I just saw two weeks ago Brene Brown talking with Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday about shame and guilt, and I wrote the piece below some time ago, but it just felt right to share it now. On the show, Brene Brown talked about how shame is lethal and deadly, and the less you talk about it, the more you got it. Shame, as Brown describes it, is an "intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging." Shame destroys your life. Shame is the lowest energy of the universe and it drags you to the very bottom of the abyss. That's why you've got to speak your shame, because shame can't survive empathy. However, she warns to be careful who you share your shame with. You want to find a person who will love you for your shame, for your weaknesses, frailties, and the darkness you hold within. You only share your story with people who've earned the right to hear your story, who understand the pain, and who look beyond to see the beauty that is inherently you.
I share this piece that I wrote because I felt it was the right time to share my own shadow, the things that I was guilty of, ashamed, and which filled me with such self-loathing. This self-evaluation is part of the work that I ask clients to do in part II of my 12 session program, and it is the very same process I used to unlock myself from the past. Friends, I'm not asking you to do anything that I haven't already done. I've gone down there, I dug deep, and I unearthed all that had troubled me and my mind for all my life, and brought the light to the darkness. We often wonder what that work is really like. Well, this piece will show you what it was like for me, what it really entailed. Sometimes it's messy. Sometimes it's ugly and painful. And sometimes, it's uncomfortable, because I was going into some extremely vulnerable territory. And yet, we are only as liberated as the secrets we tell. I'm going to tell you many of my secrets and past sufferings. I hope it inspires you to be able to look within at your own shadow, confront it with compassion and love, and learn one of the steps as to how one is able to overcome their past. You must learn how to make peace with your past, so that it doesn't destroy your present and future happiness. What will happen is, as you do this work, the past let's go of you.
One last thing. This blog is being read by people from all over the world. Here's a list of the countries: United States; Germany; United Kingdom; Russia; India; France; Belgium; Czech Republic; Ireland; Ukraine; South Korea; Pakistan; Poland; Israel; Canada; and Australia. I am so blessed and honored by all those many people who've read my words. It also brings me a greater awareness of the problem with PTSD. This is not an "American" problem; this is a world problem. PTSD has no religion, no creed, no allegiances to countries. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, and I sincerely hope to all those who've read this blog, that in some way my writings have helped you. As I get my program out to the world, it is my deepest desire that it will heal you from the effects of PTSD no matter where you live or how you got it. As you read the piece below, remember, my spiritual foundation for the program is grounded in the principles of Gandhi (non-violence) and A Course in Miracles. I re-built my belief system based on the text and workbook of ACIM. For those of you around the world who do not follow this particular spiritual practice, the program still works for you. Truth has no religion. Thus, when one hears the truth, no matter where it came from, our souls know it. It bridges cultural divides, customs, traditions, and all religious doctrines. There are many roads to the truth, and this is the path that resonated with me. This is the baseline of the program. It will never fall below this line of universal spiritual truth. That said, it may not resonate with you. That's fine. If you decide to work with me or take the program when it becomes online, we will fashion something that is workable for the spiritual traditions you come from. It's about your healing, not mine. I've healed this, and this program came about from my years long work. As long as the spiritual principles with which you re-build your own belief system are rooted and based in love, forgiveness, non-violence, and peace, universal spiritual truths found in all the major religious doctrines around the world throughout time, this program will work for you.
Here's the piece I wrote (22 Jun 2012):
Judgement, Guilt, and the Belief in Sin
Am I a judgmental person? I have been, although, if you would have asked me this question a few weeks ago, I might have avoided the self-honesty required to examine this process within me. I probably would have blamed outside factors and influences that caused me to judge someone or some occurrence the way I did, but that, had those things not occurred, I would have remained neutral or at peace. Perhaps I would have even denied I am judgmental, that I look on all things equally and without judgment, seeing things only as they are in reality. Perhaps this is how I want to see myself, this is my ideal, and yet, with closer inspection, deeply embedded within me is a harsh critic who has been merciless to me, exploited my perceived 'failures', and held me down at the mercy of the world. This essay is intended to understand why this is true; where did it originate within me; what effects has it produced in my life; and most importantly, why I no longer see it as true and the value system I will use to replace the old one.
Last week, I looked at the statement that irritated me. It was as follows: 'Someone who has lots of money and doesn't use some of it to help those in need.' In this statement I've made two judgments: 1. People who have money should spend some of it to help those in need. If they don't, I look at them harshly - as selfish, uncaring people who could do more to help but chose not to, and this I look down upon. By doing this, I have made me superior and these 'others' inferior. If I had money, I would do this, and therefore, I am superior to them, in my mind. I have judged them as 'less' than me. But, there is a second judgment in there directed towards me and that is: 2. I judge against myself because they have something that I want (money, wealth, and abundance) and because I don't have it, I'm angry, and therefore, must find fault with those who do in order to make myself feel better and look better in my eyes. Their success and wealth upsets me because my life does not reflect that, and thus, my judgment is a mask over the anger I feel towards myself, the wound I have for not having met with success and wealth in my life through my endeavors.
In A Course in Miracles (ACIM) (Chapter 3, Section VIII Judgment and the Authority Problem) it states: "When the Bible says "Judge not that ye be not judged." it merely means that if you judge the reality of others at all, you will be unable to avoid judging your own. The choice to judge rather than to know was the cause of the loss of peace. Judgment is the process on which perception, but not cognition, rests." When I have judged others, I am really judging against myself, and I have found myself wanting. ACIM goes on to say, "Judgment always involves rejection...what has been perceived and rejected - or judged and found wanting - remains in the unconscious because it has been perceived. One of the illusions from which man suffers is the belief that what he judged against has no effect. This cannot be true unless he also believes that what he judged against does not exist. He evidently does not believe this, or he would not have judged against it." In essence, I have rejected the parts of me I have found wanting - because I presently do not have the wealth and prosperity in my life I desire, I project my lack or failure onto others who do, and condemn it in some way or form, and thus, I prevent it, block, the very thing I want from entering my life. It keeps it at bay, and thus, I get to hold onto my illusion that I am a failure in life. And why am I a failure? Because I must have done something so horribly wrong in my past that God, the Universe, has judged against me, I am guilty of sin, and therefore, deserving of punishment. And this is my punishment: to watch others have what I want, while I must serve my sentence until God's grace grants me a reprieve from the things I had done. Until then, suffer I must.
