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New Program Day 20: Embracing Joy


If we change our body posture for 30-120 seconds it increases testosterone and therefore the feeling of being safe. It works for me very well in conflicts with other people. I just straighten my back, feel my feet on the floor and feel stronger within seconds. I think it could also work well with anxiety, fear and pressure we put on ourselves.

Also, for men it's very important not to ähm....you know..... It screws up dopamine and testosterone. After stopping it takes 3-6 months for them to normalize:


I also take a cold shower every morning. It has many benefits. Including training myself to do something uncomfortable. Just google benefits of cold showers.
 
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hsbarry said:
I appreciated the story of the monks. I decided if they could do that, I could try it on my first "battle" of the day which is getting everyone out the door. I think I view too many things as battles when they are really opportunities to find joy, love or gratitude. Thanks for your message.
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Loved this. We make stuff up. I always remind myself I am not living in Afghanistan. Not living in Syria. There is so much to be grateful for!
 
Just stumbled across this. Was it by chance or some kind of cosmic synchronicity?

This is a message that is relevant to all TMS'ers I think, but particularly us men. For me it echoes so much of what Dr Sarno said, and Alan too.

And that last line says it all.

 
As I have been going through this program I have found myself smiling at people (random strangers) as I go through my day. At the grocery store, gas station. I am feeling happier and experiencing days with minimal pain.

Just a few days ago I was standing at the copier/printer for a long time working on a project. Suddenly I realized that for the last 2 years of this same yearly project I had to use my office chair and scoot back and forth because I could not stand without pain. I also went shopping with a friend and was amazed that I didn't have much pain and was really having fun.

It all proves to me that this crap I have been dealing with for 4 years is TMS and I have the power to make it go away. No drugs. No surgery. No chiro or PT. Just my brain is needed to reroute those neural pathways. I know there will be setbacks but I am still happy that I can fix it myself.
 
Hi all,

What a great program this is.
Maybe today i practiced my own 'looking for joy in combination with 'outcome Indepenence ':
A beautifull sunny day here : i had one of my bad foot days : i thought : never mind my foot : i am going for walk !
And i did in the sun, near the water, waved at passing boats, said Hi to my neibor with his dog. My foot did hurt a bit : but i told him (or her ) Yes foot you hurt but you know what : there are other parts of me that needs attension today : my legs need to move and my spirit needs to enjoy the sun and outdoors! And i did enjoy it, outcome independence at work.
It was a walk i had joy about the rest of that day. Jiha !!
 
Hi Alan and all you wonderful TMS'ers. I've been going through this program for the last couple weeks and finding it helpful. Of course being a logical minded perfectionist, at times there are concepts I struggle with, like today's. I too am a firm believer in joy and that it is a choice we make. I guess my question is this- is "choosing joy" ever making a choice to maybe ignore our feelings of anxiety, anger, fear, etc.? My understanding is that we want to allow ourselves to feel these emotions and check in with them. I want to make sure I'm not dismissing them and saying "Ok now suddenly smile and be happy!" Any clarification would be helpful, thank you all!

Alan Gordon LCSW said:
Day 20: Embracing Joy

Every year at UCLA, there’s an event called Spring Sing. 5000 people pile into a stadium to watch students compete in different singing categories.

For three years, my friends and I had the task of writing the comedy pieces in between the acts. We wrote off-the-wall parody songs like, “Roommate from Hell,” “Three Finals in One Day,” and the ever-controversial, “Sorority Song.”

It was SO much fun.

After a sequence of unlikely events, we managed to turn this hobby into a job. Colleges actually started paying us to write and perform comedy songs at their events.

It seemed like a dream come true, but it wasn’t.

It had become a paid gig. And this thing I once loved and did freely had become infused with pressure, urgency, and expectations. After two years, I gave it up. The joy was gone.

The Drive for Change

We’ve discussed a lot of techniques over the past few weeks: somatic tracking, communicating messages of safety, embracing a stance of empowerment, etc.

As you began implementing these techniques, was there any joy behind the actions, or was it infused with pressure, urgency, and expectations?

There’s a bizarre paradox in trying to overcome our symptoms: The very act of trying to get away from something can activate our brains’ danger signals. So in trying to escape a pain-state, we’re often generating the very energy that causes pain.

Techniques can be helpful, but they matter less than the energy behind the techniques: Is there desperation behind your words? Is there an urgency behind your actions? Are there expectations for a desired outcome?

Or, is there an ease in your demeanor? Is there an enthusiasm to embrace positivity? Is there joy?

In short: Are you running away from something, or are you running toward something?

