Michael Coutts
Peer Supporter
I should clarify here that anybody who stretches, practices yoga, meditates, gets reiki, seeks massages, and whatever else and is totally have a 100% good time and positive bunch of experiences should continue what they're doing.
Who the heck doesn't want a massage? Getting your back cracked feels great. Yoga seems like a fun time! I have heard that meditation can allow you to travel through your mind in amazing ways.
20 years ago I had some weird hip pain when living in the city, sought the help of an 'orthobionomist', did a bunch of stretching excercises for a while (good times), and overcame my hip pain. I had many years thereafter of no pain as I worked on organic farms and travelled in warm climates during a totally carefree time in my life.
20 years later and in that period I have experienced a plethora of terrible horrible pains including pounding migraines with barfing, neck stiffness, knee pain, elbow pain, horrendous tailbone pain, tons of food intolerances and more. I have been able to overcome all of these symptoms using John Sarno's methods exclusively.
My family has a beautiful organic farm in the Nicola Valley, BC, Canada, where we have orchards and gardens and animals. I have for a very long time made up a pile of excuses for why meditation, stretching, and yoga didn't work for me (although I used to really wish that I could fit them into my life).
I would always think 'Why do I need to stretch when I do so much stretching and bending when planting, weeding and harvesting'. And I would think 'Why doesn't meditating while walking count as meditating (it probably does), I can do mind work while I'm busy walking around the farm or up the mountainside for a change of scenery. (I always now talk to my brain about all of my buried rage while I walk about doing chores or whatever, when there is some symptom that needs addressing- great time to talk to your brain!).
This was all before I knew about John Sarno's methods and I was just making excuses for not dedicating time in my day for alternative therapies that seemed to me to be the gold standard for being truly hip and alternative.
At the peak of my pain I was experiencing such excruciating tailbone pain that I thought that I must have prostate cancer or something (at 39 years old!). I was reduced to tears daily for a long grueling winter where I couldn't sit in a chair or lift anything and felt like a completely ruined wreck of a human being. I envisioned my life farming as being some sort of impossible future because of all of my terrible pain. This is old news.
Reading Sarno's books (back to back and eventually 20 times over a few years) and ignoring excercises and such and focussing completely on my buried rage and talking to my brain has served me extraordinarily well. I feel super duper most of the time. Life can still overburden you when you need to do extra brain talking and suffer mild shadows of old symptoms- so it goes.... The work never stops!
So what really are the problems with alternative therapies like yoga, meditation, stretching, chiropractors, etcetera etcetera in connection with John Sarno's healing methods?
Well, one thing that he points out is that this draws your attention away from your buried rage, and keeps you thinking that there is something physically wrong with your body that these practices can help.
Think psychological, not physical.
Now what I see that can potentially be totally completely enraging about any alternative physical therapies is the real life challenges to finding time, cash, and space to practice these therapies.
If you need a quiet sanctuary somewhere in your home for a set time in your day where nothing coming up will prevent you from sitting in silence- you might be shit out of luck. You may be a parent with kids flipping the whole house upside down and sideways. You may be working overtime to keep food on the table. You may be flat out exhausted from your busy life and there is no darn place that isn't cluttered to sit in silence.....
I have taken one yoga class in my life and it was free and I enjoyed it. I can only imagine the challenges of living in a city with a busy life and lots of bills to pay and trying to fit in commuting and paying for yoga classes that are supposed to help but are actually totally enraging because they are one more disruption to your already overloaded schedule- one more appointment.
Plus, I can only imagine being in a yoga class feeling completely self conscious to if your armpits smell or if you aren't in tip top shape like everybody else in the room.
I am not criticizing meditation or yoga or stretching on behalf of folks who live for it and fit it easily into their lives and offers nothing but beneficial feel goodness. I am just pointing out potential problems for many folks who might try to fit these therapies, as well as countless others, into their already challenging lives on earth.
The beauty of Sarno's methods is that they are completely personal and completely free (if you borrow his books from libraries and such. They really are worth the price of buying your own copies so that you can read them in the bathroom and in the bathtub and not worry about ruining borrowed books).
One of my main spots to sit in our cozy farmhouse living room is in front of our woodstove, on a hinged wooden box (full of costumes and hats and stuff) with a crocheted throw over top. I sit cross legged on this hard wooden box every morning drinking tea with my wife, and at other times in the day eating dessert or whatever. I sit cross legged and can bend over and touch the floor- no problem bending straight over and putting my hands on the ground!
I remember that after Sarno's methods really started working, that for months afterwards, and still to this day, I bask in the extraordinarily feel good sensation of sitting, totally pain free on this hard wooden box where, pre- Sarno, I was howling with pain and tears not being able to sit down anywhere!
