Unresolved Trauma, A Metaphysical Approach To Illnesses And Ailments

[Makrosky]

Whatever.

For one thing, I think people would benefit greatly learning the history of the ideas.

Then maybe one would realize that the whole idea (and all the myriad of derivated ideas) of childhood trauma/PTSD/etc. started at one point in history because of Freud. Not very long ago.

Before that, no one would never see one's problems derived from childhood.

Greeks and romans would think you've problems with gods.

Tribes would think ypu have problems with spirits.

Tibetans would think you have bad karmas from previous lifes.

And so on.

One has to realize that you relate to the world with ideas. And the ideas change with time and culture.

Freud created the trauma idea, and then everybody has traumas and childhood problems.

That is NOT to negate the role of the psyche/mind in health. It certainly is very important. And I'm not saying therapy isn't helpful.

I think one should think a bit about this before embracing the whole childhood trauma thing. Because you can spend many years of your life trying to fix things that happened in the past with no previsible outcome.

 

[michael94]

I don't think it works like you recognize the source of your problems and overcome it with mind power. I think that is a strawman. It's more like you will be lead to the physical solutions in an almost serendipitous way. Especially when one recognizes most symptoms are adaptive. This is more in response to comments as I did not watch video...

 

[Integra]

I believe that the concept of the mind is just an illusion of free will and we're just simply brain matter that has a reaction to environmental stimulus.

I wonder how it feels to believe this: free, empowering, sad?...I am just genuinely curious (but don't feel like you need to answer)! I believe in free will in the most common sense, but I see it as dependent on a degree of awareness of contextual factors that gives a sense of agency to deal with those.

- - -

Like @Makrosky said, I see how the source of suffering or for that matter, causes of disease, could be reduced to pretty much anything--be it trauma, the tribe spirits, karma, hehe... On point. Maybe they're all imaginative shortcuts to the good old:

"It is what is, now whaddaya do about it?"

I guess I'm arriving at some criteria for what comprises a good belief, be it true or false, perhaps a 'good' belief reduces suffering, doesn't suppose the physical existence of anything in particular, but allows us some degree of personal responsibility to act upon the world in accordance with our values?
It seems to be me that it doesn't matter really what a particular belief one holds as much as how it affects what a person does with that belief, if it's not only professed but really lived (consciously or unconsciously). At least in the humanities, (dealing with different kinds of facts than in, say, biology) 'objectivity' in research seems to consist of zooming out, zooming in, meshing perspectives, and then seeing it as clearly as we can, then bringing it back to our subjective interpretations, hehe... :)

It's more like you will be lead to the physical solutions in an almost serendipitous way. Especially when one recognizes most symptoms are adaptive.

To me, this idea that all symptoms are adaptations is so new! Even though it may not be revolutionary, it frames the way I look at things in a in interesting way. I guess it's a great method for investigating things, too, but it's still a matter of our decision in which direction(s) we're supposed to take it. (Sorry for chopping up the quote)

I agree with this comment. I think it's helpful to consider a top-down approach for therapeutic reasons but dangerous to see it as a model for causative factors. Above anything else i'd like to see the distinction upheld purely for the sake of progressive science - there's still a stigma associated with doctors who attempt to dissolve mental 'disorders' to constituent biological malfunctions, especially with complex conditions such as M.E., MS and alzheimer's, etc..

Right. I see that. And what she says in the video about the causes (and the way she reduces everything to these emotional factors/these New-Agey views of the universe, etc. etc. is damaging to such attempts), but may be useful for therapeutic reasons.

 

[Makrosky]

Yeah I like very much the idea that the symptoms are adaptive. The body is not stupid. It does things for a reason.

 

[Xisca]

Thoughts and emotions show the trauma, but they cannot be the only cause, not maybe even the cause.
Soem believe that the trauma is 1st physical, and then it is revived by the mind and the emotions, only when the story is not finished at physiological levels.
I agree with what Makroksky says above about the story of humanity. Of course people did not know anything about physiology at scientific level, but they did know they they were feeling something. The rest is just a way to say it, whether talking about gods or spirit or karma.
This does not mean that what this woman says does not work, because anyway the nervous system does not know the difference between reality and imagination. Maybe, when she talks about culpability, there is some of it in this way of uunderstanding things, because you might feel guilty that something happened to you. Guilty about your thougts ? For me, physiology came 1st. Maybe you just did not remember about what was the 1st problema, because you had no memory about it.
Anyway, I agree that you can use this approach even if something is not true, because and door to enter is possible. Just please do not forget about the physiology of shocks. They do create thoughts and emotions, that in their turn will create what she says in this video.

 

[Xisca]

Yes the body is not stupid, it is intelligent, in a different way than our mind.
So yes it is adaptative.
Too many methods are top down, when bottom up like in somatic experiencing Works wonderfully.
SE can also sometimes be top down, when useful!