Joie de Vivre

poohhoneyquote.jpg


The term “Joy” can mean different things to different people: It may make you think of pleasure, it may make you may think of happiness, it may make you think of an underwhelming Jennifer Lawrence movie (they can’t all be winners…)

But joy is an emotion. It’s a physical sensation that we feel in our bodies. For most people it feels good. For some it feels scary (as there can be a fear of it being taken away.)

But generally speaking, it’s a sensation that’s on the other end of the spectrum from desperation, pressure, and urgency. It’s the type of thing that we can gravitate toward, instead of away from.

This begs the question, is joy something that we can generate?

Actually, it is.

Joy Story

Guillaume Duchenne was a nineteenth century French neurologist. He discovered numerous diseases, invented electrotherapy, and conducted the first ever biopsy…but in his copious free time, he studied emotional expression.

Duchenne identified a distinct type of smile, one that didn’t just didn’t just involve the muscles around the mouth, but the muscles around the eyes as well.

As an example, let’s look at Julia Roberts, owner of one of the world’s most famous smiles:

juliarobertssmile.jpg

She’s smiling in both pictures, but in the one on the right, both her mouth muscles and her eye muscles are engaged.

They’ve found that when people smile in this way, dopamine and serotonin are released in the brain. These neurotransmitters are associated with feeling good.

Obviously joy can lead to smiling, but smiling can actually lead to joy as well.

In a study at Berkley, researchers asked participants to smile with both their mouth and their eyes. They found that this “Duchenne smile” was so effective, 95% of the people who used it felt authentic joy.

This isn’t to say that you should walk around with a huge smile on your face all the time, but it can be a effective exercise to practice honing the emotion of joy.

Leaning in to Joy

Chronic pain is exhausting. When you have continuous back pain, or head pain, or stomach pain, everything takes more energy.

During the times when you don’t have pain or your pain is reduced, things are so much easier.

Realistically, it’s kind of silly to tell someone “don’t care about getting rid of your pain,” because how can you not want to get rid of something that’s so debilitating?

So I won’t suggest that you try not to get rid of your pain. Because you can’t not try.

But I want you to see if you can do something else. Check in to your body for a moment. Breathe in, and feel the physical sensation of the breath come in and out.

Take a moment, as you’re reading this sentence, and take another deep breath in and out…really see if you can feel the sensation of the breath as it comes in and out.

Now smile big, with both your mouth and your eyes.

Here, I’ll see if I can help you:

babylaughsthensleeps.gif

And as you breathe in, smiling this big, Julia Roberts-smile, what do you feel inside your body? Attend to any sensations that arise…whatever they are.

And take a moment or two, before you continue reading, and just observe.

In that single moment, you weren’t attempting to get rid of your pain…you weren’t trying to escape, you were leaning in to a sensation, with curiosity and openness.

The many times when we find ourselves trying to get rid of our pain – pushing, struggling, pressuring – this is simply a natural drive for an organism that’s in a state of suffering. And it’s going to happen.

But it’s those other times – the ones where we gravitate toward joy, the ones where we enthusiastically embrace empowerment, the ones where we authentically aim to calm our primitive brains – these are the times where we’re truly take steps to alleviate our symptoms.

As Plum brilliantly put it in the Day 17 comments, “You overcome pain incidentally, on the way to creating a happier, healthier brain ecosystem.”

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This is my second time through this amazing course. I loved it the first time and began to practice some wonderful new tools, especially somatic tracking. But I found myself wanting more. Somewhere I read that it is a good idea to go through the whole course again, this time reading the comments. Bingo! It is sinking in.

Alan’s post today really resonated with me! I have read the Sarno books and have done Nancy Selfridge’s course for people dealing with fibromyalgia. I have learned a great deal about myself — how I respond to pain; emotions stuck where I didn’t want to deal with them; and what I need to do to begin to heal. But I’ve been working so hard at feeling better that I’ve been overwhelmed by struggle, resistance and disappointment. I remember the joy and excitement I felt when I first learned about the Sarno approach and read the first book, realizing that my fibromyalgia symptoms are TMS. I have had TMS difficulties for over 30 years, so I know that it will take some time to unlearn my pain and responses to life! But this course and especially this lesson on finding joy are so important!

Thank you, Alan, I have found my enthusiasm once again! I’m excited to continue to practice replacing my fear with joy! Thank you all for your insightful comments. Is anyone else doing this course currently?
 