Happy Healing
Who the heck doesn't want a massage? Getting your back cracked feels great. Yoga seems like a fun time! I have heard that meditation can allow you to travel through your mind in amazing ways.
20 years ago I had some weird hip pain when living in the city, sought the help of an 'orthobionomist', did a bunch of stretching excercises for a while (good times), and overcame my hip pain. I had many years thereafter of no pain as I worked on organic farms and travelled in warm climates during a totally carefree time in my life.
20 years later and in that period I have experienced a plethora of terrible horrible pains including pounding migraines with barfing, neck stiffness, knee pain, elbow pain, horrendous tailbone pain, tons of food intolerances and more. I have been able to overcome all of these symptoms using John Sarno's methods exclusively.
My family has a beautiful organic farm in the Nicola Valley, BC, Canada, where we have orchards and gardens and animals. I have for a very long time made up a pile of excuses for why meditation, stretching, and yoga didn't work for me (although I used to really wish that I could fit them into my life).
I would always think 'Why do I need to stretch when I do so much stretching and bending when planting, weeding and harvesting'. And I would think 'Why doesn't meditating while walking count as meditating (it probably does), I can do mind work while I'm busy walking around the farm or up the mountainside for a change of scenery. (I always now talk to my brain about all of my buried rage while I walk about doing chores or whatever, when there is some symptom that needs addressing- great time to talk to your brain!).
This was all before I knew about John Sarno's methods and I was just making excuses for not dedicating time in my day for alternative therapies that seemed to me to be the gold standard for being truly hip and alternative.
At the peak of my pain I was experiencing such excruciating tailbone pain that I thought that I must have prostate cancer or something (at 39 years old!). I was reduced to tears daily for a long grueling winter where I couldn't sit in a chair or lift anything and felt like a completely ruined wreck of a human being. I envisioned my life farming as being some sort of impossible future because of all of my terrible pain. This is old news.
Reading Sarno's books (back to back and eventually 20 times over a few years) and ignoring excercises and such and focussing completely on my buried rage and talking to my brain has served me extraordinarily well. I feel super duper most of the time. Life can still overburden you when you need to do extra brain talking and suffer mild shadows of old symptoms- so it goes.... The work never stops!
So what really are the problems with alternative therapies like yoga, meditation, stretching, chiropractors, etcetera etcetera in connection with John Sarno's healing methods?
Well, one thing that he points out is that this draws your attention away from your buried rage, and keeps you thinking that there is something physically wrong with your body that these practices can help.
Think psychological, not physical.
Now what I see that can potentially be totally completely enraging about any alternative physical therapies is the real life challenges to finding time, cash, and space to practice these therapies.
If you need a quiet sanctuary somewhere in your home for a set time in your day where nothing coming up will prevent you from sitting in silence- you might be shit out of luck. You may be a parent with kids flipping the whole house upside down and sideways. You may be working overtime to keep food on the table. You may be flat out exhausted from your busy life and there is no darn place that isn't cluttered to sit in silence.....
I have taken one yoga class in my life and it was free and I enjoyed it. I can only imagine the challenges of living in a city with a busy life and lots of bills to pay and trying to fit in commuting and paying for yoga classes that are supposed to help but are actually totally enraging because they are one more disruption to your already overloaded schedule- one more appointment.
Plus, I can only imagine being in a yoga class feeling completely self conscious to if your armpits smell or if you aren't in tip top shape like everybody else in the room.
I am not criticizing meditation or yoga or stretching on behalf of folks who live for it and fit it easily into their lives and offers nothing but beneficial feel goodness. I am just pointing out potential problems for many folks who might try to fit these therapies, as well as countless others, into their already challenging lives on earth.
The beauty of Sarno's methods is that they are completely personal and completely free (if you borrow his books from libraries and such. They really are worth the price of buying your own copies so that you can read them in the bathroom and in the bathtub and not worry about ruining borrowed books).
One of my main spots to sit in our cozy farmhouse living room is in front of our woodstove, on a hinged wooden box (full of costumes and hats and stuff) with a crocheted throw over top. I sit cross legged on this hard wooden box every morning drinking tea with my wife, and at other times in the day eating dessert or whatever. I sit cross legged and can bend over and touch the floor- no problem bending straight over and putting my hands on the ground!
I remember that after Sarno's methods really started working, that for months afterwards, and still to this day, I bask in the extraordinarily feel good sensation of sitting, totally pain free on this hard wooden box where, pre- Sarno, I was howling with pain and tears not being able to sit down anywhere!
Happy Healing
). And BTW, I think you will also find the book Chatter, by Ethan Cross, to be really interesting! I just finished the section on how being exposed to a natural environment, even briefly, can ease the negative chatter in our brains. Combine it with even a bit of mindful relaxation and you've got a therapeutic tool.