'Wins' board idea/technique to aid you on your journey to recovery...

I came across this success story video in my YouTube feed in which Dan Buglio interviews a lady called Channelle who started and maintained a 'wins' board which she advises was a tremendous help to her on her journey towards her recovery (of note is that the 'wins' were not about measuring progress by whether she had symptoms or not)...



P.S. As @Diana-M says below, the 'wins' board info starts at 20:45. (I should have thought to do that because as @Mr Hip Guy points out, it's quite a long video.)

 

Awesome! She says celebrating the littlest wins taught her brain to look for more. A win, for example, was “not thinking about my symptoms for one hour.” Dan agreed this is a great technique. It starts at 20:45 if anyone wants to just listen to that part. I like this idea. She used Post it notes. I think I’ll put this into practice. Thanks, @BloodMoon!

 

Thank you for summarizing. I like the idea and started the video but balked at the runtime.

Any sort of positivity we can latch onto is important when we're down in the dumps of negativity like TMS brain wants us to be. if she's using post-it notes that means she has visual cues to look back on and doesn't have to "remember to log my wins" etc.

 

Yes, Dan made that very observation/point, that is, the visual cues and evidence of her progress were in her face (her 'win' board was on the back of her bedroom door) but if you stick your 'wins' in a notebook on a shelf somewhere you have to remember to make the effort to look them up.

My thanks to @Diana-M for giving the time at which Channelle describes how she used her 'win' board (20:45 for anyone else who's interested). It's not a long section of the video and imo it's really worth spending just a little bit of time hearing her talk about it...

For instance, I liked that she described that even with her 'downs' she was able to view them as 'wins' because she took on board that recovery isn't linear, she accepted that the journey was going to be bumpy and viewed a 'down' as one step further along the road towards recovery. When she describes it, using hand gestures, I could tell that she was kind of visualizing her journey/path to recovery in her mind's eye to be something like the graph below, which is from 'The Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook' by Vanessa Blackstone and Olivia Sinaiko. (The key/legend came out a bit small so just to say that the solid, black straight line is 'what people think healing looks like' and the meandering dotted line is 'what healing actually looks like'.)

 

Me too! I've just ordered a load of Post it notes in various colours and shapes from Amazon!

 

Although I don't follow her work much anymore, that puts me in mind of Nicole Sachs saying healing is like concentric circles up a mountain, not a straight climb.

 

Bingo. The back of my office door is a mess of post-it notes (alot of TMS reminders, but also faith-based reminders too) and cards, pictures, and drawings from my daughter that I want to have "in my face" all the time for all sorts of reasons. When you look into my office from the outside, it looks perfectly normal.

 

I used to write positive things on my mirror with a dry erase marker, I should start again. Thanks for the post. I think there’s no limit to what focusing on the positive and uplifting ourselves can accomplish!

 

Dr. Abraham Low, in his writings and lectures, calls this "endorsing." Endorsing not for the result, but for the effort.

 

Very interesting! Thanks

I thought I'd ask Perplexity.ai for more details and it came up with the following, so I thought I'd post it up for others to see if they're interested in this:

"Dr. Abraham Low, founder of Recovery International, used the concept of "endorsing" as a core technique for supporting mental health recovery and self-improvement. Endorsing, according to Low, means specifically recognizing and applauding oneself for any positive effort made, not just for successful outcomes. In his approach, members are taught to "endorse yourself for the effort, not only for the performance," emphasizing the value of any attempt to apply recovery tools or to manage situations better, no matter how small the progress may seem.

What "Endorsing" Means

• Low urged people to practice "self-endorsement of every effort made to use a Recovery method, no matter how small and regardless of the outcome".
• This is intended to help break cycles of self-doubt and perfectionism, making future efforts easier and more likely to succeed.
  
  Purpose and Application

• Endorsing is not conditional on results—people should "endorse themselves for their efforts—not for their successes".
• This approach builds confidence, encourages persistence, and helps individuals recognize their gradual progress, especially when moving step by step through difficult experiences.
• For example, trying to act differently in a stressful situation or simply making the attempt to change a habitual thought pattern are both endorsement-worthy acts, regardless of the outcome.
  
