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LuvtoSew
USA
327 Posts |
 Posted - 06/23/2008 : 10:00:51
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didn't resonate with. I read if after some people recommended it on this site, but for some reason I just didn't get it I guess. I can see where it may help with anxiety and worry but The Worry Cure helped me more in that aspect.
I understand we shouldn't let the past dictate how we feel today and worry about the future, but am I missing something here?
It seems to be a contradiction of what Sarno writes. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 11:52:43
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There was a discussion about this recently. Can't remember the heading but Baseball65 started the thread and it discussed Power of Now and how some people like it and some don't, and how it works with Sarno. I tend to think of these kind of books as "post Sarno" because I had to read Sarno first before I could have gotten most of them, and I haven't so far gotten interested in Power of Now. I may be getting there though. I also had a conversation with a friend over the weekend about Byron Katie whose work I don't resonate with at all. He explained the way he approaches it which is different from the way I thought of it, and may be worthwhile to pursue. These things work at different times.
It's what works for YOU that's important, not what works for everyone else. :)
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It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
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positivevibes
204 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 12:53:33
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I will agree with Armchair. Sometimes a particular author's work just doesn't "do it" for some people. Maybe that's why there are so many psychologists and authors writing books like this -- each has a different style and a different take on the situation.
I don't think it's a contradiction of Sarno. In fact, I think it is very compatible. Sarno says that your brain and your negative thoughts/buried stress/stuff in your unconscious is causing you pain. The Power of Now basically says that your pain (emotional or physical) can be caused by your inability to get out of negative thinking -- that you need to stop relating to that "pain victim personality" your mind has created. I agree that it's a little "out there" but it makes sense to me. Maybe becuase I've read so many Buddhist books in the past and I'm already familiar with some of the philosophy.
Personally I relate very deeply to The Power of Now, but it is a difficult book to read quickly. I find myself reading a few pages and then stopping to reflect (so I'm only about halfway through it). The things he suggests in the book CAN be difficult to apply to daily life because we often get so caught up in the minutia of what makes up "living" in the modern world. And it's HARD to change yourself...it won't happen overnight. But if you are moving in the right direction, that's all that matters. No matter whose philosophy you follow...find one that rings true to your life and try to make yourself a happier person.
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You are not your mind; you are not your thoughts. The incessant mental noise [of your thoughts] creates a false mind-made self that causes fear and suffering and prevents you from connecting with your true self and living in the Now. - Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now |
Edited by - positivevibes on 06/23/2008 12:58:28 |
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LuvtoSew
USA
327 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 13:34:49
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| Thanks, I guess maybe I'm not ready for the power of now because I'm still journaling about things, so its hard not to think about the past right now. But boy the Worry Cure really seen me see how what a waste of time it is too worry, it was a good book for me, but then again it may not be for someone else. |
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pan
United Kingdom
173 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 13:37:23
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I read The Power of Now and found that it actually struck little resonance with me and was quite dissapointed with it!!
I then read the follow up A New Earth and was totally blown away by it. I strongly suggest that you give this is go, the references to the pain body in particular are amazing. |
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positivevibes
204 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 14:28:51
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I remember that one of Wayne Dyer's early books talked about how worrying is counter-productive and a waste of time and energy (worrying won't change anything). But I suppose it's human nature to worry, and it can be hard to stop. Nevertheless, just realizing how unhelpful it is to worry is helpful in itself!
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You are not your mind; you are not your thoughts. The incessant mental noise [of your thoughts] creates a false mind-made self that causes fear and suffering and prevents you from connecting with your true self and living in the Now. - Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now |
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LuvtoSew
USA
327 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 15:20:01
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Yes I think I'll just keep on with Sarno, Brady etc about the mind-body connection for now. I still need to do some more cleaning out of my basement as DR. Brady put it, I don't want to get overwhelmed. I am amazed at how much stuff my journaling has brought out, and here everybody thinks I'm such a happy go lucky person, not really true, just that I've learned to bury my feelings from the past, and I also am easy going now about how I feel at times, and let people walk over me, you know passive-aggresive type.
I think from what I've been reading is worry and fear are the worst things, they kinda go hand in hand.
I think I need to come to terms with the pain buried in my subconscious and fill begin to fill it with positive thoughts to take its place. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 16:35:05
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LuvtoSew, if this is helpful to hear, I think you are likely on the right track. I think we do need to clean out our basements, as you say, before we are really able to deal with the present as the present rather than as an echo of the past. Get to know ourselves, find out we are not so "happy go lucky" or so nice and responsible but we are human and have great potential.
