Its Not Your Fault: How Healing Relationships Change Your Brain and Can Help You Overcome a Painful

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Its Not Your Fault How Healing Relationships
Change Your Brain and Can Help You Overcome a
Painful Past

• Patricia Romano McGraw, Ph.D.

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Question

• What weighs 3 ½ pounds, is roughly the size of a
  cauliflower, and resembles, in color and
  consistency , a generous blob of extra firm tofu?
  

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• ALIVE
• or
• DEAD?

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If You Cant Measure it It isnt REAL

• Deeply embedded in our mind is the Western notion
  of science that says REALITY is material it can
  be seen, measured, manipulated, then measured
  again In other words reality is defined by
  the The Scientific Method

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Quantum Physics

• Reality is One, It does not admit to mutliplicity
  or division. (Abdul-Baha)
• Space is not empty but rather an endless sea
  of possibilities
• The possible materializes only when it is
  observed (The Observer Effect)

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Perception of Separate Self

• An illusion created by the Observer Effect
• Fish Tank example

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I Gotta Be ME

• Basically seen as an individual who is
  certainly separate from other people and
  responsible for him or her self. An individual
  is influenced by others only to the extent that
  he or she lets others have an impact

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The Culture

• More is better
• Newer is better
• Happiness is newer, better, bigger
• Bigger house, car, Burger and Fries
• you name itIts all OUT THERE with our brand
  name on it!

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Early Psychological Theories

• Both early Psychoanalytic theories and
  Behaviorism based their theories on the a priori
  assumption that mankind is basically motivated to
  meet its own selfish and individual needs through
  material means

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So

• Use your individual brains thought processes to
  acquire things that will make you happy.

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Sanity

• The healthy individual operates according to
  rational thought processes, assesses reality, and
  goes about thinking and problem solving to
  acquire and keep the things he/she wants and by
  doing so can expect to bereasonably happy

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Is Abdul Baha

• SANE???????????????????????????????
• What would His MMPI Profile look like?
• Delusions?
• Hallucinations?
• Out of touch with Reality?

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Spiritual Idea

• You must live in the utmost happiness. If any
  trouble or vicissitude comes into your lives, if
  your heart is depressed on account of health,
  livelihood or vocation, let not these things
  affect you. They should not cause unhappiness,
  for Bahaullah has brought you divine happiness.
  He has prepared heavenly food for you. He has
  destined eternal bounty for you(PUP, p. 188)

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Abdul-Baha

• I myself was in prison forty years - one year
  alone would have been impossible to bear nobody
  survived that imprisonment more than a year!
  But, thank God, during all those forty years I
  was supremely happy! Every day, on waking, it
  was like hearing good tidings, and every night
  infinite joy was mine. Spirituality was my
  comfort, and turning to god was my greatest
  joy(PT, pp. 111-112)

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Outward Circumstances Dont Matter

• The soul of man must be happy no matter where he
  is. One must attain to that condition of inward
  beatitude and peace, then outward circumstances
  will not alter his spiritual calmness and
  joyousness.

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Why God Wont Go Away

• Brain science and the Biology of Belief
  Andrew Newberg,
  M.D. , Eugene DAquili and Vince Rause, New York
  Ballantine, 2001

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Meditation

• Firsthis conscious mind quiets, allowing a
  deeper, simpler part of himself to emergehe
  believes this inner self is the truest part of
  who he is, the part that never changesit is not
  a metaphor or an attitude, it is literal,
  constant, and real. It is what remains when
  worries, fears, desires, and all other
  pre-occupations of the conscious mind are
  stripped awayHe considers this inner self the
  very essence of his being. If pressed, he might
  even call it his soul. (p. 2)

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The Individual as Part of All There IS

• He claimshe suddenly understands that his
  inner self is not an isolated entity, but that he
  is inextricably connected to all of
  creationThere is a sense of timelessness and
  infinity It feels like I am part of everyone
  and everything in existence. (p. 2)

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Posterior Superior Pareital Lobe

• Dubbed Orientation Association Area
• Primary job, orient individual in space
• Draws sharp distinction between individual and
  everything else
• Keeps a sharp distinction between the YOU/NOT
  YOU
• During deep meditation, this distinction blurs

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Hypotheses

• Biology COMPELS the Spiritual Urge (p. 8)
  because there are parts of the brain that are
  specialized for transcending material existence
  (and connecting with) a part of ourselves
  perceived of as an absolute universal reality
  that connects us to all there is. (p. 9)

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• Didst thy think thyself a puny form, when
  within thee the whole universe is enfolded?
  (Bahaullah, Seven Valleys)

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Think your way to material happiness

• Split between thought and emotion with thought
  being primary
• Split between material and spiritual with
  material being primary

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Vs. Feel Your Way to Spiritual Contentment

• Spirit primary over material
• Emotion primary over thought
• Is it possible for the spirit to effect the
  material literally change it?
• Is it possible that emotion can lead us to
  happiness and that thought is the unwelcome
  intruder? In other words.

