The Body Doesn't Lie (3 page)

Perhaps that’s where you find yourself now: Without even realizing you’re doing it, you’re clinging to Negative Feedback patterns that cause pain and suffering because that approach is all you know.
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When you’re clinging to your pain, when you’re staying in the comfortable bosom of your old patterns, you’re what I call “in the negative.” This pessimistic outlook has tremendous physical ramifications and defines Negative Feedback.

When you’re in the negative, almost every self-care choice you make—the foods you choose to eat, the way you spend your time, the friends you surround yourself with—is an unconscious attempt to hide from that pain. Your body has to deal with a lot, choking on all of these negative inputs for so long. Your body has been struggling to restore equilibrium, and the pain has kept rising. But it’s hard to listen to the pain until you’re ready.

But once you forge the courage to face it, you can begin to feel your pain (sometimes for the first time), work through it, and let it go. The very act of starting this process is your first step in entering Positive Feedback.

I have seen far too many people dragged down by Negative Feedback, separated from what gives them joy. I know all too well that if you stay in this state too long, it will ultimately affect your organs and cause disharmony within your body. Very often, a patient will come to me and say she’s just been to see her doctor, who explained her condition to her in clinical terms; the doctor, I learn, talked about prognosis and medications and tests. But the doctor never talked to her about her emotions, her history, and where the pain began. If you don’t take the core reason for the pain into account, you’re going to be treating the symptoms forever—and you’ll never get close to the root of the problem, let alone the solution.

You may need a bit of encouragement to face your deepest demons. But transformation begins with a realization that emotions in themselves are a normal part of life—they’re neither good nor bad. Your anger or frustration can motivate you to make major positive life changes—a new job, new relationships, new courage to face old fears. Instead of allowing that emotional pain to rule your life, you can learn how to use it as a beacon to a better life.

When you’re able to face your pain, acknowledge it, and release it, you’re not only
not
weakened, you’re tougher than before. You make the daily choices to feel stronger, sexier, more alive. You feel safer in your own skin, because
you
provide safety for yourself—you become reconnected to your body
and
your soul.

Positive Feedback is the clean, effortless, joyful state in which you take care of yourself because you want to, because it feels good. You feed your body with fresh, delicious foods and move your body in a fluid, graceful, energetic way. Your skin is clear and smooth. Your eyes sparkle; your hair shines. You are dazzled by life; you can’t wait to cook a delicious meal, make love, go dancing or running—you feel like you’re flying. The energy all around you is light and happy. You feel content and peaceful and optimistic for the future.

Perhaps you’re so trapped in the negative right now that this kind of radiant health seems like an impossible dream. But know this: To rediscover Positive Feedback, you don’t have to change your
whole
mind or your
whole
body right away. A few changes in how you eat, how you move, and how you unwind can make a world of difference. While it may take a bit of effort to shake off all the negative energy you’ve been carrying around with you, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. You just need to consult your Positive Feedback map and get back on the program: your clearly marked path out of the woods. From the very first morning that you begin, just a few steps will have you well on your way to the positive.

At the beginning of my career, when I first opened my practice, I focused exclusively on immediate physical pain relief. I saw patients with sprains and torn ligaments, muscle spasms, chronic lower back pain, neck pain, broken toes, fractured collar bones, severe menstrual cramps, labor pain, blinding migraines . . . you name it. I used a variety of treatments—massage, spinal adjustments, cranial sacral therapy, acupuncture—to soothe their pain, and all claimed to feel much better. But the moment those patients walked out of my office, I lost the ability to relieve their pain. I soon learned that whatever my patients did
between
sessions had a much greater impact on their health and the degree of pain they endured than the hour they spent with me.

That’s what inspired me to develop this program. Through many, many years of careful observation and experimentation, I developed a self-guided program that mirrors the process and the effects of the treatments patients receive in my office. The Positive Feedback program taps the very same physiological and psychological mechanisms of each of my modalities, triggering the same biochemical responses that I get from acupuncture, massage, reflexology—every trick and technique I use to short-circuit the Negative Feedback cycle. In these pages, I share the same three-week program my patients have used successfully to end their pain and suffering and discover a newfound energy and radiance. I’ve seen, again and again, how this three-step process—Reflect, Release, Radiate—can help people break out of their pain.

