Recent Posts
Calming Down and Healing with Vagal Nerve Stimulation (VNS)
The Relationship Between Chronic Stress and Health Stress is commonly perceived as a psychological term. That is simply not true ...
“Many Italians Choose Suicide” – People Need to Work
Overview The essence of healing is feeling safe. Your body regenerates and heals. Not being able to support yourself or ...
Why I Keep Pushing Forward – A Mother’s Story of Healing
I am sharing these letters from a former patient to explain why I continue to work to help people escape ...
My Story of Hope
I had a rough start living in a chaotic household with an angry mother who suffered from chronic pain. I ...
Who Do You Choose to be Today?
Objectives Most of us intellectually understand that the only moment we have in life is this very one. That is ...
Schadenfreude: Your Pain My Pleasure
Schadenfreude—the pleasure derived from another’s misfortune—is biologically rooted in the brain’s reward system. Brain imaging studies reveal that when we witness the ...
Spine Surgery in the Presence of Chronic Pain – Mangione Situation
I am part of a documentary titled “Who is Luigi Mangione?” It will air this coming Monday evening, February 17th, ...
RUTs – Can’t Take Your Hand Off the Stove? Turn Down the Heat
Holding your hand over a hot burner triggers an immediate threat response (anxiety) and prompts action to address that threat ...
Anger Manifesto – “Humans, wake up!!”
Humanity Won’t Survive Without Engaging its Thinking Brain No Action in a Reaction The Human Survival Paradox Consider a time ...
Avoid Surgery by Raising the Pain Threshold
A friend of mine asked me for an opinion a couple of years ago about his back. I was giving ...
I Took a Walk with Bella Today – A consideration of what we can learn from other species.
This article was written by my close friend, DR Clawson. He is a physician specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation, ...
Stories of Hope
Hope is healing An important aspect of healing is regaining hope and optimism. When you are trapped without any hint ...
Stage 1 - Lay the Foundation
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - Learn About Your Pain
Step 2 - Expressive Writing
Step 3 - Active Meditation
Step 4 - Sleep
Step 5 - Don't Share Your Pain
Processing Anxiety/ Frustration – They are not Going Away
Objectives Providing yourself with cues of safety is essential to healing. However, your body instinctively gravitates towards being aware ...
Not Just Another Pain Conference – The 2nd Annual Pain Summit
2nd Annual Pain Summit – Feb 26th and 27th, 2022 There is a growing group of health care professionals who ...
Eliminate the Word, “Anxiety”
Objectives Anxiety is at the core of how we evolved and continue to survive. It is a gift. It is ...
“The Curse of Consciousness” – Trapped by Your Thoughts
Objectives: Unpleasant thoughts are impossible to avoid and can significantly impact your quality of life. They are a “neurological trick” ...
Anxiety is the Pain
Objectives: Anxiety is the sensation generated when you feel unsafe, and your body’s chemistry is stimulated into a fight or ...
Common Links to Chronic Disease – RUTs are Relentless
Objectives: Understanding the nature of chronic disease and the principles behind the solutions, allows you to fully engage in your ...
Dynamic Healing
A new, data-based dynamic approach is needed for medicine to successfully deal with our epidemic of chronic disease. It must ...
Threat versus Safety Physiology
Lesson Objectives Consider ongoing environmental input separately from your body’s responses. Understand the essence of illness/ disease is sustained exposure ...
Let’s Start Now and Learn the Details Later
Lesson Objectives There is deep basic science research that has revealed the nature of chronic pain and this understanding will ...
Directly Calming the Threat Response
Your capacity to enjoy your life, feel safe and content is dependent on your body’s neurochemical profile. When you are ...
Principles of Solving Chronic Pain
All symptoms, physical and mental, result from your body gathering data from your surroundings through multiple sensors, your brain interpreting ...
Essence of Illness
The burden of chronic disease is crushing us while we have the answers right in front of us. A recent ...
Clarifying the New IASP Definition of Chronic Pain
The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) is highly regarded international society committed to research and education about ...
Anxiety is the Correct Name for Pain
Every living creature on this planet survives by processing sensory input from all of the body’s different sensors and automatically ...
Reprogram your Brain Around Pain
One reason that chronic pain, mental or physical is consistently solvable is the brain’s property of neuroplasticity. Your brain physically ...
Smell the Peppermint–Safe or Unsafe
Humans survive on this planet by the brain receiving ongoing sensory input from the environment and interpreting it as safe, ...
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - Understand the Impact of Anger on Your Life
Step 2 - Acknowledge Your Disguises
Step 3 - Admit Your Victimhood
Step 4 - Forgive
Step 5 - Play
Grievance Stories
Objectives All of us are “wronged” every day and often multiple times. The wrongs may be real or perceived. Your ...