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Do We Have It Upside Down?
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Ideas About Relationships

• Important perhaps, but not fundamental to who we
  are as individuals. Magazines provide tips for
  relationships that include beginning them,
  ending them, spicing them up

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Ideas of the Brain

• An information processing device modeled on a
  computer
• Determined by genes mainly, some influence of
  experience, perhaps adding to genetic influences
• Physical, influenced by other physical forces
  like blunt trauma, toxic chemicals, etc.
• Sits on top of the shoulders of the rugged
  individual

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WRONG

• WRONG
• WRONG

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GROWN

• GROWN
• GROWN

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Yes, your brain is not a thing

• It is an organic living thing and therefore
  GROWN through experience

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Nature VIA Nurture

• book

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The Function of a Thing Creates its Structure!

• New scientific discoveries show that we have it
  all wrongstructure, in other words the form of
  an organic entity is CREATED BY ITS FUNCTIONING

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Experiences Change Your Brain

• Allen Schore - Neurobiologist
• Book Affect Regulation and the Origin of the
  Self The Neurobiology of Emotional Development

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WE ALL GROW OUR BRAINS

• AROUND OUR EXPERIENCES
• WITHOUT BEING AWARE OF IT
• UNCONSCIOUS
• NON-VERBAL

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The Universe is Made of Love

• We all seek love and partnership. It is perhaps
  the utlimate driving force

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Attunement
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Attunement Process

• Paying attention to the other
• Tuning into their emotional state
• Allowing yourself to get in sych with them
• Sustaining this attentional state for a period of
  time

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Nervous System Templates

• Patterns of Nerve Connections in your brain
• Similar to Learning only emotional
• Lead to the ability to identify, and express, and
  control your emotions

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This Attunement Process will Change the STRUCTURE
of your brain

• Scientific studies show that the ability to have
  good emotional control later in life is based on
  the secure attachments that are formed in
  infancy. These attachments pattern the brain
  forming structures that allow us to form healthy
  attachments to others
• Add information here for mental health pros. On
  this

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Attunement to God

• Tune in
• Get in Sych
• Sustain this state of consciousness for a period
  of time
• Pay attention

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Let us bow our heads and close our eyes

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Prayer as Attunement to God

• Book Newburg, et.al. Why God Wont Go Away
  Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
• Shows specific structures in the brain that are
  activated during deep meditation
• Hypthesizes that the purpose of these structures
  is attunement to God

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• Prayer Changes Your Brain
• Prayer Changes Your Body
• Prayer Changes Your Emotions
• Prayer Can Make You Happy
• And that happiness is real and material

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Key Turn Attention to God

• TURN.
• Where is Paradise and where is Hell? Say The
  one is reunion with Me the other thine own self
• If thou lovest Me TURN away from thyself
• Thee is no peace for thee save by renouncing
  thyself and TURNING unto Me.
• The Best Beloved is comeHappy is the man that
  turneth unto Him and drinketh his fill..

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FEAR
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Normal response to fear

• Identify the threat
• Eliminate the threat
• BY
• FIGHT
• OR
• FLIGHT

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OVERWHELMING FEARTRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE

• Identify the Fear
• CANNOT eliminate the threat with flight or fright
• DISSOCIATION emotional numbing
• Aftermath can sometimes include Post-Traumatic
  Stress Disorder

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FREEZE

• I heard a shout. Startled, in looking half
  round, I saw the lion just in the act of
  springing upon mehe caught my shoulder as he
  spriang, and we both came to the ground below
  together. Growling horrible close to my ear, he
  shook me as a terrier does a ratIt caused a sort
  of dreaminess in which there was no sense of pain
  nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of
  all that was happening. It was like what
  patients partially under the influece of
  chlororform describe, who see all the operation,
  but feel not the knifeThe shake annihilated
  fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking
  round at the beast.

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Fear

• Can create nervous system templates that arouse
  fear/anxiety in response to various triggers both
  in the environment and in your own thoughts and
  feelings

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Fear

• CAN DESTROY positive nervous system templates.
• a process Dr. Schore calls
• PRUNING

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Healing from Trauma

• REBUILDING REGROWING the nervous system
  templates that have been altered or destroyed
  through fear producing experiences

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Attunement

• Tune in
• Get in Sych with the other
• Sustain this state of consciousness for a period
  of time
• Pay attention

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ATTUNEMENT

• Key Element to recover from fear and trauma
• Feelings of SAFETY

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Attune to God

• The everlasting Candle shineth in its naked
  gloryHappy is he that turneth thereunto well
  is it with him that hath attained and gazed on
  the light of so wondrous a countenance.

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MAN IS IN REALITY A SPIRITUAL BEING AND ONLY
WHEN HE LIVES IN THE SPIRIT IS HE TRULY HAPPY.
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