Welcome to the Blogging World Self

Why am I doing this?

Because I need a vehicle to express my migraine experiences. I know I can't be the only person out there who is suffering from constant migraines.

Why am I seeking an outlet on the Internet to journal and write about my migraine experiences?

Because I figure it's "greener" than writing on paper and easier than going to my local hospital support group for headache sufferers.

What is it that I hope to gain from this?

I hope to find other people who live happy, successful, productive lives to help encourage me to keep hoping and striving.

My Story...

I've had migraines for most of my life that I can recall. I remember as a child having these debilitating headaches on one side of my head and not being able to see "normally." When I hit puberty, a doctor suggested that I probably have what are called "migraine" headaches. Until I was about 19, I didn't seek treatment for my headaches; I just called in sick to work, missed school or tried to just tough it out.

From about the age of 20 until last December, (with the exception of some bad months and recovering from a closed head injury) I had about a migraine a month or so - maybe less sometimes. But starting December 18, 2007, I've had a constant daily migraine of varying intensity. It hasn't stopped. I am stuck in a migraine loop. I can't work the job that I had, I can't live the life that I know. I am disabled at 28, but I am exhausted living this painful existance and am going to do all that I can to get on with my life.

Eventually - I would like to look back on this time in my life and think about what a learning opportunity this all was. I also hope that maybe I can help someone else who is suffering from migraines to know that they aren't alone.

So that is my story.

Fear of Thoughts Getting Stuck The Challenge of Reading OCD Self Help Books

I had several responses to my review of J.J. Keeler's I Hardly Ever Wash My Hands: The Other Side of OCD, expressing fears that reading the book would give them ideas or cause anxiety.  I've been mulling this over, because it's a challenge to respond.

The simplest answer is that I don't know if J.J. Keeler's account of her OCD, and the specific things she worries about, will "stick" in your mind or create new OCD obsessions.

This is the nature of OCD that one person's trigger can seem completely harmless to someone else with a different form OCD; it's not only those without OCD who think that a particular obsession is incomprehensible.  There is a tendency to assume that other people's obsessions are easier to bear.  Conversely, if we suspect that a person's obsessions might be similar to ours, then there can be a desire to quarantine them, and not get anywhere near, as if the fears were contagious.  Or we are afraid of adding a whole new category of obsessing, and again, stay away.

This is OCD's mode of operation, to convince you that you can avoid the contagion of life, if you just screen out all things that might set you off, and enlist those around you to help in this task.   I know this from the inside.  Public health campaigns to raise awareness about various illnesses seemed designed by very cruel folks to torment me.  I was already highly aware of things that could go wrong, and I didn't want to know of any additional ways to monitor and worry about.  When I was a kid there was no internet but there were posters on the bus, public service ads on tv, special episodes of programs where someone had a disease, and magazine articles.  Women's magazines were the worst, and my mood would plummet if I was in a waiting room, reading one(which I picked up because I was anxious to be in the waiting room to begin with).

In college I was doing fairly well for awhile, avoiding obsessing about moles, until a classmate opened up his datebook, and I could see he'd written in an appointment for a mole removal.  I couldn't have predicted this.  Now, it might seem that you could at least keep yourself safe by avoiding what seems obvious, like Keeler's book or other OCD self-help books, or my blog, or the OCD Yahoo Group, or OCD support groups, but what is your definition of safe?  Avoiding all possibilities of help is not safety.  OCD would have you believe that it is possible to maintain complete quarantine, but triggers are part of life.

The irony is that when I was in an anxiety spike, I would then search out articles about whatever symptom was catching my attention, in order to reassure myself that I didn't have something serious.  There would be an initial calming effect if my symptoms didn't match, but then as I'd keep reading, I'd find something that again put doubt into my mind, or introduced an even more scary possibility.

I am not minimizing the abject fear of being seized by an OCD obsession.  I've been there.
But getting help for OCD is where the true hope of living beyond your obsessions resides.  OCD wants to maintain the status quo.  Don't get help.  Don't learn about how other people have coped.  Don't risk new pain.  

If you can't read a self-help book or OCD memoir because it's too terrifying, then this is a signal to find an exposure therapist, or a self-help group, where other people can help you.  I understand the irony in this.  I was once incredibly shy and my therapist suggested group therapy, and I was appalled.  How could I go to a group for help if I was terrified of groups??  But eventually, I realized that I didn't want to go on the way I was going:  the cost of my fear was too much, I was missing my life.

