People Can Recover From Mental Illness.

DNA Is Not Destiny

The new science of epigenetics rewrites the rules of disease, heredity, and identity.

By Ethan Watters|Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Back in 2000, Randy Jirtle, a professor of radiation oncology at Duke University, and his postdoctoral student Robert Waterland designed a groundbreaking genetic experiment that was simplicity itself. They started with pairs of fat yellow mice known to scientists as agouti mice, so called because they carry a particular gene—the agouti gene—that in addition to making the rodents ravenous and yellow renders them prone to cancer and diabetes. Jirtle and Waterland set about to see if they could change the unfortunate genetic legacy of these little creatures.

Typically, when agouti mice breed, most of the offspring are identical to the parents: just as yellow, fat as pincushions, and susceptible to life-shortening disease. The parent mice in Jirtle and Waterland's experiment, however, produced a majority of offspring that looked altogether different. These young mice were slender and mousy brown. Moreover, they did not display their parents' susceptibility to cancer and diabetes and lived to a spry old age. The effects of the agouti gene had been virtually erased.

Remarkably, the researchers effected this transformation without altering a single letter of the mouse's DNA. Their approach instead was radically straightforward—they changed the moms' diet. Starting just before conception, Jirtle and Waterland fed a test group of mother mice a diet rich in methyl donors, small chemical clusters that can attach to a gene and turn it off. These molecules are common in the environment and are found in many foods, including onions, garlic, beets, and in the food supplements often given to pregnant women. After being consumed by the mothers, the methyl donors worked their way into the developing embryos' chromosomes and onto the critical agouti gene. The mothers passed along the agouti gene to their children intact, but thanks to their methyl-rich pregnancy diet, they had added to the gene a chemical switch that dimmed the gene's deleterious effects.

"It was a little eerie and a little scary to see how something as subtle as a nutritional change in the pregnant mother rat could have such a dramatic impact on the gene expression of the baby," Jirtle says. "The results showed how important epigenetic changes could be."

Our DNA—specifically the 25,000 genes identified by the Human Genome Project—is now widely regarded as the instruction book for the human body. But genes themselves need instructions for what to do, and where and when to do it. A human liver cell contains the same DNA as a brain cell, yet somehow it knows to code only those proteins needed for the functioning of the liver. Those instructions are found not in the letters of the DNA itself but on it, in an array of chemical markers and switches, known collectively as the epigenome, that lie along the length of the double helix. These epigenetic switches and markers in turn help switch on or off the expression of particular genes. Think of the epigenome as a complex software code, capable of inducing the DNA hardware to manufacture an impressive variety of proteins, cell types, and individuals.

More: DNA Is Not Destiny | DiscoverMagazine.com

Good stuff, thanks.

Full Recovery from Schizophrenia?
By Paris Williams, PhD | 65 Comments

This is the first of a series of blog postings related to my own series of research studies (my doctoral research at Saybrook University) of people who have made full and lasting medication-free recoveries after being diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. This is very exciting research because it is one of the few areas within psychological research that remains almost completely wide open. One reason it is so wide open is that most Westerners don’t believe that genuine recovery from schizophrenia and other related psychotic disorders is possible, in spite of significant evidence to the contrary. Since there are some very hopeful findings that have emerged within this research, I want to begin this series of postings by summing up one particularly hopeful aspect of my own research, which is a group of five factors that emerged which are considered to have been the most important factors in my participants’ recovery process. But before looking closer at these factors, we should back up for a minute…
Upon reading the statement in the preceding paragraph, “…people who have made full and lasting medication-free recoveries from schizophrenia…,” it’s likely that many readers did a double-take. Yes, you read this correctly. Contrary to this widespread myth about schizophrenia, the research is quite robust in showing us that not only is full medication-free recovery from schizophrenia possible, it’s surprisingly common, and is actually the most common outcome in many situations—such as in many of the poorest countries of the world, such as India, Columbia, and Nigeria, and as the result of certain psychosocial interventions, such as the Open Dialogue Approach used in Lapland, Finland.

More: Full Recovery from Schizophrenia? | Brain Blogger

Dissociation and trauma arise
DECEMBER 9, 2008 BY MONICA CASSANI

The post I wrote the other day about the pain, physical and mental that I have in “spells.” But only have vague memories of afterward? It’s struck me that I’m dealing with dissociation—a pretty classic sort of it too.

I’m also realizing that I’m confronting ancient pain from childhood and while at first that freaked me out, I’m now quite excited because it is distinctly neither depression nor mania, but instead old screaming pain from trauma that simply needs listening to. The drugs I’ve taken for years did not allow that screaming child within me to be heard and now she is demanding that I listen.

