3 Ways of Not Reacting to the Reaction (Symptoms)

hey guys how are you this is jim from the pain pt and i'm coming at you today from northern california about the in-laws here and got some beautiful redwood trees behind me so i figured it'd be nice to get outside and do a little video here so today we're going to talk about guys um three ways of not reacting to the symptom reaction so you don't reinforce it okay so we're going to talk about three ways of not reacting to the symptom reaction so that you don't reinforce it so you may have heard and read about the secondary reaction this is called the secondary reaction is you yourself reacting to the primary reaction which is your symptom something you feel in your body pain and so that primary reaction which is your pain or your symptom that's always going to come first that's always going to be the first thing that pops in okay we can't even stop that or control that okay that happens when it happens so the secondary reaction is on us okay and that's what we see a lot of in people and the secondary reaction is what really causes the stains and keeps these symptoms alive okay so we're going to go over three ways today that you can stop reacting to the primary reaction so that you can start to break down this symptom pattern in yourself okay so the first way we want to stop reacting is mentally now i've talked a lot to you guys before about responding mentally responding to the symptoms mentally responding to what's going on so reaction is one step prior to that reaction is not necessarily responding it's just not doing anything right so reaction is not doing anything to reinforce these symptoms so if we think about this mentally what do i mean by this so mentally not reacting to your symptoms means that you're not going to catastrophize you're not going to to worry think negatively have faulty beliefs or if those things pop up in your mind you're not going to believe them you're just going to let them pass okay so when we're in a state of non-reaction which is so important for healing we're entering a state of mindfulness we're entering a state of awareness of presence and this is the state we want to be in or we need to be in to practice this state of non-reaction so mentally not reacting again is you guys just being aware and letting any negative thoughts or beliefs go or not having these negative thoughts consciously okay when the symptoms arise so that's mental reaction you want to cut that off the second thing we want to do is emotionally not react to the symptom now the symptom itself as you guys know chronic symptoms come from the brain not from the body most chronic symptoms are caused by your brain and not your body now this means it's coming from your limbic brain and your limbic brain is your emotional brain so we can deduce that these symptoms you're experiencing your body are really just a version of emotions you're really just feeling emotions in your body talk more about this in another video so that is the primary reaction which is a symptom but is also an emotion and we don't want to have a secondary emotional reaction to what you're feeling so you don't want to go into fear you don't want to go into worry you don't want to go into freaking out going into anxiety around these symptoms because that would be in a secondary reaction of fear you don't want to go into frustration and anger getting really upset and mad and yelling and screaming at your symptoms okay that's also a secondary reaction of anger it's not gonna help it's gonna make your symptoms worse and finally if you go into despair and hopelessness and the press sad state well you're also going to reinforce your symptoms in a similar way so these are emotional reactions they're secondary ones we don't want them we want to accept and allow the primary reaction which is the symptom because it's also an emotion if you want to accept and allow that to pass to move through us that's perfectly okay perfectly good to view that and treat that with non-reaction third category third category would be your behavioral reactions your physical reactions so what this means is that people are doing things in reaction to their symptoms like they're avoiding things hey i'm not going to go walk today i'm not going to go this today am i going to eat this food i'm going to do not going to do xyz these are all behavioral reactions call these pain behaviors sometimes symptom behaviors that obviously aren't helpful but they are reactions and they also will reinforce your symptoms so you can have mental reactions emotional reactions behavioral reactions all three of those things will reinforce your symptoms if you're not careful so guys you really want to start to practice the state of non-reaction it's one of the most powerful things that you can do it's healing in and of itself if you just stay in a state of non-reaction and the reason why you want to enter the state is because the symptoms again that you're experiencing they are not dangerous they are not threatening we don't want to fix them we don't want to treat them we don't want to try to make them go away which is what everybody's doing okay that's why they're reacting to them but when we do this guys you got to understand that you're reinforcing the very thing you don't want okay so state of non-reaction means that we're not doing anything because we don't need to we're just allowing and accepting what's happening and we're letting that fizzle out and dissolve in time if it comes it comes we're going to let it go we're not going to add anything more to the mix and what typically happens is this stuff starts to break down starts to dissolve starts to become less intense in time as you're doing these three categories of non-reaction but the big but here again is that people aren't doing that people are reacting when i talk to people every day they're telling me i'm like well how are you handling these symptoms well yeah i've been sitting on the sofa well yeah i've been you know not going away and i'm worried about them getting upset um you know all these things that people are doing inadvertently that they don't realize they're just reinforcing the very thing they're trying to get rid of the very thing they don't want okay so guys let's practice this state of non-reaction no reaction no secondary reaction to your symptoms again the symptoms are the primary reaction it happens first from your brain enters your body you feel that you can't stop that but what you can do is stop the secondary reaction so primary action is negative if you're also reacting negatively that's a double negative that's double trouble that's more symptoms that's uh going to keep the symptoms going so let's have a positive non-reaction to what's happening all right guys i will talk to you next time hope you're enjoying your day bye

Channel: Healing Chronic Somatic Symptoms- The Pain PT

Views: 8,319

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Id: _aj4K8oozTQ

Length: 7min 53sec (473 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 05 2022