Suffering happens when our protective mechanisms become chronic. Protective mechanisms like: Hyper-vigilance, anxiety, physical pain… These are all “danger” alarms that our nervous system sets into motion to protect us. But when our protective mechanisms become chronic, they start to smother us.⁠

Protective mechanisms are triggered by fear. Chronic protective mechanisms are held in place by chronic fear.

To heal the symptoms, we need to address the fear.⁠

But if we address the fear as a problem to be solved or an unwanted part to be exiled, guess what happens?⁠

Fear freaks out. Wouldn’t you freak out if you were treated as a problem or an undesirable?⁠

Trying to fix fear won’t fix fear. Fear doesn’t need to be fixed. Fear needs these three simple things in order to feel safe again:⁠

1️⃣ Fear needs to be 𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲𝗱. Name the fear.⁠

2️⃣ Fear needs to be 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 with. Tell fear you get it. You’ve been afraid before. You know what that feels like, and it’s a difficult thing to experience.⁠

3️⃣ Fear needs to be 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱. Tell fear, “I’m here for you. I care about you. I’m your biggest supporter and I will take care of you. I’ve got you. I love you.”⁠

But what if you’re afraid to try this approach? Then start by acknowledging, empathizing with and loving 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 fear. 💖⁠

With total and infinte belief in you,

Anna

The post What To Do When You Feel Afraid appeared first on Medika Life.

Armor can look like…

• Emotional suppression to protect us from feeling hurt.
• Avoidance behaviors to protect us from getting hurt.
• People-pleasing behaviors to prevent other people from hurting us.
• etc., etc., etc.

The armor is designed to protect us from harm. And in the short term, it can do just that. But armor doesn’t heal our emotional wounds. And the longer our emotional wounds go untreated, the tighter our armor gets.

Over time, armor can become uncomfortable and burdensome. It can weigh on us heavily. It can pinch and constrict. The weight and constriction of our emotional armor can drain our energy, dampen our joy and produce real, physical pain and other symptoms — like headaches, back pain, digestive issues, dizziness, fatigue, tinnitus, etc etc etc

But there is good news!

When we become aware of how our armor is impacting us, we can decide to finally address our underlying, untreated emotional wounds. With the proper love and care, they can heal! And you will be able to gently, gently release your armor.

Looking for a place to start?

There are many different tools you can use to begin the emotional wound-healing and de-armoring process. The one that absolutely changed my life was this one:

👉 Self-Compassion Journaling [download the worksheet here] 💗

Change doesn’t happen overnight. We’ve had a lifetime of growing our armor. The process of healing and de-armoring takes time, consistency (but not relentlessness!), trial-and-error, gentleness and allowing yourself to pick up and start again…

Sending you loads of support, encouragement and love for wherever you are on the journey. You’re exactly where you need to be. Keep going…

💖 Anna

The post This Is How Emotional Invalidation Can Lead to Chronic Pain — And How To Heal appeared first on Medika Life.

Doug is a self-professed drug addict (his words, not mine). And his poison of choice is crack cocaine. Several years ago, he owned and operated a tooling company and befriended someone who gave him the rock to sample. In a rapid turn of events, his life spiraled downward fast.

My biological dad and I met for the first time when I turned 40 after I requested a search through a Private Investigator. He, and my biological mom, placed me up for adoption as a newborn baby. Fast forward to today, I count my blessings that I didn’t endure the hardship and uncertainty of what it must have been like to grow up under Doug’s influence.

Despite the addiction, I find Doug utterly fascinating; how he continues to live is beyond me. Physically, he looks like he’s been warped through a blender; the man has one leg, a dangling colostomy bag, and one eye. Yet he manages to wobble around on a cane and remain mobile — with a cheeky smile!

Although we don’t get a chance to talk often, given his penchant for dialing relatives at 3 or 4 AM, I see glimpses into his true self and where some of my unique personality traits originate. Doug is a visionary, a big-picture thinker. When he dreams, he shoots for the stars, the moon, and beyond. Although my bio-dad (as I affectionately call him) is a storyteller on auto-repeat, he shares his desire to create the “Billy Fund,” a billion-dollar charity designed to eradicate poverty and pay for educational expenses for Canadian children. A noble aspiration. Doug wants to accomplish his goal by walking across Canada, following in the footsteps of Terry Fox. Whenever dad shares his heart with me, I feel the realness of his intention, despite Doug’s reality being a fantasy.