Allen Watson, who works for the Circle of Atonement, wrote a beautiful article titled 'Why Do We Judge People?' In it, he states, "Judgment is innately, and fairly obviously, an act of playing God. When we don our robe, take up our gavel, and sit in the judgment seat, we have taken God's place. Reality is now up to us." By judging so harshly against myself, I have usurped God's authority, and made myself the author of my life. When I judge others, for whatever reason, I end up feeling guilty, and then, I turn my outward rage and indignation upon myself, and I have been unmerciful towards me and my 'sins'. In my position as author of my life, I have overvalued and overestimated my failures and undervalued and underestimated my successes as my identity. Why did I do this? I judged by keeping me focused on my failures and my guilt, this would keep me humble and penitent, while a focus on my successes could lead to arrogance, pride, and an over-inflated ego. God, Life, would punish me for my pride, and I did not want to offend Him. But, what I ended up doing while seated there in the Seat of Judgment was make guilt, shame, and sin idols that my ego secretly worshiped. My guilt was excessive and debilitating, paralyzed me from moving forward, and kept me in a constant state of regret and remorse. It was really a disguised form of egotism, the very thing I was so afraid of becoming by over-inflating my successes. David Hawkins describes this form of guilt very well in his book Transcending the Levels of Consciousness. He writes, "Excessive guilt and remorse are a disguised form of egotism in which the self becomes blown up, exaggerated, and the hero of the tragedy, the negativity of which feeds the ego. Therefore, release from guilt requires surrender of this basic egotism because the ego re-energizes itself through the negativity." (p.52). I was a guilt-ridden sinner who was addicted to guilt and sin, and my ego was strengthened and fortified in its position of authority by this idea.
Where did this idea originate? Why would I adopt a value system that over time would judge me so harshly and cruelly that I felt I was unworthy, unlovable, and undeserving of the joys of this world, much less salvation? That my actions and behaviors were unforgivable, irredeemable, and beyond hope? Well, it began very innocently. I was brought up Catholic, and guilt is a binding principle that guides many of the Church's doctrines. I'm not going to blame the Church though. A healthy form of guilt can be used as a learning tool to teach someone how to live a better life when looked at as an error, so as not to repeat the same mistake again. I am responsible for my excessive attraction to guilt and sin, not the Church. Nonetheless, I learned that man was guilty of 'original sin' and that the only way he could be redeemed was through God's Grace and living a good life and doing good works. All very noble, but not practical, in the sense that we are human beings, and because of our imperfect nature, chances are, through the course of one's life, one was apt to make mistakes, which of course I did. However, instead of using my mistakes as lessons to be learned, I (because I so wanted to be perfect and unsullied - I had actually asked the priest one time during confession how I could become a saint, and even wanted to become the 1st American Pope), started to wallow in my guilt and never let it go. It became habitual, unconscious, and self-indulgent. And the more failures I had in my life only increased in direct proportion my self-indulgence in guilt and shame. As I look back on my life, a pattern shows itself in which I've been self-indulgent by wallowing in excessive guilt. Guilt, like chocolate, has been my spiritual indulgence.
Where has this indulgence been reflected in my life? There are two areas where I have judged myself a failure in life - my failure with women (which represents love) and my failure to achieve success (which represents power in this world). In regards to women, I was considered the 'nice' guy, I felt very uncomfortable around them, couldn't talk to them, and because of my insecurities within myself, I didn't have much success in having relationships with women. I felt like I was unattractive and undesirable to women because I was too nice, so, to change my luck, I went 'bad', became the party guy, had wild parties, did lots of drugs, because I wanted the girls other guys had, and I convinced myself that I had to change who I was in order to attract them. It worked for awhile, but I was so filled with guilt for what I'd done and become, and I still didn't have the woman I wanted, and the results were the same - now the girls didn't want to be with me because I was the party guy. I was so desperate to feel love from a woman that I turned to prostitutes to get any kind of physical contact and affection, but this only made matters worse because I was filled with so much self-hatred, guilt, and shame for what I'd done to myself. Then, I'd look back at the girls I did pass up who liked me but at the time I wouldn't give the time of day to because I was looking for these wild women, which only made me feel more guilty because now I could see that I had passed up on what was more substantive than what I'd been chasing after. 'You could've had _______!' my judge would say, and yet it was this same judge, my ego, who got me into this mess in the first place. When I met Angela (her name is changed) for the first time, I was in a place where my past didn't exist and I could be and act like I wanted to be and act, and for the first time, I felt real love. And yet, I felt God wanted to punish me for my licentious behavior of my past by preventing the two of us from having children, and thus, I judged myself harshly once again. There's no reason to go over the relationship I had with her (I wrote a separate essay on the experience of my relationship), but when she left abruptly, there's no question I felt I had failed at love. I judged me a failure. So much second guessing and what if's, my mind was a living hell and tormented me relentlessly with memories and images from our past.
