Break Out of the Nightmare of PTSD Workshop, 27 February 2014

Why Working with a Licensed Professional is Good, and Why Working with a Creator is Better

A few weeks ago, I opened my emails to discover a rather discrediting comment on a post sent out by my dear friend and web designer to the facebook community for a chance to work with me utilizing a 2 for 1 gift certificate.  The gentleman, Mr. Hunt, spoke rather harshly about life coaches and my work with PTSD and trauma.  Below is the message he wrote in its entirety:

"In many if not most states "life coaches" are not licensed and therefore there are no set professional standards that govern their training, credentialing, and professional practice.  PTSD is a serious condition, often with very serious symptoms.  As a licensed and practicing clinical psychologist myself, I would encourage anyone to thoroughly vet any prospective therapist before going to see them for something as serious as PTSD, and I would also encourage anyone seeking therapy for something as serious as PTSD to find a therapist who is licensed and therefore accountable to a state board for upholding certain professional practice standards.  Also, personally, I would think twice before going to see a self-styled "life coach" about anything, especially without checking into the training they've received, whether they have a history of malpractice claims or unhappy past clients, etc."

Normally, I would let this pass, as I believe, as George Washington believed that, "To persevere in one's duty and be silent is the best answer to calumny."  However, this particular indictment against me and the work I've dedicated my life to demands a response.  Sometimes one must check those who speak out against those who have found a new, healthier, and better way.  They speak without completely understanding the other side and the purity of intention and commitment from the man who has thought outside the box in order to bring true, lasting, and permanent healing to those suffering from this extraordinarily painful and crippling soul disorder.  I know.  I lived it.

This is my answer to Mr. Hunt:

Notice the education system in our country when we have all these markers and criteria for children, they don't thrive.  Anything that makes it to textbook takes 10 years.  The system and approach that I have is SELF - I healed it within myself!  I've spent more time learning than any clinical psychologist or therapist would and I'm working with the leaders in the field - Dr. Edward Tick, who wrote the book War and the Soul and is one of the preeminent leaders on PTSD in the country, and Dr. Sarah Larsen.  I'm personally trained, the way that it was meant to be done in Hippocrates' apprenticeships.

Our system today takes the healing out of individuals and puts it into systems, that's why it doesn't work.  My program is tried and true and sent through by logical, historical experts.  They worked for me; they are working for my clients.  This is not in a textbook.  This is not license-able because it works with each individual person, we are not all the same.  You should always vet any person you are working with that's going to influence the way that you think and feel.  So that's a really good point.  But just because someone has a degree and a license doesn't mean they are effective.  It means they are able to do the cookie-cutter approach.  That doesn't always heal.  We are 27th in the world in our health, below Morocco.

In your statement, I know you are concerned for people with PTSD, I know this comes from a loving place inside of you to question my credentials and my ability to work with this serious condition.  This is your love of humanity where this comes from.  It is my love of humanity that I'm speaking from now.  If you have the tools that are effective, they're working, if you've spent over 10,000 hours to date - probably going on 12,000 - 15,000 hours of personal research and development into a system, - if the people you are working with are becoming followers of you and your program because it is effective, if your teachers help you to understand and create this are giving you the thumbs up, the go ahead, saying, "Yes, Charlie, this is brilliant," experts in their fields saying "You've got it!", if you are being offered book deals and advice on wow there is nothing like this out there, are you going to stop and learn the cookie-cutter approach?  No.  What you are going to do is create a new system that cuts through because it is needed right now.  If there weren't a great need, I wouldn't be here now.  I healed it.  I recognize the need.  I'm one of the many that had this and now I'm thriving!  I want everyone who has this to thrive, whether it's with me, or a licensed professional.

And for the record, I anticipate I will be teaching the licensed professionals this system.  That's what's coming.  You heard it here first.

Blessings.

