How to forget terrible disease

[fabina57]

Hi,

I'm in my 14th months of fasciculations and i still a litle worried about A*S.I try to forget them but my twitchs are presents to remind. There is no one hour where i don't think about A*S. I try to manage manage my fear but it's no easy.
Since one month, some days i have only 20/30 twitchs and the other 1000's everywere. what's my problem ? ->anxiety , yes maybe -> disease, yes maybe.
How to stop thinking about***?

Regards,

Arnaud

[SecretAgentMan]

Many times when we have a fear it is a thought process that originates from our subconscious. It's sort of a warning to let us know, 'hey watch out for this potential situation!' Fears can be pretty intense and we can put up quite a resistance to them. What seems to happen is the subconscious interprets this as you not listening to it, so the thought process keeps getting sent out over and over again. This causes people to put up more and more resistance. You are fighting yourself though. Two conflicting energies are within duking it out.

The key to resolving the conflict is to restore balance. How do you do this? Basically you need to let the subconscious know that you've received the message loud and clear and that you are moving on. You can't just reason with the subconscious with your logical and analytical side of the brain. You need to let the energy of this message move through without the resistance. This may not seem right to many though. I mean, really, who wants to actually let their fears run wild in their mind and entertain them? That's where the balance comes in. Rather than fighting the fears, move with the current of the energy and work with it. I will give an example.

A few years ago I had a nightmare that terrified me for reasons I don't understand. You may laugh, but I think it illustrates the point I'm trying to make. I had a dream where a meteor came out of the sky and crashed right into my front yard. It wasn't like a normal dream for some reason, it was very vivid and it scared the crap out of me. I actually was haunted by the thoughts of this meteor crashing into my yard during the day. It seems silly as hell, because seriously what are the odds of it really happening? It was just a dream. Yet the thought kept replaying in my mind and it brought up fear every time it did. I tried to rationalize that it was all a dream but that didn't help. I was putting up resistance and fighting it.

That's where one of my meditation sessions gave me an idea. I decided to let the sequence of events play out in my head unrestricted and at the end, where it crashed into the ground and I always stopped and tried to push the thoughts away, instead I imagined a positive and happy ending to the whole thing. Rather than creating a crater of destruction that engulfed my house, I imagined that it just made a little bit of a mess and I went out into the yard to inspect it only to find that it was made of solid gold. I did a happy dance because now I was rich. As silly as this sounds it worked! The meteor dream memories came back a few times more, but each time I let it play out and each time I imagined my happy ending and it completely took the edge off. The fear was gone. Eventually the thoughts stopped coming.

So the trick is to not provide resistance. You are only fighting yourself. The trick is to work with the fear and add a happy ending. Give it a shot! The mind is powerful, let it work in your favor!

[jerry2]

Well, sorry, you can give a meteor a happy ending, but the problem with ALS fear is that one can not give it a happy ending.

[volfan]

Jerry, I understand you are worried about your health right now, and if someone has ALS, there isn't a lot one can do to make that look as if it is going to have a good ending. But it isn't helpful to rain on SAM's parade. He is just trying to help - don't be a Debbie Downer. I know I sound like a beee-atch and I hate that because most, if not all of us, have been in a dark place. SAM is truly giving advice as to how to move out of there!

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/ ... al/n12817/

[SecretAgentMan]

Well, sorry, you can give a meteor a happy ending, but the problem with ALS fear is that one can not give it a happy ending.

Jerry, we need to work on your imagination my friend. You can play out these events in your head any way you like. The obvious one that comes to mind for me is that you wind up living to be 125 years old and never develop ALS. Add some icing on the cake and imagine all the things you want to accomplish having been accomplished. The situation can play out any way you like. The underlying mechanism is the resolution of a conflict within. Whether that conflict is subconscious vs. conscious, left brain vs. right brain, or head vs. heart you are directing the two to work in unison rather than to combat eachother. Energy is energy and it is how you use it that determines how you feel. No matter what, an inner conflict feels bad. On the other hand, balance and working together feels good.