I'm revisiting pages whenever new posts appear. It's magical in that I get a notice in my email inbox telling me someone has contributed... and I visit for the sheer joy of distracting myself from whatever else I was doing.
Seeing the baby laugh, smile and conk out brings me joy.
I have struggled most of my life with being stuck inside a body that I didn't choose. It's not gender dysmophia, it is more like I would have been better off as a horse or a dog. Even when I was very small, I would ask myself, "How did I wind up inside this human being body?" I often felt sort of alien. Thus, I struggled with every single uncomfortable feeling I had.
I think, as I am in the final third of my life, that I am coming into awareness and acceptance. I can sense the rewiring of my brain, the progress I have made after all these years of trying to make peace with my existence.
The mantra: I choose ease, I seek peace, I find joy has come easily to me this past year. I was never big on affirmations, they felt inauthentic. Still, I am embracing this one and it gets easier and easier.
Miracle: my retired horse kicked me right about my kneecap two days ago. After hollering and falling over sideways, I found arnica cream in my tackbox and smeared it on and told myself that I would be fine. I am. Years ago, before TMS recovery, I would have turned this into xrays and doctor visits, ice packs and advil. My story HAS changed and I have you amazing fellow travelers to thank for this.
So thank you.
 
What a wonderful idea to revisit pages when there is a new post, Bodhigirl! It’s kind of like a game and a way to not have to feel that the course is over! I’m a bit technically challenged. Could you tell me how to receive notices that there is a new post?

Your attitude toward affiirmations is like mine. But I love your mantra: I choose ease, I seek peace, I find joy!

Thanks so much for responding to my post. It was my first. I feel a bit less alone on this journey every day! What a blessing that is! Thank you for sharing your story, your struggles and your successes. There are many reasons for hope — and joy!
 
Here is a screenshot. Go to personal preferences. Then it alerts. Check what you want. Experiment. Stay connected and consistent, is my motto.
 

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Alan Gordon LCSW said:
As Plum brilliantly put it in the Day 17 comments, “You overcome pain incidentally, on the way to creating a happier, healthier brain ecosystem.”
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I keep cycling through this Pain Recovery Program. The information is dense and has made sense to me on different levels each time I go through it. And each time through different insights impress me in different ways--new and instructive ways. This morning, it's this comment by Plum. You collect an incidental win on the way to some higher goal you've set for yourself, similar to the way that by changing behavior--going to really different places, etc.--we incidentally bring new people into our lives and so have new relationships and experiences that wouldn't have had otherwise. Plum's comment is a nice way to think about taking the focus off of the grim determination to Get Rid of It and instead focus on what is light and joyful in life, what you can find to celebrate--whatever that might be. Here is a way to grasp without using your hands. There is a lot of paradox in this program, which seems right to me--frustrating at times--but right all the way down to the deepest levels.
 
I just reread a lot of these posts. Joy always resonates with me. I would so love to see you dance to Zeppelin's Kashmir, Plum. Dancing always brings me joy.
In these challenging days of quarantine, I think of the saying "Joy is where you find it." I've been spending a lot of time in my studio, delighting in colors, textures, and techniques, but I see joy in so many things! Today it's the amaryllis in bloom outside my window, the new order someone placed for my greeting cards, and the simple pleasure of cuddling with a cat.
May you be surrounded by joy!
 
So many great posts here! I've working Alan's excellent and brilliant program. In addition, I've been doing meditations.

If anyone is interested in meditation and is looking for help in cultivating joy, there are some very good meditations on joy here. (You'll have to search through the list)
Weekly Podcast at the Hammer - UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center - Los Angeles, CA (uclahealth.org)

I just did this one and it was a profound experience.
https://www.uclahealth.org/marc/mpeg/Hammer101118C.mp3
 
suky said:
This is my second time through this amazing course. I loved it the first time and began to practice some wonderful new tools, especially somatic tracking. But I found myself wanting more. Somewhere I read that it is a good idea to go through the whole course again, this time reading the comments. Bingo! It is sinking in.

Alan’s post today really resonated with me! I have read the Sarno books and have done Nancy Selfridge’s course for people dealing with fibromyalgia. I have learned a great deal about myself — how I respond to pain; emotions stuck where I didn’t want to deal with them; and what I need to do to begin to heal. But I’ve been working so hard at feeling better that I’ve been overwhelmed by struggle, resistance and disappointment. I remember the joy and excitement I felt when I first learned about the Sarno approach and read the first book, realizing that my fibromyalgia symptoms are TMS. I have had TMS difficulties for over 30 years, so I know that it will take some time to unlearn my pain and responses to life! But this course and especially this lesson on finding joy are so important!

Thank you, Alan, I have found my enthusiasm once again! I’m excited to continue to practice replacing my fear with joy! Thank you all for your insightful comments. Is anyone else doing this course currently?
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I was wondering the same thing, as I don't see many recent posts. I started this program in the spring and when finished I will be re-reading all of my notes and bookmarks and probably starting the program again. I'm on my 3rd Sarno book now. I don't think I will ever finish, but that is a good thing. I have learned so much and come a long way after 18 years!
 
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