Another compelling topic covered at the EMDR conference was pain control.

How many of us have some kind of pain that seems to persist? Have you considered that there are many emotional components to pain?

Chronic pain is described as a challenge and a puzzle as so much of pain seems to defy accepted medical knowledge. For a long time pain was primarily thought of as a signal of physical injury. Most pain sufferers look to medical treatment for an explanation of their pain, and certainly to seek treatment and relief.

Chronic pain, and pain which lasts or goes on beyond normal healing time frames usually starts with an injury or illness but doesn’t respond to normally effective treatments. A bone fracture or ruptured disc, for example, causes great pain and can heal from treatment and rest. Chronic pain comes in many different forms – back pain, fibromyalgia, sciatica, migraines are often difficult to treat and heal.

The realization that there are different types of of pain involving different triggers and factors has led to the concept that pain can lead to both physical and mental problems.

A major advance in understanding pain was the discovery that stress is a major contributing factor to pain. Stress is a physical and mental feeling of helplessness or uncertainty in the face of challenging or life threatening circumstances. It usually involves many feelings including anxiety, mood swings, sleeplessness, decreased immune functioning, and concentration and memory problems.

In one of the largest investigations of its kind, a study of over 9,000 adult members of a health plan in the United States found that people who had suffered severe stress were more than twice as likely to have health problems like heart disease and fractures compared to people who had not. Stressed people are even more at risk of the common cold! Researchers found the more stressful the events, the greater the risk of pain and illness. PTSD is often associated with chronic pain. Around 50% of PTSD sufferers also suffer from chronic pain.

But don’t despair – there’s some really good news here. Neuroplasticity is the idea and science that the brain is modifiable. Neuroplasticity is the mechanism wherein the brain is affected by experience. And, neuroplasticity offers powerful information for new therapies which are designed to allow the brain to process physical and emotional pain. Stanford University is reporting much success with chronic pain sufferers.

I have many clients with chronic pain from injuries and pain from a lifetime of stress and trauma. Some have a hard time believing their pain can be caused by suppressed emotions or an upbringing where they were treated badly by parents and other caretakers.

Most chronic pain sufferers are not validated or understood, so I never question my clients about the validity of their pain. The longer a person has endured pain, the more helpless and defeated they can feel. So we start treating the pain itself with hypnosis and other modalities and go from there.

I have developed my own questionnaire to identify neglect, PTSD, physical injury, and depression. We get to work building resources to help people gain confidence so the pain can be minimized and the root issues solved. Emotions may come up or may not, but with continuation of my work with hypnosis, guided imagery, NLP, and EMDR, it seems the pain always changes, dissipates, creating a more positive state.

Another common issue that was discussed a lot at the EMDR conference must is that of attachment. When we come into this world, we don’t have the ability to regulate our own internal experiences. Our parents and caregivers provide structure and supervision. How we see ourselves first, as children, is through our caregiver’s eyes. Think about this – what state do you think your caregivers were in before and after our birth? And, how did that state affect us in the early days of our lives?

Teachers, parents, grandparents, babysitters, siblings are some of our caregivers. And, you might say that these people are our thermostats who regulate our states of being, our influences. When we are small, we are provided certain support and influence, and the degree to which that support is healthy and caring varies from person to person.

Now consider this: states equal traits, or rather, states of being, of influence from our caregivers become patterns and traits in us. If you had a caregiver in an anxious, angry state, what was that person subconsciously teaching you?

After sitting in on an interesting session that presented these examples and ideas, a few compelling facts struck and stuck with me.

Playing and laughter have a lot to do with activating the proper part of the brain system so individuals are able to engage appropriately with others. Through play, the higher parts of the brain form, and abilities to attach (to others) form.

I immediately thought of my dog. Animals play! Playing more allows the brain to develop (more). Cats and dogs deprived from play don’t attach – they are antisocial, and have behavior problems. (Kids, too.) And, once such animals are (re)introduced to play, they tend to overplay. You might observe this at the dog park with puppies or rescue dogs.

After thinking about our pets and how they might experience social interactions, and what we do via training to reverse some ill effects and teach better habits, I then had my ah-ha! moment: kids who aren’t able to attach in a healthy way “overplay” are labeled with ADHD.