More: Dissociation and trauma arise – Beyond Meds

Taking Your Mind Back

January 27, 2010 at 2:12 pm

By Jeremy

In this repost from last year, I outline my path back to wellness from Bipolar using simple alternatives that don’t involve conventional prescription drug means. I started listening to my inner wisdom that was shouting “change”.

I continue to experience the wonders of life free of medication. I have made adjustments along the way to remain balanced. Some of these include changes in my nutrition, meditation, and exercise.

It is my belief that all dis-eases and dis-orders signal a change is needed. This is hard for many to swallow because it involves a drastic paradigm shift away from what they have been taught over the years. We all have this inner power and we need to stop giving it away to others.

You can read part 1 of my story here:

The Power Behind my Bipolar: Becoming Friends with Both Sides

I want to tell my story, but not for a high five or a kudos. It is not to get an “atta-boy” or a pat on the back. I want to tell it because it is time to look at the view atop the mountain that I have been climbing for over ten years. I want to tell it because I hope that maybe someone is looking for a glimmer of hope no matter what DIS-ease your body is telling you. My story is meant to be told for my own well-being and it is my last step to fully embrace it.

Our society has a carved out the mental disorders as something that needs to be suppressed and fixed. However, our solutions are not perfect. It started for me in college during a time when most push themselves to the brink by partaking in activities that may be foreign to many. I was no stranger to this. I stayed up late during the week studying and then partied hard on the weekends. My diet consisted of an incomplete breakfast, a lunch of more carbs, and pizza or some other unhealthy choice. There was no salad or pure, raw foods mixed in anywhere.

More: Taking Your Mind Back | Lotus Work

The Power Behind my Bipolar: Becoming Friends with Both Sides- Part 2

August 16, 2009 at 8:41 am

By Jeremy

My change back to my homeostatic, natural self (better than the word “normal”) was certainly not a transformation that occurred over night. It was certainly an evolution of thought that met much resistance from many sources, including myself. It was something that I pondered and planned for over ten years since I was diagnosed, at a subconscious level. It really struck my conscious level earlier this year after two “a-ha” moments.

The first was that I developed gout a year and half ago. Gout is basically a form of inflammation that occurs in your joints from a build up of uric acid. It settled in my foot and knees. I don’t wish it upon anyone because it feels like daggers stabbing you without putting any pressure on that area. I was fortunate enough to have health insurance, so I paid a visit to a specialist and my primary care. They put me on a drug and I was told that there is no cure and I may need this for the remainder of my life.

I started taking the medication and was good for another six months until I had another bout. I returned hobbling to my primary care and he decided that I need to increase my levels of it. I was curious about WHAT causes this. He went into the science behind it, but I continued to ask why it occurred. His next answer stunned me. He basically said that only God could explain that and gave a warm smile to my disenchanted look.

I had a flurry of emotions after leaving. I decided that day after finding out how much all the new medications would cost me to ditch that band aid. My life went on without the medication for a week or two and the pain subsided. It was during that time of pain that I had a difficult time playing with my daughter, Ava. I was not only in pain from the gout attack, but I was so out of shape. I got winded and tired playing with my one year old on the FLOOR. The battle plan inside of me really began at that point. I dreamed of walking my daughter down the aisle for her wedding in GOOD health. This was my second, “a-ha” moment.

More: The Power Behind my Bipolar: Becoming Friends with Both Sides- Part 2 | Lotus Work

The Power Behind my Bipolar: Becoming Friends with Both Sides- Part 3

August 17, 2009 at 7:14 am

By Jeremy

As I stare at the previous posts, I realize that I never described the emotions that used to run my life. I guess it is important to know where you have come from before you can know where you are going. I don’t want to focus on the hell I went through, but rather how I discovered heaven on earth. I was one of the fortunate ones who never thought about ending their lives. I only thought about how I can improve my situation.

I guess Hell comes in many forms. Mine was the late nights of no sleep and the constant chatter that my mind would produce. It was usually chatter about things that I needed to do in the future or my review of the events that happened during the day. It made me frustrated because all I really wanted to do was sleep. The next day would come and it would be a nightmare. I would run through the days like I was in a movie and was waiting for the director to yell, “Cut.” My lack of sleep played with my emotions. I was short-tempered around those close to me and drove them crazy.

The other end of the spectrum was the dark cloud that descended upon me. I spent more days under this dark cloud than I would wish upon anyone. I would sleep all day and all night. I didn’t leave my room or what must have been my cave. This was the place where I dreamed my way out of this feeling. My imagination was what kept me going and helped to restore me back to the world.