Yoga Poses to Relieve PTSD

Yoga was instrumental in helping me to reduce and ultimately eliminate the trauma trapped in my body because of the PTSD I had experienced and accumulated over many, many years - decades of exposure to some form of trauma.  I encourage all of you who read this blog to take the time to locate a yoga studio nearby and inquire about what kinds of yoga they offer.  Having participated and done many different styles of yoga (and they are all good), I prefer the ones I'm about to list because of my particular personality, and not for any other reason.  I recommend trying them all, and then connecting with the style or styles that most resonate with you and stick with that one.  How do you know which one to choose?  It's an individual choice; you just have to go out and try them and find the one or ones you like the best.  Yoga means union, and its underlying intent is to quiet the "whirlpools of the mind"; the style or styles you choose ought to be geared towards meeting this goal.  Some people may require a vigorous, physical style with poses being held for long periods of time, others might like the heat of hot yoga, while others may prefer a more gentler approach, whatever it may be, choose them because it gives you the maximum benefit you are seeking, which is to relieve the effects of PTSD in the mind and body.

I have been doing yoga now for almost 10 years, and I have been practicing yoga at U Studio Yoga in Los Angeles with Andrea Marcum for most of that time (you can find her and her studio at this website: www.ustudioyoga.com).  She is an amazing yoga instructor, who teaches a core intensive vinyasa (which means 'breath-synchronized movement') flow class that is both rigorous and challenging, and at the same time, balanced and playful. I asked Andrea for some of her insights into how trauma affects our bodies, and if she could suggest a couple of yoga poses for those of you reading this blog.  This is what she said:

"We hold a lot of emotional stuff in our bodies.  Releasing that is part of letting go.  We tend to be stuck in the stress response, and certainly those with PTSD know that more than anyone.  Allowing the tension to leave our body allows us to move closer to who we really are instead of who we are under the grip of reactive behavior, elevated stress hormones and the anger and drama that they feed.  When we start to find our way to the relaxation response we actually reboot our nervous system. 

Forward folds help to turn our attention inward, allowing some of the outside chaos to subside.  Seated forward folds like baddha konasana (http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/486) are calming and can be done anywhere anytime.  Additionally a gentle inversion like viparita karani (http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/690) send additional blood flow to our heart that allows our heart rate to slow down and bring the relaxation response forward."  

One of the many values of a intensive flow class is it really grounds you in the now, you feel firm and solid.  A wonderful complement to this is what is offered through Kundalini yoga.  Kundalini (the yoga of awareness), is relatively new to the West, and it's focus is to open your heart, build strength, and release the energy located at the base of the spine.  I recently stepped into the Golden Bridge Studio located in Hollywood (www.goldenbridgeyoga.com) to inquire if there were any poses they would recommend for someone who is suffering from PTSD.  Elsa, the wonderful person who so kindly answered my questions, recommended the Breath of Fire pose.  Some of the benefits of the Breath of Fire pose are:

• releases all of the built-up anxiety and nervousness; the Breath of Fire forces the diaphragm in and out and this has a direct impact on the naval center, which helps in the releasing of emotions as well.
• readjusts and boosts your nervous system
• it helps you to regain control over stressful mental states
• it flushes toxins out of the blood stream
• it massages the internal organs
• expands your lung capacity for deeper breathing

Basically, you want to breath in and out of the nose (or mouth).  Pull the abdomen in towards the diaphragm during the exhalation and out during the inhalation.  The breath is very fast, as fast as 2 or 3 times per second, and is very loud.  You will probably get a little light-headed when you begin doing this (I know I did), and so I recommend starting with 30 second intervals followed by long deep breaths, and performing this for a few minutes.  Eventually you'll will be able to move up to 45 second intervals for 2 to 3 minutes.  And before you know it, with enough practice, you'll be able to do it for even longer without feeling any discomfort.  A great resource for understanding in even more detail about the Breath of Fire pose and its benefits can be found here: http://kundaliniyogabootcamp.com/breath-of-fire/.

Golden Bridge Yoga also informed me they offer free classes for veterans!  All you have to do is go to the studio and show them proof you served, your ID or DD214, and they will set you up.  So any veterans in the Los Angeles area, take a look at what Golden Bridge has to offer, they're wonderful people over there who want to help you, or come and visit me over at U Studio Yoga with Andrea Marcum, and start actively taking the steps to relieve your PTSD for good.

Hope to see you on the mat!

