Rheumatoid Arthritis Success Story (not my own)

I follow Dan Buglio on youtube and he today posted a success story on his channel of a chap from California who following mind body techniques was able to fully heal from RA and numerous other issues that he had. It is a fascinating watch and a must watch if you are here with any doubts about the issues you are experiencing.

 

That's a fabulous video, @Fal. I like it particularly because the chap actually says what he specifically did that worked for him to recover. I do think Dan's great but I get disappointed and frustrated by a lot of the success stories on his YouTube channel because the interviewees either don't say what they did or they only touch on what they did to recover, so I'd given up watching them. Many thanks for posting it up. I have two autoimmune diseases and this gives me (and should give others like me) hope and encouragement.

 

I'm not addressing this posting to anyone in particular, but I felt I just wanted to make the following comments about the (above) video as I found it so profound.

Towards the very end of the video Dan disagrees with Phil regarding Phil's view that his brain had been broken. This article https://psychcentral.com/stress/our-brain-on-stress-forgetful-emotional (Science Says: This Is How Stress Affects the Brain) discusses "how chronic stress can reduce the brain’s size and even alter its DNA, but building a collection of coping tools could help counter these changes" and therefore supports Phil's view. Personally, I more than think Phil is right, but that Dan also has a point with regard to the brain doing a 'great' job in producing pain and/or other symptoms due to fear and/or rage in its endeavours to protect us from danger.

Also, this article also shows how the brain can visibly physically alter in structure after just 6 weeks of daily 30 minute mindfulness meditation https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20230912-how-i-hacked-my-brain (How I rewired my brain in six weeks)

 

I viewed Phil’s success video again and took some notes for myself and just thought I’d share them in case it might be help to anyone. I recommend viewing the video first though as it's impossible for my notes to express just how good the video is. (My notes are not a word for word transcription, and I’ve paraphrased a lot – and grouped together stuff from various parts of the video that seemed to me to be connected – because the video is over an hour long.) Should you see this, Phil, should I have got anything wrong, just let me know and I’ll alter it.

Phil was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and felt profoundly chronically fatigued (but was never actually diagnosed with CFS) and was very ill.

His journey to wellness included 30 minutes to a maximum of 1 hour of meditation when awoke in the mornings… just sitting on his bed, propped up with pillows. His favourite meditation was Joe Dispenza’s ‘clearing and the blessing of the chakra centres’… which I see is on YouTube… but Phil only mentioned this because Dan asked him what he listened to when he did his meditations.

He also did 15 to 20 minutes of visualization of good things in the evening before bed. He didn’t have much trouble doing visualizations after he added music to this practice – film music, e.g. the theme music from ‘Out of Africa’ and ‘Braveheart’; this kind of music made his visualizations and imagination soar.

He says not to do things only to get better, but to do things because they feel good. Your purpose on this journey is to feel good.

His guiding principle changed from life being all about “standing up to sucker punches” to “the universe has got your back”. (With regard to this, having TMS was his worse yet best experience because it changed his outlook on life.)

The way he decided to analogise and think about what had happened to him to cause his RA, is that due to difficult, particularly childhood, experiences, the associated constant drip, drip, drip of stress chemicals had shrunken his brain and his brain had finally given up on him. A shrunken brain could not operate the body the way it needed to, but with mind/body work his brain would recover and work in the way it needed to.

As he meditated (he did not miss a day for a long time) and did visualizations and built up on his daily activity, his symptoms, which include joint swelling, gradually dropped off. His wife has a very big family and he forced himself to go to their various and numerous functions, e.g. weddings, parties etc., even though he didn’t feel like it and found that, despite his symptoms, he started to and was able to enjoy himself.

He turned his back on symptoms and focussed on what he wanted in life.

Throughout his recovery he realized and remembered that the mind/brain and not the body controls everything. (Medical students are taught this during their training but the majority of them when they start practising in the outside world more than tend to forget about this.)

He suffered ‘Symptom Imperative’ symptoms on his way to recovery. When he got them, he asked himself, “what is going on in my brain?” and then meditated more. He read mind/body books and watched a number of Dan Buglio’s videos to keep him going through the difficult times.

He said that he realised that the five senses can lie to you and the way your body is has a lot to do with what you think.

Once he realised what was causing his RA he was able to not to care about the outcome – “it’s just a stress dis-ease” he said and realised that having “infinite patience yields positive results”. He says “consciousness animates beliefs”.