Most of you who have attended my classes know how much I enjoy today’s amazing children – their ideas, their approach to life, their energy. The climate many children grow up in today is so very different from how I grew up (and we were told to get out of the house, out of adult business, and go out and play until dinner).

Many, many children today experience behavior problems that are handled with pharmaceuticals. A common label to these problems is ADD/ADHD, but all kids today can’t possibly have these in such severity and frequency that they all need to be on medication. Attachment may be the true problem as both parents usually work, and there are plenty of distractions that don’t allow for real human interaction (think: texting, television watching, computer using, gaming). Parents are too tired, busy, distracted to bond with their kids, and because of this fact of modern life, kids who can’t attach possibly act out or don’t know how to act and are thus treated with medication. Crazy, right?

The teachers and trainers at this particular conference presentation showed many videos of children trying to capture eye contact or make some sort of connection with parents who are texting, watching televsion, or otherwise not engaged. These children eventually give up and “numb out” when they don’t receive the attention/connection they want or need from their caregivers. It was hard to watch.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that many of the PhDs, medical doctors, psychologists, and counselors were on the same page about medication. Most professionals interviewed for the presentation I attended advise using pharmaceuticals only use if absolutely everything else has been done to deal with behavior problems, and only for serious cases. And, especially when it comes to anxiety, most highly advised to not use meds at all. When people can work through their issues in other ways, dealing with root problems, can real change occur.

There are many many modalities for teaching resources. I always do resource building with every client I see. To me it’s the most important thing to do for confidence building. And, in serious cases of attachment issues leading to behavior problems, the best resource is to play.

Strengthening attachment creates a safe place inside for healing. An easy way to create this climate within our relationships is to play, to laugh, to connect on a light-hearted level. Be sure you play today! Laugh with your family! Connect with your kids! It’s great for the brain, body, and soul.

I recently attended the yearly convention for an amazing therapy process that you may have heard of: EMDR.

This organization is 4600 people (from all over the world!) strong, and started with an amazing forward thinking woman, Francine Shapiro. Francine was inspired to begin EMDR work after she attended an NLP (neuro-linguistics programming) training session 21 years ago.

The conference I attended was amazing, informative, intense, and progressive. I was struck by the hundreds of therapists from all over the world who obviously care deeply and passionately about what they do and how they help people from all walks of life.

I attended as many classes as I could on childhood trauma and attachment issues, some of my main professional interests. I truly believe that almost every one who enters my office has something that happened to them early in life that affected their self esteem, causing anxiety and depression or negative beliefs about themselves and their overall worth.

An example of such an early traumatic experience is being the victim of bullying – a serious and unfortunately common social issue we are currently experiencing in our culture. Such events – like experiencing bullying – lead to serious issues later in life if left unresolved.

One main theme that particularly resonated with me from this conference and our conversations and presentations was the common experiences that we all share – as therapists, as practitioners, as people. We all have issues, and while everyone’s core issues are uniquely theirs, based on personal experience, histories, and journeys, so many of us share common “problems” and ways of dealing with our issues.

Thankfully, people do want to grow and change and lead healthy, happy lives. And, thankfully, too, there are skilled individuals to help us make progress.

Here’s to those willing to stop and assess, seek assistance, and make change for good.

Those who want to secure pearls from the sea have to dive deep to fetch them. It does not help them to dabble among the shallow waves near the shore and say that the sea has no pearls and all stories about them are false. –Sai Baba

A curious concept, perhaps, for those of us who want a different life but don’t know how to go about making change in order to self actualize or to realize our dreams.

Maybe there will always be those people who believe in the struggle of life and little of anything else. When discussing dreams or plans or even struggles to move through, these people are usually the first to say “That’s impossible!” or “You can’t do that!”, or “Accept it, that’s just the way life is. You can’t change it.”

And, these are probably the very same people who are not willing to dive deep to fetch their pearls.

In years of coaching experience, I can confidently tell you that the most beautiful pearls are those you find at the depths of your soul. These gems are truly there waiting for you to find them.

Many of my clients read the book The Secret, and took its many lessons and advice. One such exercise noted in this material is to create a vision board, which many other practitioners use, too. It’s a simple exercise that asks you to list or create all your life goals in visual form on board, sometimes taking the form of a collage, sometimes taking the form of other creative visual lists, so you can look at it daily to allow time for serious reflection, enabling the images to lodge into your conscious (and subconscious) mind.

