Dan (pain relief) Transcription for Dr. Jon Connelly

Transcription

1 Page 1 of Transcription for Dr. Jon Connelly NOTE: Verbal agreements from the Client or Dr. Connelly of Right, Okay, Yes, Mm huh, Yeah, and repeated words will be omitted at the transcriptionist s discretion. Dan, it s the 13 th day of March, Our meetings are video recorded and the recording may be made available to professionals who are in training with me. So I certainly thank you for helping me to help them to help others. Starts us with some great energy. How was your, what were the results from your previous meeting here with Wayne? To be continued next week. I pretty much spoke the whole time about past, about my past in all aspects, meaning drug use, relationships. One of the issues that I told him that I would ve liked to address would be how I lived life in excess, meaning I can t have one drink, I had to have 10, or I went to straighten out the room and clean the shit out of the room, excuse my language Which is fine with me, buddy. He pretty much steered me in the direction that he wanted to go I believe cause, like I said, I did probably 90% of the talking and he was there about the other 10%. You know, just, I guess to attain certain information or characteristics or whatever he was trying to figure out. So were there, were there issues with anxiety that you I believe last week when I came here I was, I had not been sleeping at all the previous week before I met with Wayne, I had slept two out of the seven nights. And I did a stretch of four nights in a row where I didn t sleep. So if I was anxious when I met with him, it was probably due to being overtired and my blood pressure medicine, we just finally figured out as well too, so I understand. I ve been on this medicine now for about a week and I ve noticed I ve become really calm. I m not racing around like I normally am. I m not shaking as much as I used to shake, you know, like tremor-type shakes. I m not, I wasn t nervous at all about coming up here to meet you like I was last week.

2 Page 2 of Good. So if there was, if there was some-, what would you want your meeting with me to be addressing? There s several, you know If you could just give me a couple of headlines. A couple of headlines. Public speaking, I have trouble speaking in front of masses. My core group I m okay, it s only 10 or 12 people. That s one. My addictive personality would probably be the top one. I do everything in excess and like I said, I m kind of like an adrenaline junkie as well. I jump out of planes and you know things like that, like going really fast in cars and motorcycles and things of that nature, as far... What kind of work have you been doing? I m a chef. I m a chef. A couple of years ago I was just working for a moving company, friends owned a company and I was in-between jobs at the time so I worked for him for about a year and a half before I got, before my most recent job as a chef at a pharmaceutical company. What else? I have back issues, that s half the reason I came here to Palm Partners was cause when me and my wife spoke to the admissions officer he said that you guys have a good non-narcotic, or holistic, pain management program and that I d be a good candidate to come in Are you in some pain right now? Yeah, yeah. Um, I have three, uh two herniated discs and one bulging disc in my lower back. So And that is something that s going on for you even at the moment. Yes. I have, for the last four and a half years pretty much, ever since there was an accident, when I started my new job and like I said the job before that, the moving company, I was picking up heavy pieces of furniture, pianos, and such like that so, that was probably the onset of the problem and then the fall at work. About six months after I left the moving company job was the icing on the cake. I sought medical attention for that. I was, had an MRI done and that s when they told me I had these disc problems. At first, the first two years after being diagnosed I didn t take any medicine or anything. I did acupuncture, chiropractor, epidural shots, and nothing seemed to relieve the pain. So I just constantly going to my general physician and asking what to do. I guess he eventually was sick of me bitching at him, you know bitching about pain, and he

3 Page 3 of prescribed me 10 mg strength Oxycodones. I took them for about a year and a half and they became less effective. I had asked him for a stronger dose, he declined, so I took it upon myself four, maybe 5 months ago now to self-medicate. Meaning, buy them from some people I know, friends of people I know, things like that. What led me to here was about a week before I got here, this is going back say middle of February, my wife had discovered missing money in our joint account. Cause I m only working part time off the books and collecting unemployment right now because my job at the other place, I was let go because the campus is closing and they re relocating to San Francisco. I m from Newark, New Jersey. So, you know, I was barely making any money and in order to not live in pain, I was taking my prescription from the doctor, trading them 120 pills and getting like 30 in return of the stronger ones. And, you know, that became a problem, you know, because I was doing it behind my wife s back, I was lying. And, yeah, once she figured that out, I told her what was going on, and within a few days I was here. And here I am. I feel great, though. I mean, minus the constant pain, I feel great, my head s on good. I am generally And is the pain now stronger than it was when you were medicating? No. Oh, yes, I m sorry, yes it was, it is stronger, yes. But put it this way. When I was at home when I wasn t taking anything and my pain was like a six maybe on the scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest, and when I was medicating with just through doctor medicine, it brang it to like a five or maybe a four and a half. And that still to me was annoying enough to go out and search for the stronger medicine. And when I took the stronger medicine, it d bring it down to like a two or whatnot. But, yeah, that s what happened so And so currently it s up to a what? It s about five and a half or six. Okay. I had acupuncture done yesterday the second time, full body acupuncture, and it relieved my pain for a couple hours. I would say for maybe three to seven or three to eight. It brought it down to maybe like a two. And then the closer I got to bed time I felt it like my sciatic nerves. My right leg was hurting quite a bit last night, and right across the rear. I get it. Let me give you a way of thinking about things. Just try it on, see if it makes sense or has use for us. The, someone might be seeing my, let