I guess I could tell you more details about my experience, but I would rather have you imagine it or simply ask me. I am extremely comfortable about talking about it because I feel that I am success story BECAUSE of it. I owe all my happiness in life with family, career, and self to my barrage of free flowing emotions. I’d rather share what steps I took to “cure” myself and how I live my life. You will be amazed because the remedy is not some high tech, new scientific method. It is actually ancient ways that have been practiced since the dawn of man.

The Power Behind my Bipolar: Becoming Friends with Both Sides- Part 3 | Lotus Work

The Power Behind my Bipolar: Becoming Friends with Both Sides- Part 4

August 17, 2009 at 8:54 pm

By Jeremy

So I AM sitting here eating my organic peanut-butter wheat crackers with a side of cold organic rice milk and I am thinking, “How did I end up at this point?” I can tell you last year I would have been polishing off an ice cream sundae with a tall glass of milk. I am not knocking ice cream sundaes because I still enjoy them, but something has been altered between then and now. The great thing is that it is wonderful to me. So cheers, [organic rice milk raised up in the air], “Here is to the rest of my life and in good health.”

How did I make my Hell work for me? How is it possible to turn your life from “get up, go to work, go to sleep, repeat” to GET UP, GO TO WORK, GO TO SLEEP, REPEAT.” It is the how you say it and what happens in between. To me it was really easy. No matter what changes you make in your life it has to start with two things, Intention and Attention. My intent was simple, get healthy and enjoy life to its fullest. The attention part was were I used my emotions to propel me.

This was how I became friends with my 2 sides. I had to find out HOW they can HELP me. I learned that when I am restless and have an abundance of energy that it is not the time to go shopping online or spend countless hours surfing the web with no purpose. This was a weakness, but also my strength. I used my abundance of energy to work out (uses up all my energy to help me sleep) and surf the internet for ways to improve my body, mind, and spirit. I also used it to meet new people and try new things. The really tricky part that I had to master is to always take a step back while fully engaged. This served me well because I was able to gain knowledge in the very act. An example would be when I started working out. I wanted to do everything, but I took a step back and listened to my body. It said, “Be gentle and kind to me, and I will work wonders for you.” I have never been disappointed yet.

More: The Power Behind my Bipolar: Becoming Friends with Both Sides- Part 4 | Lotus Work

Man's Search for Meaning

AN INTRODUCTION TO LOGOTHERAPY
Fourth Edition

Viktor E. Frankl

With more than 4 million copies in print in the English language
alone, Man's Search for Meaning, the chilling yet inspirational
story of Viktor Frankl's struggle to hold on to hope during his
three years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, is a true
classic. Beacon Press is now pleased to present a special gift
edition of a work that was hailed in 1959 by Carl Rogers as"one
of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought in the
last fifty years." Frankl's training as a psychiatrist informed
every waking moment of his ordeal and allowed him a
remarkable perspective on the psychology of survival. His
assertion that "the will to meaning" is the basic motivation for
human life has forever changed the way we understand our
humanity in the face of suffering.

Preface by Gordon W. Allport 7

Preface

Dr. Frankl, author-psychiatrist, sometimes asks his patients who suffer from a multitude of torments great and small, "Why do you not commit suicide?" From their answers he can often find the guide-line for his psycho-therapy: in one life there is love for one's children to tie to; in another life, a talent to be used; in a third, perhaps only lingering memories worth preserving. To weave these slender threads of a broken life into a firm pattern of meaning and responsibility is the object and challenge of logo-therapy, which is Dr. Frankl's own version of modern existential analysis.

In this book, Dr. Frankl explains the experience which led to his discovery of logotherapy. As a longtime prisoner in bestial concentration camps he found himself stripped to naked existence. His father, mother, brother, and his wife died in camps or were sent to the gas ovens, so that, excepting for his sister, his entire family perished in these camps. How could he—every possession lost, every value destroyed, suffering from hunger, cold and brutality, hourly expecting extermination—how could he find life worth preserving? A psychiatrist who personally has faced such extremity is a psychiatrist worth listening to. He, if anyone, should beable to view our human condition wisely and with compassion. Dr. Frankl's words have a profoundly honest ring, for they rest on experiences too deep for deception. What he has to say gains in prestige because of his present position on the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna and because of the renown of the logotherapy clinics that today are springing up in many lands, patterned on his own famous Neurological Policlinic in Vienna...


Preface to the 1992 Edition

... The reader may ask me why I did not try to escape what was in store for me after Hitler had occupied Austria. Let me answer by recalling the following story. Shortly before the United States entered World War II, I received an invitation to come to the American Consulate in Vienna to pick up my immigration visa. My old parents were overjoyed because they expected that I would soon be allowed to leave Austria. I suddenly hesitated, however. The question beset me: could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later, to a concentration camp, or even to a so-called extermination camp? Where did my responsibility lie? Should I foster my brain child, logotherapy, by emigrating to fertile soil where I could write my books? Or should I concentrate on my duties as a real child, the child of my parents who had to do whatever he could to protect them? I pondered the problem this way and that but could not arrive at a solution; this was the type of dilemma that made one wish for "a hint from Heaven," as the phrase goes.

