Dan Ratner's success/recovery story in a video... and how it is helping me

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BloodMoon

Beloved Grand Eagle
I’ve been exploring Dan Ratner’s work recently, after listening to his recovery story in an interview with Dani Fagan on 'Your Stories #13', which came up in my YouTube feed.


I had looked into Dan's three-column technique before, but at the time it seemed overly complicated. However, his recovery story in the video really resonated—his mind/body/TMS symptoms starting with a simple back twinge that worsened and lasted eight years—and how he developed his concept of power from finding purpose post-Sarno, leading to his three-column system (emotions, doubt, power).

The video has helped me identify my 'core narrative'. I didn't read his book or follow the columns method, but by reflecting on difficult life episodes, I realised: "I grew up feeling like I had to earn approval, often lacked autonomy, and faced unfair judgements—leading me to feel unseen and eroding my confidence, and this carried on into adulthood."

From this came my 'power column' conviction: "If it doesn't feel right, it isn't right." It encourages me to trust my instincts, challenges doubts rooted in those past experiences, and supports setting boundaries without rushing to cut people off or 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. Ratner refers to these as 'power tools' to rebuild self-esteem—this one speaks to me profoundly.

My daily practice now: When I feel low in power (rating 1-10), I repeat my 'power column' conviction phrase—which reminds me of my worth—and take a small step that aligns with my truth. I can feel this beginning to be transformative. My 'power conviction' gives me a central point from which to view life's events and decide what to do. (I've now bought Dan Ratner's book, even though I might not actually need it!)
 
Thanks for this, @BloodMoon.
I really like your power tool! "If it doesn't feel right, it isn't right."

You are getting some good insights!

I read Ratner’s book, Crushing Doubt, earlier this year and really liked it, especially the part about power. (I didn’t do any of his homework, though. It looks worthwhile from what you’ve done so far!)

Here are some quotes that resonated for me:

“See closeness with you as a privilege. If someone is abusing you, revoke their privileges of access to you…”

“Looking unflinchingly at what you need and what you’re not getting can lead to some hard realizations. Let yourself find out who everyone is. You may find some long-cherished relationships are no longer worth it (or maybe never were). Don’t be afraid to clean house.”

This really got my attention and is at long last coming to fruition for me. I was in a very big setback a few weeks ago, worse than ever—but when I decided to cut off some hurtful people from my life, I began to steadily improve almost immediately. I’m feeling so much better now, and it’s a testament to the truth that emotions are behind our symptoms.

I think my TMS has been trying to stop me from interacting with emotionally destructive people for me.
 
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Diana-M said:
(I didn’t do any of his homework, though. It looks worthwhile from what you’ve done so far!)
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I reckon our lizard TMSing brains stopped us from pursing his method!
Diana-M said:
I really like your power tool! "If it doesn't feel right, it isn't right."
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Thanks! We each need to find our own core power tool for maximum benefit, but I think it still nevertheless applies to your situation—How certain people were treating you didn't feel right to you and so you've quite rightly imo decided to "revoked their privileges of access to you".

Having a power tool in Dan Ratner’s sense is, I'm finding, so beneficial and such a huge relief because it gives you a clear, fast way to step back into a position of inner strength when symptoms or old patterns and difficult situations are pulling you down.

I asked perplexity.ai to help me out with all the things a 'power tool' does and it listed the following...
  • It reconnects you to your authentic self: Power tools (like “If it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right”) are rooted in your core narrative, so using them helps you act from who you really are rather than from fear, people-pleasing, or habit.
  • It gives you a stable reference point: When you feel confused, ashamed, or doubtful, a power statement is like a compass. You can quickly check, “What does my power conviction say here?” and use that to decide what to do or not do.
  • It reduces symptoms and plateaus: In Ratner’s system, power work is especially aimed at symptom plateaus—times when things are “better but stuck”. Strengthening your relationship with yourself and aligning actions with your narrative can help symptoms shift where other work hasn’t.
  • It speeds up emotional processing: Ratner calls some of this “high‑speed therapy”—a strong power frame lets you understand what’s going on in a moment and choose a more powerful response in minutes instead of ruminating for days.
  • It builds real self-empathy and peace: The power column is “about getting to a place of peace in your relationship with yourself”. A good power tool supports self-empathy (seeing your trauma and patterns clearly but kindly) and moves you away from self-attack.
In practice, a power tool turns your core narrative into something you can actually use: a short phrase you repeat and act from, which over time changes how you see yourself, how you respond to others, and how your nervous system reacts.
Diana-M said:
when I decided to cut off some hurtful people from my life, I began to steadily improve almost immediately. I’m feeling so much better now
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When you look at all that is listed above, it's no wonder you are feeling like this in response to taking back your power!