4 Page 4 of me back up. A guy is walking on very sharp rocks with bare feet. He s working, of course walking quite slowly, and you hear him like moaning. He sees a wolf behind him pursuing him. He s now running like hell on the same rocks, but even though his feet are impacting much harder, there s no longer any discomfort. The reason that that happened is because, although it felt like the pain was coming from his feet, it actually wasn t. The pain was coming from a facet of mind that was communicating through the experience of pain with him about what was going on with his feet. When the wolf appeared that was no longer a priority message and hence it was dropped. And there was then no information about that any longer being transmitted. So if we look through that lens, we would say, no there wasn t pain in his feet, there was something that his mind was doing which was causing him to have that feeling. What s the purpose of it doing that? Well, it s the protection of the body. So, all pain is showing up because mind is doing something to protect body. However, and basically the message that the pain would be giving to protect the body would be stop doing that. So, if he put his hand toward a flame, mind says, stop doing that so he takes his hand out of the flame. I don t think it s too much more sophisticated than that. That s how it s laid out. That s how it s supposed to work. For you, and others who have been experiencing chronic pain, this mechanism has been dysfunctioning. It s dysfunctioning because it s giving you information that you already have. To continue to give you information that you already have doesn t make any sense in terms of being valuable to you. So, where I would want this thing for you is I would want it to be that should there be some useful, new information that you would need to get, that the sensations would be one of the ways that you would get that information. If you were wearing a shoe that was injuring your foot, I d like your mind to let you know that that shoe isn t so good on your foot. But what s been going on with your back hasn t been functional, it hasn t been letting you know anything useful. In fact, not only does the system become useless, but for many people, it becomes worse than useless. Like, for instance, the system is telling him don t do all of these movements that indeed would be good for his body if he did do. And not doing would be bad. And so he sees a physical therapist and she says, do these things and he says they hurt. And she says, yes, but they re good for your body so do them even though they hurt and he does them and they do hurt and that s really dysfunctional cause his mind is telling him through that pain not to do something that is actually very advantageous to do. So do you think it s possible like right now, I m experiencing sharp shocks going through my right leg. So, you re saying it s possible through

5 Page 5 of psychotherapy or maybe physical therapy or whatnot to trick my mind or say to my mind that I m not really experiencing that pain? No. It s not, that s not the way I d like for you to think about it. Your mind is using that sensation to give you information that you don t need. Okay. So, what I d want, it s not about tricking your mind, it s about communicating back so mind understands that there isn t anything that needs to be done. There isn t any information you need to have so it stops sending it. Unless there s some information you would need to have, and then it sends it, and probably sends it soft. Because, at that point, soft would get your attention even more than loud has been. So, let s see what we can do with that. We re figuring that the thing that s been causing this discomfort is something about the way mind/body are working together. Or maybe mind/body is just one thing, and then it s because of how it s working. Does that make some sense? The thing that s causing this pain is something about how your mind/body are working. I can follow that, I understand that. Perfect. Let s find a way to represent then the way mind and body have been working that s been causing the pain. Let s represent it with some kind of a design. Something we might see in our mind s eye that would be representing that. Design, abstract design, doesn t have recognizable content, modern art, finger paints, a design. Create a design representing it. Would it be more like dim, dark, dreary, or would it be more like harsh, bright, glaring? I think it would be more division as you just said, think about it, I the instant thing I came up with was a picture of a normal spine, like that s my first thought. Like I imagined like a normal straight spine and my mind said, okay, your back is straight and fine so therefore you re not hurting. That s kind of what I just thought in a half a second flash. Stay with me. Excuse me. Something about the way mind and body have been working has been causing this pain. What I m asking you to do is represent that, represent what s been going wrong there with some kind of a design. The design is