It was then that I noticed a piece of marble lying on a table at home. When I asked my father about it, he explained that he had found it on the site where the National Socialists had burned down the largest Viennese synagogue. He had taken the piece home because it was a part of the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. One gilded Hebrew letter was engraved on the piece; my father explained that this letter stood for one of the Commandments. Eagerly I asked, "Which one is it?" He answered, "Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land." At that moment I decided to stay with my father and my mother upon the land, and to let the American visa lapse...

Download Book: http://www.spiritual-minds.com/philo...losophy)-o.pdf

Viktor Frankl: Why to believe in others

In this rare clip from 1972, legendary psychiatrist and Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl delivers a powerful message about the human search for meaning -- and the most important gift we can give others.

Neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl pioneered an approach to psychotherapy that focuses on the human search for meaning.

Why you should listen to him:

Viktor E. Frankl was Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School. He spent three years during World War II in concentration camps, including Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Dachau, where he formulated many of his key ideas. Logotherapy, his psychotherapeutic school, is founded on the belief that striving to find meaning in life is the most powerful motivation for human beings.

Frankl wrote 39 books, which were published in 38 languages. His best-known, Man's Search for Meaning, gives a firsthand account of his experiences during the Holocaust, and describes the psychotherapeutic method he pioneered. The Library of Congress called it one of "the ten most influential books in America." Frankl lectured on five continents.

"Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human. "
Viktor Frankl

Clip: Viktor Frankl: Why to believe in others | Video on TED.com

Practice Living by Your Personal Life Values—Part 1

JUNE 4, 2012 at 8:59 AM

By Larry Berkelhammer

As I pointed out in earlier posts, emotional distress and its accompanying physiological stress are less the result of events than of the attributions you assign to those events—your thoughts and beliefs about them—and your cognitive fusion with those attributions. The antidote to this suffering is mindfulness practice, which provides you with the skills to be able to de-fuse from your unhealthy thoughts and beliefs.

There is another approach to emotional distress that I have found highly effective, both in my personal life and in my professional practice. It, too, involves mindfulness, but in a different way. I call it Valued-Action Practice, and it is the subject of this post and others that will follow. I credit this practice to the founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dr. Steven Hayes, who appears in the photo.

This method addresses the fact that the vast majority of the time, most of us go through the day more focused on what we don’t want than what we do want. When anything at all doesn’t go as we would have liked, we end up thinking about what went wrong, magnifying its importance. Those of us who live with chronic health challenges know this pattern well, and we are usually highly adept at this practice. When we don’t feel well, we focus on not feeling well. When any condition exists that we don’t like, we focus on that condition. In this way, we create even more emotional and physiological stress than our condition or illness itself generates. We also reinforce the neural circuits for negativity, thereby increasing the odds of experiencing more of what we don’t want. This reinforcing of what we don’t value rather than what we do value has another deleterious effect: it distances us from our personal life values. And being out of touch with our values leads to thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that can be very destructive to our health.

The reason we engage in this counterproductive, paradoxical practice is that, since ancient times, we have mistakenly believed we need to focus on what we don’t want in order to figure out how to keep bad things from happening. We’ve vividly imagined the tiger’s approach in order to help us prepare to ward off an attack. Still, although most people throughout the millennia have focused on what they didn’t want, there has always been a tiny percentage of individuals who were able to keep their attention on those things they held most dear—their personal life values. They have always tended to live with better health and greater well-being.

There is nothing to stop you from learning and employing the brilliant strategy these healthier people have used and weaving it into the fabric of your life. You, too, can develop the skill of focusing on your most deeply held values in every waking moment, and I will address that in future posts.

Link: Practice Living by Your Personal Life Values—Part 1 | Larry Berkelhammer

Experiential Avoidance of Thoughts and Feelings is Unhealthy

JULY 6, 2012 at 9:00 AM

By Larry Berkelhammer, PhD

Psychologist Steven Hayes popularized the term experiential avoidance, which is a term that originated in contextual behavioral science research. It refers to a common psychological pattern to which we are all susceptible: the attempt to avoid unpleasant thoughts, images, feelings, sensations, and emotions.

Experiential avoidance prevents us from being accepting of and present to our natural inner impulses, and this is problematic in a number of respects. In detaching us from feeling, experiential avoidance interferes with the very function of emotional response, which is to inform us of our inner subjective experience. And because our inner experience is what informs our conscious choices, experiential avoidance has the effect of limiting our options. It prevents us from acting on opportunities to pursue the values that give our lives meaning and it undermines the pursuit of environmental mastery.

