Psoriatic Arthritis Journal - 2.5 year Update Page 63

[nicoles]

Thanks Jamietwo!

[nicoles]

Why Our Thoughts Are Not Real

One physical world, but billions of different internal worlds.
Published on August 23, 2013 by Nancy Colier, LCSW, Rev. in

Did you ever realize that everything going on in your mind -- every thought, feeling, sensation, everything you are aware of -- is in fact happening only in your private internal world? Your thoughts appear only to you, and are not being heard by anyone else whatsoever. There is one physical world here on earth, but billions of different internal worlds. We are all in our own separate theaters, witnessing entirely different shows, and yet we behave as it we are in the same audience, watching the very same event we call life.

Why is it important to contemplate this truth? To meditate on this is liberating, because it implies that what we are personally living inside our heads is not real. We are aware of our thoughts, so in that sense they are real. And yet, our thoughts do not exist outside of our awareness. There is nowhere else where the thought that is appearing to you at this moment is actually occurring. Unlike the way we imagine it, our thoughts are not solid, like trees or rocks that exist outside of us in some tangible way. Certainly I have never seen a thought walk by me on the street. Where, how and if thoughts even exist within the body is not clear. That thoughts appear to our awareness, on a giant projection screen (to which we are the audience), is all we know.


Let's say that at this moment you are having a thought about a friend and something specific that she did, and what you want to say to her in response. That friend who you are thinking about is not experiencing your thought (about her) at this moment. If you don't engage with, or entertain that thought, it will literally not exist. The thought appears only within you. Your friend knows nothing of it. And making it even stranger, you did not even have the thought that you are calling "yours." Rather, it appeared to and within your awareness, without your ever choosing it or asking it to show up! If that thought is not fueled with your attention or interest, it will already have disappeared.

What makes a thought feel real is the attention we bring to it. We make a thought into a solid object by focusing on it and relating to it as if it is an event happening in the world somewhere. Usually in the world of the person or thing that we are thinking about. We link the two -- the thought and the object that the thought is about -- when in fact, the two are not actually connected. Our thought does not affect the object of that thought unless we believe it does. How freeing it is to know that if we do not attend to a thought, answer it, change it, identify with it and all the rest, it literally ceases to exist. If we let a thought be nothing, then that's what it will be... nothing.

It can be a bit frightening to realize that we are the only ones living the experience that we are living, that what we are calling our experience doesn't exist in any real sense, except for an instant inside our minds. So, too, it can be unsettling to consider that there really is no shared experience going on whatsoever. Furthermore, we do not choose the thoughts and feelings that appear before us -- they simply appear to our awareness and then disappear, like fireflies in the night. From what thoughts are made and from where do they come, we simply cannot know.

But the question then begs, if each one of us is hearing different thoughts (living an entirely different circus, if you will), none of which we actually script ourselves, then to whom or what are all these separate and individual performances appearing? Who or what is the larger audience -- the collective awareness within which all these individual events occur? This is a question to ponder rather than answer.

And so the next time that a thought appears before you, within your awareness, remember that it is not real in the sense that it has some solid form or exists somewhere outside of you. The contents of what you are thinking about are in no way affected by the fact that this thought is appearing within you, nor is he/she/it aware that such an event is happening in your internal world. The thought appears in front of and within only you. Without the juice of your attention, it simply disappears without a trace.



Copyright 2013 Nancy Colier

From this Site

[Lesliec1]

I like that modified yoga pose site. Ive been using that. And yes Im taking probiotics. I dont usually because I never notice any difference but i figure its a good time to take them anyway.

I'm glad you have to modify just for weak arms. That will definitely come back, right? Do you do light weights?

[nicoles]

Hey Leslie - cool you like that site. It helps, right? Good stuff.

Yes, my arm strength will come back. I have been kinda lazy about doing upper body work, but I am doing light weights regularly enough that it is coming back gradually. I am erring on the side of doing to little rather than too much, but I think I am going to be OK to flip that equation soon and get more challenging.