Forgiveness is Not What You Think – Learn It
Objectives Forgiveness does not have to be that difficult. You are simply making a choice of not letting a situation ...
Healing through Play – It is Safety Physiology
Objectives Connecting with your sense of play is one of the most powerful ways of shifting your physiology from threat ...
Calming Yourself by Recruiting the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)
Written in conjunction with Dr. Les Aria, PhD Objectives Every function and action of your body is in a delicate ...
From Reactive to Creative
Objectives Anytime you are anxious or frustrated, something from the past has invaded the present. By definition, you cannot be ...
Anger Academy
Objectives Processing anger is more doable if it is broken down into its components. Anger is a powerful, necessary, and ...
Blocks to Letting Go of Anger
Objectives Anger is a hard wired automatic survival reaction, and it is impossible to get rid of, conquer, or transform ...
The Ultimate Victim Role – Perfectionism
Objectives Perfectionism is felt by many of us to be a virtue. It is reflected in terms of, “high standards,” ...
The Impact of Anger on Your Life – and Pain
Objectives Most patients in chronic pain are frustrated and angry, whether they recognize it or not. Why wouldn’t they be? ...
Mortal Combat – These People are Hurting Each Other
In The DOC Journey, we have observed that the “shortcut” to healing is letting go of anger. You are then ...
Experiencing Safety: Solving Chronic Pain: An Immersive Weekend Retreat
We are holding a weekend retreat on May 21-23, 2021 based on our past experiences at the Omega institute in ...
Anger and Illness–Cause and Effect
Tom’s original story was one that I never thought was possible. He recounts his journey of undergoing 28 surgeries over ...
Three Aspects of Processing Anger
This aspect of The DOC (Direct your Own Care) Journey is by far and away the most critical leg. I ...
Forgiveness–The Continental Divide of Freedom and Hell
There is an intense relationship between anxiety and anger. Understanding this interaction is one of the most important concepts that ...
Bullying is Assault and Should be treated as Such
There are serious mental and physical consequences from being bullied. What would be the outcome of a scenario where a ...
Forgiveness as a Habit
Once is not enough in forgiveness Perhaps this game is like weeding. The trick is to become so practiced that ...
Stage 3 - Move Forward
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - Commit to a Daily Practice
Step 2 - Create a Safe Haven - Family
Step 3 - Get Organized
Step 4 - Connect with the Life You Want
Step 5 - Create Your Vision
Do You Feel Safe in Your Own Home?
One of the most basic human needs in addition to survival is to feel safe. Of course, the two go ...
Your Relationship to Food and Life
Objectives Our view of the world and our place in it is programmed in from the moment we are born ...
Heal by Connecting with Others
Objectives Social isolation is both a contributing factor to anxiety and also a result of it. When you are suffering, ...
The Golden State Warriors and the “Ironic Effect”
We all know that when you try not to think about something, you’ll think about it more. Most of us ...
Commit to a Daily Practice
Objectives Most of us strongly commit to making concrete changes at beginning of a New Year. Why can’t we follow ...
Feel the Life You Want
Objectives Your brain is incredibly neuroplastic and can change quickly in whatever direction you choose. We automatically know how to ...
Repetition and Healing
Objectives Learning any new material or skill is an active process than can only be acquired through repetition. There are ...
Your Life’s Roadmap – Just Begin Anywhere
Objectives Long term change always occurs in small steps and requires persistence. The reason is that our behaviors today are ...
Get Organized – Chronic Pain is Complex
Objectives Chronic mental and physical pain is a complex problem that requires a systematic approach to solve. How can you ...
Create Your “Personal Business Plan”
Objectives Most of us have become so used to solving problems and just making ends meet that we have lost ...
Connect with the Life You Want
Objectives It is easy to become focused on problems to the point where you forget what you really want out ...
Exercise Improves Your Health, Quality of Life, and Lifespan
Objectives: Regular exercise is a defined and to measurably lower inflammation, which will decrease your pain. It is basic to ...
Tune Your Nervous System and Lower Anxiety – You have the controls
KEY POINTS When stresses overwhelm the coping capacity of your nervous system, your body will go into flight or fight ...
Awareness–Ingrained Patterns/ Your Life Lens
Objectives A basic trait of human consciousness is to give meaning to everything from objects to experiences. These perceptions and ...
Deadly Nature of Self-esteem
Objectives Much of our identity or self-esteem revolves around the “stories” we create to make sense out of the world ...
You Have to Feel to Heal – Emotional Awareness
Objectives Since emotional pain is processed in a similar manner as physical pain, why would you want to feel it? ...
Stage 4 Posts - Expand Your Consciousness
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - Pass Through the "Ring of Fire"
Step 2 - Step Into Your New Life
Step 3 - "Failing" Well
Step 4 - Look Up - Your Spiritual Journey
Step 5 - Giving Back is Healing
Giving Back is Healing
Objectives You probably have been trapped by anxiety for so long, and consumed by trying to find a way out, ...
