Finding God

[Recovery Soon]

I think you're right.

Gupta is on the right track- but something is still missing.

The reason I say this is because about 10 years ago I had a sudden and dramatic onset of Panic Attacks, which I had never experienced before. It lasted 2 years and was a living nightmare. Then I did an audio program, which used CBT and other techniques. Within a few months the condition began completely reversing itself in a very clear way. Since then, I have never had another panic attack.

So, as someone who has fully recovered from a severe condition by using techniques from a program, I am in a unique position of being able to recognize whether or not something is actually curing me, or simply helping to tamper down symptoms. There was no question when I was recovering from Panic Attacks that fundamental shifts were happening. It was obvious. I guess this is what I expected from Gupta. But it has not been the case. So far, it's been a collection of very well researched techniques, which are probably giving my body its best chance of combatting whatever the 2nd half of this condition is, which you alluded to, and has not yet been discovered. For some the Gupta techniques may be enough to defeat this unknown factor. For the majority, maybe not.

To address your condition, given the Gupta Theory, I would say that maybe you recovered each time from your "mono relapse" but grew a little more fearful each time until a "trauma" in your amygdala was created and ultimately flipped the permanent on switch.

[CS1]

What I have found is that I needed to do the following to really bring my stress levels down and bring COGNITIVE function back:

1) Include more things to make me calmer
2) work on my CORE issues daily
3) Reframe these CORE issues
4) Continue with GUPTA techniques
5) Goal setting and coaching and engage the mind with interests




Regards
CS

[billoddie]

I meditated for years with a particular spiritual meditation. Eventually (due to my mind) became a major stessor as i started to believe i had to be more "good" to "please God". The mind took something positive and spun it into a burden and stressful.

[Graham]

I've often wondered if there's any correlation between this disease and not believing in God.

There is a good reason that the irrational belief in God has been around for sooooo long, and still persists even in today's modern, scientific society. A big part of it is driven by the desire to relieve fear; a desire to control an emotion so strong and debilitating, that it over-rules even the most rational thinking. Try debating the existence of God with a fundamentalist of any theistic persuasion, and you come up against this immediately: the fear is so strong, they're not going to even consider the possibility that the God they think of as looking out for them might not be there. Or the eternal life. Or the 72 virgins. Or whatever.

As an atheist, I don't have God to fall back on and make me feel better about situations which I appear to have little control over. I do think this makes us more susceptible to anxiety-based conditions like CFS. I probably wouldn't have conceded this before spending the last 2-years feeling like a train wreck; I would have been too busy "correcting" all those foolish theists and trying to "help" them see the errors of their ways.

Ultimately, the spiritual path I'm on isn't about finding God: it's about finding and believing in my true self. Any time we rely on external sources for our own happiness and well-being, whether they be ideas like God, or doctors, or friends, or family members, society, whatever... we place ourselves at the mercy of someone else. Maybe this is just inherent to the human condition. Or maybe I'd have a stronger belief in myself if I hadn't been indoctrinated into placing my trust in a deity who doesn't come through with the goods time and again, when I was a kid. Who knows. Either way, the only path forward for me is to learn to trust not in some external God or some universal life force or other new age bullshit, but in myself.

If I can make this the reason and purpose for my CFS, then maybe it's all worthwhile in the end.

Cheers,
Graham
http://cfs-survivors.org/blog

[billoddie]

Dont wanna get a religion thing going, but the true self (your intrinsic goodness (Godness)) and GOD are one and the same. God in not external to you.

[ldg]

Billoddie, I have the same view. All is God, yeah and some people may react to that.
But the things is whenever we resist something, anything, it causes suffering in the mind. I have found the "the work" by Byron Katie very good for working with resistance and shadow stuff and coming to the point of acceptance. All the details are available for free on the internet. The basic premise is that this should be happening because it is. A lot of tension goes then. And it doesn't mean that you don't take action to change things. (It is non religious.)
(I don't mean to imply that people should agree with me that all is God.)

[billoddie]

I agree wholeheartedly. Everything IS God. Nothing to do with religion. The Gupta work I have been doing has uncovered a lot of "stuff". What I am finding is that the answers have always been there. Acceptance, my own intrinsic love and the like are starting to become more predominant...i always intellectualized these concepts in myself, but now I feel they are living in me more and more. i am learning to let go more and more. For the first time I can see how the ego has so much energy vested in resistances, resentments, grudges, and righteously justifying a viewpoint. Choosing to love instead is undoing the chains of negativity. The thing is, I have been doing this for years, and it only works now. The reason to me is obvious...it is the Gupta work that has begun to reset the amygdala, allowing the space for acceptance and positivity to come through. Previously, no matter how hard I tried to let go, how much I meditated, tried to be positive, pleaded with God etc, the "master program" (amygdala), would write over my efforts. Today was a classic example. My girlfriend said a careless hurtful comment, and it just spun me into fatigue within 30 minutes. By bringing awareness to the mind process I could see how the comment had been the "negative catalyst" that started the chain reaction. Eventually (3-4 hrs), I was able to let it go and return to an inner space of easiness and acceptance. As i write these words, i can barely detect any CFS symptoms. I know I have a good way to go yet. But its only been 3 weeks since i renewed my commitment to do the Gupta work THOROUGHLY. Already, results are coming through. I know challenges will come, but i am increasingly confident of having the tools to meet them.