This book and its premise was amazing on many levels for millions of people, helping to change consciousness and raise awareness of areas often overlooked along the path of self development. But in my opinion, the creators forgot to provide folks with a few additional, critical steps to take in order for goals to actualize. Many of my clients were upset because they had been visualizing their goals for months to no avail. Nothing happened, and they became frustrated or deflated in thinking their goals could indeed be realized.

If you have had a lifetime of trauma and negative experiences, we now know that your brain has made pathways–a super-highway of pathways–for those negative experiences to remain active in the mind and in your pattern of thinking. (You’ve all heard me talk about this facet of neuroscience before.) In my experience, resolving these negative experiences with a coach or therapist is the first thing that has to happen in order to start moving your energy forward.

It was either Einstein (or Frank Zappa) who said that the mind is like a parachute, working best when it is open. Einstein also told us the imagination is more important than knowledge. Both ideas are important concepts, indeed.

Learning how to tap into your inner self or to dive deep into and beyond your (sub)conscious is quite a task, one that offers great rewards. Consistent, repeated focus on what you want will lead to spontaneous intuitive breakthroughs.

Remember, no matter who you think you are, you are always much more than that. When you learn to dive deep, you’ll find tremendous gifts.

I wanted to share some more ideas to help inspire you to create excellence in your life – your personal and/or professional life.

The following steps to creating excellence are taught by John Overdurf in his basic NLP trainings. His work is so magical, you can’t help but be motivated!

Ready to take care of business to get where you want to be professionally?

1. Know your outcome
People respond best when they know what they want as opposed to what they don’t want. It’s great to know what you don’t want, too. Make lists. Start to envision what your preferred professional life looks like – which conditions make work desirable? which conditions are not negotiable? intolerable? Once you can envision what your best professional scenario looks like, you’ll be able to make good decisions that lead you down the path to that preferred outcome.

2. Be flexible
The person with the most flexibility will be the controlling element in the system. Being flexible and adaptable is truly an asset. It doesn’t mean you’re going to compromise every time there’s conflict, or give up on your dreams – it simply means you’re willing and able to go with the curves life’s road takes sometimes. When you have a focused outcome, you’re also able to see different routes to get where you ultimately want to go. (There’s more than one way, you know!) When you haven’t got the outcome set in your mind, a bumpy ride might throw you off. Remember, you can always change your behavior and your route without altering your preferred outcome.

3. Use your senses with precision
To reach your outcome, you’ve got to know whether you’re getting closer to it or further away. Learn to read feedback. Learn to reassess along the way. Learn to take risks and challenge yourself. And, most importantly, remember that “failure is only feedback.”

4. Take action – now!
This is personal power. Make a decision. Take an action. Do something. You can always change your path if one decision doesn’t get you to where you want to go. Again, when your ultimate goal is solid, you can use your decision-making and coping skills to guide you. Sitting around stewing about decisions may only frustrate you in the long run. Do something! Do it now! It’s all temporary anyway, and you can always change course.

5. Ask HOW, not WHY
When your professional goal is solid and vivid, and you’ve clearly and carefully assessed why you want to get to a certain level of performance that’s rooted in your core values, all you need to ask yourself next is how can you best reach your professional goals with the tools and skills you have within you. Make a plan. Strategize your best routes. And, GO!

I recently received two interesting requests from people who wanted to read more about improving “fast.” This is not an uncommon request, of course, as improving or changing fast seems to be a lot of what I hear on a daily basis. A far-fetched notion? Immediate gratification guaranteed?

It is possible to make significant improvements in a short period of time, but for improving or changing to last, well, repeatedness is the answer.

In my previous blogs, I have presented some interesting information about neuroscience and how spect scans are able to gauge or track that what you pay attention to creates muscle or a significant pathway in your brain. This superhighway of what you are paying attention to is critical conditioning. For example, if you are paying attention to “what if I panic?”, you can develop strong neurons for panicking. If you are focused on “what if I am totally confident?”, then you can develop strong neurons for confidence.

John Overdurf calls this scenario the Cycles of Observation. These Cycles of Observation can alone determine our reality through:
* the quantum zeno effect which, as you know, is how the duration and frequency of observation effects the rate of change in both objective and subjective terms.
* the relative detail, patterns, and/or progression that can be observed. Notice, for example how frequently you observe something or place your attention on something; how much time that observation/attention lasts;
where this attention starts and finishes (and/or does it?); what you pay attention to between observations; what meaning you make of it all; how you keep that meaning constant.