Seriously right here and right now as you are reading this. Close your eyes and imagine you're sitting on a beach watching a beautiful sunset. Feel the sand on your feet and hear the waves crashing on the shore. Stay with this thought and take in the feeling. Smell the salt in the air. Feel the wind in your hair. Tell me it does not make you feel better bringing yourself to this place. The mind is incredibly powerful. Your fear is doing the opposite that the calming beach is. It keeps coming up because of the resistance we instinctively provide it. This is just one technique to resolve that inner conflict and restore that inner balance and peace. The fear WILL go away, you just need to learn to go with the flow rather than fight the current. It is soooo much easier to steer your ship when you are working with the current. Paddling upstream will tear you up and wear you out very quickly.

[jerry2]

I allways had problems with this. I can not imagine myself on the beach. Well, I can, kind of, but not to a degree I can smell anything. I can only visualise things, not smell them or taste it Even at the university we had such sessions and I couldn't feel a thing.

I thought I have to imagine, like you with asteroid, a happy conclusion with ALS. In a way that I have it and somehow get cured. Because if I imagine I don't have it... well, I am against maself as you said, I am desperately trying to do that for some time now. (At the moment I am more trying to not think my mucuous cough for 4 months can not be due to throat/laryngal cancer) ;-/

[SecretAgentMan]

Jerry, I understand you and many others are in a bad place right now. Realize though that even in your post you circled back around into something negative. You can just as easily meander back into something positive, and that is what you will need to start doing if you want to change how you feel. Go with the flow of your thoughts even when it dips into something negative and steer it right back to something positive. Do this every time and you will find it becomes easier and easier. Your mind is like a huge theater screen and you are holding the remote control with no limits to the positive channels you can tune into. Do you realize how silly it is to sit and complain about what is on the screen when you are holding the remote control? Yet millions of people do this because they either don't realize the power they hold with that remote control, or they just don't know the trick in how to use it.

That's sort of what this technique does is it helps you to learn how to use the remote control. The human mind is more analog than digital. You can't really just jump from channel 2 (ultra negative) to channel 1000 (ultra positive). You have to progress up through the channels one at a time and with each step feeling better and better. The way to get from channel 2 to channel 1000 is to gradually walk your imagination from a bad scenario into a good scenario. The longer you hold a positive thought in your mind, the higher up the channel scale you will progress. The opposite is true as well. How you feel and what you believe ultimately reflect back to you in the reality you perceive and experience.

Different people have different ways of perceiving their thoughts. Some people are more visual, some are more auditory, some are more tactile, but the more you work with all of your senses through your imagination the more you will develop them and the easier it gets. Here is a little tip to get you started... Stop saying you can't do these things and just start telling yourself that it is possible you can. Just acknowledge that it is possible and work towards it. Before a potentiality can be realized the door must first be opened to its possibility. As long as you say you can't the door will remain shut.

[jerry2]

Well, thank you for advices. But until I stop coughing clear mucus all day and night (for 4 weeks) and pulmologist found nothing, reffered me to ENT which I have yet to go... but I just don't think I can stop twitching and coughing and choking if I think of something nice.

[SecretAgentMan]

Well, thank you for advices. But until I stop coughing clear mucus all day and night (for 4 weeks) and pulmologist found nothing, reffered me to ENT which I have yet to go... but I just don't think I can stop twitching and coughing and choking if I think of something nice.

I'm not promising a magic cure or sunshine and lollipops, but I do believe it is a very necessary first step to improving your quality of life and at the very least it will improve your situation and outlook. Just be aware that in making this choice you have absolutely NOTHING to lose by trying. Right now you may still be chosing to stay in misery, fear, and worry, but at any instant you can change your mind. And I hope you do... If you do change your mind you are always welcome to reach out to myself or the others on this forum to help. When you are ready, that is.