Habitual experiential avoidance can be terribly debilitating, as evidenced by the finding that it is a common trait found in people who have difficulty making normal, everyday decisions. Research psychologist Michael Twohig and his team found that decision making becomes challenging for such people precisely because they are out of touch with the inner cues and direct experience that could otherwise inform the kinds of ordinary decisions other people routinely make without much thought. Imagine forgetting to go to bed because you can’t tell that you’re tired, or forgetting to eat because you don’t know you’re hungry.

In addition to limiting our choices and even making choosing more difficult, experiential avoidance carries another danger: it telegraphs and repeatedly reinforces the message that our feelings don’t matter—and that we should be ashamed of them. This kind of self-denial is the underlying cause of much of the current epidemic of depression in the industrialized world.

Feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, anxiety, and grief—the emotions we are most likely to try to avoid—are normal and healthy; we cannot function very well when we are out of touch with them. According to Dr. Liz Roemer and

Dr. Sue Orsillo, our inner world informs us of our needs and wants, and it is through our inner experience that we interact with our environment. If we tamp that experience down, we cannot live fully, nor can we grow. The tragedy of experiential avoidance is that when we deny our inner life we deny our aliveness—and even our very existence.

Link: Experiential Avoidance of Thoughts and Feelings is Unhealthy | Larry Berkelhammer

Health Effects of Avoidance Versus Acceptance

AUGUST 24, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Effects on Health: The Physiology of Avoidance Versus Acceptance

By Larry Berkelhammer, PhD

Now let’s take a look at the effects of experiential avoidance on health so we can see why it is so important for those of us with chronic medical conditions to become aware of experiential avoidance and strive to reduce it in our lives. Our health is already compromised; we cannot afford to worsen it needlessly.

Suppression of thoughts and feelings is associated with sympathetic arousal (fight or flight), including hypertension, increased heart rate and respiration, vasoconstriction, and all the other usual effects of stress. We can contrast this with the opposite of experiential avoidance: acceptance. Acceptance of our experience is associated with self-acceptance and physiological homeostasis. When the autonomic activity associated with suppression of thoughts and emotions is allowed to quiet down, balance is restored to the immune system, which does not function well during strong autonomic activity. When our stress level diminishes, functioning of the neuroendocrine system, gastrointestinal tract, and cardiovascular system improves, as does overall physiological functioning. For example, research by psychologist James Pennebaker reveals that when we stop suppressing memories of our past traumas and instead write in a journal about them, we can experience profound improvement in physiological functioning.

The result of suppressing unpleasant thoughts, emotions, images, and sensations is a constriction that contributes to dis-ease, which eventuates to disease. This constriction causes the chronic sympathetic arousal I described earlier. In fact, it affects brain function and the workings of every cell in the body. And so we see the paradox of avoidance or suppression playing out on a physiological as well as emotional level. A fascinating study conducted by research psychologists James Gross and Robert Levenson in the 1990s dramatically illustrated this fact: When study subjects were instructed to conceal their emotional expression while simply watching an emotional film, they experienced a paradoxical increase in sympathetic drive.

In other studies where subjects were instructed to control their physiological sensations, they, too, reported increased emotional distress and evidenced increased sympathetic drive. In a 2004 article in Behavior Therapy, Dr. J. Levitt showed that when subjects were instructed to accept the sensations, on the other hand, they reported reduced emotional distress and evidenced quieting of sympathetic drive.

It’s interesting to consider the polygraph test in this light. There are many people who can fool a polygraph. One very famous Watergate conspirator was able to do that and perform many other feats that seem impossible to most people. But no one can fool the polygraph by trying to control physiological sensations because this has the effect of increasing the stress response the subject is trying to suppress: the equipment will register the stress and the subject will flunk the test. Excluding psychopaths, those who can fool the polygraph are highly skilled in psychophysiological self-regulation. They have practiced extensively while hooked up to biofeedback instrumentation or have used a polygraph itself as their biofeedback training device.

It has also been shown that the physiological effects of experiential avoidance worsen with repetition. Repeated efforts to control our thoughts, images, feelings, emotions, and bodily sensations increase our negative judgments of these internal events when they recur. This leads to even more concerted efforts to control them. That 2004 study by Levitt revealed that this cycle of progressively increasing reactivity leads to chronic sympathetic arousal, and this can be devastating to our health.

Dr. Joanne Dahl demonstrated that in general, pain and physiological functioning worsen in proportion to the degree of resistance to what we experience. We heal faster when we are more open and accepting of our situation. This is why pain medications can sometimes actually speed healing and recovery; they allow us to relax into our experience.