  Summary of Key Point

Dr. Low’s message: Recognize and validate your efforts, however small, in the process of recovery and self-management—this positive reinforcement fosters resilience and continued progress."

 

Suggestion to also note down your 'mindset' at the time of one's 'wins':
I discovered Dan Buglio's made a kind of 'follow up' video to suggest adding something else (just one other thing) to recording one's 'wins' on a 'wins' board, i.e. recording/noting down with each 'win' what one's mindset was at the time of that 'win'. (In Channelle's interview she talked about experiencing and recognising changes in mindset which helped her lose her symptoms.) So, here's Dan's video for anyone who's interested (it's fairly short, just 7mins 44secs long):



Dot stickers idea for repeated 'wins':
Something else I've just thought of doing is using some small, brightly coloured stickers (little dots, for instance) to add to the Post it notes that have a 'win' on them that I do repeatedly. For example, I've got a 'win' Post it note on my 'wins' board that's for my daily evening exercises/movements that I do standing in front of the TV; I'll add a dot sticker to that Post it note each time I do those exercises to endorse my 'wins' in doing that... So, no need for a new Post it note each time, but imo still a great visible 'endorsement'.

Seeing the 'mechanism':
Also, I re-watched Channelle's interview and something she described kind of hit home to me... She said that since she majorly recovered she has experienced a couple of traumatic situations where in response some symptoms returned but she was able to clearly see that those symptoms were produced by her brain acting to lower her mental stress in those moments to protect her and, having recognised that at the time, she went to bed and in the morning those symptoms were gone. It made me realise that when you have been symptom free it's so much easier to see mind/body symptoms for what they are when/if new ones appear or 'old' ones return; whereas when you have numerous symptoms it's so very much harder to see the 'mechanism' at work, to see it for what it really is. I think remembering what Channelle said about her experience is going to help me out with this, and thought it might help others.

 

Great ideas, @BloodMoon! Thanks for all this!

 

So some of this begins to border on OCD behavior but I find that simply logging things in some manner (whether with the post-it notes. or in a journal, or as I do in a spreadsheet diary) can be highly motivating towards repeating that desired behavior.

This is true not just for these TMS-related therapies, but also any goal you might be working towards. Again, it might be my OCD-tangent personality, but this type of stuff really works for me. Bloodmoon's description of Post-it notes, but with dots added certainly falls into that wheelhouse.

 

I’m not really OCD, so for me adding dots would just give me a sense of accomplishment.

 

Me neither. (In my case, I'm simply too lazy to be OCD!) And so, it's the same for me, the dots will give me a sense of accomplishment for those things I already do regularly (and will save space for putting up Post it notes about other 'wins' I've managed to do).

You're very welcome! I really hope it helps. I have to say I haven't felt this 'buoyed' (for want of a better word) since, well, I don't remember! My 'wins' board is on a cupboard right next to our telly/TV - so it's nice and 'right in my face'. I'm actually somewhat of a big kid waiting for Amazon to deliver my new Post it notes that are shaped like leaves, stars, speech bubbles and hearts . As adults we generally never, or hardly ever, get a 'pat on the back' from anyone to encourage us (and we probably didn't get that as children either). This feels to me like such a simple and wonderful way of doing that for ourselves... and, of course, a good way of being able to 'see' one's overall progress, especially when using a 'baby steps' approach towards recovery -- I think it's the icing (frosting) or cherry on the cake for supporting that. Here's my 'wins' board, complete with first dot...

 

Ha! Me too.

Fantastic!

Yes! And it really gives hope for when recovery is going slow or on a downturn. It also reminds us that our success is not based on lack of symptoms. The TMS journey is a lifestyle change.

 

FWIW - No offense intended with the OCD references.

 

Another concept which Dr. Low taught, and which meshes perfectly with what Dr. Sarno and Dan Buglio espouse, is that commanding one's muscles to move teaches the brain that the feared actions may be "distressing but not dangerous."

 

Yes! Abso - bloomin' - lutely!

 

Well, at first it did feel like you were pouring a bucket of cold water over my enthusiasm and dots idea, but then I saw that what you were saying is that you have OCD tendencies and because of that this kind of thing is actually liable to work for you. I guess people just have to decide for themselves whether a 'wins' board with Post it notes and sticky dots might be something that would not be helpful to their particular OCD tendencies.