Only when people are not enough connected to their bodies can another approach than bottom up be useful, and hopefully the felt sense will develop. So, yes I also agree about beleiving what ever you want for therapeutic reasons.

I insist that I can see a problema with guilt causing methods, when they want you to be responsable for everything that happened to you. When you are responsable, of course you can become empowered because you can do something! But you are responsable for how you feel and the consequences in your life, and if someone hurt you then the person has no responsibility? Give them the chance to be empowered as well!

When you are responsable for things happening over and over again in your life, it might be true that our system look for what is similar to the 1st trauma, which you were not responsable of, to get a chance to discharge this high activation and get back the energy to the stream of life...

 

[Xisca]

I could take the text and sort out a lot of things that are mixed true and wrong....

I quote the 2nd paragraph:
"Knowing that, I’m gonna lead off this episode with a statement, and here it is: ailments begin mentally and emotionally. They then become physical. The physical cause of the illness you see before you is just that. It is a manifestation of a deeper mental and emotional root cause. It’s hard for us to see the power that the mind or emotions have over body. Why? Because we can’t see the mind. Once we adopted a Newtonian model of physics, we suddenly really cared what we saw. So, obviously, if you can’t see the mind, if you can’t see emotions, they’re abstract to you.
But play a game for me:
close your eyes for a minute and I want you to imagine biting into a lemon. Make it as real as possible. See if you felt that reaction back here in your jaw, the reflex to tasting something sour. There are no lemons in your vicinity, so why did that just happen? It happened because your mind doesn’t know the difference between something you imagine and something that happens in this external reality. Everything that it perceives is real. The body is reflecting what is happening in the mind and the emotions—exactly."

Yes, the physical cause of the illness is emotional and mental, but the deepest cause behind was physiological, BEFORE. It is a circle, and it starts in the body.
Of course and contrary to what she says we do see the power of the mind and emotions, we feel and think all the time!
What is hard for us is something else! It is much harder, when we have an emotion, to feel the root in the body, because we are not enough in ocntact with it.
Then, I use the same example as the lemon as she does!
With different focus.
It is not the mind that does not know the diference between reality and imagination!
It is your body, because it is the one that reacts.
And in the body, who is responsable for this reaction? The autonomic nervous system.

This example indeed shows something, that we can act upon our physiology, so we can help it when it does not work properly by itself. It usually does work by itself, thanks god, but it goes wrong when something is stuck in the autonomous system, because of an impaired capacity of discharging excess energy after an activation.

Animals have less problem because their cortex is less developped and does not block the process. So they recover well from traumas, except when they were traumatized by loosing their mother too early etc, peri-natal trauma before their nervous system was finished.

Humans have only one advantage, they can recover from their early traumas if someting is done about it, and of course we can also get back our natural capacities.

 

[Xisca]

This is quite good, but what has caused the thoughts and emotions? You are stressed at work, and THEN it causes thoughts, in an intent to find a way to defend yourself from the threat. It can be real or imaginary, of course, no difference as we saw before.
When you imagine, it can be because it just looks like something you experienced before, and you are afraid that it happens again. You are alert, maybe too much, because you have kept some activation from you last experineces. Just because unlike animals, we do not discharge properly after each stressful experience.
Then also, you can feel too much stress because your resilience has gone weak from too many bad experiences before.

What is right in this text is that we are NOT ENOUGH AWARE.

We are not conscious of the reaction in our body to our thoughts and subsequent emotions. Are you aware when you’re stressed at work that your stomach is tight and your body has shut down blood flow to your extremities and your body’s flooded with cortisol and your heart is working double time to cope and your liver is breaking down glycogen like crazy? No, chances are that you’re simply focused on what’s stressing you out. So if you develop something like heart disease you’re gonna be baffled as to why. You do not recognize the cause of the effect.

This is even truer when the mental and emotional causes of our ailments find their roots deep in our childhood. This is the case with cancer. Cancer is the byproduct of the deep grief we experienced in our childhood that goes unresolved. But this is the last thing we think of when we come down with cancer. When we get cancer, the first thing we do is rush straight in for chemotherapy treatment. Ultimately, the root cause of our physical ailments is trauma. But when we’re thinking about trauma we have to expand our understanding of trauma.

Also, it is right that trauma is a root cause. I do believe that they take a soul away, as this correspond physically to a dissociated state. Then I also believe in mental and emotions coming from chilhood, they are the hints that stay to give you clues to the body sensations, including when this past is forgotten. I also do believe in karma, or genealogic transmission, as I have found some for me. But at the root, there is a trauma that was transmitted to me in unspoken way in my family. And at the root there was a big fear for death. Trauma is 1st a threat to life. Of course it resulted in thought and believes and emotional issues!

 

[lexis]

Whatever.

