpenter. Brian has had the extraordinary benefit of using this brain technology to help find the proper medications to treat his Bipolar disorder. George Carpenter is the CEO of CNS Response, the supplier of the brain scan. George will discuss how this breakthrough has the potential to help ten of thousands of people by eliminating the guesswork in diagnosis and treatment.

The following is a link to a recent interview with both Brian Harvey and George Carpenter discussing this technology, Fox News.

MEET MY GUESTS:

George Carpenter is a results-oriented executive with a passion for leading high growth and turnaround companies. As President and Chief Executive Officer of CNS Response, Inc., George is leading the commercialization of the company’s patented Referenced-EEG technology. Before joining CNS Response Inc., George ran WorkWell Systems Inc., an international physical medicine firm and 2004 winner of the ABL Innovation in Healthcare Award. From 1990 to 2002, George served as Chairman and CEO of CORE, Inc., (Nasdaq: CORE) after leading the management buyout of this division of Baxter Healthcare. A finalist in the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year program, Carpenter led CORE to a record of clinical software innovation and business development that, in the words of one Wall Street analyst, “created an industry”. CORE was acquired in 2001 by Assurant Inc. George was a Vice President of Operations with Baxter Healthcare before founding CORE. His career began at Inland Steel in manufacturing process control and Sales. Serving on various biomedical advisory and fiduciary boards, he is a frequent speaker and writer on healthcare technology and financing issues. His book “The Shape of Things” (LRP Publications, 2006) focused on the neurochemistry of obesity and its impact on the American workforce. He holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago and a BA with Distinction in International Policy & Law from Dartmouth College.

Although the new manager was completely qualified and exemplified extraordinary leadership skills, the project stalled. Employees resisted completing even the simplest tasks and tension was extreme. As a result, the project wasn’t completed within scope, time, or budget. The overall project realized a significant financial loss to the company.

Workplace trauma, from bullying to tragic accidents, can happen in any organization. Businesses have to continue, but they’re run by human beings whose unaddressed emotions can negatively impact the bottomline. When events occur that cause stress your entire employee base can be affected. Having a specific plan to help employees process events can not only support and maintain the mental health of your organization but also strengthen productivity, moral and overall performance.

Devising a workplace trauma response plan must include the following seven basic key components:

Immediately Address the Event – Trauma can cause a forceful and unexpected change in both the culture of the company as a whole and in individual employees. Delay in recognizing the effects of the event causes a prolonged, costly and extended recovery timeframe.

Establish a Sense of Safety – Traumas challenge survivors’ views of the world and can decimate trust and feelings of control. Re-establishing these elements is critical to successfully moving forward after an event. Safety must be renegotiated in both the physical and emotional realms.

Acknowledge and Validate Employee Feelings – The most effective and efficient processing of challenging and traumatic events comes when employees feel safe to share what they think, feel and believe. Allowing them to be heard, understood and their point of view appreciated helps begin the process of regaining emotional balance.

Explain the Impact of Trauma – Trauma impacts people in different ways and on many levels. Educating employees about the biological, physiological, emotional, psychological and other impacts of trauma helps them understand their response and can lead to increased efficiency and efficacy in healing.

Offer Ideas for Recovery – People overcome trauma in a variety of ways individual to their personalities, past experiences and internal processes. Introduce employees to the idea of both traditional and alternative modalities so that they have a range of options from which to choose a path that appropriately resonates with their persona.

Create an Open Door Policy – Allow employees to know that there is no time limit for seeking help to process feelings, thoughts and reactions. Everyone processes trauma at individual rates and should feel comfortable asking for support one week and even one month or more months after the event.

Ask for Employee Feedback – Your employees are a terrific source of knowing what they need, where they are struggling, why they are behaving in a certain way, and how the aftermath of trauma is affecting their workplace social and professional activities. Encourage them to offer insights to develop a post-trauma plan that engenders a sense of community in the healing process.