6 Page 6 of an abstract design like finger paints or modern art that is representing what s been problematic. As you see that design in your mind s eye, is it more dim/dark, or harsh/glaring? I guess dim/dark. Okay. And you kind of see that now, yes? Yes. Okay, perfect. So we re done with that and I m beginning to see what I m intending for you. So hearing how it s been, I begin to see how I intend for it to be and therefore I begin seeing you as intended. You with your body comfortable, comfortable within your own body. With things working in a way that s just so much easier and more comfortable. Body comfortable, legs comfortable, back comfortable. That s what I am looking at and intending for you. Does that make sense? Not really. No. I m sorry. That s what, I have a difficult time comprehending things. And I have ADD, I don t take any drugs for it though. Yeah. It s not, not that I don t find this interesting. As soon as I hear one sentence like, I m looking forward to the next, I don t know, something, something s happening upstairs (inaudible). That s okay. Your job is to simply do this. You let me know when it doesn t make sense. Okay. That s it. As the golfer sees the ball where it is in the sand trap, he sees that, but he also conceives of where he wants it to be which is in the hole by the flag. So there are two things in his mind as he hits it, right? Right. Okay. As the sculptor looks at the rock, he sees how it is, but he also is seeing the statue that he is looking for it to look like. As I m sitting with

7 Page 7 of you, I ve paid attention to what you ve told me about how it s been, and I m also seeing what it is that I m intending for you. With me so far? So, I m good. And so as I m thinking then in terms of what I m intending for you, I m intending for you to be feeling comfortable. You got that? Okay. Got that, got that. Beautiful. So what has made you comfortable here is that mind and body are working together more effectively. Here it s effective, it s working. Here, not so much, here you were getting a message that you didn t need to get. The pain is a message. Figure the part of the mind that causes the feeling, we can call it a messenger. Messenger has been giving information here that s useless. Why is it useless? Cause you already got it. It s already told me. It s already told you. Doesn t make sense for anything to tell you what you already know. I follow. But I think I disagree. Only because like before I came down it was shoveling, or I was shoveling cause of the snow. And the whole time I was being very conscious of how I was picking up the snow with my legs instead of picking up the snow with my back. I stopped thinking about it for a brief moment and sure enough, I went and I threw the snow, the snow, I went and threw the shovel full of snow in one direction and I twisted a certain way, and I was frozen. Yeah, very good. And that would have been information it would have been good to be getting then. You see? So on the other hand, while you were sitting here and we were talking together, there was a shooting pain through your right leg. How is it useful? It wasn t in that instance. Right. So there, so if the message is coming when the message is useless, it won t be as likely to be attended to when useful. Hence, it s to, it s to your advantage that useless information isn t being presented because then you ll even better respond to information that s useful.

8 Page 8 of If I m not constantly getting it all the time, when it does come, then I ll be more aware and probably be more valuable. Yes. Make some sense? Uh huh. So that s how I m intending it to work for you. That s my intention, that s how I m liking to have it start to work. What I m intending also makes sense to you, yes? Mm huh. Yes. So we have now the same intention. As we have the same intention, then our energy begins to come together. As energy comes together, energy is likely to expand. As energy expands it becomes fuel that fuels what we re intending. So if you put one and one together you get more than two. Make any sense? It does. How much of it is about physics and stuff though? I follow you. There you go. Good. Mind is responsive to symbols. Let s symbolically represent you comfortable with things working as we re suggesting. Anything? Pick a picture? Picture, yeah. Wild animal, bird, plant, something. I got it. What do you got? My dog smiling. Uh huh. And so there it is, and that is a wonderful symbol for what it is we re intending. Yes? Yes. Good. Let s get another one. Some other animal, plant, something that is wild. Okay.