“Better Not Look Down”
Objectives We are programmed by every second of our life up to this moment with most of it being around ...
Awareness as a Tool – The “Circle of Life”
Objectives Awareness is at the center of life. You cannot make good decisions without understanding the relevant variables. It is ...
Not Being Judgmental–Not Possible
Objectives Human consciousness precludes suppressing thoughts and emotions without experiencing physiological consequences. You may intellectually understand that being judgmental is ...
The Gift of Anxiety – Your Bodyguard or Prison Guard?
Objectives: Since the body’s response to threats affects every cell in your body, it feels like part of who you ...
The Bidirectional Interaction between Resilience and Your Immune System
This blog is based on a review paper written by Dr. Robert Dantzer that discusses how resilience and immunity influence ...
Navigating the Entire Circle of Your Life
The DOC (Direct your Own Care) Journey is a collection of resources that reflect the ones many people have used ...
Pain: the Gift Nobody Wants
I have felt that it is important to pick out heroes to emulate. One person that I have greatly admired ...
“Play 20” – Create Your Life at Any Age
Maurice is someone who I recently met and immediately was intrigued by his demeanor and outlook. My wife and I ...
Thrive and Survive–The Movement
I have launched a major effort to change the way we think about disease; whether it is mental for physical ...
Expanding Your Horizon–Your New Life
The DOC process evolved from my own, mostly futile, attempts to both figure out how I fell off a cliff ...
Thrive and Survive COVID-19: The Polyvagal Approach
The main problem with the COVID-19 virus is not that we catch it, but that that it can kill you ...
“The Bottom”
Generation Z and Millennials as a group are struggling. In spite of living in an era of unprecedented opportunities, they ...
Beyond Forgiveness–Compassion for Those Who Hurt You
Ongoing anger is an absolute block to moving forward and living a truly enjoyable life. You are stuck to past. As ...
The Gift of Hope – “This Might Hurt”
One of the worst aspects of being trapped in chronic pain is losing hope. No one can give you a ...
Success is a “Story”
There is currently an epidemic of pain in our country, and chronic pain is increasing especially rapidly in people under ...
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - General Principles - The Grid
Step 2 - The Source of Your Pain
Step 3 - The Impact of Stress on Your Pain and Decision-making
Step 4 - Understanding the Magnitude of the Surgery
Step 5 - Making the Final Surgical Decision
Step 6 - Stories of Surgical Despair
Humans Aren’t Data Points – Modern Medicine is Hurting Us
There is deep basic science and clinical research that documents effective treatments for chronic mental and physical disease. Most of ...
Tulsa Shooting – “The Pit of Despair”
Preston Phillips, the spine surgeon shot this week in Tulsa, was a colleague of mine in Seattle. I did not ...
Permanent Disability – Needless??
Please do not let this happen to you, your family, or friends. The downside of failed spine surgery can be ...
Surgical Stories of Despair
I quit my surgical spine practice in 2019 because I was seeing so much surgery performed on normally aging spines ...
Never Too Late for Hope
This letter was sent to me by a woman that I have corresponded with a few times but I have ...
Know Your Surgeon – Well
When the DOC project began to evolve in 1999 it was my feeling that if there was a structural problem that it ...
Dashed Hopes
Mainstream medicine is frequently not offering you effective care. Many procedures performed for spinal problems have been documented to be ...
Avoids a Five-level Neck Fusion
I received this email from a physical therapist on the East Coast, who I’ve never met. He’d heard about my ...
Prehab – Optimizing Surgical Outcomes
“Prehab” is refers to a patient engaging in a rehabilitation process before surgery. There are well-documented factors that affect pain ...
Comprehending the Downside of Spine Surgery
Deciding whether to undergo spine surgery is one of the most important choices you will ever make. Currently, failed spine ...
Eight-Level Spine Fusion? No!
A seventy-three-year-old woman—let’s call her Dorothy for the sake of this story—was understandably apprehensive. She had just been told that ...
Surgery is the Definitive Solution?
Ernie presented to me a few years ago with severe back and leg pain. He had undergone two spine fusions ...
When will the Pain Stop?
Mike is a local physical therapist who is a friend of mine. He has been interested in the DOC project ...
Are You Kidding Me? – ILL Advised Spine Surgery
Patients and physicians are frequently making illogical decisions regarding spine surgery. I have watched this phenomenon steadily worsen for over ...
Structural Sciatica Resolved Without Surgery
When I published the first edition of my book, Back in Control: A Spine Surgeon’s Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain in 2012, I was ...
Am I Operating on Your Pain or Anxiety?
My surgical decision-making dramatically changed over the last five years of my practice. In spite of watching so many successes ...
