How to rewire your brain with 'gray'...

Personally, I was impressed by much of this video's content, but particularly with what the interviewee says about, and how to deal with, perfectionism, 'all or nothing' / 'black and white' thinking, i.e. rewire your brain with 'gray' (from 14:56 to 20:35). What she says will definitely stick with me, so I thought I'd post it up in case it may gel with and help anyone else.

(WARNING EDIT: just in case anyone might find it triggering, the interviewee's camera flickers every so often in this video.)

 

The "gray" is intensity. I loved how they talk about the fact that tms folks often approach things with a high intensity which is apart of the black and white thinking and perfectionism that most people with TMS seem to employ in one way or another.

I also really like how they talk about this in terms of managing the fear of the physical symptoms but also the emotional part of the work.

Excellent conversation! Thanks @BloodMoon !

 

Thanks!

Question to whomever is reading this:

Hearing about all these symptoms kind of makes me nervous. Like 'what if i ever get light sensitive too and i cant do any tms work anymore and i cant get better?'

How am i supposed to deal with these thoughts/fears?

 

Lol and on this topic:

The guests camera flickers a bit and that is totally freaking me out. I really wanna see the rest though. I know a little light flicker wont kill me; more tms work to be done.

 

Also i dont mean to ruin this thread with my word vomit but the stuff theyre talking about is so relatable. I’d get mad at myself for not responding the right way, thinking id never get better. Someone told me that you can just respond with fear 99 out of 100 times instead of 100 and youd be improving Its my status: ‘trying to do a little better each day’. Also the not doing black and white and trying to be black and white about not doing it were exacy the problems i was running into. Theres a certain amount of confirmation bias in these self diagnoses but tms theory has always felt incredibly close to me. So good at dissecting the parts of me completely sabotaging my own lige

 

Thoughts are what our brain's do, they aren't reality, they aren't inevitable. One of my best friends is blind, and he does the work.

 

"Thoughts" are not you. They are involuntary and pop in and out of our brain. I listened to a Curable class last night from Alec Kassin. His talk was about the subconscious and the conscious. It was a great talk. This was the first time I really understood what the subconscious is.

He likened the conscious brain as play on a stage. You can see the show and who is in it. The subconscious is what is behind the scenes in that play. From the seats, you can't see what is happening backstage-but things are happening. Lights, sounds, costume changes, etc. That is what our subconscious brain is like. It's constantly moving and looking for threats of danger.

Your thoughts can pop up from the subconscious and it is your job to stand up and say "I am not my thoughts." Or "This is not true."

This thought is a common TMS thought. Maybe you won't get better. But maybe you will get better. You don't know your future so you need to tell your brain that you are going to live in the present. And what are you going to do right now to make yourself feel a little bit better? (not in terms of symptom relief but just by feeling safe.)

These are all things I deal with too. I just wanted to share this with you. This talk about our subconscious being the backstage of a play just really clicked with me and helped me understand this just a little bit more. These are things I tell myself when a thought pops up that wants to scare me or question TMS and recovery.

 

Think of thoughts this way. They can't be you. You are sitting there reading this right now. Your thoughts are taking place at the same time as you are doing that, so how can they be you?

 

She says something I think should be in the preface of every TMS book: if you're doing a thing with the intention of getting rid of the symptoms, you are telling your brain you need to survive those symptoms.

btw Raelan's getting very good with her timing. I don't know if she has some background on TV or radio, but her videos are very easy to watch through.

 

I wondered that too, but I don't think so... I just looked up her website on which she says: "Before launching into this work, I earned a Master’s degree in Social Work and worked as a clinical social worker in medical settings. My training in psychoeducation shaped how I now teach recovery — making complex science approachable and translating it into practical, actionable tools."

I've watched some of her earliest videos and they were reasonably good as she was and still is imo very personable, but they were quite amateurish at that time (not intended as a criticism, just an observation). I think she's probably learned from experience 'on the job' but maybe she's had some professional coaching in presentation in recent years. I like how she refrains from interrupting her guests, lets them say what they want to say and takes in what they say before asking pertinent questions. She receives criticism for having coaches etc., on her channel who promote their businesses, but I've learned a lot from her interviews and haven't spent a single penny.

 

Yeah, it pisses me off how some interviewers try to predict the guest reply, and then spend 2 minutes trying to explain themselves.