Feeling peaceful or feeling emotions?

[Cfs2019]

I've done 4/5 therapies for cfs/me and they're all quite similar.

They seem to want to teach me how to turn off the stress response by being calm and quieting the mind, whilst simultaneously teaching me to feel and express emotions, which obviously makes me feel the opposite of calm,

How do people deal with this , I find it really confusing

 

[GreenEdge]

I think you first need to reduce inflammation. I achieved that by removing carbohydrates from my diet and replacing with animal fat for energy. Zero-carb results in a level of calm I didn't think was possible.

If you can't do a carnivorous diet, how about only egg yolk, see my post here.

 

[Wishful]

I haven't felt any reduction in ME symptoms when I've been calm, so I'm not sure what calming is supposed to achieve. High stress can worsen ME symptoms, but I think you'd have your baseline severity even if you were floating in one of those isolation tanks, doped up on the most calming drugs.

 

[Tammy]

I understand the confusion. Kind of seems like a paradox of sorts doesn't it? Trying to do both at the same time. Example. Trying to be calm when you're angry. I've wondered about this myself. For me just allowing whatever it is I'm feeling and not labeling it as a bad thing or judging it in and of itself helps.

 

[pamojja]

simultaneously teaching me to feel and express emotions, which obviously makes me feel the opposite of calm,

It is good to approach difficult emotions ..not necessary calm, but would say by first inhabiting a safe inner space.

When the whole body is boiling (from emotions), then better first acknowledge that, but next placing it - figuratively speaking - outside. Not too far off, but not too close either. Repeat as often as to find at least a little spot in your body which feels good and safe. Enjoy for a little while (could be anything: like soft breathing, tingling in hands, some warmth somewhere, etc.)

Next, don't delve into the storyline of an emotion, but ask yourself where you can feel the whole of the emotional story reflected in actual body sensations in or on your body. Don't go into those sensations, but just attend curiously from a little distance, where you don't lose the awareness of the sensations. Do not become them yourself, but remain curious from a little distance, and do not judge. While allowing the inner-critic off for a short coffee-break.

There are further steps from there. But basically thereby you are not angry (above example), but have anger. Which you can be aware of and describe, without becoming angry (ie. as observer).

Usually we don't observe emotions through the lens - and therefore a little distance - of body sensations. But actually recreate and are soon engulfed wholly. With that little change in perspective, those emotions somehow - through non-judgmental acknowledgement - start to reveal, what might not have been known about them before. And sometimes through such a shift in understanding, it just moves on to something else.

That is just the beginning of experience- and process- oriented psychotherapy. Usually doesn't have any effects on physical symptoms from ME/CFS. Always worth trying, though.

 

[GreenEdge]

I've done 4/5 therapies for cfs/me and they're all quite similar.

They seem to want to teach me how to turn off the stress response by being calm and quieting the mind, whilst simultaneously teaching me to feel and express emotions, which obviously makes me feel the opposite of calm,

How do people deal with this , I find it really confusing

Thank you for your post.

Calm is quite achievable, but if my brain is ruminating or I'm not getting much sleep - that interrupts calm.

Calm
Calm comes from fixing digestion. Keep reducing carbohydrate intake and continuing to reduce and reduce until eventually no more carbohydrates. Along that journey when carbohydrate intake gets very low (~20g / day) you become very hungry and our bodies resort to converting protein into glucose for energy. This soon passes and within a few hours we enter ketosis (fat burning mode). When I can't resist the hunger, I find a small zero-carb high fat snack helps, for example a spoonful of butter or coconut oil.

We need animal fat (eg. egg yolk) because only animal fat contains essential fat soluble vitamins. Our brains are 80% fat, so we need these key nutrients to heal our brains.

Carbohydrate and fat do not appear together in nature. Combining in equally large amounts causes weight gain.

If low-fat for a long time, our gallbladder needs to heal and come back online to digest fats. Start introducing a small amount of animal fat early, for example diary or egg yolk.

We need to get our energy from carbohydrate or fat. Do not fear fat, if you don't get enough, your body will break down muscle to convert into glucose for energy, and if this is sustained it leads to protein poisoning.

We can't survive on lean meat like other carnivores. Not eating enough fat with our meat leads to a condition know as protein poisoning (also referred to colloquially as rabbit starvation, mal de caribou, or fat starvation) - an acute form of malnutrition caused by a diet deficient in fat. The term rabbit starvation comes from shipwreck survivors stuck on an island with only rabbits that succumb to a fat deficient diet and eventually die. Rabbit meat is too lean for us. Our big brains need the fat nutrients.

Too little fat and we get constipated, too much fat and we get diarrhea.

'Fativore' more accurately describe what humans are, see: Growing a Big Brain with Meat | Amber O'Hearn

Adopt this and calm emerges as leaky gut heals. The calm is on a level that no one believes exists until they experience it. This calm used to be called zero-carb zen, now carnivore zen because zero-carb is now carnivore. For me the calm did not come until I strictly adhered to the lion diet for several months.

It's taken me years to get from typical diet to lion diet. You will not succeed if you try to do it over night.
I've come up with a soft food version, I believe is even more powerful than lion diet, because when I re-introduced meat I felt sick.

I suggest starting by replacing one meal each week with raw egg yolk and gradually increasing from there. Or start by replacing one meal each week with an animal based meal. With such meals, do not add vegetables, that only makes it less healthy as vegetables block the absorption of key nutrients.

 

[SickOfSickness]

I'm not sure, but one goal I have heard is to feel them and learn to become calm after. Then the feelings become less strong over time. And your skill at transitioning from upset to calm improves, so that it's faster, easier, and more effective.

 

[L'engle]

In terms of symptoms reduction calmness can be good but it doesn't necessarily lead to higher activity levels. Feeling stress can be motivating but it generally worsens symptoms. The push to being calm somehow leading to a higher capacity for activity doesn't seem quite right.

That being said I think calmness is good in its own right, and can be very freeing,but is more about accepting limitations than increasing the energy envelope.

 

[Dysfunkion]

It's a balancing act, I also struggle with it. Calm but emotionally and physically energetic is what I go for every day. Calm focus is one of the most essential things in my life but the hardest to get due to my situation. If I'm not careful my stress response during the day can shoot through the roof due to factors outside of my control and when that happens my day is over because it will feel like I have a continuous electrical storm going on in my brain until the next morning and if I need to work for example or triggering person is around it will snowball. When I get to the point where the misophonia begins I know I'm in hot water and need to find a way to calm my system down fast or we're heading for a crash that'll last days. Yesh even if I'm not entirely stressed I'm not much better but I can't function stressed either besides doing simple work under pressure. I'd say my main issue besides my environment right now is my energy level. When it's higher I have different challenges probably due what happened to the way my brain handles signalling loads from various undiagnosed infections that got to it over the years, previous mold toxicity, and being beaten around a bit much in general. So like what I deal with has different challenges based on whether I'm in that fatigue zone or energetic zone. I prefer the energetic zone but the intensity when things get out of hand emotionally and sensory wise is brutal. I also have more social issues up there with my speech and connecting to people. You just tend to do the best you can with what you got available.

 

[xploit316]

I feel I am calm when all alone or around random people(people I dont have to work for or work with long term). Knowing people well increases my anxiety. Maybe this is the reason I am not very close to my family members or able to make long term friends. However a calm state when being alone has done nothing for my digestion or fatigue symptoms.