Call-In Discussion Group About Alan Gordon's Recovery Program

Since June 4th, we have been discussing Alan Gordon’s TMS Recovery Program during our weekly call-in discussion group. Instead of cluttering this subforum with multiple threads, I thought it wise to turn this thread, originally announcing the June 4th discussion, into a “home base” for all posts relating to the call-in discussion groups about Alan’s excellent program.

So, below you will find the recordings from each discussion group, as well as the announcements and connection details, starting with the June 18th discussion. I’ll be updating it the thread as we go along. Please feel free to post about the discussion groups or about the recovery program in this thread as well!

Forest

 

Hi everyone,

Here's the audio from the discussion on June 4th. You can listen to it here, and you can also download it by right-clicking on this link and saving it to your computer. I think it was a terrific discussion. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's!

Click here to download the mp3 audio​

 

Another great discussion Tuesday! You can listen to the recording of the June 11th discussion below, and you can also download the discussion as an mp3 by right-clicking on this link and choosing to save it to your computer. Hope to hear you all next week!

Click here to download the mp3 audio​

 

Hi All,

Just writing to remind folks that we will have another call-in discussion group on Tuesday evening (June 18th) at 9pm ET (6pm Pacific Time). Since it is on the later side for us East Coast dwellers, I will be opening up the call half an hour early, for people to get a chance to say hi, and check in. That being said, the official call-in discussion will still start at 9pm ET/6pm PT. We'll be continuing our exploration of Alan Gordon's recovery program. I hope to hear you there!

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For detailed instructions on how to connect, click here

 

Here's the recording from our discussion on June 18th. You can also download it to your computer by right-clicking on this link choosing to save it to your computer.

Since we covered a lot in this discussion (including mindfulness, reframing the meaning of pain, andoutcome independence), I'll be posting excerpts from the recording later on. I just wanted to post the full discussion here first. Enjoy!

Click here to download the mp3 audio​

 

We've had some pretty fantastic discussions here on the forum that talk about learning about your emotions based on what you're feeling in your body. For this week's call-in discussion group on Tuesday June 25th, we'll be discussing just this: how to feel your feelings. We'll be looking at the Feel Your Feelings step from Alan Gordon's TMS Recovery Program as well as three threads from the forum that discuss this topic: page 3 of The Importance of Addressing Childhood Issues, UnknownStuntman's The right way of "Focusing " on bodily sensations thread, and my Self Monitoring thread.

Like last week, I'll open up the call half an hour early for an informal check-in. But, the official discussion will still start at 9pm ET/6pm PT. Hope to hear you there!

Forest

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For detailed instructions on how to connect, click here

 

Just as last week the forum seemed to be abuzz with threads that relate to the Feel Your Feelings portion of the recovery program (click here for details), this week the forum seems to be abuzz with threads about meditation. For example, Andrew Miller, MFTI has described Mindfulness Meditation as being key to his own healing in this post. Stock Trader has emphasized a mindful approach to guilt (link) and to panic (link) in two excellent posts in the forum and has also suggested mindful approaches in the chat room. Finally, Enrique has discussed starting to meditate in the Making it to the Boston Marathon 2014 thread.

If you are interested in learning about meditation, you can find all of our resources related to meditation and TMS using our custom TMS search engine at search.tmswiki.org:
http://search.tmswiki.org/results.html?q=meditation
Of course, especially given that we are continuing our theme of discussing different parts of the TMS Recovery Program donated by Alan Gordon, his section on mindfulness is a great place to start:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/TMS_Recovery_Program#Mindfulness

In the chat room, Stock Trader said that what got him into mindfulness meditation was this post:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Mindfulness_Meditation

If you'd like an overview of mindfulness meditation, you can find it here:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Mindfulness_Meditation

Should you want to go a bit deeper, Enrique described purchasing the following book in the Boston Marathon thread:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/8_Minute_Meditation
I think it's a great book and learned a lot from it.

Like last week, I'll open up the call half an hour early for an informal check-in. But, the official discussion will still start at 9pm ET/6pm PT. Hope to see you there! (and I do mean see - if you like, you can always turn on your webcam like Bruce and I do. They aren't recorded, either.)

Forest

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For detailed instructions on how to connect, click here

 

We had a great turnout and a fantastic discussion last week about feeling your feelings! The recording is below. Feel free to download it as an mp3 by right-clicking on this link and choosing to save it to your computer.