 
I like what a power tool can do. Especially speeding up emotional processing. I usually can’t tell what I feel while something’s happening, which makes it hard to effectively defend my boundaries.
BloodMoon said:
When you look at all that is listed above, it's no wonder you are feeling like this in response to taking back your power!
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Yes! Perfect way to look at it. Taking back my power.
 
Diana-M said:
I usually can’t tell what I feel while something’s happening, which makes it hard to effectively defend my boundaries.
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Yes, whereas when we have our 'emotional mantra' at the ready to say to ourselves and heed we effectively already 'know' what our feelings are. With a 'power tool'/'emotional mantra' we can be far less frightened of making a mistake because, as Dr Abraham Low says:

"All this tenseness derives from the fact that we don’t want to make up our mind. We are afraid we’ll have to blame ourselves." ~ Dr Abraham Low (from his book 'Mental Health Through Will-Training')
Diana-M said:
I like what a power tool can do. Especially speeding up emotional processing.
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I believe that finding a power tool in relation to our 'core narrative' is what others have described as finding one's 'True North' and always responding to people and situations from that position. I remember reading a whole book on the subject many years ago and feeling none the wiser as to what my particular 'True North' was. However, what Ratner has done is shown how we can actually find our 'True North' by looking back over our life and spotting the repeating emotional themes and key traumas (e.g. in my case not being approved of, lack of autonomy, unfairness) and turning that into a clear, empathic statement about who we are and what has shaped us. This becomes our inner 'power tool'/'emotional mantra', our 'True North'. (When I read about finding one's 'True North' before it didn't use 'key traumas' to work that out; that was the missing piece to the puzzle.)
 
I will like having this protection that the mantra brings. Each thing we learn brings us that much closer to freedom.

I was reading this book yesterday called Boundaries, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. Excellent book, yet it’s written from a Christian perspective, so might not be for everyone. Anyway, they explain that being raised in an environment with no boundaries is like you are an alien who landed on this planet. As an adult, you don’t really understand how the world works at all. You are really vulnerable. I feel like having a mantra and tools would be another way to reinforce the safety—along with their advice, which basically builds on learning to say “no.” (And other things.) I got a lot out of that book.
 
Diana-M said:
they explain that being raised in an environment with no boundaries is like you are an alien who landed on this planet. As an adult, you don’t really understand how the world works at all. You are really vulnerable.
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I think what you are referring to are absent or blurred personal limits, leaving you as a child without a sense of self-ownership or emotional 'fences', like an alien adrift in social norms. In contrast, my parents imposed rigid, unspoken 'rules' that demanded premature adult-like behaviour, suppressing childlike emotional expression and needs, which effectively erased my emerging personal boundaries through conformity and brainwashing.

Both scenarios stunt healthy development but in opposite ways—absence creates vulnerability through chaos and lack of structure, while over-control fosters suppression and disconnection from one's authentic self. The result converges: as adults we struggle with autonomy, saying no, or recognising our own needs, often leading to people-pleasing or resentment. (Resentment has been a big issue with me.)
Diana-M said:
I feel like having a mantra and tools would be another way to reinforce the safety
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Yes, it gives you something solid inside to hold onto—something you didn’t get when you were growing up. A mantra acts like a steady reminder of your worth, your limits, and that you’re in charge of yourself. Then there are the tools you mention—ways to say no etc., to help you build the boundaries that were missing or confusing before...

Through this we can create a kind of inner safety net, similar to the clear, loving boundaries parents should give their kids so they can grow up feeling confident and in control.
 
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BloodMoon said:
The result converges: as adults we struggle with autonomy, saying no, or recognising our own needs, often leading to people-pleasing or resentment. (Resentment has been a big issue with me.)
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The absolute truth. And saying yes when you don’t really deep down want to causes huge resentment!
 
Diana-M said:
And saying yes when you don’t really deep down want to causes huge resentment!
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Yes, and it's significant in a TMS context that resentment overlaps significantly with anger; they are closely related emotions, with resentment being a form or component of long-lasting, unaddressed anger.
 
UPDATE: Well, I've just finished reading Dan Ratner's book and I'm afraid I go back to my original view that his 3 columns approach over complicates things (for me personally). Maybe that's due to my laziness and my lizard TMSing brain blocking me, but I have to say that I got so much more out of thinking about and taking action for myself in response to the video of his success/recovery story that's in my opening post in this thread, which, for me, simplified his method into a nutshell. (What I did like in Ratner's book is that he emboldens numerous passages for one's attention which at first I thought might become irritating - as I like to underline and annotate for myself - but I found it was actually good for propelling me though reading it all as it did pick out the salient points; it was like he'd been through it with a hi-lighter pen.)
 