10 Things I Wish for You in 2014

To all the wounded soldiers and wounded souls out there, these are 10 things I wish for you this coming year:

1. This moment too shall pass!
2. The understanding of your shadow self.
3. The real Hero is YOU!
4. Place the future in the Hands of God.
5. Master yourself.  It is more powerful than mastering a thousand ideas.
6. Correct the errors in your mind.  Your life will fall effortlessly into place.
7. Make peace with your past so that it doesn't destroy your present and future.
8. Find the gifts in the wounds, and transform your pain into blessings.
9. Re-connect and remember who you really are.  Reclaim the joy of your own existence.
10. Love, joy, freedom, wholeness, laughter, peace, and happiness.

Have a Happy (and safe) New Year!

Blessings.

Agapite o Filo Mou - Making Your Mind Your Beloved Friend - Part 4

What are our thoughts?

Our thoughts are neither good nor bad; they just are what they are.  It is only the meaning we give to them that makes them so.  Metaphorically, our thoughts are like cloud forms passing through the sky.  If your mind is like the sky, and it is, when it is clear, it is vast, infinite, peaceful, and bright.  When clouds appear, these are like our thoughts, and they will pass through as long as we don’t attach ourselves to them.  The problem is when we have storms in our lives, we attach ourselves to the storms, and these storms become cataclysmic because we won’t let go of them.  They will pass, if we just let them go.  But we don’t, and so we stay in the storm long after the storm has passed.  We keep re-living the storm repeatedly, trying to stop it, trying to bring some kind of resolution to it, trying to do something different so the storm doesn't hit, but all we do is perpetuate the consequences of the storm.  The recycled storm disrupts our lives, influences our decisions and choices in the present, and we live out our lives trying to make up for what happened in the storm that is long gone.  As Plato says, “What is once done, can never be made undone,” however, what we can do is change our thoughts about the things that have happened to us, remember who we are, re-connect to our true selves, learn and grow from the mistakes of our past, make peace with those who hurt us or who we may have hurt, re-contextualize and re-frame the story of our past to find the good that came out of those experiences, heal our past, and then, take those lessons from those traumas and build a better, healthier, and happier future.

I want you to imagine your mind is like a projector of a movie and your thoughts are the images and words coming across the screen.  These words and images will continue on past as long as you decide not to hold on to them.  If you hold on to them, they will give you all the emotional charge, both positive and negative, attached to those images, however, if you just let them pass by, they lose their power over you.  Now, let me ask you something, does the movie screen hold on to the film image?  No, of course it doesn't.  Now consider this: you are the projector of all those thoughts running across the screen in your mind which are then reflected back to you in the outside world.  So, what are you going to do?  Don’t hold on to your thoughts.  Return to the present.  Be in the present moment.  The only place where any of this exists anymore is in your mind.  

The cause of the problem for anyone who suffers from PTSD or trauma is in the soul.  Your soul is in distress.  Thus, it is imperative you take the time to tend and heal your wounds.  PTSD and trauma is honorable and inevitable in environments of intense conflicts.  It's a sign of your humanity.  You must work on all four planes of your existence to heal and transform these moral wounds:  the physical (your body), the emotional (your heart), the mental (your mind), and the spiritual (re-connecting to your true Self, your very core, and thus remembering who you really are).  The work I have discussed in these last four blogs is the beginning of the work you do with the mental and spiritual planes.  You must build the skills and have the tools to re-train your mind to get out of the places that don’t exist. Nothing outside of you is doing this to you anymore, reality, 95 % of the time, is benign, and it is harmless.  These outside triggers which lead to a sequence of painful feelings, reactions, and memories initiated by a sensory memory, are in themselves, completely harmless, but they become harmful because of the mental association you have connected them to in your mind.  Replace the thought, change the feeling, and with consistency and repetition, they will lose their power over you.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Lao Tsu.  He states, “When you correct your mind, everything else falls into place.”  How do you do this? 