The other area where I have judged and condemned myself is in my failure to achieve success and power in the world. I started off fine, graduated from a prestigious university, the US Air Force Academy, and was well on my way to achieving success. However, because I was dissatisfied with my life, (I felt like I was wasting my life away, and my life had lost all meaning and hope), I turned to drugs as a coping mechanism to escape the dullness of my life, and the lack of love. The guilt I felt for doing so, though, compelled me to confess my 'sins' to the authorities (Air Force OSI - Office of Special Investigations). As an unintended consequence, although I was finally getting the help I needed, they sought to prosecute me for conduct unbecoming of an officer, and had they been able to corroborate the confession I made with witness accounts or physical evidence during their investigation, there's a good chance I'd have gone to Leavenworth. Instead, I was dismissed from the Air Force with a misconduct charge, and an Under Other Than Honorable Conditions discharge. I had brought about my own fall from grace. I had brought disgrace and shame to my family's name, and I could no longer pursue employment with companies associated with the Air Force. I remember being offered a part-time job for $60,000 when I first got out and started studying acting at the Stella Adler Academy of Acting, but they wouldn't hire me because of what happened. I had systematically and deliberately destroyed every opportunity available to me then outside of the Air Force, and I had no idea where to turn to next to support myself. My disgraced dismissal from the Air Force led to the greatest traumatic event in my family's life, the night when my parents found out. That night changed my life, and my family's life forever. We even labeled it as "The Event". It was the night my family was destroyed. It took ten years for it to complete its course, but that night changed everything, and I was the cause, I was responsible for the pain, the irreparable damage done, and I never fully recovered from that night. The guilt I felt was so deep and profound as the horrors of that night reverberated in my mind constantly. This night affected every choice I made, every decision I made, both consciously and unconsciously, for the next 12 years. The 12 year odyssey to find my way back home through PTSD began.
I refused to go back to Denver because I couldn't face the shame and disgrace I'd brought to my family, and so, my father, coming to the rescue, helped support me while I chartered a new path in the arts. I had failed my family, but more painfully, I'd failed myself. For several years, I engaged in many drug-induced activities to numb the pain of the guilt and shame I felt. I was a drug addict. It was the only way at that time for me to feel good. It was difficult to find sustainable employment during these 12 years as well, the cloud of the past hanging over me with every resume I'd send out. Not being able to support oneself in life is a terrible feeling, and I felt like an exile. My dependency grew as I trudged along, hoping acting would break through for me and I could live a better life, but any hopes I had were constantly met with disappointment. I felt powerless and helpless to the world around me and at its mercy. My inability to support myself and create any wealth complicated and put a strain on my former relationship, and I felt such shame because I couldn't or didn't know how to do more to improve our situation without drastically changing our circumstances, for instance, moving to Colorado and using my family connections to get a job. As I watched others start to accumulate wealth and achievement in their lives, I was riddled with guilt for the things I'd done, and judged myself a horrible failure as a man. I'd imprisoned myself in the mad house of sin, guilt, and shame - I, who wanted to be a saint as a child, was now evil, impure, and corrupted. I felt like a speck of dust, left to fend for myself, cut off from the source of life, cut off from love, cut off from my joy and happiness. My life reflected the judgments I'd made upon myself which I projected on to God and hated Him for abandoning me, and not giving me any hope for redemption. Angela, for awhile, offered that redemption, but when it fell apart, it brought me to my lowest point, and that's when I turned to God for help on bend-ed knee.
Before I move on, let me surmise some things that I am now aware of. I had judged myself as if God had already judged me. I passed the sentence of guilt before God could pass sentence on me. I usurped God's position, placed my ego as authority over myself, gave sentence, found myself guilty on multiple accounts over the years, and condemned myself to the just punishment God would have proclaimed on me if He had judged. I peremptorily made the decision before God could, thus showing God I knew I'd sinned, I wasn't running from them, and I was punishing myself accordingly. Perhaps I thought God would show mercy upon me when He finally did judge me for my sins because He witnessed how much I suffered and punished myself for the sins I committed. I was exacting the justice I thought I deserved for my unforgivable sins.
Why is this no longer true? I have come to learn through my studies of ACIM and other spiritual books that mind is the cause: the world of perception is the effect. By placing my ego as the Judge in my life, rather than God, I condemned myself for the 'sins' I made, which were really errors that needed to be corrected. Sin is actually an archery term which means 'you missed the mark.' By judging myself so harshly, my ego condemned me to hell, and then, tyrannized over me as I plodded through the suffering. My ego's goal was to strip me from my joy, and send me to my death. And, of course, I believed it's condemnations and recriminations, and guilt, shame, and self-hatred lorded over me. Well, I no longer believe I should live in hell while others get to experience bliss in their lives. ACIM says, "If guilt is hell, what is it's opposite?" Well, it's opposite must be the Son of God (we're all sons and daughters of God) is guiltless and in Heaven, which is where I want to be. I've suffered enough for my 'sins'(errors), whatever penance I thought I needed to pay, if it needed to be paid, has been, and then some. I will no longer allow myself to be secretly ruled by a tyrant who strengthens its hold upon me, and gets pleasure from, me wallowing in guilt, shame, and self-hatred for past mistakes. I have re-contextualized my errors to learn and grow from them, no longer to be unmercifully punished by them. I deserve to be happy, free, and in love with all things and all life. I recognize that some degree of remorse and regret over the past is inevitable, even healthy, as one can learn from one's mistakes in order to do better, and that human error is to be expected as I evolve, and others too. And I also recognize the world is better served and benefits from the wisdom I have gained through my experiences and not from the guilt, self-hatred, and shame I've used in the past to crucify myself to the cross. I'm off the cross now, resurrected, and better than ever before. I have grow in compassion and love for myself for choosing the path I did because I thought I lacked love and power. Underneath, was just someone who wanted to feel loved, appreciated, of value, and powerful. Because I saw those things outside of myself, I made choices and decisions based on this information (the information I had at the time), how I was feeling about myself, and how I perceived the world. Many of the decisions I made regarding drugs and women was because I saw love and happiness outside of me. I thought by changing my self-image, I would attract to me what I thought I lacked. That didn't quite happen the way I thought it would, and today, I have such love and compassion for this man who was just trying to find something he already had. Now, today, I feel very comfortable around women, I'm not intimidated, I have overcome the mother-destroyer principle with my gentle heart, and I am at ease and myself in their presence. Most importantly, I realize and know love is not outside of me, but who I am, and that knowledge allows me to come from a place of wholeness, instead of lack.