Link: Health Effects of Avoidance of Thoughts & Feelings | Larry Berkelhammer

Loving Self-Care for Health

OCTOBER 15, 2012 at 9:00 AM

By Larry Berkelhammer, PhD

Deepak Chopra recently wrote an excellent article in the Huffington Post ( Deepak Chopra: The Real Secret to Staying Healthy for Life (Part 1) ) about self-care. The following article is information I would like to add to what he offered.

Partnerships in Loving Self-Care

One of the best ways to develop loving self-care is to have a life partner and/or close friends with whom you are in a mutually caring relationship. A one-sided caring relationship, in which someone else cares for you with no corresponding effort on your part, doesn’t work here, as it can reinforce feelings of powerlessness. If you don’t have such a close relationship, you can gain some of the same benefits by joining a small group: a psychotherapy group, a support group, or any other regular gathering where the members are able to be authentic and caring. The shared experience will serve to make it easier for you to practice loving self-care.

In past posts, I’ve pointed out how self-care can be a mindfulness practice, and I have given some examples below, of how I incorporate this practice into daily living. When you apply yourself to the practice in your own life, you will discover many more ways in which you can empower yourself to feel better and find new meaning in the necessary tasks you engage in to support your health.

Suggestions for Practicing Loving Self-Care

Eliminate the words should and have to from your vocabulary. Anytime you find yourself dreading going somewhere or doing a certain activity in support of your self-care, ask yourself how you would feel if you cancelled the appointment; would you have regrets? If the activity is something you value, replace should with choose to.

Also practice saying “No.” If an activity you dread isn’t conducive to health, recognize that you were choosing that activity and can now reject that choice. For example, you may feel depressed about an upcoming visit with someone who always seems to leave you feeling worse: perhaps you only do it out of a sense of guilt or obligation. Recognize that this mental state is not consistent with loving self-care, and make a different choice.

Focus all your attention on the activity at hand. This is a challenge with routine activities that you can literally do with your eyes closed, such as showering. Be fully with the water, the soap, the whole process.

As you go through the day, and especially whenever you experience an unpleasant sensation or emotion, ask yourself what you would like or what you need in that moment.
Whenever you are in doubt about how to proceed—even concerning really small decisions such as what to eat—approach the choice as a loving self-care practice; simply choose what is best for you in the same way a good parent would choose what is healthiest for a young child.

Whenever you become aware of thoughts urging you to do something unhealthy, perhaps skipping exercise or eating unhealthy food or too much food, remind yourself that thoughts are nothing but insubstantial mental constructs: you do not need to obey them.
Whenever you notice any unpleasant emotions, ask yourself if your thoughts are aligned with your personal life values. If the answer is no, then appreciate that you can let those thoughts just float on by as if they were clouds in the sky.
Do more activities that leave you feeling better afterward, and do fewer activities that leave you feeling worse.

Practice self-compassion. Imagine how you have felt when you have extended compassion to someone else and give that gift to yourself. When you notice self-critical thoughts, soothe yourself just as you would a dear friend.

Practice good posture. You will feel better about yourself when you stand tall in good postural alignment. This is one of the most loving ways you can treat yourself.
Practice conscious breathing; there are many methods. Most of the time, your breathing will be unconscious and that is perfectly okay. But slowing your breathing from time to time throughout the day and making sure you’re breathing diaphragmatically can improve your state of mind and physiological functioning. The calming effect is instantaneous. You will soon realize that this practice gives you a sense of control, allowing you to cultivate mastery.

Remember that every little thing you do to care for yourself in a loving way matters—sometimes enough to create a noticeable improvement in your health and well-being.

Link: Loving Self-Care for Health | Larry Berkelhammer

Ty for posting these!

I've read this thread a few times now. MI is not a choice, but then again, it strikes me as odd that recovering is a choice. No one wants to be this way, and based on what I've read, it leads me to think that if I don't recover, then its my fault? for what? not trying hard enough? ha!

You can choose to make lifestyle changes that will reduce symptoms. You can make mindset changes that empower you to get the best help possible. Also many of these people end up taking natural supplements.

I know I am not 'recovered' but Im capable of reducing my symptoms and taking minimum doses. I can learn to deal with stress in positive ways. Im not helpless to this disorder. I think that counts as a success, and I think everyone can get there. A 'recovered' state is different for everyone.

I see recovery as a state of mind/empowerment.

Responsability and accountability...really freak people out.

We don't even know exactly what causes mental illness but we do know we can help ourselves. There is a lot of talk about neuroplacicity right now, maybe we can heal our brains...and is that a bad thing? Is recovery a bad thing and why? Cause we might be a little more powerful in this than we think? I say thats a really good thing, far better than no power.