During
Week 1: Reflect
, you’ll step back and look at the whole picture of your life: What’s already working? What still needs work? Where did your current pain begin? The information you gather in week 1 helps you face the reality of your current physical state, giving you critical data that you can use to formulate your personal Positive Feedback plan going forward.

To prepare yourself for your transformation, you’ll begin the week by firmly committing to the daily foundation the entire plan rests upon: at least seven hours of quality, restorative sleep and the Morning Glory ritual. Once you’ve started, you’ll do these steps each day of the three weeks (and hopefully for the rest of your life).

You’ll begin the Morning Glory ritual with a glass of warm water with lemon (more on this in chapter 4), tapping lemon’s power to counter the inflammation in your body, regenerate the liver, and flush out any impurities in the gut. The smell of lemon alone wakes up my mind and lightens my spirit. You’ll hear me reference this warm water with lemon very often because I think of it as my Positive Feedback talisman: No matter where I am, what kind of negativity I’m facing, everything gets better the moment I prepare and drink my warm water with lemon, my go-to mental
RESET
button.

Next you’ll do gentle Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation exercises, to encourage lymphatic drainage and bloodflow throughout the body. You’ll follow a very simple but specific bathing ritual, and learn a simple gratitude meditation that helps you learn to trick the nay-saying voices and talk back to them. Then you’ll finish your Morning Glory routine with a nourishing breakfast, to stoke your metabolism and give your muscles the lean protein they need for sustained energy during the day.

All very simple, pleasurable, restorative steps that I hope you’ll enjoy and repeat for the rest of your days. (In fact, if you retain only one part of the Positive Feedback program, I believe that this daily ritual alone could make a radical difference in your life.)

Throughout week 1, your Reflect phase, you will also complete several exercises that will help you to think back on your personal journey and locate the source of your pain. You’ll learn how to deliberately construct mental scripts that build you up instead of tear you down. You’ll create a timeline of your body’s life story, taking stock of the physical and mental pain you’ve endured. You’ll take an inventory of your time usage and your eating habits, so you can clearly trace the time- and energy-depleters in your life as you currently lead it. You’ll get the full picture of where you are now, how you got there, and what you’re ready to release.

Once you’ve gathered all this critical information, you’ll move on to
Week 2: Release.
This is the moment when you will finally let all that negativity go. With very conscious and deliberate steps—involving a specific diet, exercise, and lifestyle-detoxing program—you will tap into your body’s Adaptive Response to clean out everything that’s been holding you back and dragging you down. You’ll flush the accumulated tension and pain out of your muscles and the toxins from your liver. You’ll reboot your endocrine system, encouraging optimal hormonal balance to return. Allowing the blood to flow easily and effortlessly through your body, you’ll let go of all the inflammatory chemicals, the lingering residue of all those years of hiding from your hurt, pain, and regret. In this Release phase, you’ll clear out your system, turning back the clock on your body and your mind so that you can grow stronger in the spots you always thought were broken. Your catharsis will help you see very clearly that pain is and always has been your greatest teacher.

Once your Release phase is complete, you’ll be ready for
Week 3: Radiate.
All the work you’ve done in the first two weeks will help you reveal a purer sense of gratitude for the gifts of your life. With specific meditations and visualizations, you’ll stimulate your brain to reroute neural patterns away from those negative voices that no longer serve you and toward those that give you courage, strength, and boldness. Expanding from the detox of week 2, you’ll learn a new way of eating that you’ll continue for the rest of your life: a diet composed of delicious fish and roasted organic meats, seasonal organic vegetables, berries bursting off the vine, goat’s-milk yogurt, savory nuts and seeds—all anti-inflammatory, brain-boosting foods designed by nature to help tamp down the debilitating processes that drive most chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Now that you’ve made Tibetan Rites a daily habit and have added some gentle yoga and relaxing walks to your day—activities that taught you to move your body in a way that loosens up accumulated pain and tension—you’ll start to plan for new physical and mental challenges that extend your transformation and the power of your Adaptive Response.