Given the right tools, focus, time, attention and skills the mind can be very resilient in processing trauma. In order to keep intact your organization’s long-term productivity trauma must be effectively addressed in the short-term. In the face of a traumatic event employees often experience a sense of powerlessness. Implementing these seven tools offers a base for them to shift back into a powerful mindset that will allow them to resume work at an optimal level of functioning.

This week I chatted with Dr. David Biro about how to break through the silent wall of suffering— both physical and psychological. A doctor who has also been a patient (he’s a cancer survivor) Dr. Biro explained how language can actually alleviate the loneliness of pain, plus how you can begin that journey.

In addition we covered:

• What causes pain to become a barrier
• How isolation increases pain
• The importance of expressing pain
• 3 top tips for how you can better express pain

MEET MY GUEST:

David Biro has a medical degree from Columbia University and a doctorate in English Literature from Oxford University. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Dermatology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. He also teaches in the medical humanities division there, directing a course on medicine and literature.

Dr. Biro’s first book, One Hundred Days: My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient (Pantheon, January 2000), chronicles his experience undergoing a bone marrow transplant for a rare blood disorder. Last year, his second book was released, The Language of Pain: Finding Words,Compassion, and Relief (W.W. Norton, 2010). His articles and essays have been published in various medical journals as well as The New York Times Magazine, The London Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Slate. He currently blogs on pain for Psychology Today. His latest project is a novel.

Biofeedback is method that trains you to improve your health by better controlling bodily processes that happen involuntarily. This includes heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, skin temperature, etc. Biofeedback works by attaching electrodes to your skin that measure these processes and show them on a monitor that lets you learn how your direct actions can impact how these functions alter. For example, you can learn to change your heart rate or blood pressure.

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the variation of time between your heartbeats, which can increase or decrease in response to stress.

Hypnosis is an altered state of focus that allows you to bypass the critical mind and directly the subconscious mind, which holds all of your memories and beliefs and drives 100% of your behavior. It is a relaxed yet focused state that promotes accelerated human change through a scientifically verified and effective technique. “Your subconscious is listening all the time,” Minsk said, so it’s important to phrase things appropriately to help your mind perceive, believe and behave in ways that support your forward progress. Trauma survivors are ‘excellent’ candidates for hypnosis, especially because they have very active imaginations and because the process of dissociation (often used when surviving trauma) lays the groundwork for easily putting yourself into the altered state.

When you put these three components together, Intemann and Minsk suggest that biofeedback, which can help you affect your HRV, can be used as a simple induction to hypnosis. Meaning, focusing on shifting your body processes can help you ease into a state of altered focus in which meaningful recovery work can be done. The presenters suggested that this can be particularly effective for people who have trouble relaxing or are particularly analytical/critical, Type A personality. The implication applies to in survivors who are extremely hyper-vigilant.

Benefits coming from this combination of techniques include:

• increased self-regulation
• acceleration of progress
• minimization of triggers/aggravators
• installed anchors for positive thoughts + calming images
• enhancement of internal locus for control

When used in the counseling session, the combination of techniques can reinforce coping skills, emphasize strengths, empower, increase self-esteem, enable processing of incidents through systematic desensitization, regression and posthypnotic suggestions.

Intemann and Minsk also suggested the following process when working on your own:

With HRV biofeedback software you can hypnotize yourself, which can lead to your ability to calm yourself down. When you relax and pull attention inward HRV biofeedback can be helpful in determining your depth of trance. It’s also a good training tool for inward focus and self-regulation. (It’s being very effectively used to retrain veterans traumatized by war.)

The benefits of using biofeedback to retrain your brain is its ability to train you to control the impact of your thoughts on your feelings. You can learn to be in control of your mind and sensations through immediate feedback on how you’re doing.

My favorite comment from Minsk: “Posttraumatic growth comes from responding vs. reacting to emotions…. Posttraumatic growth is more prevalent than PTSD.”