Keeler, in the preface to her book, writes of having severe fears of harming someone while at Disneyland, and self-loathing for what kind of person she must be, when a toddler ran over and hugged her leg.

It felt like she was telling me I wasn't what I feared.

I have no idea who this toddler was and I never saw her again.

But she saved part of me that day.  

Hopefully, this book can save part of someone else. 

 

 

Triggers Self Study and Emotional Well Being

by Nina

The Observer by Arshile Gorky

I’ve been hearing a lot about "triggers" lately, both in terms of anxiety and depression as well as Traumatic Stress Syndrome. And I’ve been watching a few people close to me who are struggling with depression and/or anxiety, and trying to observe what their triggers are. Some of them know about triggers and some of them don’t even perceive yet that certain things set them off into a downward spiral. But I'm persuaded it's an important concept. I know for myself that one particular insight about a trigger is what helped me start to heal from the serious bout of agitated depression I had in my early forties. So while I am by no means an expert on this, with an eye toward helping these people, I deciding to look into it more deeply. 

Still it was only this morning that I realized how yoga fit into the picture. I’ve written about the niyama svadhyaya (self study) in the past The Power of Svadhyaya (Self Study), Part 1 
and  The Power of Svadhyaya (Self Study), Part 2, saying it meant both study of the scriptures and study of yourself by using your witness mind. So I’m going to go out on a limb today and say that using your witness mind to notice what triggers you is a yogic self-study practice. I’ll use myself as an example. 

During my bout of agitated depression, even when I was on medication I was having a hard time recovering. I still felt like I was on the very edge of a break down (see Walking Away from the Edge ) and was barely getting through each day. Then one day I had a lunch date with an old friend at a restaurant he specified as “the Japanese sushi restaurant on Solano.” I asked if he was sure it was open for lunch because I didn’t think it was, and he said he was sure, so we agreed to meet at noon in front of the rest. I walked over there, giving myself the right amount of time to arrive at noon, but when I got there, the restaurant was closed and my friend was not in sight. Those were the days before cell phones so I had no way of getting in touch with him. I waited for around 10 minutes or so, and he still didn’t show (he’s an on-time person). Eventually it dawned on me that maybe he meant a different Japanese restaurant, one that was several blocks away at the bottom the hill. So I decided I would run down the hill to see if he was waiting for me for me. And when I say “run,” I mean RUN. And indeed he was there, and I explained the mix up, and we did have lunch together. But things did not go well for me. In fact, I felt utterly crazy after that, in a way I’d never felt before—not just hyper but CRAZY. 

The next day I called my therapist (a psychologist I greatly admired) and he gently said that he guessed that if I had not run down the hill that day (adding more adrenaline to my over-stimulated nervous system), he thought the entire day would have gone differently for me. That was a huge epiphany for me. I even began to use it as a mantra for myself “You don’t need to run down the hill.” It became a metaphor for everything. Even though I’m always on time, if I had to be late, it would be okay. Even though I like to finish everything I start, it would be okay if I wasn’t able to. Even if I couldn’t get everything done I planned to, it would be okay. I even told my boss about my problem (he was a big admirer of my work and a good friend) and said that if he gave me an unrealistic deadline, I was going to negotiate with him about it, and would no just to agree to whatever he asked for (and he consented!). In other words, I realized in general that pushing myself too hard to meet certain expectations was a trigger, and it was very important for me when I was already stressed to never “run down the hill.” 

And I began to use my witness mind to observe what the physical symptoms I was having that indicated it was time to back off (see Walking Away from the Edge) and refrain from running down hills (which, of course, is sometimes perfectly fine). I noticed when I was very stressed I not only had trouble sleeping, but my appetite wasn’t normal, I talked a lot more than usual, and the most important sign of all was a burning feeling in my chest that I called the "adrenaline burn," which mean things were getting really serious.

So today I just want to say that if you’re struggling with depression and/or anxiety, consider working with your witness mind to start learning what triggers your bad episodes. Observe both your thought patterns and your physical symptoms. Beth has written a wonderful post Working with the Witness about learning to work with your witness mind. Although her perspective in that post is about aging, these techniques can also apply to anyone who is engaging in self study to help manage or heal from emotional illnesses. 