As far as success in this world is concerned, my power is now rooted in God, my Source, where it should always have been. I am not the author of my life, God is, and I gladly relinquish my ego's authority and give it back to Him. I will let God judge my life, not me, and let Him lead the way. It's amazing to me how much I was able to succeed in recent years in spite of the Judge/Critic in me who, like a scavenger dog, searched out all my 'sins' (errors), exploited them, and then punished me unmercifully. With God now in charge, all things are possible, and whatever problems I may have had in the past in regards to my career, money, wealth, and abundance, God will show me the way.
I am willing my salvation and redemption from the hell I made. I made it with my thoughts, and then I passed judgment on others who had what I wanted, and then, turned it around and condemned myself as unworthy and undeserving of these experiences because of my sins and subsequent guilt, shame, and self-hatred. The past is over, it can touch me not. The game of sin, guilt, shame, and self-hatred is over. At my core, the very core of my being, I know I am innocent and worthy of all the joys of this life and of Heaven.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Message from a Reader
I wanted to share with all of you a message sent to me from one of the reader's of this blog. It touched my heart and with her permission, I've reprinted the exact message for all of you to read.
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PTSD Article you did.
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PTSD Article you did.
Hi Charles,
I wanted to take a moment to commend you on your excellent description of the pain experienced after a sudden break-up like that.
I went through the exact same thing, and it was so excruciating that most of my friends didn't even know how to deal with how heart-broken I was.
My fiance dumped me out of the blue on my 21st birthday back in Oct 2003 but I will never forget how awful and painful it was. It's like the experience left a scar that can't be forgotten. I'm since over him, but anything that triggers a memory about it sometimes will still bring up emotions I've buried over time.
I know what you mean by not wishing it on anyone.
Thank you for shedding light on the experience so that more people understand.
Sincerely,
Mandy
Los Angeles, CA
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Thank you Mandy for taking the time to respond. I am so appreciative and grateful for the opportunity to connect with you, and I hope my blog has helped you and others on their path to healing from the wounds of their past pain and traumas.
PTSD takes many forms, and it's important to know that there are others out there who understand the debilitating and crippling effects PTSD has on the sufferer and how painful it is, and what treatment options are out there to help those recover their lives. More importantly, though, is to know that one can truly heal from this. You don't have to live with this pain and develop coping strategies just to get through each day. It can be healed.
I want to encourage others to write in as well. There may be others out there who are afraid to comment or to contact me, and I want you to know you are not alone. One of the goals in this blog and future website is to create a forum where people can interact with others and engage in relevant topics particular to their form of PTSD, and have a resource, a community, and a home to go to where they feel safe and know that they are cared for. Simply by knowing others have gone through the same thing, or something similar, allows others to open up their own wounds in a place where they feel safe, which is what I want to create for people, a safe place where they can be felt, and together, help heal each other from the wounds of the past.
If sending in your comments on a public platform is not comfortable for you, and you still would like to comment, please send it to my email at charlespacello@gmail.com. I will keep all comments confidential and between us, unless it is something we agree to publish through my name, while keeping your identity secure and private. I totally understand the need to keep these things private, these are painful memories that we often don't want even our closest friends or loved ones to know about, and I promise I would never violate the sacredness of the honor you've given me by sharing with me your story. You have my word. I want to help you heal from this in any way that I can, whether its through my program, or another one that works for you, I truly want this for you. It's my passion, mission, and purpose to heal people from the effects of PTSD, no matter where or how they got it. Let me know how I can be of service to you in your healing.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
What works for PTSD?
My friend Sean Huze, actor, playwright, and a former Marine Corps veteran who experienced combat during operations in Iraq, just last week posted this on the Facebook news feed: "22 Iraq or Afghanistan (or both) veterans killed themselves every day last year according to all major news networks. Veterans who reach out for help from the VA for depression, PTSD, and suicidal thoughts have been scheduled for an appointment...six months later. Some didn't make it. The average VA backlog for veterans is 273 days. Many have waited far longer." Sean was imploring Americans to support the troops who went to war and donate to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Administration so that these men and women could get the help they so desperately need. I couldn't agree more. Please donate if you can. This is a tragedy unfolding before our eyes and we as a society need to do something to help these folks heal their wounds. Politics aside, these men and women sacrificed their very lives for their country, and we as a country, who collectively put them in harms way, must do all that we can to shore up and glue back together the fractured lives war inevitably brings upon those who fight them. It is our moral obligation.
What's being done now for PTSD?