So often we focus on the pain of post-trauma and the recovery process. Always good to remember that the positive side is more likely and that with a little practice, some brain training and other intervention techniques you can find ways to move forward into a life of freedom.

]]> http://www.changeyouchoose.com/biofeedback-hrv-and-hypnosis/feed/ 0 http://www.changeyouchoose.com/samplesunday-courage-is-a-choice/ http://www.changeyouchoose.com/samplesunday-courage-is-a-choice/#comments Sat, 02 Mar 2013 18:00:46 +0000 Michele http://www.changeyouchoose.com/?p=4984 Read More]]> You always hear me say, “We don’t heal in isolation; we heal in community.” Naturally, that means I’d be sharing excerpts from BEFORE THE WORLD INTRUDED (also available on Kindle)as part of the weekly #SampleSunday event on Twitter!

Courage Is a Choice

Although I never told anyone, there was one experience during my illness that haunted me more than any other. It was the reason for my silence, my severed selves, my chaos, fear, and confusion. It was the reason I kept looking back, and also why I could not move forward. More than the others, I couldn’t let this enormous memory go.

By the tenth day in the hospital, we had a routine: Three times a day a team of nurses arrived to turn me over. I was rolled from my back to my side and onto my back again after the wounds and the bed had been cleaned. When my skin adhered to the plastic sheet, syringes of water were squirted along the base of the connection in order to loosen the bond between skin and plastic. Sometimes the body reclaimed the flesh; other times, the bed refused to relinquish its hold.

When we first began these procedures, I was stoic and brave. I gnashed my teeth. I cried. I felt the pain, refuted it, refused it. I accepted the challenge without any idea the pain would be victorious.

And then, one day, it was.

The procedure began normally enough. My entire back and right leg adhered to the bed. It was slow going with the water, and it wasn’t working. Each spot pried from the bed ripped off the skin. In a torrent of shrieks and tears and screams, I begged for the process to be halted. I approached a place of pain beyond where I had ever been, one that made me feel a frenzy of insanity. For the first time I thought I might not have the capacity to endure. The procedure continued, the pain increased, and then, in one of those moments of unexpected, unreal clarity, the thought suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t have to endure. I had a choice.

The connection between my body and me suddenly severed.

I felt a creeping sensation of peace. The procedure continued, but I no longer cared about the body’s limbs or bones, its tearing flesh, its bleeding sores. I no longer worried about its lips that sprayed a fountain of blood, or the hands clawing each other to scratch the itch of ruptured skin, or the back welded to the mattress. The pain continued but it was no longer mine.

And then I knew I had an even bigger choice: I was not required to survive. I could free myself by choosing not to fight for my life. I could choose to surrender. I could let myself die.

My body relaxed completely. All energy seemed to flow one way down my arms and legs and out of the limbs entirely. Then I felt myself rising upward, out of my body. There I lay, long, lean, and naked in the bed, and here I was, light, buoyant, and free in the air above me, aware of the body below yet mesmerized by the pull of a dark tunnel near the ceiling. The darkness seemed to stretch infinitely before me and was ringed with a bright, white light.

In a state of utter peace, I followed the impulse to float into the tunnel’s center. There were no angels or people from my past. Previous events didn’t flash before me. There was only the promise of release and relief. And also, there was this: a heightened consciousness of Me, of a Self existing separately from the body, and the sudden knowledge that living isn’t necessarily a function of the body so much as it is an experience of the mind and the mind is energy and energy is indestructible and energy can take many forms and even separated from the body that energy exists.

As I moved deeper into the tunnel, I no longer felt the weight of my limbs or the sensation of pain. I accepted this was the end. More than that, I sought its salvation and peace. I glided toward some other place that exuded tranquility; in which I felt strong and invincible; in which I felt awake and aware and filled with an incredible amount of my own energy and self-consciousness and power. I was hyperaware of my own unearthly existence. Not only that, I was completely at ease and in love with it. My self in the tunnel was incredibly large and vast and boundless. It was tremendous and I loved it. Apart from my body I became completely, surprisingly aware that at that very separate moment, I was more strong, more powerful, more omniscient and omnipresent than I had ever been or imagined I could be.