[ldg]

Billoddie, could you explain how the Gupta work "uncovered a lot of stuff"?
I have been trying to do the same stuff for years as well. Just knowing is not enough. Or have we actually being working through layers and it takes time to get to the bottom layers where real change happens?

So are you doing more stops? Thoroughly?

Presently I am focusing more on breathing techniques as suggested by a few on this forum and find that calming. I seem to have resistance to doing the cd's at the moment, (just get fed up and bored with having to do them). Maybe I need to explore that some. Do stops morning and night and not much during the day.

[billoddie]

Its hard to put into words what has happened really. In many ways, I have had CFS TO SOME DEGREE for 30 yrs. But i never saw it. It is only the last 7 yrs that it has been full blown. I always thought I got it from my drug use and excessive exercise. When I got it, I was already "spiritual", after the inadvertent experience of samadhi one night whilst meditating. So I brought an attitude of surrender, letting go etc to this illness immediately. Only trouble was... i didnt get better. What I can see now, is that my amygdala had been changing and slowly ratcheting up for years...probably starting around the age of 10 because of a fearful home environment. I learnt on "The Linden Method" website that due to repeated exposure to stressors, and the constant signals of fight or flight, after a while, the amygdala does not return to its original set level. That it slowly sets a new and higher and higher "starting point". In my late teens and early twenties, I effectively became an alcoholic...to deal with how stressed out I always felt. I only felt relaxed and "normal" whilst drinking. Already, the amygdala was at play...just hadn't "tripped the CFS switch" yet. During my worst CFS years I tried to just surrender everything, and at times, seemed to make some headway. But I ALWAYS felt that the seed; the very "substrate" of what CFS was built on, remained. This substrate I now recognize as the essential crisis mode (and all the attenuating symptoms) that the body is perpetually stuck in due to a rampant, hyper driven amygdala. Gupta makes a very good point...He says; "these symptoms are NOT in your head. They are NOT imaginary. They are very, very PHYSIOLOGICALLY real. But they come from a part of your brain that has become faulty...the amygdala. Gupta isnt just about "positive thinking", in the way that affirmations or meditation is. It is an actual process that resets the amygdala back to a safe default. When this started to happen, I could see how, in one way or another I was stressed, and grumped and agitated and negative for most of my life. Funny thing was; I regarded myself as a positive person...and I essentially was! But that part in my brain had become faulty, and was creating an internal environment for growing illness and all sorts of associated conditions. Gupta uses the analogy of the amydala being like a fully depressed and stuck accelerator pedal on a car. How long do you think the car would last before it began to systematically break down? It wouldnt matter how strong it was. now that the Gupta work has begun to reset my PHYSIOLOGY, all those years of acceptance and surrender are now working; they are falling into place. Yes I have already done the work. Gupta was the missing link that allowed the body to come off that perpetual high alert. I'm not in the total clear yet. I can honestly say,(at least presently), that I have NO FATIGUE. There is rather still an internal voice of lingering doubt. I mean, when you have had this CFS crap for so long, and it has defied every effort, you tend to be a little wary. Whilst we might be tempted to look at this a perfectly natural response, it is merely another negativity that needs to be removed. Our NATURAL state is easiness, and safety, and joy. Those energies are emerging. But i still feel the mud of negativity mixed in there. I just gotta keep at it. Understand that it is a process, of just peeling off the layers of fear. This is challenging to express in a way that accurately captures what has been occuring, without sounding airy fairy. When I started Gupta, it honestly seemed too easy. Too easy to be possible. I mean how could this stuff make my body feel better? I mean, I had major things physically wrong with me. Right? Even this thinking is negative. And whilst it may be a present reality that you are incredibly ill...it is the thinking that is the pointer to where the amygdala is working. EVERYTHING is judged as a stress. Even DOING Gupta was a pain. I resented it! My CFS had been reduced to a NLP technique!!? Preposterous! Do you see what I mean?

[damask-rose]

That's very well put, Bill. You mention the Linden method, and Linden says the same thing, that you CAN set the amygdala back to normal. It's all just a mechanical process reallly, and all the bizarre fears and tensions that we have are due to the faulty amygdala. For me, it was definitely the STOPs that did the work, and as you described, the tension and fear dropped away, and I felt space again within me to feel and think and respond normally again - and it is bliss!