Here's a list I've compiled of the treatment therapies being utilized now for PTSD. This information comes from the Department of Veteran Affairs, the National Center for PTSD, and the PTSD Forum, a website dedicated to getting help to those who suffer from PTSD through others experiences, and offers guidance and education. There are four Tier 1 treatments which are considered by the government to be the best at treating cases of PTSD. They are as follows:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: also know as Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), helps you to understand and change the way you think about your trauma, becoming aware of your thoughts and feelings about the trauma and how it is affecting your life now, and teaches you skills to help question those thoughts and feelings which are causing you stress. It's goal is to help the sufferer change the way he or she feels and thinks about a traumatic event, and replace these underlying beliefs with more accurate and less distressing thoughts. Cognitive restructuring helps to alleviate the emotional toxicity of the event and helps the sufferer to remember the incident on a more acceptable level. By managing the memories remembered by becoming aware of our thoughts and feelings associated with it, we can change how we feel and think about something by changing how we think about it, and thus, changing our reactions to it. According to the PTSD Forum, "CBT on average across clinical studies, demonstrates an overall effectiveness of above 80%." However, in the very same article, towards the end it states, "The major let down to 99% of the studies, is that they control the conditions of the study to exclude PTSD patients, being those with co-morbid diagnosis, ie. CPTSD (personality disorders), major depression, etc., also those at the severe end of the symptom threshold." [2] CBT is an assertive therapy, and, according to many PTSD experts, you must be assertive with those who sufferer from it. [2] Here is where I vehemently disagree. If my counselor had pushed me before I was ready, I would have been filled with anger and rage, and all the progress I made, would have been flushed down the toilet. You don't push people who have PTSD. You have to create the conditions where they feel safe and felt which will allow them to open up and express the deep emotional and psychological scars that the anger and rage is covering up.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy: is a type of therapy that helps you decrease the distress you feel about your trauma by helping you approach trauma-related thoughts, feelings, and situations that you have been avoiding. The goal is to have less fear about your past memories and to reduce the power they have to cause you distress. In exposure therapy, the client or patient is asked to purposely re-experience the trauma over and over again - in the doctor's office or in the outside world in a setting similar to the one they experienced. Repeated exposure to these thoughts, feelings, and situations, helps the person to become less distressed about the trauma and teaches the individual how to master stressful situations. The idea is to gain control over your life and not let your memories control you. And, according to the PTSD Forum, Exposure Therapy "to date is the most efficacious treatment for the treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder." [2] It is encompassed as a part of the more robust treatment for PTSD, which is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). This, in my opinion, is not completely accurate when it comes to PTSD sufferers, and I'll tell you why. I was constantly exposed to the trauma I experienced every single time I walked into my apartment, I kept reliving it every single time I opened the door, and it didn't decrease the symptoms, it made it exponentially worse. I couldn't avoid the trauma because I lived where the trauma happened. There was nowhere I could go, and so the PTSD was made worse, not better. This approach, although valuable in many ways, especially in aiding the sufferer to reduce the irrational fear associated with past traumatic events, does not help someone with chronic, complex, or a severe case of PTSD. For some cases, you don't go into the fear over and over again; you go into the love.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): is a therapy where while you are thinking about your traumatic memories, you will focus your eyes on other stimuli like eye movements, tones, or hand taps. So, for example, your therapist will move his or her hand across your face, and you'll follow the motion with your eyes. Basically, the process attempts to bring together fragmented aspects of the trauma stored in various regions of the brain so that the brain can process the traumatic memory, and then associate a more positive thought with it for future use. It involves inducing the trauma, it re-imprints the trauma on the brain, and it does work. There are better models though, ones that are less assertive, less forceful, and more expansive. There are some issues inherent with EMDR. For one, the majority of the studies done exclude severe and complex cases from participation, and so, although it is placed equally among the four Tier 1 treatments for PTSD, "it is also placed equally alongside their similar failings within the area of statistical validation." [2] When EMDR has been used on more severe cases, the success rate had decreased significantly. [2] Secondly, there is one known negative to EMDR, and that is there is a minor risk of cognitive impairment. As the brain is involved with inducing the trauma, which overrides the brain's natural ability to piece traumas together, there is the risk that a more disturbing memory could become associated with the trauma, overwhelming the sufferer and possibly causing mild to severe cognitive impairment. [2] This is a risk with those who have combat or complex PTSD.
Stress Inoculation Therapy (SIT): this therapy is used in conjunction with the more broadly encompassed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) solution, but is also effective when combined with Exposure Therapy and EMDR to attain long term symptom management. By itself though, it will achieve little long-term effect with PTSD. SIT is a technique that educates the sufferer about stress, how it effects them and creates the negative outcomes experienced. The real core of SIT is skill building, which any therapy for PTSD has to include. Stress inoculation can range from improving self-confidence and self-esteem to a complete reconstruction of core foundational belief systems. SIT, by itself, can not undo the trauma, and until the trauma itself is resolved, uprooted, and healed, the sufferer will constantly challenge the new beliefs, and often unravel the progress made to rebuild and improve their lives. In my experience, there is no set limit for skill building, especially when rebuilding from the effects of PTSD. It continues as needed.
Medications for PTSD: Often times, a combination of counseling and medications are used to treat PTSD. Prescription drugs are intended to reduce the symptoms of PTSD and make the patient more receptive to counseling. One type of drug is known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety. Its most widely recognized brand names are Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil. There is a serious down side to taking antidepressants. Side effects include, but are not limited to: nausea, insomnia, anxiety, tremors, sweating, sleepiness or fatigue; it also depresses your ability to have sex; worst of all, is the risk of suicide. [4,5] By administering these type of drugs so routinely for PTSD, we are actually increasing the possibility of suicide because we are giving people who are already in pain drugs that increase the risk. We are treating them with the very thing that is causing them to do it!
The military is also investigating techniques to "inoculate" soldiers from PTSD. [6] When I spoke to Rich Rudnick, the Director of Operations at the National Veterans Foundation, last summer, he told me they were giving tranquilizers to the soldiers out in the field in Afghanistan to reduce their hyper-awareness and take the edge off of the soldiers' anxiety. This is crazy! Inoculating the soldiers is essentially desensitizing them so they will have less brain function. There's no one home. They become robots. By "inoculating" soldiers, you cut out their ability to feel love, to feel joy; not only are you cutting out their experience to feel pain, but you are cutting out their experience to enjoy life. You cut out their ability to feel anything. Then you send these guys and gals back home to their families, and before they went, they had loving wives, husbands, children, possible relationships, and when they come back they are not able to feel. So, what are we going to do then? Give them more drugs so that they can feel again?