• Meditate
• Find a spiritual practice based on universal spiritual truths like A Course in Miracles to use as a daily guide to govern your thoughts and feelings about yourself and your relationship to the world
• Create a bliss list for yourself reminding you of all the beauty that lives inside you and brings you joy
• Tie a string around your wrist or wear a small ring around your pinky finger, and every time a distressing thought or feeling overwhelms you, go to this string or ring, twist it around, saying to yourself, 'This too shall pass, this too shall pass...' at least 10 times and then think of something from your bliss list
• Do my program

This is how you start to de-construct the thought forms that are causing you pain, and begin the process of re-constructing the ones that you want to infuse your daily life experiences with, which will assist you in creating the life you want to live.

Blessings.

Agapite o Filo Mou - Making Your Mind Your Beloved Friend - Part 3

Scratching the Record - Carpe Diem

What do you do when the thoughts, images, memories, and painful experiences invade your peace of mind?  You've got to interrupt them right when they happen, you've got to scratch the record, and replace it with a thought that empowers you, enlivens you, enriches you, and makes you feel good about who you are.  So, for instance, you have a disquieting thought, you pass by a place that reminds you of a person or an event from your past, at that moment, you will either get caught up in the maelstrom of the toxic emotions and feelings associated from your past, or you can choose to replace that thought from your bliss list.

How to create your bliss list

• Sit down with a blank piece of paper and write at the top of the page 'My Bliss List'.  Make sure when you do this, there are no distractions, it's quiet and peaceful, and allow yourself the time to really sink into the deepest part of yourself so that you can hear what makes your soul sing.  Meditating for 20 minutes before you do this is highly recommended.
• Write down 100 things which brings you joy.  You want to discover within you what it is that connects you to your bliss.  Ideally, you want to list as many things as possible which are not dependent on anyone or any thing to give it to you.  It is a feeling that comes from within whenever you see something, hear something, do something, smell something, taste something, or feel something.  Activate all your senses and feelings.  Examples might be:
• walking in nature
• seeing an eagle soaring in the sky
• watching the sunrise over a beautiful mountain lake
• eating a juicy peach
• smelling a rose
• snowflakes on my skin
• the sun on my face
• the sound of the waves of the ocean
• driving a motorcycle
• riding a horse  
• writing
• Your bliss list can involve another person or persons, say for instance, you love long, slow, wet deep kisses, or you love spending time with friends, or going to a football game with your brother, or a baby's laugh, having some of those are great!  Without question there are many joyful experiences you have with others, and they can be included, but I want you to emphasize finding the things which give you joy which you do only for the joy of it.  This list in not about them, it is about you.
• Once you have composed your list, read it over, make sure you are satisfied with it (you will know this because it makes you feel good inside, it makes you feel happy to read it), then, make copies of it so you will have it in various places for you to refer to when needed.  A great place to put one is in your car.  Another great place is in your office.          

The exercise in creating the bliss list is a way for you to connect with what truly gives you joy without being dependent on anyone else. The purpose behind it is to give you a tool to help you interrupt the pattern of disquieting and disturbing thoughts and memories which intrude upon your daily life.  When a negative, painful thought or memory comes in, you go to this list right away.  You want to scratch the record of the unconscious program operating your life with new thoughts to pick you back up again.  These thoughts from your bliss list will pull you out of the painful remembrance of the past, even if it's just for a moment, and by doing this consciously and consistently, with time, you will begin to break the pattern of painful memories controlling your life and destroying your peace of mind.  

Whenever I was being tortured by the thoughts, memories, images, and painful experiences of my past, I would go to this list right away and say to myself, 'This too shall pass, this too shall pass..' over and over again while I thought of one thing which brought me joy: the smell of a flower, the sun rising over the mountains, an ice cream sundae, the flight of an eagle – whatever it was, I found the thought which brought me joy, which made me feel good about me, which made me smile, and I would immediately replace the disquieting thought.  Sometimes I would only feel better for a brief moment, and then I would get sucked back down into the pain I was experiencing, but I kept doing it, and as time went on, the episodes where my mind was attacking me from all sides began to lose its power and strength over me.  Eventually, these negative thoughts lost all their power because I could connect to what brought me my bliss immediately and that feeling negated and cancelled out the negative thought.  This one tool helped me tremendously!  By consciously doing this mental work with my bliss list everyday, combined with the other tools I had created for myself in my program, I had successfully re-programmed my unconscious mind.  I was no longer at the mercy of the pain and suffering I had experienced as a consequence of the PTSD and trauma I'd been through.  I knew what my joy was, and nothing could keep me from connecting to that joy.