I loved this feeling. I embraced it and felt safe within it. I never wanted it to end. Instead, I wanted to feel this energy more and more. I wanted to expand within it, to live in this state of bliss and freedom. To end the nightmare and let a new dream begin. I wanted to go further into the tunnel and felt myself moving toward there.
And then I remembered my parents, who were working so hard on my behalf. I couldn’t just leave them without a word. I paused in my move toward the darkness. I forced myself back down into my body and the light just far enough to call out to my parents and say,
I love you.
Thank you.
I’m dying.
If I’d taken time to think about their response, I would have assumed my parents would beg me to hang on. I would have expected them to cry and tell me I could make it, to try, for them. But I didn’t think about what they would say. It didn’t seem a possibility that I would live. I was already half gone, and there was nothing anyone could say that would make me give up the peace toward which I was moving, that would make me pledge allegiance again to a body in which I had felt so trapped and betrayed and in pain.
In the sudden silent stillness of the room, as the nurses froze, as my father stood stock-still, my mother didn’t miss a beat. In a soft Southern drawl that surfaces only when she’s very, very tired, she said, “Michele, nobody dying makes this amount of noise.”

Her face didn’t register fear or sadness. My mother spoke as if she were merely stating a fact. As if she’d just answered my impending doom with a discussion of what to have for dinner. I was announcing something tragic and she just rolled over it with another wave of logic.

I paused for a second to stare at her. She remained unperturbed, the epitome of the mother I have always recognized. I may have felt altered by pain, but she remained steadfast, able to joke, full of clarity.

The ridiculousness of what she said in light of what I was experiencing struck me as funny. Somewhere inside, a flutter began. A ludicrous wiggle of mirth traveled up from my stomach, through my swollen and sore throat, until it sprang from my mouth as a choked laugh. Once the passage had been opened, full-fledged laughter followed. Sure, it was delirious but it was life-affirming. It reconnected me with my body. It provided a bond to the world that gained strength with every second that I, and then my mother and father, and then the nurses, all broke up laughing.

We laughed too uncontrollably for too long. Sometime during the act of laughing my attachment to that transcendental place severed. I landed fully back in my body with a resounding psychological thud. The tunnel evaporated. The spell was broken.

My mother leaned in close and said, “Now look here, you will not die. You will live through this.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“It’s too painful.”
“You can do it.”
“I don’t have the strength.”
“You do. You just have to find it. Right this minute, you go down further, further into yourself than you’ve ever been, and you find the strength to pull yourself through.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Courage is a choice, Michele. Make it.”

My mother’s eyes were big and black and unrelenting. There was no way to disobey her.
I closed my eyes.
I sank into my body.
I went in search of my strength.

·         Being proud of who you are
·         Getting consistent good sleep

I know I do both and it makes a huge difference!

First, HealthyPlace.com founder, Gary Koplin, and I talked about the “Stand Up For Mental” healthy campaign, his latest effort to build community and education in the field of mental health. Over 46 million Americans struggling with mental illness. Gary made the terrific point that no other group in history has continued to allow themselves to be discriminated against or marginalized; it’s time for all of us to stand up and create a revolution in the perception of mental health.

Then, PathToGrowth.com founder, Keri Nola, joined me with some fantastic tips for more restful, peaceful sleep including these cool techniques you can start using tonight:

• The Parts Recall
• The Burden Basket
• The Brain Dump
• Intentional bathing
• Affirmations (including in-process statements)
• Creating a sacred sleep space

After listening to this show you’ll want to stand up and lie down all at once!