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It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
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altherunner
Canada
511 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 18:44:22
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The Power of Now worked for me, and I resonated with A New Earth. I have friends that didn't like The Power of Now, but loved A New Earth. The book discussions with Tolle are archived on www.oprah.com
The discussions may be helpful. My family is not interested in his
teachings at all. Change scares people, and his books can cause change. The destruction or disempowerment of the ego is not always welcome change, and is like a death. But, it is really a rebirth. |
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Penny
USA
364 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2008 : 19:53:37
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Hi,
Eckhart helped me exponentially, but didn't initially, like Altherunner, it was A New Earth that did it for me. I now refer to him most endearingly as "Yoda". LOL! I've listened for quite some time and eventually learned to lean in to my pain and trust it was there to teach me something. Now I am more accepting of it, the pain (when I have it) seems to pass more quickly.
For those interested, here is a wonderful interview series. You can enter your e-mail address and will be given direct access to free online viewing of Eckhart's interviews.
http://www.unityonline.org:80/aboutunity/news/eckhartTolle.html
The video interview with Eckhart Tolle as he discusses the power of Now, prayer and the Presence, and awakening to your inner purpose.
An enlightening panel discussion held afterwards is also available.
Blessings to y'all!
>|< Penny
"Feeling will get you closer to the truth of who you are than thinking."
~ Eckhart Tolle
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LuvtoSew
USA
327 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2008 : 16:59:40
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Thanks for the links, I'll listen to them. Maybe I'll get the New Earth from the library.
I have been suggesting to my friend who has Fibro to read Sarno and books on how the emotions can cause pain symptoms, but she is not at all open to it. She just says there is no cure for fibro and that it gets worst with age, and she needs to live with it, most people I know are not open to reading any of the books I have been reading so I pretty much just keep quiet about them. |
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chester
49 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2008 : 09:26:09
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I listened to the "A New Earth" audio a few months back, and while it made sense on the surface, I couldn't make a deeper connection.
Then, two things happened. I went to a few of Sarno's small group and larger panel meetings, and I read "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach. Sarno himself mentioned Tolle and praised his focus on the now (although he wasn't crazy about Tolle's work with Oprah - lol), and Brach hit many of the same points in a very personal and personable fashion. I then got "The Power of Now" and it's resonated quite a bit with me.
Two quotes I especially like:
When you create a problem, you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision: no matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no more problems. Although it is a simple choice, it is also very radical. You won' t make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering, unless you have truly had enough.
If you cannot feel your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or symptom. A great deal has been written about this in recent years, so we don't need to go into it here. |
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chester
49 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2008 : 11:07:07
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I listened to the "A New Earth" audio a few months back, and while it made sense on the surface, I couldn't make a deeper connection.
Then, two things happened. I went to a few of Sarno's small group and larger panel meetings, and I read "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach. Sarno himself mentioned Tolle and praised his focus on the now (although he wasn't crazy about Tolle's work with Oprah - lol), and Brach hit many of the same points in a very personal and personable fashion. I then got "The Power of Now" and it's resonated quite a bit with me.
Two quotes I especially like:
When you create a problem, you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision: no matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no more problems. Although it is a simple choice, it is also very radical. You won' t make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering, unless you have truly had enough.
If you cannot feel your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or symptom. A great deal has been written about this in recent years, so we don't need to go into it here. |
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stanfr
USA
268 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2008 : 23:17:48
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| I am very wary of feel-good folks who use lots of woo-woo terms like "energy" or "frequencies" "vibrations" etc, when most of these people havent advanced beyond Physics 101 (and are intellectually unable to). They're the same con-artists who sell you modern snake oil using vapid allusions to "quantum" etc, when they haven't a clue what they are talking about. I read PON, and although the message was pretty simple and dead-horse-beaten (live in the NOW) i think it has some use, just as meditation can be useful if you can apply yourself to it (that's the tough part). I still havent seen anyone explain away what i see as direct contradiction between 'thinking of the past' (think psychological) and avoiding it (Tolle). I'll have to check out A New Earth. |
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Rooster
13 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2008 : 03:24:32
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quote:
Originally posted by stanfr
I still havent seen anyone explain away what i see as direct contradiction between 'thinking of the past' (think psychological) and avoiding it (Tolle).
I agree. I would love someone to explain exactly how they see these texts as compatible. Some people have suggested that Tolle is an evolution of Brady/Sarno etc and maybe I'm too new to the whole mind/body medicine field. But I also see tensions between Tolle arguing that you should only live in the present and should just become 'aware' of your thoughts and your emotions - and Sarno etc. who say you need to delve into your past to reveal subconscious emotions and then actively rid yourself of pain (through pain talk etc.). I think Tolle's idea of pain body suggests that you shouldn't even identify with pain/illness in the first place. Maybe it's the case that Sarno/Brady help you to deal with your situation at present (i.e. those of us that have become preoccupied with pain/symptoms and have difficult pasts/pain prone personalities etc) - but that once you have achieved some success with these techniques you could embrace Tolle's ideas, which would help you not to generate as many negative emotions anymore - and not to identify with any kind of pain/symptoms to begin with? Either way, it's interesting stuff..... |
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la_kevin
USA
351 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2008 : 04:01:15
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My opinion is that you should only revisit your past, in therapy for just a short time, but after that, move onto reconciling it.