[Lesliec1]

I think I should move close to you so we can exercise together.

[lmggallagher]

Whoa - The Universe is too awesome for words!

Ditto what Leslie just said on the moving to exercise together

[nicoles]

Yeah! Leslie and Michelle - we can rent us out a nice beachfront property and get out exercise along the water!!!

[Ruff]

Come to me! I live on a beach!

[lmggallagher]

OK here's the deal - I talked to my Aunt Sally again last Saturday about her trip to New Zealand . I came home and literally started looking for a beach cottage to rent for like a 2 week holiday. The exchange rate I believe in is our favor!!! I found a nice 2 bedroom for instance that would be $60 a night for just two people - the place did sleep more though

Can I afford this hell no! Can I afford a lottery ticket, er maybe

So I propose when it's winter here - I will win a big lottery and we shall all take off for a vacation, where Nicole can lead us in gentle yoga, we eat all kinds of veggies, exotic fruits and kiwi fruits galore - and watch Ruff take off on huge long runs with Ruff the dog.

Oh and there are other things to do there too - like I want to see those birds over there

OTOH - and meanwhile - my aunt just happened to bring me a very cute, furry kiwi bird fridge magnet - he is likely as close as I will get to this dream vacation with all us McD women - but he will remind me that it is wonderful to have such dreams

PS



Ruff and I were posting at the same time. What are the odds of that. I am out the door to buy a lottery ticket!!!!!!!

[nicoles]

Update - Regarding monthly cycle

OK, for my whole life I have had terrible pms. Just awful! And it has always lasted the entire luteal phase - from the minute ovulation is over, BAM! pms drops down on me like a ton of bricks for a good 13-16 days. Oy!

The symptoms I experience are: fatigue, anxiety, agitation, irritability, heightened emotional sensitivity, bloating, constipation, insomnia, breast tenderness, abdominal tenderness, mild cramping for a few days before menstruating, backache, sciatica, and and increase in appetite like you would not believe. Insatiable!!!!

I also used to get terrible, horrible, miserable cramps that required me to be doubled up in pain or on overly large doses of Motrin (taking 6 at a time) to get through.

I had hoped when I started McDougalling that this would all be a thing of the past...and in the case of my cramps, it was true! I still get mild cramps and am a bit more tired than usual the first day of my period, but nothing I need to take anything for, and nothing that stops me from doing much. Mostly the tiredness and joint pain stops me more than the menstrual pain.

So it was great about the cramps, but the pms...another story. I gave it time. I track things ridiculously, and so over time it was clear that although my PMS was milder, it was still prominent and present for the entire luteal phase.

This got me wondering, so i checked in with my doctor, who said it sounded to him like I had relative estrogen dominance during the luteal phase - that I was not producing enough progesterone, so even though my estrogen levels were lessened dramatically from eating plant-based and from taking daily flax seeds, they were still too high in the big picture. And progesterone was too low.

So from there I learned a few things, notably about the progesterone steal - when you have sleep disturbances or stress, your body will steal the building blocks of progesterone to make cortisol to keep you going.

Ongoing stress, you say? Why yes! I have had plenty of that the whole time I have been eating plant based Try as I might to balance that out, s'truth, s'there. So I have been meditating and working on stress management for a few months, yet pms remained the same.

Ah well, I thought, Guess I gotta go one progesterone cream or just tough it out for two weeks a month!

But then I remembered something. When I was a teenager, I discovered aerobic exercise. The first month I was exercising regularly as a teenager, my pms lasted only a couple of days, right before my period. But after time I noticed it was not just any ole exercise, like walking, it had to be HARD to make a difference.

Now, I have not been able to really exercise hard for a few years, since I got sick, but I have been gradually building up my tolerance the last few months. Being in the midst of some pretty icky pms the other day, I emailed my Doc with my exercise revelation, thinking he'd say to start it up next month, after I had my period and was not so tired.

