This will likely be one of my most controversial blog posts. Maybe even my most controversial one. That’s ok with me as I believe that it could also turn out to be one of my most important posts if I’m correct about what I say in here and if it helps lead to widespread healing, peace, and other positive changes. All I ask is that you hear me out, keep in mind that I’m coming at all of this from a desire to help, consider the points I make, check out the works I reference, and, if you’re up for it, see how the changes I mention impact your life. With all of that in mind, let’s look at a variety of things in life that, when they go wrong, can cause major stress, anxiety, depression, and also trouble with focusing, learning, being at peace, and interacting with others in ways that mimic a variety of common diagnoses.
I’ve thought a lot about healing from emotional, mental, and physical health issues and trauma over the last six years. It started when someone close to me did something that caused me so much emotional pain that I couldn’t keep ignoring the painful feelings. That’s when I revisited Letting Go by David Hawkins. Over the course of a few months, I used the letting go technique to completely released all the pain around that scenario. That was a huge accomplishment for me, especially since I initially thought that I would always feel upset about that situation yet was able to let go of it entirely before that year ended. I’ve since used the letting go technique to let go of tons of fear, sadness, anger, and other painful emotions around relationship issues, job struggles, physical health challenges, and the deaths of loved ones, most notably my dog Sawyer. Letting go has released an insane amount of depression, sorrow, misery, sadness, and fear as well as some guilt, shame, and anger around Sawyer’s death in particular to the point that the pain is almost entirely gone. Letting go in general has tremendously improved my sleep, boundaries, communication, ability to focus and be in the present moment, and health in all areas (emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual). Releasing so many painful emotions has drastically weakened my trauma responses, helped me nearly overcome chronic people pleasing, given me so much more peace, and allowed me to survive and even thrive in some cases after experiencing more pain than I ever imagined possible. This has been such a huge game changer for me that I’d like for everyone else to experience, and I believe they can experience it as well.
Those experiences made it quite easy to find value in The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. One of his central viewpoints in that book is that it has become common to group together arbitrary symptoms (difficulty concentrating, hyperactivity, trouble navigating social situations, etc.) and come up with different diagnoses based on those groups, such as ADHD, ADD, various types of autism, and “neurodivergence” in general, instead of healing the underlying trauma that creates those symptoms. Despite this as well as his advocacy for a new term called Developmental Trauma Disorder, his works have largely been ignored as myriad diagnoses are still given based on arbitrary symptom groupings and those diagnosed with one or more disorders are routinely prescribed drugs to manage their symptoms while no effort is made to find out if they could benefit from healing their trauma, whether it’s trauma they’ve acquired through life experiences or trauma that was passed onto them genetically through their family line.
My own healing experiences have led me to think Bessel van der Kolk is barking up the right tree. As I’ve worked through painful emotions, whether around a specific incident or just in general, my overall health has improved. I went from having recurring digestion issues and constant anxiety over that painful 2020 situation to a settled stomach and even less anxiety than I had before that situation arose after letting go of all the pain that came with it. Continuing to use the letting go technique since then has gotten rid of even more anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, and at least some of my short temper. It’s also made it easier to forgive myself and others, concentrate better by making it easier to live in the present moment, communicate more effectively, and solve problems without a huge amount of time or trouble. In a few cases, it’s even healed back pain that came from a broken heart, and I’m certain it’s a big part of why I haven’t gotten truly sick for more than a week or two at a time in about two years now. The more I heal emotional pain, the more dysfunctional symptoms disappear.
“He worked with MDMA with an attendant at the beginning of one such depressive episode and has never had another. He has done four MDMA sessions altogether, and says he is simply done with the trauma. He goes to ballgames with his son, coaches Little League, works his job, and takes college courses. He can remember, in graphic detail, every moment of the event that traumatised him, but it no longer has the emotional charge it once had. He says he can remember it the way you remember the colour of the house you were born in. It is just another fact of life.” This is a powerful quote from Trust Surrender Receive, which is a book of testimonials from those who have experienced profound healing through MDMA therapy. I included it here because it’s such a beautiful example of trauma healing that is possible and more available than many know or believe. While I still have quite a way to go for my own healing journey, I’ve loved the results so far and can’t wait to see further improvements as I continue doing the work.