MEET MY GUESTS:

Gary Koplin is the Founder and President of HealthyPlace.com: America’s Mental Health Channel, the largest consumer mental health website reaching over 1 million visitors a month. This award-winning site has been on the Internet since 2000 and provides comprehensive, trusted mental health information and support to people with mental health conditions as well as their loved ones. In addition to over 12,000 pages of written content, HealthyPlace is home to a team of award-winning mental health bloggers, an online tv and radio show, psychological tests and the newly launched anti-stigma campaign, “Stand Up for Mental Health”.

Gary is responsible for the day-to-day operations of HealthyPlace. He is a former broadcast journalist and a successful entrepreneur. Gary was the founder of Concerned Counseling, one of the first significant online mental health counseling websites. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a BS in journalism. He and his family reside in San Antonio, Texas.

Keri Nola is a highly regarded Psychotherapist, Author, and Founder of Path To Growth, LLC, an integrative healing center based in Central Florida. She combines traditional and holistic techniques to create products and experiences that support people in accessing their inner wisdom and creating healthy minds, bodies, and spirits after trauma. Her real life experience paired with her extensive education and work background makes her a compassionate, balanced, and sought-after professional in the areas complex trauma and grief recovery. For more information, visit www.pathtogrowth.com, join Keri on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/pathtogrowth and follow her on twitter @PathToGrowth

One Pink Pill

We returned to Scarsdale from our Western vacation and settled back into New York life. I spent days at the municipal pool with my friends rating our efforts on the high dive. We visited each other’s houses and planned how to restyle our hair for the start of school in a month. The summer was lazily moving toward its conclusion when I felt the familiar twinge and burn of a bladder infection. My pediatrician was on vacation, so we met with the covering doctor. He listened to my complaints, took a culture, confirmed the infection, and prescribed the antibiotic Septra. Each morning I took the large pink pill with a big glass of cranberry juice and waited for things to get better.

But things didn’t get better. Within a few days of taking the first pill I was lethargic, tired and had an overwhelming sense of something not being right in my body. A migraine headache settled into residence. Soon, my eyes became completely bloodshot and sensitive to light. We went back to the doctor. He sent us back home. When the symptoms worsened, we made the rounds to other doctors: allergists and dermatologists and opthalmalogists. My mother asked about the large pink pill. Nothing to worry about, everyone told her. Your daughter has a virus; that’s all. Go home, they all agreed. Get some sleep.

After six days of this, two things happened: a rash erupted all over my body and two tiny blisters appeared on my bottom lip. That night, my body too itchy and my head too painful for sleep, I lay in bed in my darkened room. My mother bathed me in cool baths and laid chilled washcloths all over my torso and limbs. I listened to the summer sounds of our suburban neighborhood, to the children playing in the street, to the cicadas whirring in the humid August air. My mother wanted to spend the night in my room but I was restless and agitated and somewhere around 2am asked her to leave. Minute by painful minute I watched the early morning hours flip by on the illuminated clock beside my bed. I did not sleep at all.

Immediately the next morning my parents took me back to the covering pediatrician. We showed him the small bubbles on my mouth. We showed him the rash. We told him I hadn’t slept. We told him I was in pain. We asked for help and waited for him to offer up a diagnosis. He examined me and then we were ushered into his office, where he sat surrounded by brown leather and oak.

Hands clasped on top of his large, paper-filled desk, he surveyed us in silence.
Finally he shrugged, shook his head, and said, “I don’t know what this is.”
We stared at him in disbelief.
“I think you have two choices,” he continued. “We can wait and see how things develop over the next couple of days, or you can go to the hospital today.”

I’m sure he said more than that. I’m sure there was a medical discussion I don’t remember because the word hospital escaped into the air like a powerful fume and I didn’t hear anything after that. I realized something might be seriously wrong and way beyond the realm of family pediatrics. I realized I was not completely safe. Maybe I don’t recall the rest of the doctor’s conversation because I was lost in the chaos forming in my own head, the phrase “I don’t know” beginning the slow unraveling of order.