Effectiveness of treatment options for PTSD: According to the National Academy of Sciences Office of News and Public Information, dated October 18, 2007, "Effectiveness of most PTSD therapies is uncertain; research urgently needed to determine which therapies work." It also goes on to say that "while several drugs and psychotherapies are used to treat PTSD, many of the studies concerning their effectiveness have problems; as a result, they do not provide a clear picture of what works and what doesn't, says a new report from the institute of medicine." [7]
With so much doubt concerning the effectiveness of the current treatment options available for PTSD, there just has to be a better way.
Other Therapy options: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Acupuncture, Art Therapy, Body-Mind Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing Therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique; Massage Therapy
What makes mine better than what's already out there?
I'm going to give it to you all here, in this blog, everything that I do. I want you to have this so much, and as time allows, I'm going to share it all with you, on this blog, all that I have done, everything that I do. So you can do it for yourself too. It will be faster with me, if you come in, but I'm going to give it to you regardless. At the foundation of my program are the principles of non-violence and peace. It uses Gandhi's principles of non-violence, along with the principles of a Course in Miracles, a spiritual meditation practice rooted in love, forgiveness, and peace. This is what makes mine different from all other approaches. From this foundation does my program draw its inspiration. Although it is rooted in spirituality, it does not demand you believe in God, what it does require is a genuine desire to transform your life. Without that deep desire, no program will work, regardless which one it is.
The core of my program is modeled similar to Mind-Body therapy, and is a complete mind, body, and soul healing. It takes the mind, body, soul connection, it builds belief systems, it improves what is already there, it teaches emotional regulation, and problem solving. It begins by really connecting to who you were before PTSD. Who were you? What were your dreams? etc., a lot of time is spent reconnecting to your true self. Then, we look at what your life would have been like if this didn't happen. What would you have done? From there, we begin to remove the obstacles to becoming that.
Once we've realigned with who you really are, set that as our guide and destination, we then begin to approach the trauma or traumas keeping you held back from being that ideal version of yourself. This space is completely loving, non-judgmental, and safe for you to go to where you can be completely felt, be completely yourself, completely human. We completely deconstruct anything that has kept you from being who you truly are and which has kept you separated from another human being. Whatever you might be ashamed of, angry about, guilty of, etc., anything that you have compartmentalized. We learn to understand the good that came out of it, and the lessons you learned. You learn how to make peace with the past so that it doesn't control and destroy your present. We break down the belief systems that have kept you imprisoned in your own mind. You learn how to let go of attachments and all that does not serve you in the fulfillment of your life. You learn how to replace negative thoughts and feelings with positive ones, and you incorporate meditation to create space in the mind and slow down the thoughts that invade your peace. What meditation does is it also allows you to experience the present now. By becoming consciously aware about right now, how you feel in the present moment, and using several meditation techniques to assist you, will help you to bring clarity and peace to the mind. We also remember and re-discover the things that brought you joy and take the time to do them. Yoga, movement meditation, massage therapy, and energy cleansing is also encouraged to augment and speed up the healing process.
There is no fear in my program. No drugs or medications. Medicine didn't create this problem. It didn't come from a disorder in the body. This disorder got created with the mind. It's not a chemical imbalance. We don't need medicine to heal it or cure it. What heals this is a miracle. Wait, before you say anything or think anything, let me put what I mean by miracle in context. The miracle is recognizing who you really are. And then, growing bigger than any event that might have happened. Part of the skill set of remembering who you are is that you've got to accept everything in your life. You've got to take responsibility for it all and be at the source of creation.
This program also uses the latest science in quantum physics theories and epigenetics, especially the works of Candace Pert, Bruce Lipton , and Valerie Hunt. These works, along with others in the field of higher consciousness like Byron Katie, Wayne Dyer, Eckart Tolle, and David Hawkins, remind us of our connectedness to each other and who we actually are. This program embodies the energy that we were never born, and we never died for energy is never destroyed.
The skill set building includes and is very similar to what an actor does for a role. An actor must embody the role he or she is playing with every cell of his being. We are going to establish who you truly are (the role you want to play), then we're going to build skill sets to allow that to come through, and at the same time, remove, let go of, and eliminate all that isn't you.
This is how you transform yourself out of the trauma(s) that have imprisoned you. It takes dedication, commitment, and a willingness to see things differently. Friends, we re-live the same problems over and over again until we transform them! And, you can't approach a problem that was created by fear thoughts with solutions based on fear thoughts. Love and fear can not co-exist. A new approach, a more advanced approach is called for, one based on love and the thoughts generated from the energy of love. This is what my program is all about.
What you can do if you have it or your friend has it
The average backlog for veterans at the VA is 273 days! If you have a friend with PTSD, don't wait. Call them, talk to them. If you even suspect this, don't wait. Get them help. Refer them this blog, or any website. Let them know you care and are there for them. Take action.
If you have it, don't let this fester inside. Take action, get some help now.
I will write more about this in future blogs. Share with me what you are interested in. Leave me a comment. Like me or find me on Facebook. I want to hear from you. I care.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. www.va.gov
2. www.ptsdforum.org/c/wiki/therapy
3. www.ptsd.va.gov/public/pages/treatment-ptsd.asp
4. www.helpguide.org/mental/medications_depression.htm
5. www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/ssri_side_effects
6. www.howstuffworks.com/ptsd.htm
7. www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11955
8. www.nvf.org
What's being done now for PTSD?