Doug is a man of the people, and they like him too. He learned the art of the street hustle, evident in the amount of loot the man brings home. Christmas is an especially lucrative time for filling the coffers with coins, bills, and snacks. The real draw is his infectious sense of humor; he’s hilarious and loving while existing on an entirely different planet. What I love about Doug is his unwavering faith in other humans, his family, his adoration of animals, and his belief in God almighty.

No amount of rehab will bring Doug back to his original form. I believe he has suffered too much damage to return to normalcy. And this is why on the stifling hot Saturday, I arrived at the shelter, and Doug was nowhere to be found — despite my brother Chris informing him I was going to visit. Doug didn’t pick up his phone when I called twice, nor did the shelter staff know where he was.

In the heat of the moment, I felt a flush of anger arise from the depths of my stomach. Didn’t he know Saturday is my only day off? That I drove two hours just to see him? Why can’t he be where I need him? Of course, Doug can’t; he exists on an entirely different plane of consciousness.

On the drive home, I had time to process my emotions and come to terms with our loss of missing each other:

• In my first wave of emotion, I was overcome by selfishness, focusing on “I” rather than “We.” For some time, I allowed my feelings to be, observing the ebb and flow within my body. Over time, I asked myself — what did I expect would happen? That Doug would be standing at the entrance of the homeless shelter with flowers in hand?
• Doug is a creature of habit, on a mission to panhandle, source funds, and procure his next fix. Deviating from the normal routine is not in Doug’s repertoire; his addiction will always trump familial relationships. And knowing Doug is consumed by his own needs, my rage melted into compassion towards his restless soul.
• Through the newfound sense of empathy regarding Doug’s absence, I was able to switch my mindset and consider all the magnificent qualities I see in my dad; the beautiful shards of his soul shining through the darkness.

My story resembles the multi-millions of others affected by long-term heavy substance abuse. All we can do is try. I showed up to be with my dad, even if he couldn’t.

And here lies a choice as to how we respond when people don’t appear how we want them to. Either we allow anger, resentment, and abandonment to construct a permanent hornet’s nest in our hearts, or we can choose to “see” and “accept” people for who they are moment to moment, with all their glorious blemishes, flaws, and impurities. I choose love. What about you?

The post How To Respond To A Family Member Steeped In Addiction appeared first on Medika Life.

It’s a popular phrase in cutting-edge pain science. I would put an extra emphasis on the word “social.”⁠

In my work as a chronic pain recovery therapist and coach — and in my recovery journey — I see social dynamics as central to chronic pain patterns.

Codependency is one of the most common social dynamics I see in chronic pain clients (and I can totally relate!)

Codependency is about an unequal exchange of energy. When we relate to others codependently, our energy gets drained rather than replenished.

And when our energy is depleted, our nervous system may send out an “energy tank empty!” emergency signal in the form of a pain flare.

Chronic pain can indicate that we’ve got a “leaky energy tank”…

And that we need to patch the holes with energetic boundaries.

This is why learning to say “no” clearly and cleanly is so essential to chronic pain recovery!

Saying “no” may be challenging at first, especially if you’ve been conditioned to say “yes” by parents, teachers, bosses, leaders, culture, etc.

When I was growing up, I never heard about the concept of boundaries. It’s only recently that this word has started to enter the collective conversation in a big way. And in my opinion, boundaries are sooo important to healing — both personally and collectively.⁠

But new concepts take time and patience to acclimate ourselves to. We can catch onto them intellectually pretty quickly, but if the idea of boundaries is at odds with our early life social conditioning, it can take our nervous system time, patience, and practice to get used to this idea.⁠

So please be compassionate and patient with yourself as you recondition yourself to set healthy boundaries! It’s bound to be a messy process, but you — and your energy and wellbeing — are so worth it.

This isn’t just a personal journey, it’s one that we’re on together as an evolving society. I’m cheering for you and evolving right alongside you. 🙌

With love, warmth, and unconditional support,

Anna

The post Chronic Pain and Codependency Go Together appeared first on Medika Life.

Healthcare professionals have entered a field where empathy, compassion, and an ability to relate well to patients are implicitly mandated. But are some of the staff falling through the cracks, is staff shortage playing a highly detrimental role, or is management falling short in their responsibility to care for patients? Maybe all of it must be factored in, but the bottom line is that patients are suffering from a lack of caring in too many instances.

