Internal friction

Part 1 of 5

I am currently pursing my PhD in Health Psychology focusing on this process specifically, but I am not a psychologist. I am just your friendly neighborhood chiropractor and a mild mannered nutritionist who has spent the last 17 years working with people one on one, and now in large groups and programs, in three out of four of these categories I am going to go into with great success. I leave the psychology to the experts who deal with this type of issues every day, but I know that if you improve the body by working on these three categories, detoxifying and healing the cells, reducing hormonal resistance, and improving the mental economy the physiology will improve and much of the mental stress, strain, and mood issues that come along with this friction improves greatly. Again, I am all for stress management and avoiding stress when appropriate, but my ultimate goal, one that I research daily and am personally committed to, one that I live by and teach my children, is how to be healthy, heal when needed, and build rock solid resilience to stress.

Internal friction. That is the best way I can sum up how I see our body and system working as it slowly builds up tension or a physical dissonance to our physical and mental tipping point that eventually spills with ill health.

Mentally when we feel anxiety, or we find ourselves drawn to negative thoughts, self doubt and we start to get irritable, critical, and start feeling like someone else is running this show, like the thoughts and emotions we feel building are someone else's completely. I can only describe how it feels to me and attempt to translate how it has been described by patients and clients over the years in practice as a literal internal FRICTION that swells, grinds, confuses, tempts, distracts and can consumes us.

It is this mental friction that makes the insanity of addictive behavior seem logical or acceptable right before we do what ever it is we do, again, and again, and again. Whether it is eating sugar and processed carbs again, or taking that drink or that hit again, turning to abusive behavior or language and saying nasty things again, or suppressing our own thoughts and feelings to "feel" loved again, all the while knowing this is in no way good for us, clearly knowing that this is doing harm, and perfectly cognizant that we are literally and figuratively feeding this problem......again.

We can feel that friction when it begins. It can start slow and mild, almost unnoticeable, and slowly builds and as it gains our attention and we hope it will pass or we try and do something, hopefully something positive, that might calm that feeling and ease that friction. It can build or just crash your good day and squeeze your life joy by coming on so strong that the next thing you know you are in a mini internal panic trying to escape and avoiding it at any cost.

Sometimes this friction can change our personality right before our eyes, or slowly push as it alters who we are to the point that when we do finally see the issue, or when it is pointed out to us, we are blind to even the thought that this could be true, that this could be us. Sometimes we are reacting through this friction before we even know it is upon us, almost like a black-out drunk, it happens and all bets are off to what we do or what comes out of our mouth. Suddenly there are tears or harsh words, sometimes there is pain, other times you just find yourself off point, eating junk foods or finishing that whole pizza and skipping that workout or pushing that work off, ignoring your kids and wasting your day. Then we are left to make excuses and feel even worse than before as we reinforce that internal friction with more power to come back and terrorize us again.

This often seems like a completely mental process making us feel crazy, defective, and alone. Because in those moments we see the lunacy of our actions and feel that no one else can relate, that no one else really thinks these things or does this and definitely not over and over like I do. But they do. We all do at some point and to some degree, whether in thought, feeling or action, in some way that is unique to us we feel that friction.

As mental as it seems I think something physical sets this up and then sets us off. I know that thoughts can drive actions and physiology but I also believe that our physiology can drive our thoughts and emotions as well.

To be continued……