Here's a list I've compiled of the treatment therapies being utilized now for PTSD. This information comes from the Department of Veteran Affairs, the National Center for PTSD, and the PTSD Forum, a website dedicated to getting help to those who suffer from PTSD through others experiences, and offers guidance and education. There are four Tier 1 treatments which are considered by the government to be the best at treating cases of PTSD. They are as follows:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: also know as Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), helps you to understand and change the way you think about your trauma, becoming aware of your thoughts and feelings about the trauma and how it is affecting your life now, and teaches you skills to help question those thoughts and feelings which are causing you stress. It's goal is to help the sufferer change the way he or she feels and thinks about a traumatic event, and replace these underlying beliefs with more accurate and less distressing thoughts. Cognitive restructuring helps to alleviate the emotional toxicity of the event and helps the sufferer to remember the incident on a more acceptable level. By managing the memories remembered by becoming aware of our thoughts and feelings associated with it, we can change how we feel and think about something by changing how we think about it, and thus, changing our reactions to it. According to the PTSD Forum, "CBT on average across clinical studies, demonstrates an overall effectiveness of above 80%." However, in the very same article, towards the end it states, "The major let down to 99% of the studies, is that they control the conditions of the study to exclude PTSD patients, being those with co-morbid diagnosis, ie. CPTSD (personality disorders), major depression, etc., also those at the severe end of the symptom threshold." [2] CBT is an assertive therapy, and, according to many PTSD experts, you must be assertive with those who sufferer from it. [2] Here is where I vehemently disagree. If my counselor had pushed me before I was ready, I would have been filled with anger and rage, and all the progress I made, would have been flushed down the toilet. You don't push people who have PTSD. You have to create the conditions where they feel safe and felt which will allow them to open up and express the deep emotional and psychological scars that the anger and rage is covering up.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy: is a type of therapy that helps you decrease the distress you feel about your trauma by helping you approach trauma-related thoughts, feelings, and situations that you have been avoiding. The goal is to have less fear about your past memories and to reduce the power they have to cause you distress. In exposure therapy, the client or patient is asked to purposely re-experience the trauma over and over again - in the doctor's office or in the outside world in a setting similar to the one they experienced. Repeated exposure to these thoughts, feelings, and situations, helps the person to become less distressed about the trauma and teaches the individual how to master stressful situations. The idea is to gain control over your life and not let your memories control you. And, according to the PTSD Forum, Exposure Therapy "to date is the most efficacious treatment for the treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder." [2] It is encompassed as a part of the more robust treatment for PTSD, which is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). This, in my opinion, is not completely accurate when it comes to PTSD sufferers, and I'll tell you why. I was constantly exposed to the trauma I experienced every single time I walked into my apartment, I kept reliving it every single time I opened the door, and it didn't decrease the symptoms, it made it exponentially worse. I couldn't avoid the trauma because I lived where the trauma happened. There was nowhere I could go, and so the PTSD was made worse, not better. This approach, although valuable in many ways, especially in aiding the sufferer to reduce the irrational fear associated with past traumatic events, does not help someone with chronic, complex, or a severe case of PTSD. For some cases, you don't go into the fear over and over again; you go into the love.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): is a therapy where while you are thinking about your traumatic memories, you will focus your eyes on other stimuli like eye movements, tones, or hand taps. So, for example, your therapist will move his or her hand across your face, and you'll follow the motion with your eyes. Basically, the process attempts to bring together fragmented aspects of the trauma stored in various regions of the brain so that the brain can process the traumatic memory, and then associate a more positive thought with it for future use. It involves inducing the trauma, it re-imprints the trauma on the brain, and it does work. There are better models though, ones that are less assertive, less forceful, and more expansive. There are some issues inherent with EMDR. For one, the majority of the studies done exclude severe and complex cases from participation, and so, although it is placed equally among the four Tier 1 treatments for PTSD, "it is also placed equally alongside their similar failings within the area of statistical validation." [2] When EMDR has been used on more severe cases, the success rate had decreased significantly. [2] Secondly, there is one known negative to EMDR, and that is there is a minor risk of cognitive impairment. As the brain is involved with inducing the trauma, which overrides the brain's natural ability to piece traumas together, there is the risk that a more disturbing memory could become associated with the trauma, overwhelming the sufferer and possibly causing mild to severe cognitive impairment. [2] This is a risk with those who have combat or complex PTSD.
Stress Inoculation Therapy (SIT): this therapy is used in conjunction with the more broadly encompassed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) solution, but is also effective when combined with Exposure Therapy and EMDR to attain long term symptom management. By itself though, it will achieve little long-term effect with PTSD. SIT is a technique that educates the sufferer about stress, how it effects them and creates the negative outcomes experienced. The real core of SIT is skill building, which any therapy for PTSD has to include. Stress inoculation can range from improving self-confidence and self-esteem to a complete reconstruction of core foundational belief systems. SIT, by itself, can not undo the trauma, and until the trauma itself is resolved, uprooted, and healed, the sufferer will constantly challenge the new beliefs, and often unravel the progress made to rebuild and improve their lives. In my experience, there is no set limit for skill building, especially when rebuilding from the effects of PTSD. It continues as needed.
Medications for PTSD: Often times, a combination of counseling and medications are used to treat PTSD. Prescription drugs are intended to reduce the symptoms of PTSD and make the patient more receptive to counseling. One type of drug is known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety. Its most widely recognized brand names are Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil. There is a serious down side to taking antidepressants. Side effects include, but are not limited to: nausea, insomnia, anxiety, tremors, sweating, sleepiness or fatigue; it also depresses your ability to have sex; worst of all, is the risk of suicide. [4,5] By administering these type of drugs so routinely for PTSD, we are actually increasing the possibility of suicide because we are giving people who are already in pain drugs that increase the risk. We are treating them with the very thing that is causing them to do it!