Whew! That’s A LOT of observing going on! But, it’s really important to pay attention to where your mind is, where the focus spends most of its time, and what patterns you might be creating that could be redirected towards something more positive.

Why not consider paying attention to something positive and repeat that multiple times?

Most of my clients aren’t seeing me because they are paying attention to something positive repeatedly – they are seeing me to resolve whatever pattern or story they are stuck in, the tape that stops them from creating and maintaining healthy patterns to create a healthy life and life choices.

In individual client sessions, I ask many questions on the first visit as many people have said there is no greater knowledge than knowledge of oneself.
What’s curious is that many people are oblivious to themselves and it’s others who know only certain aspects of their personalities. Remaining stuck in a state of darkness about ourselves keeps us stuck and prevents progress. Change is only possible where there is an element of awareness or consciousness present.

Defenses that are ingrained habits have to be resolved or worked through so we can picture and be ourselves as we really are. Only then is it possible to transform. This is when we are no longer ruled by circumstances but we become rulers of our circumstances.

This is where our lives truly change and become enriched.

Many of us have been challenged professionally, especially in these stressful, harsh economic times. Some of us are forced to shift what we do for a living, while others have been able to take some time to consider what it is they really want to do professionally. No matter your situation, it might be a good time to align with the BIG WHY – why are you in your career in the first place?

Many automatically say it’s for the money or the benefits. And, while that certainly may be a part of the big career picture, there truly are other forces at work in our choices for our own lines of work. You can discover your career values (or any of your life’s values like health, personal development, fitness, home life, for that matter) by asking yourself what is truly important to you about your career. It’s a powerful question, and one that needs revisiting from time to time.

Try this: take a minute to sit down and write out at least 10 values that are important to you about your career. Once you’ve made that list, place them in the order of importance to you.

For example:
1. Helping people
2. Educating people
3. Beautiful surroundings
4. Freedom
5. Giving back

and so on…

Once you rank your values in the order of importance to you, start at the top of your list, and ask yourself what is important to you about that particular value. What are the activities or duties you have in your current work that are connected to that value?

For example, let’s work with helping people. What’s important to you about achieving this value in life? What do you get out of helping others? Do you currently help others in your job? In other areas of your life? How? When? Why is this rewarding to you? How does this feed who you really are?

Think about these answers carefully, but, remember, this is just a snapshot in time. It’s how you’re feeling about your life and activities like work and values today – it may shift some on another day, and that’s why it’s neat to create these lists multiple times. But, the answers are indeed revealing. Your core values should be consistent. And, if they aren’t present in your current work, maybe there’s some room for you to explore other options, other work or activities that align with what you say is most important to you in life.

Keep thinking and making lists of values. Review them to see where the patterns lie. Also, check for negative statements – while it’s important to know what you don’t want to do, what you don’t value, this type of list is helpful for moving forward. When you really see what you love to do, acknowledge what you most value, then you can make some steps to get more of such activities in your work (and personal!) life. Why compromise when you know what makes you happy? You’ll be able to chart out a path that is rich and meaningful to you that is rooted in your core values.

We grew up in a world where it isn’t acceptable – as adults – to express feelings like anger. Babies and children have their emotions and express them without judgment. It isn’t until we are adults that we begin to label feelings as good or bad. And, it isn’t until we are adults that we learn to hold back how we truly feel.

So many of us are scared by our emotions. We worry that if we feel what we feel, we will completely fall apart. We bottle up our emotions deep inside. We edit what we feel when expressing ourselves to others. But the true healing comes from doing tough emotional work – having, expressing, and looking at our feelings in order to make sense of ourselves in the world.

Emotional work is not something you get over. It’s something you do if you want to shift or evolve your life. And, it’s difficult to work through “our stuff”, to do the challenging emotional work that will propel us forward towards healthy relationships and a strong internal emotional life.

People always ask me if and when their work, their hard work, is ever going to end. Instead of looking for the end of this work, treat it like it’s a destination. Treat your inner work like a journey of discovery. In this journey, by connecting with your heart, you can find joy and that idea that you are eternal. Why would you want that process, that feeling to end?