[annie]

Thank you so much Bill and Damask for these wonderfully positive posts, so encouraging to those of us who still feel we are getting nowhere with the process (there I go!!). I find it so helpful to read these carefully written accounts of people's healing.
I read a beautiful quote the other day which resonates with me, 'My beloved child, break your heart no longer. Each time you judge yourself you break your own heart". It was in a Yoga book, I don't know who wrote it.

[billoddie]

damask-rose: Yes I too have felt the "stops" to be of most benefit. Presently I probably do about 5-10 a day. In the beginning, it was more like 100 per day. I was just doing them all the time. You are right when you say it is a mechanical process. And that is how you must view it...have no emotional investment. Hammering a nail, or painting a fence is the same...you just do the process. You don't worry and stress whether or not the hammer or paint brush will work. You know they do. So you just do the process. Same for Gupta. Over time, the results just present. Dips result from stress exposure that exceeds the level of amygdala adjustment. As i type these words, I haven't even had my first dose of Dexedrine for the day. And I still feel good. That's fairly amazing. As you say...it is bliss to be "released". To feel that horrendous grip loosening from within. And to have good feelings begin to emerge.

[Graham]

This substrate I now recognize as the essential crisis mode ...

Wow; I can really relate to everything you say Bill. It's freaky. A few years back I threw myself headlong into heaps of therapy and emotional healing after burning out at work, and decided to really dive deep into the baggage I accumulated as a sensitive person growing up with parents who fought and never expressed emotion. Bizarre that I would come down with CFS after trying so hard to sort all the stuff out; it wasn't really a lesson I feel I needed.

But the Amygdala Retraining seems to be working for me. I also want to do some work on the core underlying fear which motivates a lot of what I do: being driven, wanting people's approval, feeling ashamed of who I am and what I want, problems in relationships etc. I think sorting out the fear I feel would lessen another stimulant to the amygdala and hopefully make the symptoms fade faster too.

Thanks again for your post.
Graham
http://cfs-survivors.org/blog

[billoddie]

totally right Graham. Fear is the at the core...stress is simply another word for it. Look at the typical CFS profile...driven people, seeking approval. Their own harshest critics...perfectionists in many areas. And underneath it all, too sensitive for their (our) own good. Furthermore, I think this sensitivity feeds a lot of the guilt and shame about our needs or individual idiosyncrasies. Teitalbaum is correct when he says that "existentially, this (CFS) illness is about fear...". I have spent the last few years with a psych trying to unravel things, and it has been somewhat successful. However, as i continue to say, it wont reset a "faulty amygdala". Presently, I am combining Gupta with hypnosis and NEAT (like EFT) to help PHYSIOLOGICALLY remind the body that it is safe. Science is starting to validate more and more the mind body connection...it is confirming that the body itself via the tissues and cells (because it is intrinsically intelligent) actually stores trauma. Releasing such "memories" (energy really), allows the body to remember and reset to default...safety...parasympathetic...homeostasis. Presently, CFS is becoming more and more prevalent, and the driver of this is the perpetual stress that people are living their lives under. Eventually, if the conditions are right, the amygdala just "defaults" to constantly "on". It judges..."Instead of going on/off/on/off/on/off ALL the time, I'll just stay ON...problem solved!" Lo and behold...the CFS master switch has just been flicked. We all know what follows!
Keep at it Graham. I agree about not thinking I needed this lesson. I would never wish it on anyone, nor would I ever go through it again, but the growth as a person has been vast. I still have a way to go, and some "mopping up" to do, BUT, fingers crossed, its over, and I can take those lessons and that growth into the rest of my life.

[ldg]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, keeps me motivated.

Billodie thank you for your reply. Yes I do get what you mean, doing the stops is a pain, I sometimes get a bit peeved doing them. Why can't I just be normal? (I know, no such thing) Feel a bit like a errant child, trying to re brainwash myself.
"No emotional investment" - a good way to approach it. I have known for some time (years) about the body storing trauma and have been searching for ways to undo that without much success.

Just read a yoga book on breathing, using the breath to release stuff, increase the energy etc. I feel better after doing it. With the alternate nostril breathing, the hand is not used on the face, very centering and balancing, more powerful.

Annie thanks for the quote it resonates with me as well, need to be kinder to ourselves.

After reading this thread the other day I did a lot of Byron Katie on the fears and worked out that I am afraid of being wrong, doing wrong etc. Staying at home is safer, can't get into trouble as in gaining disapproval.

I wonder how many people here are sensitive. I fit into the highly sensitive and the perfectionist category but never been ambitious, just had the habit of doing everything fast and two things as once. (Mothering!)

Personally I don't see CFS about learning lessons (or life). IF it wasn't this it could have been something else, maybe a lot worse. I was interested in meditation, yoga etc before all this. And when I was really bad for a few years I couldn't meditate which was really annoying and not helpful.

I see life as experiencing differences which is a little amusing in that my life is different from those around me. Not what I would have consciously chosen though. .