The Radiate stage is the time for planning for the future, reigniting passions you may have abandoned, deciding how you want to share this new glow of joy and gratitude with the world in everything you do—how you move, how you think, how you talk, how you eat, how you pray or give thanks (and yes, most definitely, how you look). By the end of week 3, your entire being will start to radiate, from the inside out, and you’ll be looking toward the future with anticipation and eagerness to see where the path takes you next.

As you make these gentle, incremental changes, your body will start to climb out of the Negative Feedback spiral. You’ll notice this movement in big and small ways. Maybe you’ll sleep more soundly and wake up refreshed for the first time in months. Maybe you’ll get compliments on how shiny your hair is, or how glowing your skin and eyes look. (“Did you lose weight? You look about ten years younger!”)

Maybe you’ll unearth your yoga mat and look up some new classes at the studio in town. Or start thinking about your long-abandoned business plan, or your dream of starting a community center. Your brain will feel sharp and quick—you’ll laugh a good, deep belly laugh with a friend. These are all signs that you’re starting to undergo biochemical changes that allow your mind to let go of old hurts and your body to more easily tap into its innate Adaptive Response.

As your inflammation decreases and you relieve your physical pain, you will feel more mobile and free. Your body will
want
to move: Suddenly you’re going hiking and dancing. You’re chasing your kids around the backyard and running behind their bicycles. Grocery shopping, socializing, getting through the piles at work—suddenly, everything seems easier. You’ve done it: You’ve fully entered into Positive Feedback! Your Adaptive Response is thriving once more, waiting for new challenges and new growth. Stick with your program, and these changes will continue to build upon themselves, allowing you to get stronger and stronger, keeping you pain-free for longer and longer periods of time.

I will be with you, walking you step by step through this entire process. As we go, I’ll give you specific and practical suggestions for bathing, eating, drinking, exercising, meditation, and introspection—rituals and exercises that progressively build on each other and pull you toward ever-greater moments of strength and clarity. Take what you need, and leave what doesn’t suit you now for another day—but know that, as I’ve seen with my patients, the more aspects of the program you choose to follow, the more dramatic your results will be.

Along the way, I will do the following:

• Explain how you can use your body’s own trigger points to release negative energy, feel more relaxed, and improve your mood right away
  
• Share groundbreaking research about how quality sleep activates your brain’s innate waste disposal system, whisking out toxic buildup that causes sluggish thinking and giving you a nightly anti-aging treatment.
  
• Provide recipes and shopping lists full of delicious healing foods that take little time to prepare but leave you satisfied and full of energy
  
• Teach you a five-minute dry-brushing regimen that will speed lymphatic drainage, make your skin glow, and help you to release toxins
  
• Guide you through visualizations and affirmations that help bring positive, protective energy into your life
  
• Share meditations that have been shown to reduce chronic pain levels by up to 57 percent
  
• Show you the physical evidence of the direct relationship your emotions have with your nervous system and your organs
  
• Explain how the Positive Feedback plan will have a long-lasting and powerful impact on the response of those systems and organs—a response that has been proven to help you live a longer, happier, and radiantly healthy life
  

If you’ve been struggling with pain for a long time, you’ve probably seen several doctors. You know that the symptom-by-symptom, specialist-by-specialist Western medicine approach, where everyone is focused on one overtaxed organ or one magic neurotransmitter, simply doesn’t work. No doctor will ever be able to find the
one
right thing that will solve every single kind of pain: The
one
thing simply doesn’t exist. Your body’s history is complex—many systems have been working as one, reacting and readjusting to every experience, always learning and changing. But what you can start to do is see patterns—patterns in yourself, in your family, in your body.