Nope!

He said, Great! why don't you try it right now - exercise as hard as you can tolerate from now until your period and see if it makes a difference.

I whined a bit in my head about how I felt like I was wearing three lead suits and he wanted me to EXERCISE HARDER?!?!? but ultimately I wanted to feel better without hormone cream so I did it.

I went on at least a 2-hour hike from that day until today, the day I got my period. And within one day's worth of hiking, 90% of my pms was gone.

So the moral of the story is, I need to exercise too for optimal health and hormone levels, not just eat well. Also known as Diet and Exercise working together

[nicoles]

Ruff! Yes, we should come to you!!!! I have always wanted to go to New Zealand!!!! Michelle - go get that lotto ticket, stat!

[jamietwo]

Nicole, may I call you Sherlock? What amazing detective work you do! And my hat is off to you that you pushed the exercise envelope to test your theory! I hope you don't have any adverse impact from "over-doing", but a HUGE congratulations on resolving your pms symptoms!

[lmggallagher]

The Lotto Ticket has been procured!!!!!

Start thinking the good thoughts NOW

[lmggallagher]

Nicole:

Ditto on good detective work! Really good deductions and yay for it working so wonderfully!!!! Sincerely with all you have going on anyway to add this stuff to it just about made me cry for the unfairness of it all!

I kind of got close to but not quite to this realization myself a really long time ago ( when I was like YOUR AGE ) and had the same problems. I don't think as severe in one sense the cramps were the worst and the PMS was secondary but present on an up and down scale. I sort of chalked it up to stress, as did the docs I saw at the university for it.

Then I thought hey stress goes up around test times and exercise goes down. Maybe it has something to do with exercise too? Fast forward and I am done with college and well life is still stressful. Exercise is up and more often down and the cramps thing is getting worse and worse and so is the PMS. Which is to say, on campus and there abouts lots of good places to exercise and I am missing all of that and doing little to figure out new routines. Except for walking the big dog many miles a day - which somehow my bf was taking over.

Anyway, one night it was all so bad my bf then put me in the car and took me to the hospital. Surprisingly to me this happens, some women have menstrual contractions equal to labor pains and I was doing exactly that. The nurse explained hormones and proteglandins to my bf, who mostly thought I was the biggest wimp of all time!

That same year I fell of the cliff and really wrecked myself. While I was casted and not exercising the whole cramp/PMS thing was still awful. As soon as I was out of a cast I was going to the best gym I have ever seen in life.

Essentially - it was all the injured athletes in the Bay Area's gym.I didn't know until my bf picked me up there one day and saw who all I'd been exercising with daily. Raiders, Warriors and others too - he knew but I'd been clueless. This was in Oakland - and really back then most of the guys around our neighborhood looked just as athletic as those guys at the gym.

I was there 6 months and no problems at all with the prior issues, but every month the bf was kidding me as to whether we'd have to do a hospital run again. By now I was super bitchy - not because of PMS but because he was being so terrible about that whole thing.

I don't remember it now but he had sort of an annoying sing/songy schpiel about my messed up hormones using words like proteglandins/progesterone/estrogen etc. So about month 3 of no problems he started that up around that time of the month and I told him in a somewhat equally annoying way that I didn't have any problems anymore because I was NOW exposed to all those incredibly high octane testosterone guys for a change.

I would have never said anything like that but we were decidedly on our last legs then and went our separate ways not long after. But I stuck with the high intensity exercise and never had bad issues again.

Still I can't say I really made the connection the way you have - maybe it stuck in my mind that it was actually a testosterone issue, as wrong as that is.....

[MSNomad]

Nicole, thanks for the details on exercise and PMS. You've encouraged me to get back on my exercise bike this week to see if it helps!

Regarding New Zealand, I'M IN! My husband and I will be going there in the next year or two on our extended travels. We met there twenty years ago!