Click here to download the mp3 audio​

 

Hey all,

Here's the recording from our discussion on Tuesday July 2nd. In addition to discussing mindfulness and meditation, we covered some other really interesting topics, including what it means to "think clean" (from 0:14:20 - 0:33:40 in the recording). Stocktrader also shared with us his mindfulness practice (at 0:44:00 in the recording).

You can listen to the recording in the audio player below, and if you want, you can also download it as an mp3 by right-clicking on this link (or on the link below the audio player) and choosing to save it to your computer. Enjoy!

Click here to download the mp3 audio​

 

Self-awareness is a crucial part of overcoming TMS. And like many things, learning to be kind to yourself (which Alan Gordon identifies as “the underlying message of Part II” of his recovery program) requires a great deal of self-awareness. Being able to recognize and understand our behaviors and attitudes towards ourselves is extremely helpful once we “take action” and start to change how we treat ourselves.

During the call-in discussion group on Tuesday, July 9th, we’ll be looking at two of the steps inAlan Gordon’s recovery program that help us become more aware of when we treat ourselves poorly (Step 3.2 -Recognize Destructive Behaviors) and identify where those behaviors come from (Step 3.3 - Identify Source of Abuse).

As always, the official discussion starts at 9:00pm ET / 6:00pm PT. I’ll also be opening up the call half an hour early for anyone who wants to do a casual check-in. I hope to see you there!

Forest

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For detailed instructions on how to connect, click here

 

Hi yb, I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the podcast. The goal is to make something that people enjoy, and it motivates me to start setting up the website and itunes integration (eventually, this will be available on itunes, but it will be a while).

 

So glad to hear that, Ellen!

 

We all know the “inner bully” can perpetuate TMS symptoms. But where does the inner bully get its power? Why does it have that power?

For this week's call-in discussion group (Tuesday July 16th), we'll be discussing Step 3.3 (Identify Source of Abuse)of Alan Gordon's TMS Recovery Program, which helps us begin to answer these and other related questions. Similar to step 3.2 (Recognize Destructive Behaviors), the main focus of Step 3.3 is to help us learn how to identify and understand our abusive behaviors, which is an essential first step in eventually altering these behaviors.

As always, the discussion group will begin at 9pm ET / 6pm PT . I will continue to open the call up half an hour early for an informal check in, not related to this week’s discussion! The official discussion will start at 9pm ET / 6pm PT .


Hope to see you there!

Forest

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For detailed instructions on how to connect, click here

 

...and, here's the recording from the discussion on July 9th. For some reason, although it sounded fine during the call, the quality of the recording isn't that great. I'll work on straightening that out for next time.

In the meantime, feel free to listen to the recording in the audio player below. You can also download the discussion as an mp3 by right-clicking on this link (or on the link below the audio player) and choosing to save it to your computer. Enjoy!

Click here to download the mp3 audio​

 

Hi All,
Here's the audio from our July 16th discussion about Step 3.3 (Identify Source of Abuse) of Alan's program. As always, you can listen to it using the player below, or download the audio as an mp3 by right-clicking this link, or the link below, and saving it to your computer. Enjoy!

Click here to download the mp3 audio​

 

For the past couple weeks, we’ve been talking about how to generate self-compassion, by recognizing abusive behaviors and identifying where that abuse might come from. This week (Tuesday July 23rd), we’re going to start talking about repression. Using the skills and tools we’ve gained from previous steps in Alan’s program, we’ll be learning how to address repression of emotions such as sadness and anger, and looking at some ways we can identify the source of that repression. The two sections in Alan’s program we’ll use to guide us through this are sections 3.5 (Address Repression) and 3.6 (Identify Source of Repression).

As always, the actual discussion will start at 9pm Eastern Time (6pm Pacific Time), with an optional, very informal conversation 30 min or so beforehand. For detailed instructions on how to connect, click here .

Hope to see you there!
Forest

 

Although we didn't quite get to step 6.6 (identifying the source of repression), we had a great conversation around the section on addressing repression. For those of you unable to attend, here's the recording of the discussion. I would encourage you to download these recordings, so you can listen to them without needing internet access. Simply right-click on this link , or on the link below the player, and choose to save it to your computer. Happy listening!

Click here to download the mp3 audio​