He realised that there are two types of stress – everyday living stress and root stress, the latter, in his case, being an extreme feeling of not being enough. You can rewire your mind and eliminate that stress. He had an autoimmune disease (RA) where the body attacks itself and he realised that he had a lack of self-love. “Our beliefs animate our reality” and makes suggestions real and creates fear. The body always follows the mind. The brain is the controller. He realised this when he watched one of Dan’s success story videos when the subject of that video had badly gnarled and knobbly joints in her hands yet she had no pain.

He recommends stopping ‘fighting’. In the RA community they talk of ‘fighting’ the disease. However, ‘what you resist, persists’. The latter creates a war between you and yourself. If you resist, you lose. When you stop fighting, you start winning. You don't have to do things perfectly to recover, anyone can do it.

He says he believes that what he was suffering was extreme PTSD, a maladapted stress response. RA is a dis-ease, of stress. Rewire your mind and eliminate that stress… through meditation and visualization (and do what you enjoy). Meditation and visualization are not fixing practices but ways to calm the brain down. If your brain is working overtime (like it’s ‘jogging in place’) it’s extremely difficult to recover. The body has become the mind, so to speak, so you have to calm the brain down so that the body can work properly, so it can do what you want it to do.

He was on a particular diet for RA before starting mind/body work. He lost a huge amount of weight and looked very ill. He says that from his experience diets only make you feel broken.

He talks about what he calls ‘the law of identity’… you don’t get what you are, you get what you are being. He says to think, speak and do/act like a healthy person.

When you have a good day symptoms-wise, it’s your brain having a good day, not your body having a good day.

Living life is the answer – it’s not the problem.

 

I watched this and thought it was super helpful. I also use Dr Joe Dispenza videos, and they were a huge part of my recovery. I was a bit disappointed though, because in my success story with Dan, he wasn’t interested in hearing that at all. Maybe he’s opening up to “other ways” a bit more.

 

Well, this video and thread have pretty much blown my mind. I haven't been on this forum for years. I have an absolutely classic TMS personality, I know the programme really well and have patted myself on the back since then for my brilliant TMS recovery from back pain. That was maybe 15 years ago. Then I developed RA after my son was born. I went on a vegan diet 2 years ago and completely recovered from the RA which is brilliant on one level because I'm totally off all those horrible meds. But I didn't for one second think that it could have been TMS. I only came back here because this weekend for the first time in over a decade my back pain is back. I have lingering anxiety and depression as well. Now I think I need to get back into "recovery" again and to eat a burger as part of that. I can't believe I missed the RA, I feel slightly in shock as it is so obvious suddenly now I have watched this video although he's right that I never heard RA discussed as part of TMS. Anyway I guess it's "nice" to be back, or at least I'm very grateful this place is still around and now I'll spend some time reading up on here.

 

Hi Jan! Nice to see you, thanks for your very kind and speedy reply and how interesting to hear that you also had a RA diagnosis. Well, the meds are there for a reason. I know when I first went on methotrexate and had steroid injections for RA there was absolutely no way around it - I was swelling up like a balloon, terrible pain, couldn't even pick up my son and similarly my doc was categorical that I needed to stop the inflammation before serious damage was done. It was the right choice and I'm glad those meds existed because without them I'd have been in a terrible ongoing state. Interesting to read that some members of the community are changing in their view of autoimmune illness. I'm going to try to find Nicole Sachs' interview with you.

I am meditating now and I do think it helps. And I'm reading a book called "Not Nice" which is targeted at nice-aholics (!) which is reminding me of how deep the "nice" programming goes and how freaking damaging it is.

Anyway I think I'm going to skip the burger for some fish and chips tonight! Take care x

 

Yes, the Dr Azipura book. It is really, really good. It's a very positive and practical read and I am learning a lot. I hope you get it from the library soon as I think you will really enjoy it. For me, it is the story of my life, I see myself in every page and how I have restricted myself all my life with this "being a nice person" shit. I forgot how much of a TMS personality I am.

I went to the gym today and pushed myself to show my brain that there's nothing wrong with me. I was tempted to tell the trainer that "I've done a little something to my back so I need to go easy" but I decided not to because I don't want to give the TMS an inch. Definitely the right decision - my back was absolutely fine throughout!

Thanks for that link to the podcast, I am looking forward to listening to that tonight!