Stage 6 Posts - Procedures
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - General Considerations: Magnitude vs. Benefit
Step 2 - Decompressions
Step 3 - Lumbar Fusions
Step 4 - Deformity Surgery
Step 5 - Other Spine Surgeries
Step 6 - Stories of Surgical Despair
No posts found.
Important Posts
No posts found.
“Physician, Heal Thyself” – and She Did
The solutions to breaking free from the grip of chronic pain have become increasingly clear. The answers are coming from ...
Freed by Persistence and Play
I first met Mark at our 2017 three-day “Rewiring Your Brain” workshop at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. He ...
28 Surgeries–”I elected to not be in pain”
For many years, I thought that for many patients there was a point of no return because the sheer magnitude ...
Never Too Late for Hope
This letter was sent to me by a woman that I have corresponded with a few times but I have ...
What Makes Your Book Different?
This is a followup letter from a woman who emailed me about four years ago. I had never met her ...
Moving Forward by Being with her Anxiety
Lisa is a 58 year old high-level professional who developed chronic neck pain about 5 years ago. It began around ...
Meditation versus Medicating for Life
This is a letter from someone who I have never met. I would encourage you to read it carefully for ...
“Un-screwed”–Yoga Healing Back Pain
This is a piece submitted by a reader, who has done well. It illustrates several aspects of the healing journey ...
A Couple Re-united
During the last few years of practice, our team became extremely aware of the effect of chronic pain on the ...
Avoided a 12-hour Spine Fusion and is Free from Chronic Pain
Mark Owens’ Story This is a video that we shot of Mark Owens, who wrote the Forward of my book ...
How I Cured my Migraine Headaches
Migraine headaches are brutal and often incapacitating. They are also one of the symptoms of a chronically stressed nervous system ...
Chronic Neck Pain Gone – DOC Prevents Relapse
This story is from a woman, who I met at our first Omega workshop in 2013. I was holding the ...
Using New Tools to Reclaim My Life
Beginning in 2003, I suffered low back pain in the L4-5 region. I saw a chiropractor from time to time ...
A Little Merrier Christmas – Letting Go of Blame
People trigger each other and the closer the relationship, the stronger the reactions. When you become anxious or frustrated, you’re ...
Life Sentence
After my fourth L3-L4 surgery the neurosurgeon sat me down and said “…you are not going to get better but ...
Chronic Pain is Solvable -Take Back Your Life
It has been my observation that suffering from chronic pain affects almost every aspect of your life, especially trying to ...
Expressive Arts Posts
Wear A Mask!
We have protected all our outside art as a reminder … This is serious! No related posts ...
The Cellist
When I saw this man playing on the street so he could make some money, I saw the expression on ...
Lost and Found
I keep coming back to this idea that there are two sides to every coin. In this time of global ...
Caught in a Swirl of Change
This mask represents the feeling of being separated from normal life. The Coronavirus has caused the government to close my ...
Florentine Mosaic
Mosaico Fiorentino Fragments like colored glass Segmented memories Names of streets Distant ricordi In a flash my thoughts translate into ...
Other Posts
- RUTs – Can’t Take Your Hand Off the Stove? Turn Down the Heat
- Stories of Hope
- We have no protection from mental pain
- Create a Safe Haven – Family
- Accept the Gift of Consciousness – Choice
- Threat Physiology Can’t be Controlled with Behavioral Approaches
- Mental Rigidity – A Core Trait of Many Mental Health Diagnoses
- The Popcorn Machine – Healing RUTS
- Make the Right Decision About Spine Surgery – The Grid
- Everyone Needs Support
- The “Five E’s” of Chronic Pain
- Video 14/19: Chronic Pain: Pain Free is Not Only Possible, it’s Probable.
- Compassion and an Italian Dinner
- Video 8/19: Fusions For LBP Don’t Work
- Problems are Opportunities
- Video 7/19: The Catastrophe Index
- Examiners from the Worker’s Perspective
- Video 4/19: Listen When Your Surgeon Says “No”
- Arm the Worker
- Video 8 of 19: Finding the Source of The Pain
- Video 5 of 19: An Alternative Approach to Chronic Pain & Spine Surgery
- It Really is Upside Down
- “I Want to Believe”
- The Catastrophe Index
- Your Doctor Might Not be Listening
- Worsening Prognosis with Time Off of Work
- Two Kinds of Anger
- Anger Affecting Nerve Pain
- Stress Management Overview
- How am I Going to Get There?
- Where am I Going?
- Where am I?
- Setting Goals with Three Questions
- Anti-Spasm
- Anti-depressants
- Anti-seizure
- Anti-anxiety
- Non-Narcotics
- Narcotics
- Medication Management
Click a Show Section button below to view the posts in that section.
Section 1 - Overview of RUTs
Section 2 - Solving RUTs
Section 3 - The Evolution of RUTs
Section 4 - Consequences of RUTs