Additionally, any patients who are older, physically or mentally compromised, may be trained, by brutal experiences, and being a “good patient” is the only way to go. Is that how this is coming to fruition in our fields?

Why should a loved one have to almost plead with a medical staffer to truly “take care?” It’s not my speculation but related in an article in the professional literature.

“I know you have a lot of patients, but he’s all I’ve got. Please take care of him like he’s one of yours.” The partner of my hospitalized patient pleaded.

I remember saying something similar to the chief of a specialized unit at a major NYC hospital. “I’ll take care of her like she’s a family member,” he said, and I responded, “I hope you like your family.”

Cheeky, yes, and he didn’t follow through as I had expected, and an instrument was broken during his procedure — but they persisted. He’s dead now, so no family members need to worry about his ineptness.

The Rocky Road of Care

Why would anyone need to plead in a situation where the highest level of care, concern and personal connection should be the norm? It’s because it’s not the norm, and some staff seems to take umbrage at being expected to be helpful and understanding. Mental status exams after anesthesia might be a case in point.

The patient, who had not been adequately sedated and, as a result, the surgery was canceled because of excruciating pain, tried to lighten the nurse’s load at the bedside.

“Do you know your name,” the nurse asked brusquely.

With an attempt at humor (despite the frightening experience), the patient responded, “Yes, I know my name. Do you?”

Screwing up her face, the nurse asked the question once again.

The patient responded, “Do you want to know my name? I’m trying for a little humor here, as you can see,” the patient said. How the patient managed that, I can’t imagine because she had just come from a harrowing, painful experience that now necessitated yet another, later visit to the OR.

No answer from the nurse but a cold stare. The nurse walked away without completing any further questioning, such as the place, the day, and the date. It was incomplete, but who cares? Who would check, and what would the chart show? A mental status had been administered when it was not completed, a deceitful error.

Before the procedure, a port for administering anesthesia had been inserted into the patient’s arm. A nurse, attempting to pull a gown sleeve up for easier access, inadvertently dislodged the port, and another had to be inserted.

“Look what you’ve done,” the young physician inserting the port (without wearing gloves) said to the patient. The patient had done nothing, but she was being blamed now. Wasn’t she anxious enough without this type of treatment, or was that the usual physician-patient banter before surgery?

Waiting for the procedure to be completed and expecting to take the patient home, there was a query. What was the reason the surgery was canceled? “The patient kept moving around,” was the answer to that question. Again, untrue because it was pain caused by inadequate sedation that led to the patient asking the physician to stop because of the pain, and they both agreed.

I’ve always told patients in my office that they need an advocate for medical consultations or a procedure. I know how anxiety affects memory, and I wanted to ensure they got the information as intended. But in an operating room, you have no advocate, and everyone waits outside to be told whatever is convenient for the staff.

Am I being too harsh? I think not because I saw and heard the entire scenario I’ve described. Where do we go from here? How can we improve patient engagement if we have a resistant staff or management who wants procedures, not re-training in something that doesn’t generate more income?

Patients don’t have unions as medical staff are now seeking. The hospitals pay hospital advocates, so where does their feeling of responsibility lie? Inevitably, the patient will be blamed in some way, either overtly or covertly, and this is not acceptable.

To be continued at some time in the future.

The post Why Is There No True, Empathic Patient Engagement or Is There?” appeared first on Medika Life.

First, realize that mental health professionals aren’t feeling somewhat concerned that they don’t have an instant answer, a pill, a technique, something to lift this gray veil from our mind’s eyes miraculously.

One physician at a major hospital poured out his feelings in an article. An elderly patient had asked him if he could help her with feelings of loneliness. “I wish I could say yes. I wish I could prescribe her some antidepressants and be satisfied that I had done my best, but the truth is she’s not clinically depressed. It’s just that she has been left behind by a world that no longer revolves around her, not even the littlest bit of it.”

The physician said he saw the hospital as a “last resort” for people who found their beloved elderly relatives interfering with the holiday celebrations, requiring too much attention, being too needy. Did those people stop and think about how they would feel if they were no longer relevant to what the physician termed a culture addicted to youth?

Being tossed aside is terrible enough. Having it happen when everyone is in a celebratory mood and you’re excluded kills people earlier than they need to die. How disheartening for the physician, but most of all, for those abandoned to the care of strangers. BTW, that is the title of an excellent book on the history of the American hospital system.

Of course, we have studies of loneliness, especially during a time of a lockdown in a pandemic. Isn’t that what mental health professionals provide?