9 Page 9 of And what do we have? I m gonna pick a good one. There s, I just had a thousand flashes, a rainbow. Can I do a rainbow? Yeah. Rainbow is perfect. Let s start with that one. So that, now rainbow isn t just rainbow. Like for that the flag isn t only colored cloth, nor is it only pictures of stars and pictures of stripes. It s what it conveys, right? Right. Here we have rainbow now conveying you comfortable within your body. Mind and body adjusting to work to your benefit. Make sense? So that s what we re then intending together. Just to intend it is on the way to it. We ll do a couple of things with energy that sometimes are interesting in carrying the intention still forward. Would that be okay? That d be great. Sure. Then you just put your arm like I have mine, turn your chair a little facing, yeah, good. Good, just come... My right arm or my left arm, would you You re perfect. Okay. Just like I did, look at your hand, look at a spot on your hand. Don t look away from it. Continue to look at it. Notice with your peripheral vision you can see my hand here moving by your hand and imagine that, as it moves past, you begin to be able to not only see it moving, but even feel an energy from it. Just imagine that you re I do. feeling an energy to it and then it passes. And then continue looking at that spot and let s think that, as you look at that spot, you can see much more. And that you begin to be able to see and observe movement that s taking place through your fingers and your hand that you re not purposely causing. Let s imagine that the movement that you are able to observe is happening kind of in a vibratory movement, where fingers are actually moving more rapidly with that vibration than you would be able to purposely or consciously move them. And that, as finger continues to

10 Page 10 of separate and as ring finger separates itself from middle finger, that the vibration becomes even then still more intense. And you notice that something is actually happening that you re observing rather than making happen. And that observing your hand doing things rather than doing something with your hand is a different and rather unusual relationship to have with hand and fingers. And that then, as you see that happening, you then close your eyes, do it now. And as eyes are closed, that you know your eyes are closed and you can t see your hand. And you can t see your hand, and you can and do know exactly where your hand is, even though you absolutely can t see it. And that, as these things continue, that mind is organizing, setting up, putting things together toward what we ve represented with rainbow. Comfort and ease. And that every new process we re engaging together is more profound. Every process we engage in together is more effective. That each one is better, each one more. Each one more than the one before. And then you just rest your hand and arm back down and then when you re ready, you open your eyes. Yeah, very good Dan. And what were you sensing within you during those few moments? I was, I felt like warmth in my hands and when my eyes were closed, almost like a miniature sun or ball of light Yeah, yes, exactly. was in the background. Almost like when I closed my eye, the eyelids, the eyelids were like a movie screen. And across the movie screen were these billions and billions of little tiny balls of energy. But behind those little tiny little balls of energy are little atoms. Behind that was that glowing sun or energy or something. And I felt my hand still pulsing and vibrating. And that was what I felt. Yeah, that s exactly it. Perfect. Um, here, if you ll put your hand up like mine, here. Does that put any strain on your back, holding your arm like I am now? No, no. Okay. I m gonna be moving my hand toward yours and you ll perhaps imagine being able to notice or feel some kind of energy from my hand touch yours. I do.

11 Page 11 of And then I m gonna still my hand but the energy moves your hand. The energy that we just noticed moves your hand til your hand pulsates, moves, jumps and finally touches my hand. When it touches my hand you close your eyes, then when your eyes rest closed there ll be a touch on your arm. But when I move your arm, things shift, arm falls, releases loose, heavy, eyes rest closed. Still, arm just rests, eyes rest closed. Arm just rests and hand, yes, energy there so that as you again know exactly where your hand is, even though your eyes are closed. You re able to again notice energy through the fingers, through the hand itself. And you may even feel fingers on their own beginning to lift. That s it. To jump, to twitch, to vibrate, just like they are. And even to lift themselves up. Even without, that s it, that s it, any, there it goes, conscious effort. And then, as all that continues, and you even notice changes in shadow and light, and then become even more aware of hand and fingers, and drift even further within so that as you do, things adjust and clear, and move into better order. So that there s comfort just as things are easing, there s comfort. That s it. As things get better and then better still. That s it. And then you just take your time and when you re ready once again, you can open your eyes. Yeah, very good. And again, what were you kind of noticing within you? You did an amazing job of describing that last time. What did you notice this time? Something similar but not the same thing. Instead of, instead of there being that ball or that sun or that energy, it almost seemed like there was a whirlpool or a black hole spinning around like a galaxy would from far far away. It seemed like a, like a giant counter-clockwise That s how I can almost describe, like a, like a whirlpool would be in an ocean. Yeah, you described that very well, I can see that. And what are you noticing now within you in terms of feelings, thoughts? My leg doesn t hurt. My back is not the issue right now. There s, I notice that, I don t know if this is the right way to say it or not, but the distraction or the focus on something else other than my issue alleviated the pain. Mm huh. Perfect. But it wasn t distraction. What it was was, that your mind responded to our intention. The intention was your body being comfortable. And that intention was represented with rainbow and so mind understood what there was to do. Mind understands what we re suggesting which is even better attention to relevant information and hence mind began adjusting the information flow. And in the way that we intended. And hence, there was, there was an improvement. Now that means that s really quite nice cause what it means is, if we can get