Although I’ve benefited tremendously from using the letting to technique, there are other paths that have been proven to heal trauma. MDMA therapy and psychedelic therapy have shown themselves to be hugely effective at getting rid of PTSD (even treatment-resistant PTSD) and all the dysfunctional symptoms it causes, from severely disrupted sleep to anger issues to chronic nightmares to paralyzing fear to broken relationships. Both MDMA and psychedelic therapy are done a few times in a person’s life and give lifelong healing, unlike prescription drugs that must be consumed every day or nearly every day and which only address symptoms instead of the root cause of the dysfunction. Whatever the path anyone takes, healing trauma is the big one as far as I’m concerned, meaning that it stands to do the most amount of good for everyone, which is why I’m talking so much about it here. I’d like everyone try healing all their trauma first and then see how that improves their lives. If there is any dysfunction left after all their trauma is gone, I figure it can be handled either partially or perhaps entirely by fixing other things I’ll mention in this post, the first of which will be sleep.
I didn’t fully appreciate the importance of getting enough quality sleep consistently until I read Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. Aside from greater protection against dementia, lower risk of making costly mistakes due to fatigue, and an overall longer, healthier life, proper sleep can also prevent many issues that can easily be mistaken for something else. He talks specifically about kids who are consistently sleep-deprived, get diagnosed with ADHD as a result of their symptoms caused by poor sleep, and are then prescribed stimulants that compound the problem by making it even harder for them to sleep. When those kids are diagnosed with sleep deprivation from a sleep study and are then given what they need to sleep properly on a regular basis, their symptoms and issues disappear. Regardless of age, everyone will benefit emotionally, mentally, and physically from proper sleep, which includes and is not limited to getting enough hours of sleep for one’s age range each night (kids need a lot more sleep than adults), going to bed and waking up at the same time each day, and, ideally, having a nap in the early afternoon. Some things that can make it easier to sleep include turning down lights in the house at night to induce drowsiness, majorly cutting back on screen time before bed, using a CPAP machine for those with obstructive sleep apnea, and having a hot bath or shower before going to sleep. No matter what else is going on in my life, I always feel better when I get eight or more hours of sleep each night and have consistent sleep/wake times every day. I hope to continue getting better at both of those, especially since I know how important they are.
Just as with sleep, I learned a great deal about the importance of proper breathing a few years ago. It was Breath by James Nestor that opened my eyes (as well as my nose) to the problems of habitually breathing through the mouth, which is what I’ve done for most of my life. Similarly to sleep deprivation, compulsive, habitual mouth breathing can lead to issues that are often misdiagnosed as ADHD. Those who have issues that prevent nose breathing (such as obstructions, a deviated septum, etc.) often find that their troubles go away when they get those issues sorted out. While I still struggle to breathe through my nose during the day due to old habits, it is getting easier with practice. Fortunately, I’ve found that taping my lips together at night before bed, which is the best trick I got from Breath, makes it easy to breathe through my nose while I sleep. That has made my sleep better, stopped me from feeling mentally friend and physically parched when I wake up, and, I believe, stopped me from getting sick nearly as often and for as long as I did before I started the taping. I’ve gradually gotten better at remembering to breathe through my nose during the day, which has made it easier to relax, feel at ease, and navigate life.
Something else that’s been detrimental to overall health and wellbeing, especially for kids, is the decrease in exercise over the past several decades. Gym, recess, or physical education, whether structured or free, used to be a required part of school curriculums. With the increasing focus on test scores, however, many schools have drastically cut down or even entirely eliminated those opportunities for kids to stand up, run around, enjoy some fresh air, and get exercise during the school day. This is a travesty as too little exercise leads to all kinds of physical, mental, and emotional issues, including restlessness, sleeping trouble, difficulty focusing, misbehavior, and so on. It’s also resulted in tons of boys getting diagnosed with various mental or behavioral disorders and given drugs in the hope of fixing what could easily be handled with exercise. Aside from burning off extra energy, running around and playing physical games helps kids concentrate better, do better in school, practice their creativity, improve their coordination, learn more about working as a team and getting along with each other, and be overall healthier. I certainly feel better, sleep better, and have an overall nicer day when I do something physical instead of just sitting or lying around all day.