Dan it really isn't that black and white and it isn't a blame game its about getting well and having a life that you are content to live out. No one said its about blame. Why can't we make changes without blame?

The Art of Self-Acceptance

by DR. LARRY BERKELHAMMER on DECEMBER 28, 2012 in MIND-BODY, POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Today’s article is a guest post from Dr. Larry Berkelhammer, who has learned the power of mindfulness and self-acceptance, even through his own diagnoses of several chronic illnesses. Dr. Berkelhammer has spent 19 years teaching clients how to manage their pain with mind training techniques. His background is in psychotherapy, applied psychophysiology, and applied psychoneuroimmunology.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson once complained to his physician that he felt depressed. The doctor recommended a long sea voyage. Emerson took his advice and at the end of the journey wrote in his diary: “It didn’t work; when I got off the ship in Naples, the first person I met was myself!”

Resistance Breeds Persistence

The uncomfortable or frightening thoughts, mental images, sensations, or emotions that arise naturally within all of us have the potential to do tremendous harm, but only if we try to resist or reject them. When we resist or defend against them, and employ strategies to avoid the discomfort they generate, instead of feeling relief, we feel more stressed out.

Giving up the struggle to resist or avoid unpleasant thoughts, sensations, and emotions is not a nihilistic acceptance of suffering. In fact, acceptance of what we don’t want serves to reduce the suffering that results from the fear of experiencing those unpleasant thoughts, sensations, and emotions.

Brain Droppings

Brain Droppings was the name of a book by George Carlin, one of the most intelligent comedians in the last hundred years. Our painful thoughts are nothing but “brain droppings.”

We can think of these thoughts as simple secretions of the brain; like the secretion of hormones, enzymes, and other information molecules, they are natural physiological processes.

Once we recognize that uncomfortable thoughts, images, sensations, and emotions are harmless secretions of the brain, we can begin to allow ourselves to fully experience them. The more we do so and accept the experience, the stronger we become psychologically and physiologically. Self-acceptance can only be found when we are willing to live in full contact with our inner subjective experiences.

Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness practice is inherently conducive to self-acceptance because self-acceptance is a byproduct of the mindfulness skill of recognizing thoughts as transient mental events or constructs.

Applying recognition and acceptance skills, in turn, leads to mastery & wellbeing, and we become more willing to fully experience our inner subjective events. It is a self-reinforcing system. When we allow ourselves to accept our inner experiences, we gain confidence that we can handle them. This, too, leads to increased self-acceptance, mastery, and wellbeing.

Living Our Personal Values

If we’re involved in activities that aren’t in harmony with our personal life values or that seem meaningless, we become self-critical instead of self-accepting. But if we live each day so that at the end of it we feel good about how we lived it—if we have a sense of satisfaction that we made someone else’s life better, for example—it’s only natural to believe that our life has meaning. Self-acceptance, mastery, and wellbeing are products of such a way of life.

The Usefulness of Fears and Aversions

Approached mindfully, our fears and aversions serve a purpose that deepens self-acceptance practice. The key is to view them as interesting growth opportunities rather than as things to reject and avoid.

Over time, we become less likely to attempt to reject those parts of ourselves—and this, too, contributes to self-acceptance. When we increase our awareness through increased perception, we find fewer things about ourselves that engender aversion and fear in the first place.

A corollary to this is that when we engage in mindfulness practice over time, we generate fewer of the negative attributions that create aversion and fears.

Chronic Illness and Acceptance

Because fears and aversions naturally arise when we live with chronic medical challenges, these conditions can offer opportunities to learn how to live with greater acceptance of our experiences and of ourselves. Cancer survivor, psychotherapist, and mindfulness teacher Elana Rosenbaum put it this way: “It became clear that the more I could let go and accept these limitations the better I felt and the freer I became. The more I lived in the present moment as it was, rather than what I wished it would be, the happier I felt.”

Unpleasant Emotions Can Guide Us

The greatest value of unpleasant states is that they help us identify our values and needs. For example, anger can serve to inform us that we are fused with the belief that the situation or other person should be different in some way. Sadness can let us know that something we value was lost, or not achieved or acquired. Shame tells us that we are self-judging ourselves as flawed.

If we fail to accept all these rich inner-life experiences, we are practicing self-rejection rather than acceptance.