Emotion is energy in motion. Feelings change the minute you acknowledge them and embrace them. Most folks attach a story to their negative feelings instead of just experiencing them and processing through the hurdles and bumps. We tend to move around our hearts, skipping over what we truly feel, instead of going through the heart to get another perspective about our emotions.

Winston Churchill said: “If you are going to go through hell, keep going.” For inspiration for our difficult inner work this sentiment can perhaps best be paraphrased as to get out you gotta go through.

Commit to doing the hard work. Commit to go through and coming out on the other side with a fresh, powerful perspective. Commit to yourself. It takes courage and strength to look at all that’s going on inside, experience and process raw emotions, and find core issues and patterns that could change. When you do begin this work, you’ll be on your way to developing your authentic self that can take you to the next level of joy.

It sounds sort of funny, but developing a relationship with your heart is strongly connected to how you develop relationships. This most intimate of relationships guides the sorts of people you attract, too.

Being present for yourself is the anchor you must develop in order to forge healthy emotions and relationships. Contrary to how may of us operate, another person is not the anchor.

When we show up for ourselves everyday by parenting our hearts our other intimate relationships are not so scary or daunting. When your own heart is nurtured, others can then be nurtured by us in a healthy way as well.

Think of your heart as a child. (The child is a metaphor for the heart.)
Whatever your childhood issues are that you still may be working through will probably pop up at some time through your relationships. What our issues or triggers were as children are what we tend to attract in life. For example, if your issue is abandonment, you might have a pattern of choosing relationships where you are abandoned or you might attract situations that provide an opportunity or need to be healed.

People in your life are your messengers to help you heal your wounded heart. Take cues from the patterns you’ve established in your relationships to learn what to heal within.

And, then ask, what do you do to love yourself?

Consider having a relationship with your heart – the kind of relationship you would want with a partner. Look through the eyes of your heart. Be a best friend to yourself. Treat your heart like you would treat your own child’s heart if he was hurt, angry, sad, or afraid. What would you do for your distressed child? Would you distract your child or sit with her and validate your her feelings over and over and over again until the feelings process through? When you offer unconditional love, and really show up for your heart (as you would for your child), you can move through hurt to heal.

What do you do when you feel hurt? Do you call someone? Walk, listen to music, or eat? Ask yourself: how can I be there for myself now? How can I show up for myself and trust that I am taking care of my feelings now?

Many of my clients come to me to deal with their anxiety and fear and transform it into positive energy that feeds them rather than takes energy away from their lives. The causes for such heavy emotions are varied, of course, and I hear throughout my daily/weekly sessions that people are afraid of these emotions – and are doing everything in their power to avoid feeling fearful.

In my experience, avoidance is probably not the best strategy as typically the emotion you are trying to avoid comes back with a vengeance. Negative emotions can fester, too, which then can transform into fatigue or other severe health problems. Not the kind of transformation most of us seek.

There are many steps I teach my clients to take to resolve negative emotions in order to help them regulate their energy and give them their power back.

If you avoid your feelings, or are plagued by fear and anxiety, you can do something for yourself immediately. This isn’t a quick fix but a first step at help until you can get the appropriate assistance to guide you in resolving the root of your true problem.

Take Time Out
Sit comfortably. Begin breathing in through your nose, and out through the mouth with your exhale lasting approximately twice as long as your inhale. Count to yourself to guide this practice. Raise your head every so slightly. Look up and find a spot on the wall or some area or object you can focus on. Soften your breathing as you focus on this spot. Keep your eyes fixed on the spot or object and start spreading your awareness to the periphery. Notice while keeping your eyes fixed that you can also see to the sides of yourself. Now, consider the space above your head, then the space below your body. Keep expanding your awareness all the way out, reaching, stretching this awareness to encompass the room, your space, your world, the universe.

Keeping your breathing soft, notice how you feel. Now soften your thoughts. You can even imagine space….in….between….each….of….your….thoughts. You can also imagine breathing through your heart. Notice how good this feels. (It sounds weird, perhaps, but give it a go!)

Spending just a few moments practicing this technique can really diffuse a stressful situation. If you are having a hectic day, use this visualization to help you to regain control while you’re still in the situation, right when it makes a difference.

And, practice, practice, practice. Your mind and body love repetition! When you make this exercise part of your regular practice it will work better, and become an automatic response geared to help you through stressful, fearful situations.