The office where we sat was dark and frightening and depressing. Outside the windows, however, it was a bright, sunny August morning—my favorite time of year in my favorite season, when the smell of the bushes on our front lawn perfumed the entire neighborhood. Outside that blue and white medical building on Central Avenue in Hartsdale, New York, the sky was bright aqua, shiny, nearly cloudless. Traffic sped by. Birds sang. Children everywhere enjoyed the final days of summer vacation.

After a moment of drifting along in the implications of this doctor’s impotence, I pressed my back firmly into the chair. I had watched my parents remain calm in the face of other crises; I knew what to do. Keep your breath even. Deal with the moment. Don’t speculate on the future. Most of all, hold yourself together in body and mind so the right decisions can be made. I didn’t feel actively frightened. Instead, I felt an unnatural calm. I understood that my parents and I were essentially without guidance.
My focus receded from the room. It was clear which of the doctor’s choices to pick.

Within two hours my parents, Bret and I were cruising along the Cross County Parkway toward New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. I was admitted but no doctor could figure out what was wrong. It wasn’t until the end of the day, when a young, high-profile dermatologist came onto the case that anyone began to suspect I might be having a very rare allergic reaction to the antibiotic I was taking for the bladder infection.

A tall, imposing figure with a sharp stare, loud voice, and boisterous laugh, Dr. Marc Grossman had wiry brown hair that framed a large face with large features. While he cheerfully admitted he’d never seen a case of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS), he thought I fit the profile for this unusual illness. “Stevens-Johnson Syndrome is so rare it affects only one in 2 million people. Recently, I read an article about it and I think…. I think that might be what’s happening here.
There’s not much we’re going to be able to do to help you. But we’ll do our best to make you comfortable as the illness takes its course. Your body is going to get rid of the medication by sending it out through your skin.”

We felt a little bit of security in the way Dr. Grossman’s body language filled up the room, the way his self-confidence overshadowed the collective ignorance of the other doctors who remained baffled. Dr. Grossman gave us a name for the pain. In return we gave him our undivided allegiance and attention.
“The first thing to do,” he said, “is stop taking those pink pills.”

Soon, blisters began forming all over my body and the doctor warned us to be prepared. “Things’ll get worse before they get better!” he announced each day when we told him of some frightening new development. The staff remained woefully behind in predicting or slowing the illness’s progression. Ultimately, my parents became the primary managers of my care. My mother directed the staff and devised creative ways to get things done. To move me from one position to another, or from one bed to another, my mother was always the one figuring out how to do the impossible with the least amount of pain. Meanwhile, my father corralled doctors, located medications, and tracked down informational leads. My parents didn’t panic. They didn’t cry. They didn’t wail, moan, carry on, or wring their hands—at least not in front of me. Instead, they got to work and became my advocates and nurses, the cheerleaders whose voices would guide my way.

My mother set up a cot in my room so she could sleep beside my bed. That first night my father went home, but on the second night Bret moved into a friend’s house and my father set up a second cot beside my mother. I was taking massive doses of Prednisone and Benadryl in an attempt to stop the allergy from escalating. My parents met with doctors and hired nurses to care for me around the clock. Specialists from all over the hospital came to examine me.

I lay in bed with my eyes closed. The headache had become so intense that even the smallest noise was too much. My father bought a little white clock radio with a neon blue display and put it on the metal shelf above my bed. The idea was that music would soothe and distract me, but the sound of drums and synthesizers and voices straining through the tiny speaker was too much for me to bear.

The blisters on my lips and torso continued to develop, but they were small, the size of chicken pox, an illness of which I had fond memories since Bret and I had had it together and spent most of our days driving Mom crazy by jumping on the beds and blowing up balloons we let fly around the room as we doubled over with laughter.
I lay in my hospital bed thinking these little blisters and this big headache were as bad as things would get. I was wrong.