Book Group Chapter 2: Pain is a Danger Signal -- discussion of The Way Out by Alan Gordon

[Forest]

Michelle and I greatly enjoyed this second meeting. It feels like the group is developing a rhythm.

As with last week, we'd love to start a discussion thread below for Ch 2 (and for the other chapters in subsequent weeks). So if you had any questions for Michelle or me, or had any thoughts you'd like to share about the material covered, please post them below. (Click on "Register" and then "Facebook" to log on with Facebook.)

This week's topics and the video recording are below:

Michelle will discuss the development of pain and how sometimes our brains can misinterpret signals from the body.​

Then there will be breakout groups where members can discuss times they have experienced pain and the role belief played in it. After breakout groups, Forest will lead group members in a large group discussion.​

​

After group sharing, Michelle will discuss what neural pathways have to do with pain. She will talk about how we learn pain and exactly what neuroplastic pain is. She will also discuss how to tell if your pain might be neuroplastic.​

Then there will be one more breakout group led by Forest where group members will have a chance to share their thoughts and/or experiences regarding evidence for neuroplastic pain.​

​

Finally Michelle will talk a little bit about next week’s topic: FEAR​

This week, we also had a follow-up discusion. Here is the recording:

More information about the other chapters and the book group can be found at www.prtrecovery.org/group.

 

[Forest]

One of my favorite parts of the discussion was when we covered outcome independence. Recovery generally involves ups and downs and how do we avoid getting sucked into outcome dependence when this happens?

I thought of the following terrific video, made by a former NASA engineer, about some reprocessing he did with his own brain.

A friend of his made a bike, and when you steer it right, it swerves left – it’s almost impossible to ride. It took him a long time to master it. Once he did, he could no longer ride a normal bike!

It’s a great illustration of neuroplasticity. As a child, he had developed the neural pathways to ride a normal bike. The more he practiced, the stronger those pathways got. “Those nerves that fire together, wire together.”

To ride his bike with reverse steering, he had to unlearn those pathways and learn new ones. It took 9 months for his brain to learn a new way of operating so he could ride the reverse bike!

I think that this is a great metaphor for recovery. I both activities you are trying to replace old neural pathways with new neural pathways. With PRT, you are trying to “reprocess” your old fear-based pathways and replace them with new safety-based pathways.

But just like with riding a “backwards bike,” it typically involves some crashes. That’s perfectly normal. It’s part of the process.

Outcome independence is what protects you during this process. Dustin likely got quite frustrated during those nine months of daily practice. Many times he probably wondered whether he would ever be successful. … Just like you do…

So what advice would you give to Dustin as he went through the process?

The best that I know to do is simply to maintain outcome independence and to take a firm voice in reassuring yourself. That’s what he did. And after 9 months, he mastered it.

What is your advice – for someone riding a backwards bike or learning to overcome pain? How do get back on the bike every time we fall off without allowing it to trigger yet more fear?

 

[J Lo]

I love this metaphor. How many times as kids did we crash on our bikes and just get right back up? It never occurred to us to give up. Of course, we were going to get it. The same is true for learning new neural pathways. And the story of this guy is incredible and a credit to neuroscience. Thanks for sharing.

 

[MlleButtercup]

One of my favorite parts of the discussion was when we covered outcome independence. Recovery generally involves ups and downs and how do we avoid getting sucked into outcome dependence when this happens?

I thought of the following terrific video, made by a former NASA engineer, about some reprocessing he did with his own brain.

A friend of his made a bike, and when you steer it right, it swerves left – it’s almost impossible to ride. It took him a long time to master it. Once he did, he could no longer ride a normal bike!

It’s a great illustration of neuroplasticity. As a child, he had developed the neural pathways to ride a normal bike. The more he practiced, the stronger those pathways got. “Those nerves that fire together, wire together.”

To ride his bike with reverse steering, he had to unlearn those pathways and learn new ones. It took 9 months for his brain to learn a new way of operating so he could ride the reverse bike!

I think that this is a great metaphor for recovery. I both activities you are trying to replace old neural pathways with new neural pathways. With PRT, you are trying to “reprocess” your old fear-based pathways and replace them with new safety-based pathways.

But just like with riding a “backwards bike,” it typically involves some crashes. That’s perfectly normal. It’s part of the process.

Outcome independence is what protects you during this process. Dustin likely got quite frustrated during those nine months of daily practice. Many times he probably wondered whether he would ever be successful. … Just like you do…

So what advice would you give to Dustin as he went through the process?

The best that I know to do is simply to maintain outcome independence and to take a firm voice in reassuring yourself. That’s what he did. And after 9 months, he mastered it.

What is your advice – for someone riding a backwards bike or learning to overcome pain? How do get back on the bike every time we fall off without allowing it to trigger yet more fear?

I think that outcome independence is one of the hardest skills to master. I'm a worrier. The notion that I can accept an outcome that I can't control and be okay with is hard to wrap my head around. These days, I try to practice outcome independence as often as I can for small things so that it's easier for difficult times. For example, this year, at Thanksgiving, I decided that I didn't want to cook a huge, elaborate meal for a large group of friends and family. It's stressful and I have never enjoyed doing it. So I set some boundaries. The first one was that we would have immediate family over. The second was that I would only cook the turkey and the bread. My family would be responsible for everything else. Great, right? Yes, except that I'm a huge control freak. I started to worry about silly things like "What if my flaky daughter doesn't do her side dish?" or "What if my son arrives too late to get the sweet potato casserole done before dinner is served?" This was a great time to practice outcome independence. So what if my daughter doesn't provide a nice side dish? So what if my son doesn't have time to do an elaborate casserole? So what if everything isn't up to my exacting standards? We ended up having a nice time and a nice dinner. And I had a much more enjoyable day overall. Outcome independence for the win!

Every time I practice outcome independence, I give myself a mental pat on the back as a reward.

 

[J Lo]

I love your practical examples above. I too start out strong with boundaries, keeping things simple, etc. Then right before the event question and undermine my original plan. Ugh! I will try to answer the questions with "so what if........". I think that will help alot!

 

[MlleButtercup]

In the book, Alan talks about outcome independence as it relates to somatic tracking, and would probably call what I'm talking about more along the lines of giving up all or nothing thinking. But for me, anytime I practice relinquishing control in area of my life is good preparation for me to relinquish control of the outcome during the Process as well.

 

[Forest]

Hey everyone! Here is a video of our discussion of Chapter 2 on March 6, 2022. Check it out!

This is the second time we've run the discussion group. If there is a theme that really resonates with you, you can scroll up to see how it was discussed the first time. If not, keep your life simple... you are done for the week!

If you want to share a direct link to this video, you can use the social media share icon just above this post. Here is a direct link:
https://www.prtrecovery.org/threads/14/post-145