Past traumas give us responses and perceptions that we live out in the PRESENT. You can't fix these patterns by going back and 'mending' something in your mind that will magically make the present patterns go away.
Visiting old trauma and 'splinters' in the brain is good for release of stored up rage you never got out. The rage that took years to build up, but that is only part of the answer, IMO.
TMS is a lot about patterns and perceptions, that NEED breaking. This breaking is answered in the present. The present is the time for being PRO ACTIVE, you cannot be proactive about past events, only reflective, regretful, happy, angry , sad, etc.
The biggest keys to my gradual freedom from TMS , were using principles that had nothing to do with my past. My biggest "aha" moments were about my patterned thinking and misconceptions about who or what I thought I "deserved" or what I could "control".
Most of our inner dialog is about events that just happened, are happening, or will happen soon. That window is pretty small.
People don't walk around all day 'worried' about things that happened 10 years ago. Time heals most things. And people don't walk around worrying about what will happen to them in a decade.
On the other hand, past traumas can spark triggers that effect us in the "NOW". Like someone with PTSD, it crosses over. I believe that many TMS sufferers have mild PTSD, and like me , were the ones that need extra help with TMS. But once your mind feels the emotions of the past traumas, you need to move onto the now.
This is only my opinion based on MY experience.
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"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans"- John Lennon |
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LuvtoSew
USA
327 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2008 : 07:03:32
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| Thanks La Kevin- I feel you are right. At this point I am trying to be more present and watch my present thoughts and if I'm thinking negative, I try to catch it and change my thinking. Like when I find myself saying "Will this ever go away" or thinking about the "physical stuff" I then say " I am healthy and strong"- I am now reading Joseph Murphy book- "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" that I rented from the library but am going to get my own copy. Some people say its about positive thinking but I find its more about changing your thinking, and I am finding it very helpful. Also I do try not to let my mind wander to tomorrow or next week and to "What ifs" so I am trying to stay in the present. |
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moose1
162 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2008 : 07:34:51
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A lot of what Tolle says makes sense to me, while some of it he seems to make out much easier than it actually is. Being present is really really hard, especially if you are suffering, either physically or emotionally. It also take a lot of practice, patience and TIME for it to pay off and sink in, in my opinion. Still, it's worth doing and his ideas about 'the Now' are valid to me. And as he says, it's nothing new.
Jon Kabat-Zinn - on the other hand - always says right at the top of any of his talks that being mindful and present is the hardest thing you'll ever do.
The thing that really hit home with me is Tolle's theory of the "pain-body" - that there's another person in each of us (unconscious of course) built upon years of emotional pain from our past and pain we inherit from our parents and the world. This unconscious entity informs/defines our ego (which is NOT who we truly are) and creates and feeds upon our pain and suffering.
To dissolve the pain-body, we must bring it's existence into awareness and watch how it works, which eventually leads to "dis-identifying" with it. I am going through this right now, and believe me, it's not easy or quick, but given how my mind has responded by cranking up my symptoms in response, I know I'm on the right track.
Moose
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2008 : 08:57:29
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I was re-reading bits of Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Wherever You Go, There You Are (the title of which used to be my sig line on the forum) yesterday. There's a section in it where he talks about meditating and expectations. The chapter is titled "Can anyone meditate?" and he basically says yes, but the reason many people think they can't or don't actually do it is that they try and they don't like what happens, it doesn't meet their expectations. Or they like it but don't have the discipline to keep it up. Both those have been true for me in the past. It reminded me that the whole point of mindfulness meditation is to let go of expectations and be present. This is also the point of Tolle and (I just realized yesterday) is also the point of Byron Katie's work.
(I'm going to have to eat all my words about Katie before, I think, at least if I said anything other than "it isn't working for me right now".)
So yeah. It's hard.
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It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
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cfhunter
119 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2008 : 19:44:10
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I haven't been on here in awhile...but thought I would pop in. I have to make mention that The Power of Now and A New Earth sit at my bedside and I connected with these books so deeply and understood the books so much (finally i GET these things...I was starting to feel like a self help moron) that I decided to expand my reading to a deeper level. I bought the book "A Course In Miracles" while in San Juan Islands in Washington in April. I can NOT believe how much this book is affecting me in a positive way. The Course has been referred to by Eckhart, Marianne W., Dyer etc. and entered my life so many times prior to purchasing it that I finally Got the sign....and bought it. It was one of the best choices I have made in references to dealing with physical pain and mental blcokings.
I highly recommend it.
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joli
USA
51 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2008 : 15:45:50
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I think there is gotta be a spiritual link in healing and fie many of us it is the letting go of the control and trusting life/God and the process of life.
So i guess it is a 3 layer work: emotional/physical(taking care of ourselves)/spiritual(believing in something bigger)
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When you trust then you can really relax in to the NOW
and that gives you POWER to see learly, live more fuly without the FEAR.
I admit I have a hard time with trusting. 
namaste! |
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Am I the only one that " the Power of Now"