12 Page 12 of somewhere, if we can get an improvement, then we can get more of an improvement. If we can t get any improvement, maybe we can, but if we can then we can definitely get more. I follow. If it works, then doing more of it works better. If it doesn t work, maybe it ll work. But we re past the maybe stage, into the yeah we ve got something working here that s, that has some use for you. So there s a whole other way of approaching comfort and healing than had been approached previously that opens up to you, and wouldn t have opened up to you while there were narcotics in your system. It just wouldn t have opened up. But now it can. I agree with that. I almost, since I ve been clean, like not using for the past three weeks or so or however long it s been, my mind is clear and I m experiencing emotions that I know I haven t felt in the past two years. I m, I feel more open to things. And, but I also in the same sense, I m not as calloused as I was, like insensitive to others or whatnot. It seems more, the past three weeks, that I m happier. That, I m the farthest thing from depressed you can be, you know. And it feels almost like I m out from underneath the covers or something along those lines. Where I m, instead of this little shrew that sits on the couch and watches TV, I wanna be around things and be involved. I d also point out to you that that the way that you re attending to what we re talking about and the way that you re using words to describe unusual experiences is both focused and precise. Being able to describe things with the metaphors that you use, with the language that you use, that s able to portray concepts and visuals I never thought I d be able to do that. But you certainly have been. Okay. Don tcha think? Well, if you re telling me so, then yes. I believe so. Absolutely. I feel like out of the covers. It was like a universe but it was spinning counter-clockwise. Similar but different to what had been seen earlier with this. And all kinds of words that create, that carry concepts

13 Page 13 of and create pictures. Very adroit and powerful communication and the things that I m talking to you about aren t, are kind of sophisticated, complex, out of the box things that you re hearing and responding to and adding to. Not just memorizing, adding to. So what that demonstrates is pretty much the opposite of what you told me previously. Which was, you know, I m a person who has difficult with thinking and comprehending and focus. It s not all of that stuff See, that s too weird. Like a lot of why I said that to you earlier was a lot of times I want to speak or portray an image or something, you know, to tell somebody how I m feeling, but I can t because it seems like my brain gets too clogged sometimes, or too many thoughts, or too many visions, and that combined with the possibility of sounding stupid maybe, or weird or whatever, maybe that s in my self-conscious somewhere that I m worried about that. Well that is something that you re mind was doing that you observed, but that, but something that has been done is not who somebody is. If I wear red shoes that s what I did. But if I put on brown shoes I still exist. I m not it s not, it wasn t me, even though I might have thought so. In those, so you were thinking that that was you, you know. Somebody told you it was, maybe, and you bought into it and it seemed like it was who you are. But actually you, you re obviously able to be highly focused, really focused. Because none of what you just did or said can happen without that. Without a high degree of that, without an unusual amount of that. Do you get that? Yeah I do. So you didn t go, you didn t go from poor to average. We re talking about an unusual ability to be, to be doing those things. And a lot of things that you ve done, like riding a motorcycle fast, you ve done that right? Uh huh. Okay. You don t do that without focus and precision. That s very true. When attempting to attend to something that isn t interesting, mind sometimes moved away or had trouble holding and being with it, you know. Which then was described to you as something wrong with the way your brain works.

14 Page 14 of END OF TRANSCRIPT And it s just for the simple fact that I m not so interested in it. I would think. It doesn t appeal to me. Yeah, I would think. That s a possibility. I never really thought about it like that. Because if your brain doesn t hold focus, then certainly one thing you ll never be capable of is riding a motorcycle. That s for sure. Right? Yeah, but I m about to be on top If I said to you, my brain doesn t hold focus. Can I try your bike? No, I gotcha. Well now then teach me skiing. You know, not Or somersaults, that way you can t get hurt really. That s a good, that was a good analogy, good. So I m glad we had an opportunity to meet I am as well. and get started. Thank you so much doctor. I would look forward to seeing you again. Okay. Should I recommend another time for, or when I speak to Michelle, should I ask her to