For one thing, I think people would benefit greatly learning the history of the ideas.

Then maybe one would realize that the whole idea (and all the myriad of derivated ideas) of childhood trauma/PTSD/etc. started at one point in history because of Freud. Not very long ago.

Before that, no one would never see one's problems derived from childhood.

Greeks and romans would think you've problems with gods.

Tribes would think ypu have problems with spirits.

Tibetans would think you have bad karmas from previous lifes.

And so on.

One has to realize that you relate to the world with ideas. And the ideas change with time and culture.

Freud created the trauma idea, and then everybody has traumas and childhood problems.

That is NOT to negate the role of the psyche/mind in health. It certainly is very important. And I'm not saying therapy isn't helpful.

I think one should think a bit about this before embracing the whole childhood trauma thing. Because you can spend many years of your life trying to fix things that happened in the past with no previsible outcome.

Muslims believe that some diseases are caused by sins or association with oppressive people.

For spiritual diseases,the solution offered by Islam is very similar to Ray's guidelines:

Take care of the gut..Hadith says "Stomach is the house of all illnesses"

Do not eat muscle meat too much.



Blood letting

 

[Luann]

OP (@Integra)

I found the transcript really, really helpful. I don't know if mental pain is the cause of many physical pains but I did, almost by accident, begin to delve into my past today just out of curiousity if it would help my stomach pain.

I got way more out of the experience than I expected.

I remembered more pain, more branches of the dysfunctional tree I lived in, than I thought was there. Way more separate events. Realities. I wanted to talk to the little girl who felt ashamed and was shaking with apprehension, the tiny me, who couldn't protect herself then. I felt guilt. I failed at giving any advice to the little girl. I realized this was ok - as much as I wanted to say, You don't have to be in this situation. Leave, tell a parent, anything. Mostly I wanted to tell her that she deserved better but I was not able to say that because the adult me still is not sure how to use this advice, still not sure that deserving better equates to getting what is better.

It was ok to not give advice. Ok to let the helplessness happen to the little girl.

Ok that she doesn't know how and that I still don't have an answer.

But it surprised me that the little "Liubo", spoke to me.

And this is when I started crying today, when I felt I locked eyes with my past self and she told me, "You're going to be taller. To be stronger. To be better able to deal with this someday, but for now, I will keep this inside."

And I was crying because with big strength the little girl did as she promised and I didn't remember these things about myself for years and years.

Does it help to unbury the past? Only so we can affirm that those things are wrong. Only so we can warn the little people about the big people who aren't trustworthy, even if too late. Only so we can show pity and "I'm sorry. Is there a way I can act around you that will be calming?" to ourselves like we would show to others. Only so we can commit the word "community" to memory. Only so we can not be hypocrites.

 

[Integra]

How happy I am to hear this @Liubo , and how sorry I am you had to experience any of that. But like she said, this painful thing you had to go through was your way "of becoming taller" in this life. Since you shared your story, I'll share mine: I once stepped in before my little self was about to get hit and just went berserk. Every detail, bruise, gush of blood, scrape--I vividly experienced the enraged pleasure of all the pain, helplessness and humiliation as I pummeled and squeezed it back to my tormentor. But my little self wasn't grateful, she wasn't cheering for me or anything - out of her mind with fear, she just watched me beat the monster to a pulp.

After than, my anger slowly dissipated, to the point of not dreading sending the person Christmas cards. Yet now I'm discovering that I wasn't nearly as angry at the perpetrator but at the others who stood by, and looked the other way because it was easier for them.

Because of that, I just don't look away anymore. At anyone and at anything. I'd rather be a self-righteous idiot than live my life like that.

And thank you for sharing.

 

[Luann]

How happy I am to hear this @Liubo , and how sorry I am you had to experience any of that. But like she said, this painful thing you had to go through was your way "of becoming taller" in this life. Since you shared your story, I'll share mine: I once stepped in before my little self was about to get hit and just went berserk. Every detail, bruise, gush of blood, scrape--I vividly experienced the enraged pleasure of all the pain, helplessness and humiliation as I pummeled and squeezed it back to my tormentor. But my little self wasn't grateful, she wasn't cheering for me or anything - out of her mind with fear, she just watched me beat the monster to a pulp.

After than, my anger slowly dissipated, to the point of not dreading sending the person Christmas cards. Yet now I'm discovering that I wasn't nearly as angry at the perpetrator but at the others who stood by, and looked the other way because it was easier for them.

Because of that, I just don't look away anymore. At anyone and at anything. I'd rather be a self-righteous idiot than live my life like that.

And thank you for sharing.

YES.
The people who were big back then and should have realized just how small the little you is. (Was.)
Thank you for your experience as well. I hope that talking about this helps you, like it helps me, and that you have grown in hope and fighting spirit as I have. Love you.
L