By doing this consistently, you are breaking the pattern which has now become unconscious, which is the recycling of all this old thinking and feeling, and you are replacing it with something that is you, defined by you.  The more you do this, the more space you will create, and the more you will connect to who you really are.  It is a process, and as with any process, it grows with consistency, dedication, and commitment.  It's like building muscles.  It may seem tedious, it may seem like its not working, but nevertheless, you still go to the gym to workout.  After a while, you begin to notice how your muscles have changed as a result of consistently working them out.  They are bigger, stronger, and leaner.  Well, this same idea applies to working out your thoughts.  You've got to go to the 'mental gym' on a daily basis and feed yourself with the thoughts and feelings that will give you the healthy results you are looking for.  Your bliss list is part of your mental workout, a tool you can use to exercise your mind and make it strong.

You've got to do this with smells too.  You've got to remind yourself, ‘OK, that smell reminds me of this, that gunshot smell reminds me of that place I was in in Iraq or Afghanistan, and what I've got to do is think of a smell that I enjoy, that pleases me.’  You've got to do it right then, something that makes you feel good, something that makes you feel happy, whether it’s the smell of a rose, or the smell of the mountains by the lake catching fish, or the smell of the exhaust of your 1940 Coupe – whatever it is, you want to bring that image, that memory, that feeling, that smell back so that you are interrupting the pattern.  And you want to do it consistently, over and over and over again.  It seems tedious in the beginning, and you may find resistance to it, but you are establishing a new pattern, you are introducing a new software program to replace the old one in the hardware computer which is your brain; you are systematically and consciously breaking the habit of getting caught up in those negative, debilitating, toxic thought forms which are causing you so much pain.  

You are not your past.  This present moment does not have to be defined by your past.  You have the power within you to define what this present moment will be for you.  This moment is, and will always be, defined by you.  Seize the day!

"Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour."  -Walt Whitman

Agapite o Filo Mou - Making Your Mind Your Beloved Friend - Part 2

A Course in Miracles

Now, meditation is just the beginning.  Doing this every day consistently, regardless of what might be happening in your lives, will initial a sequence of shifts in your thinking and how you perceive yourself and the world outside of you.  I also implore you to find a spiritual tradition which emphasizes the re-training of the mind to bring you peace.  There are many traditions out there, but the one that resonated most deeply with me was A Course in Miracles.  The Course is a self-study program for retraining the mind that is spiritual, rather than religious, in perspective.  Although it uses Christian terminology, it speaks in universal spiritual truths, it is not a religion or dogma, and echoes the world’s most hallowed, sacred, and ancient spiritual traditions.  It is pragmatic in its method, where the student has one idea to contemplate throughout the day, incorporating it into his or her daily routine, and its aim is to bring the student a peaceful, loving, and forgiving mind.  It guides you to an awareness of love’s presence, and helps you to remove the blocks that prevent you from experiencing what is your natural inheritance.  The course can be summed up in a very simple way:

            Nothing real can be threatened.

            Nothing unreal exists.

            Herein lies the peace of God.

Again, this is not the only way to achieve peace in a mind consumed and overwhelmed by the thoughts, memories, and images of the past.  If it doesn't resonate with you, that’s fine, just find a spiritual meditation tradition that works for you rooted in love, peace, and forgiveness.  Nevertheless, this was my way, and because I am on the other side, I know it works.  When I was in the battle for my life, I clung to this book as my life boat to get me through the most torrential internal storms.  I would diligently work with the thought for the day, even though my mind wanted to re-cycle the painful experiences of my past.  And some days, the memories would win.  Some days I didn't know if I was going to make it through, I was in so much pain, but I kept at it, kept praying, kept meditating, kept doing the work with A Course in Miracles, and with the work I am detailing in these posts.  You must never give up.  Never.  Have faith and trust in what I am telling you, and each day, even if you are not aware of it and it seems like it will never end, keep doing it, the light will come.