Link: The Art of Self-Acceptance | The Psychology of Wellbeing

The Primary Sources of Unhappiness

MAY 9, 2012 at 7:14 PM

Cognitive Fusion

The mental state of cognitive fusion is one in which we confuse our thoughts and beliefs with reality; we become so identified with them that we lose the ability to see them for what they are—inventions of the mind. Our thoughts are fleeting, insubstantial things, products of a brain whose business it is to continually manufacture them. If we cannot “unhook” or “de-fuse” from them, they become a kind of cognitive quicksand that drags us toward suffering. Applying this idea to our experience of illness and health, if I begin to experience, for example, intermittent blurring of my vision, I may begin to fear a brain tumor. Having the thought is not the same as having a tumor, but if I am cognitively fused to the idea, it can feel dangerously real, even though the truth is that the only thing I can say with certainty is that I’m experiencing intermittent blurred vision. Here you can easily see how cognitive fusion with thoughts that evoke fear causes terrible emotional distress.

Experiential Avoidance

Experiential avoidance is two-pronged. First, it means avoiding any thoughts, feelings, emotions, or sensations we find unpleasant. It also means avoiding taking actions that are life serving in an attempt to avoid such unpleasant emotions as fear, anger, embarrassment, or shame.

Attempts to avoid experiencing unpleasant thoughts and feelings paradoxically lead to more of the very thoughts and feelings that we don’t want to experience and it even gives them greater power. Furthermore, attempts to avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings deny us valuable opportunities to learn and grow by meeting our discomfort head-on.

The Dominance of the Conceptualized Past and Future

Part of the human condition involves creating concepts. We do this in the hope that they will provide us with understanding and even a sense of predictability. Concepts are essential to our survival and to the ability to live a full life. Unfortunately, the human condition also includes cognitive fusion with our concepts. Without mindfulness practice, we are unable to step back from these concepts and see them as insubstantial mental constructs. In such a fused state, we fall victim to regret about the past and worry about the future.

Attachment to the Conceptualized Self

Narcissistic personality disorder is an extreme example of what we all experience throughout life. It involves fusion with the belief that we are a certain way—a certain kind of person. Like the conceptualized past and future, the conceptualized self (also known as the ego) is not intrinsically bad; in fact, it is essential for life. The problem arises when our self-concepts are challenged and we are unable to immediately step back from them and see that they are nothing but brain secretions, or as comic George Carlin termed them in the title of his book, Brain Droppings.

Inaction and Its Companion, Impulsiveness

Many of us hold ourselves back from doing things that would enhance our lives because we’re afraid of embarrassment, shame, or failure. On the other hand, some people, especially those with bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder, act impulsively in order to avoid the same very uncomfortable feelings. We all do this to some extent, and for most of us, mindfulness practice is one of the best antidotes, because it allows us to embrace our fears and take action that is in harmony with our personal life values even while experiencing uncomfortable emotions.

Lack of Clarity about and Contact with Life Values

It is impossible to live a rich and rewarding life until we begin to live in full contact with what matters to us most. But in most cultures throughout the world, a large segment of the population becomes so fused with societal values that they are unaware of their own personal life values. Instead, they unquestioningly value what their culture deems worthy. For example, in the 1970s it became out of fashion in the U.S. to nurse one’s infant. Cultural values are commonly in conflict with scientific evidence.

Like many people, in my family of origin I was expected to adopt the family’s religious and cultural values; my own were not accepted. In modern Western culture, this problem is ubiquitous in schools, in the corporate world, in government, in all religions, and to varying degrees in every area of work and play.

Sometimes it’s easiest to recognize these societal values in the details of unwritten rules we followed in the past—practices from which we’ve since distanced ourselves. For example, I remember a time when you couldn’t play tennis without wearing white and men couldn’t play golf without wearing those silly-looking plaid pants. Though these values—in this case, definitions of propriety—may not be terribly important in the scheme of things, they are indications of the extent to which societal values can guide the choices we make and the way we live.

One way to increase happiness is to allow ourselves to fully experience whatever we are thinking and feeling from moment-to-moment, and to do this while living by our personal life values.

Link: The Primary Sources of Unhappiness | Larry Berkelhammer

So, what I should do, is stop taking my meds and see if I can overcome my type I Bipolarity by myself??? I would like to talk to this schizophrenic psychiatrist, though..

you don!t have to stop and whatever you do don't stop cold turkey (and then mistake withdrawals for "illness").

But realize that those pills are just... mind altering substances and influence how you feel... but don't have effect on you as a person. Cause that lies in *you*. And as much as you might be told by the profession that your brain is broken and you will never ever ever ever be able to live to the fullest and will need to be on meds for the rest of your life even if they make you feel horrible, because you need to be on them. You can do a lot for yourself. You are much stronger then you believe.

My point was, is that stopping meds is very dangerous...

It's very dangerous to stop cold turkey, yes. It's not that dangerous if you do it preferably under doctor's watch (sadly, not too many doctors are willing to go that way), slowly, carefully, having developed skills and build some support net.

Worst thing that can happen is you will go on back on them if it becomes too much.

Please DO NOT go off your psychiatric medicines with any help!!!