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Thanks for this update, @BloodMoon. I also thought his column approach was somewhat complicated when I first read his book. But I do like a lot of what he teaches. It all adds into the big picture, and I think it contributes to the healing process.
 
Diana-M said:
I do like a lot of what he teaches. It all adds into the big picture, and I think it contributes to the healing process.
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I agree. I've added what I learned from his success story in the video into my 'big picture' and some of the stuff he writes in the book about the 'power column' was helpful too... I think for most of us it's a question of cherry picking whatever hits the spot for us personally into our own recovery program.
 
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BloodMoon said:
I think for most of us it's a question of cherry picking whatever hits the spot for us personally into our own recovery program.
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I think you’re right. I started to reread his book, and some of it is just too much for me. I’m a little overwhelmed with a backlog of books right now, so I’m going to put this aside to review later. I like the section on power. There are so many good healing methods. You can kind of feel like a kid in a candy store. My temptation is always to overdo. I like @Ellen ’s advice (which unfortunately, I’ve failed to follow much of the time), which is to just find one thing and stick with it for a while. I don’t think I’m going to follow the Crushing Doubt method at this time. But maybe in the future! I’m not writing it off.
 
Diana-M said:
You can kind of feel like a kid in a candy store. My temptation is always to overdo. I like @Ellen ’s advice (which unfortunately, I’ve failed to follow much of the time), which is to just find one thing and stick with it for a while.
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@Diana-M Suggestion: How about building your own program by reviewing the things that you have tried thus far (but haven't stuck to doing regularly) that you found at least somewhat helpful, e.g. perhaps Sam's yoga nidra video is one of them, and making those things mind/body stuff that you do every day without fail? These could be coupled with what mind/body/TMS stuff you are already sticking to doing on a regular basis. Like I was saying in another posting in another thread, there are things I do every day -- no negotiation, without fail, period -- that have got me to where I am now (and when I haven't physically been able to do those things due to a flare, I have visualized doing them)...

So, I do still encourage you to do Tanner's visualization video on a regular basis, which I know is new to you (though I know the concept and use of visualization isn't new to you) but I also think you could very likely greatly benefit from doing those things you have found you at least quite liked doing.... And if you at least quite enjoyed doing them, you are less likely to find them a drag.

If you then find you've got some space in your day for additional mind/body work, you could add Tanner's 30 day program (or just one of his videos from his 30 day plan that attracts you) or something else that appeals.

As an analogy, I look at the mind/body stuff that I do regularly as being like a 'core wardrobe' of clothes that I can add to if something I discover gels with me and I want to give it a good go for a while to see if it might be beneficial to add to my 'wardrobe'.

I'm like you, interested in finding out about stuff, and I know that it appears on these forums like I am flitting about all over the place when I post up stuff for others' information. However, like I was saying above, I 'cherry pick' from my information gathering -- I've found to my cost that there's a tendency to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' otherwise.

P.S. For anyone reading this posting who may be interested in seeing Tanner Murtagh's visualization video, you can see it here: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threa...-other-symptoms-on-youtube.33091/#post-168119 It's about visualizing what one finds difficult to do physically and he includes some self-soothing in his process, so as not to overwhelm. The video/session is just 20 minutes long.
 
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@Diana-M
P.S. When you come to think of it, what did the likes of Helmut, Dan Ratner, Dan Buglio (et al) all do? They each formulated their own recovery plan that gelled with them, and Helmut, for instance, certainly 'cherry picked' and incorporated some of the techniques in his particular program from other methods, e.g. the DARE approach.
 
Thanks for all your suggestions, @BloodMoon! I think I speak for everyone when I say we appreciate it. ❤️I have a structured program going right now, and it’s going pretty well. Curable app; EFT tapping, 60 min. of meditation and PRT workbook —all daily. Plus journaling as needed, which is usually on most days. I also do a bunch of self soothing techniques throughout the day that I’ve learned along the way. When I can, I’ll add Tanner's program. This week my husband has been busy with work, so I’ve been getting way more exercise without him to cook and wait on me—and I’m feeling good about it. I told him we have to make me do more from now on. I don’t want to go back to being waited on. Even though I’m sore now! Lol
 
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Diana-M said:
I have a structured program going right now, and it’s going pretty well. Curable app; EFT tapping, 60 min. of meditation and PRT workbook —all daily. Plus journaling as needed. Usually on most days. When I can, I’ll add Tanner's program. This week my husband has been on a business trip, so I’ve been getting way more exercise without him to cook and wait on me—and I’m feeling good about it. I told him we have to make me do more when he gets back. I don’t want to go back to being waited on.
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Excellent! :)
 
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