Who are those who suffer from loneliness most during this time? Younger adults, people with low income, the economically inactive, and people with mental health conditions were more likely to be in the highest loneliness class than the lowest. Everyone in these groups has a good reason to feel isolated and lonely. Wouldn’t you?

The thread that connects all of them and all of us is seen in the data; social connection. If we can maintain social relationships, we may keep ourselves afloat during particular times of emotional privation where the intensity ratches up—holiday times.

During the year, any year without a pandemic, we work toward solidifying our human and even animal connections. Some will join like-minded groups for activity; others will be sure to schedule regular social interactions either face-to-face or via technology. It will include quiet walks in parks or interactions with animals in the home or outside for some.

Pet ownership, in my opinion, can be quite a healthful activity. They may provide a sense of need and security and prevent rash actions. If it’s true that dogs have masters, cats have staff; then we know they have the power to help us. Fighting loneliness is one of their tasks. For dogs, they provide unconditional love as they perceive our need and they give it to us. Dogs can be saviors, but not everyone can have one.

Articles aplenty will appear now in all manner of publications. They will offer sure-cure ways to tackle loneliness and make it something positive. And some of the advice is good because everything can be seen in more than one light. My advice?

Seek to firm up your relationships now and remind yourself that you have power over your life, no matter where you are or what you no longer do. Unfortunately, we live in a world that defines us not simply by age (ageism) but by what we do for a living.

What is one of the first questions people ask you when you meet? Of course, it’s “And what do you do?” I am almost bursting at the seams because I want to respond, “Do about what?” I am not what I do or what I did. I am me, and that matters.

Want to fight loneliness? Begin today in whatever way you can (I leave the creativity up to you) and work at it as you would have worked (or work) at a career. This is the most important, satisfying work you will ever do.

The post Combating Loneliness Is Everyone’s Job appeared first on Medika Life.

But smiling has been shown to have a positive mode-enhancing ability. You can raise your level of happiness by pushing yourself to smile. Teachers can improve children’s learning ability because a smile creates a relationship change. Smiling teachers make school a pleasant experience rather than a dreadful chore.

According to some research, yes, smiling has an association between improvements in finance, career, and even the potential for marriage. For some couples, smiling or lacking it may signal an imminent divorce.

Smile, as the song says, though your heart is aching, and you may even improve your heart health because a positive attitude is associated with longevity and a decrease in mortality.

All, or most of us, are wearing masks these days because it has been recommended that this is the best way to control the spread of deadly viruses. How can you tell if someone is smiling? There is another way, and it’s something that has been utilized by artificial intelligence programs. I speak, of course, of the Duchenne smile, which is the amount of wrinkling around the eyes.

Wrinkling has a bad association, doesn’t it? But when wrinkling is associated with smiling, it indicates a genuine, optimistic emotional display. Sure, some people can fake wrinkling around the eyes to project a deceptive attitude about something or someone. Well, we can’t have it all.

Smiling does have something to do with the way I wrote an article and the couple I happened to meet in a hospital waiting area. We didn’t have to wear masks at the time, and their smiles were wonderful and genuine and very much appreciated. I needed a smile, and they, especially the woman, returned the favor.

How hard is it to smile? You pull those face muscles into an expansive grin, wrinkle up your eyes, and immediately you’re a different person. Yes, pulling those muscles in your face sends a signal to your brain that your mood is changing, and there’s a chemical reaction to lift your mood.

And smiling is contagious, so breaking out a smile helps others smile, too. If ever there was a free and readily available way to brighten the mood of a room or a group, it’s with a smile.

Of course, there are a variety of smiles, and some portend a degree of concern (think The Joker from Batman), but I’m talking about those smiles that signal openness and a willingness to enjoy something. These are the ones on which we should be concentrating, even in the darkest of times. Do I sound like a pollyanna? Sorry, but I refuse to dismiss this means of making myself or anyone who happens to be with me happier.

Even in restaurants or stores, smiles play an important role. “The “service with a smile” mantra has been universally proclaimed in the West for its enhanced effect on customer affect and service outcomes.” The smiling server or salesperson is usually more successful in making that sale or receiving a bigger tip.

Give it a try. See how many times you can turn something around today or tomorrow by smiling. It greases the wheels of success in careers, finance, and, as I indicated before, the possibility of marital bliss and courtship.

Go forth and smile.

The post Control, There Are Reasons to Smile appeared first on Medika Life.