As I wrote in my post The Power of Svadhyaya (Self Study), Part 1: 

“Eventually you can use on your witness mind during any activity. In my post Mental Yoga: Thataashut I wrote about using my witness mind when I was trying to write a blog post while construction was going on outside my window. Observing my thought patterns helped me calm down and find some peace of mind even with people arguing outside and making the kind of invasive noise that only large machines are capable of. Observing your habits can help you change the way you react to stress (see Changing the Brain's Stressful Habits). And it can help you in general to change your patterns of reactivity (see Meditation and Brain Strength).  

All of this will help you cultivate equanimity in your daily life, and if you’re suffering from anxiety and/or depression it may help you learn about and avoid triggers that worsen your condition.

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The Power of Svadhyaya Self Study Part 2

by Nina

Anatomical Body
India, Gujarat, 18th century

While preparing to write this post, I discovered that I had, uh, completely forgotten about some of the things I’ve written for the blog. (Hey, I’ve been writing at least one post a week—and sometimes two or three—for almost three years.) Yes, I was quite surprised to find a post about how we could use the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita to heal from an election so divisive that even Big Bird wasn’t being nice (see Yoga Philosophy of the Day, Part 2), another about how I was using yoga philosophy to prepare for a trip to Germany that I was feeling uneasy about (see Yoga Philosophy of the Day), and a third about how we can use wisdom of yoga to change our behavior patterns (see Thinking About the Wisdom of Yoga). But it’s no surprise at all to me that I find yoga philosophy extremely valuable in my every day life. And I’ve written about that in a general overview—which I have not forgotten about—called Why You Should Study Yoga Philosophy.  

As I mentioned in my post Svadhyaya (Self-Study), Part 1, there are two different interpretations of the meaning of niyama svadhyaya (self-study). In his book The Yoga Sutras of Patajanli, Edwin Bryant says:

Svadhyaya literally means self-study, but it more commonly refers to the study of sacred texts (in a sense the two meanings overlap, since sacred texts typically teach about the self).

So while one meaning of svadhyaya is to cultivate your inner witness to study your own self as I wrote about my first post earlier this week, another is to study the yoga scriptures, such as the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras, and—if you’re feeling brave—the Vedas and Upanishads. And this type of study complements your self-study because as you read these texts, you can reflect how to use the knowledge they contain. I consulted with Ram before writing my posts on svadhyaya’s two different meanings, and he recommended asking yourself these questions about the scriptures:

• How do you use the knowledge for self-empowerment? 
• How do you use the knowledge for the betterment of society? 
• How do you grow in body and mind after reading those scriptures? 

This kind of self-study can also include more than reading just the original scriptures themselves. As Ram said:

S(s)vadhyaya =education, study, or knowledge improvement that is gained from studying not just scriptures but any book or any experience that provides deep meaning or interpretation of life (that is, thought provoking).

So svadhyaya includes any books about yoga, whether books that interpret the scriptures, such as the Edwin Bryant book I mentioned above (which I frequently turn to), books about the history of yoga, such as Georg Feuerstein’s The Yoga Tradition about ancient yoga and Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton about modern yoga, or modern books about yoga (plus, our blog, of course). Obviously, texts from the religions of the world will also provide you with food for thought, but you should also consider psychology books and books about human behavior. Two of the non-fiction books that have influenced me greatly include Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn and A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon. Even fiction that explores the human condition can contribute to your self-study (I read an interesting New York Times article For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov that explained how literary fiction can help you develop empathy and improve your understanding of human behavior).

It makes a lot of sense that in our studies of the self, we should turn to the wisdom of others. After all, yogis and people of other cultures worldwide have been engaged in self-study for centuries, so we can learn a tremendous amount from their experiences. As a matter of fact, the single piece of yogic wisdom that I keep returning to in my everyday life is over two thousand years old:

The wise man lets go of all

results, whether good or bad,

and is focused on the action alone.

Yoga is skill in actions.

—Bhagavad Gita

Brad and I have been talking about that quote a lot lately because he has been taking on some big challenges at work and he finds that taking this yogic approach has helped him maintain some peace of mind. (And, yes, I do remember that I include that quote that in my posts all the time!)

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