The military is also investigating techniques to "inoculate" soldiers from PTSD. [6] When I spoke to Rich Rudnick, the Director of Operations at the National Veterans Foundation, last summer, he told me they were giving tranquilizers to the soldiers out in the field in Afghanistan to reduce their hyper-awareness and take the edge off of the soldiers' anxiety. This is crazy! Inoculating the soldiers is essentially desensitizing them so they will have less brain function. There's no one home. They become robots. By "inoculating" soldiers, you cut out their ability to feel love, to feel joy; not only are you cutting out their experience to feel pain, but you are cutting out their experience to enjoy life. You cut out their ability to feel anything. Then you send these guys and gals back home to their families, and before they went, they had loving wives, husbands, children, possible relationships, and when they come back they are not able to feel. So, what are we going to do then? Give them more drugs so that they can feel again?
Effectiveness of treatment options for PTSD: According to the National Academy of Sciences Office of News and Public Information, dated October 18, 2007, "Effectiveness of most PTSD therapies is uncertain; research urgently needed to determine which therapies work." It also goes on to say that "while several drugs and psychotherapies are used to treat PTSD, many of the studies concerning their effectiveness have problems; as a result, they do not provide a clear picture of what works and what doesn't, says a new report from the institute of medicine." [7]
With so much doubt concerning the effectiveness of the current treatment options available for PTSD, there just has to be a better way.
Other Therapy options: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Acupuncture, Art Therapy, Body-Mind Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing Therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique; Massage Therapy
What makes mine better than what's already out there?
I'm going to give it to you all here, in this blog, everything that I do. I want you to have this so much, and as time allows, I'm going to share it all with you, on this blog, all that I have done, everything that I do. So you can do it for yourself too. It will be faster with me, if you come in, but I'm going to give it to you regardless. At the foundation of my program are the principles of non-violence and peace. It uses Gandhi's principles of non-violence, along with the principles of a Course in Miracles, a spiritual meditation practice rooted in love, forgiveness, and peace. This is what makes mine different from all other approaches. From this foundation does my program draw its inspiration. Although it is rooted in spirituality, it does not demand you believe in God, what it does require is a genuine desire to transform your life. Without that deep desire, no program will work, regardless which one it is.
The core of my program is modeled similar to Mind-Body therapy, and is a complete mind, body, and soul healing. It takes the mind, body, soul connection, it builds belief systems, it improves what is already there, it teaches emotional regulation, and problem solving. It begins by really connecting to who you were before PTSD. Who were you? What were your dreams? etc., a lot of time is spent reconnecting to your true self. Then, we look at what your life would have been like if this didn't happen. What would you have done? From there, we begin to remove the obstacles to becoming that.
Once we've realigned with who you really are, set that as our guide and destination, we then begin to approach the trauma or traumas keeping you held back from being that ideal version of yourself. This space is completely loving, non-judgmental, and safe for you to go to where you can be completely felt, be completely yourself, completely human. We completely deconstruct anything that has kept you from being who you truly are and which has kept you separated from another human being. Whatever you might be ashamed of, angry about, guilty of, etc., anything that you have compartmentalized. We learn to understand the good that came out of it, and the lessons you learned. You learn how to make peace with the past so that it doesn't control and destroy your present. We break down the belief systems that have kept you imprisoned in your own mind. You learn how to let go of attachments and all that does not serve you in the fulfillment of your life. You learn how to replace negative thoughts and feelings with positive ones, and you incorporate meditation to create space in the mind and slow down the thoughts that invade your peace. What meditation does is it also allows you to experience the present now. By becoming consciously aware about right now, how you feel in the present moment, and using several meditation techniques to assist you, will help you to bring clarity and peace to the mind. We also remember and re-discover the things that brought you joy and take the time to do them. Yoga, movement meditation, massage therapy, and energy cleansing is also encouraged to augment and speed up the healing process.
There is no fear in my program. No drugs or medications. Medicine didn't create this problem. It didn't come from a disorder in the body. This disorder got created with the mind. It's not a chemical imbalance. We don't need medicine to heal it or cure it. What heals this is a miracle. Wait, before you say anything or think anything, let me put what I mean by miracle in context. The miracle is recognizing who you really are. And then, growing bigger than any event that might have happened. Part of the skill set of remembering who you are is that you've got to accept everything in your life. You've got to take responsibility for it all and be at the source of creation.
This program also uses the latest science in quantum physics theories and epigenetics, especially the works of Candace Pert, Bruce Lipton , and Valerie Hunt. These works, along with others in the field of higher consciousness like Byron Katie, Wayne Dyer, Eckart Tolle, and David Hawkins, remind us of our connectedness to each other and who we actually are. This program embodies the energy that we were never born, and we never died for energy is never destroyed.
The skill set building includes and is very similar to what an actor does for a role. An actor must embody the role he or she is playing with every cell of his being. We are going to establish who you truly are (the role you want to play), then we're going to build skill sets to allow that to come through, and at the same time, remove, let go of, and eliminate all that isn't you.
This is how you transform yourself out of the trauma(s) that have imprisoned you. It takes dedication, commitment, and a willingness to see things differently. Friends, we re-live the same problems over and over again until we transform them! And, you can't approach a problem that was created by fear thoughts with solutions based on fear thoughts. Love and fear can not co-exist. A new approach, a more advanced approach is called for, one based on love and the thoughts generated from the energy of love. This is what my program is all about.
What you can do if you have it or your friend has it
The average backlog for veterans at the VA is 273 days! If you have a friend with PTSD, don't wait. Call them, talk to them. If you even suspect this, don't wait. Get them help. Refer them this blog, or any website. Let them know you care and are there for them. Take action.
If you have it, don't let this fester inside. Take action, get some help now.
I will write more about this in future blogs. Share with me what you are interested in. Leave me a comment. Like me or find me on Facebook. I want to hear from you. I care.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. www.va.gov
2. www.ptsdforum.org/c/wiki/therapy
3. www.ptsd.va.gov/public/pages/treatment-ptsd.asp
4. www.helpguide.org/mental/medications_depression.htm
5. www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/ssri_side_effects
6. www.howstuffworks.com/ptsd.htm
7. www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11955
8. www.nvf.org
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