Now, a brief bit about nutrition. I don’t have much to say here. I’d mostly like to mention that lots of people have benefited from experimenting with their diets to find out which foods they can reduce or avoid entirely to eliminate brain fog, give themselves more energy, prevent themselves from feeling hyperactive, increase their focus, sleep better, feel more refreshed when they wake up, etc. The little bit of this I’ve done for myself has prevented the moderate digestive issues I experienced around spring of 2024 from returning. Maybe I’ll find out more benefits from great nutrition if I can bring myself to stick with a much healthier eating plan for more than a few months at a time.
Next up is electronic devices. While having instant access to almost all available information, tons of online entertainment, the contact information of nearly everyone you know, and more can be used for immense good, it can also be incredibly distracting. I believe that overuse of electronic devices, especially to watch extremely short-form content that rewards and trains short attention spans, is the main culprit (along with increased trauma this decade) behind the epidemic of blindingly fast talking, constant interruptions, ever-deepening echo chambers, and increasingly short tempers in day-to-day conversations that has appeared over the last six years. After all, if you can instantly watch anything you want anytime you want, stop watching it whenever, and switch to anything else immediately, then who wants to wait ten seconds for someone to finish talking when you can just talk over them and get your point out that much faster? Especially if your mind is always racing from constant technological overwhelm and you’ve learned no tricks to remember things more easily, so you fear forgetting everything you want to say if you don’t say it as soon as you think it. The days in which I spend less time around screens seem to go by slower, feel more easygoing, be more productive, and bring me more rest and rejuvenation. As with nutrition, I also hope to get better at using screens effectively instead of constantly engaging with them.
The last area of life I’ll talk about in this post is the company you keep. For better or worse, everybody rubs off on everybody else they interact with. You can see this by observing any group of people who have known each other for a long time and seeing how similarly they act, regardless of their ages, ethnicities, genders, where they were born or grew up, and what interests they have outside the group. Those who spend lots of time around folks who talk fast, interrupt, take out their emotions on others, are always glued to a screen, try to turn everything into a joke, and so on tend to act similarly. Along the same lines, those who spend time around folks who speak slower, take longer pauses, listen fully to others before responding, show their true feelings, and are more present tend to act accordingly. Sadly, this is one of the hardest areas of life to fix. Most people end up regularly spending time around those who are toxic, negative, hostile, and even abusive. When they are stuck with these kinds of people due to work, family, or other situations that are incredibly difficult to change or avoid, they have to go the extra mile to avoid absorbing and mimicking the bad traits of those folks. While I’m far from immune to the negative influence of others, I have been able to minimize it with lots of letting go, time to myself, regular animal visits, time with good humans, and the desire to be a better version of myself. And, although I have set many boundaries against those who’ve badly treated me or others, the things from the previous sentence have brought me enough peace that I haven’t had to end all of my relationships and become a hermit.
Apart from helping myself, I want to help others see that they can also be free, at peace, and enjoy life, even if they’ve been dealt one terrible hand after another. I have a lot of concerns over how many issues are currently being handled, especially since 2020. That’s when I both started taking my own healing super seriously and also started seeing massive negative changes in how others treated themselves and those around them. I feel awful for people who have killed themselves or tried to do so after consuming their prescribed antidepressants, gotten zombified to the point that they couldn’t feel any emotions at all by other prescription drugs, or who have been led to believe that the best they can hope for is to keep ingesting drugs to suppress symptoms they dislike in addition to other drugs to deal with the negative symptoms caused by their primary drugs. I feel immense gratitude that I was never diagnosed with any emotional or mental disorders that many folks nowadays (especially boys and men) are told they have nor was I given tons of drugs to consume. I sometimes wonder if that would have been my fate had I been born just a few years later.
As confident as I feel about what I’m saying here, I do recognize that it’s entirely possible that I’m incorrect about all this and that the major emotional and mental issues I’ve mentioned in this post would still exist even if everyone healed all their trauma, got their sleep sorted out, fixed their breathing issues, had excellent nutrition, got sufficient exercise, made electronic devices their servant instead of their master, and kept company that lifted them up instead of bringing them down. If that is ever shown to be the case, then I’ll apologize straight away. However, even if I’m wrong in my primary position on this, I reckon that any remaining issues would be much easier to address and possibly even solve forever in a world where all humans were as healthy as possible, used technology instead of allowing technology to use them, chose their friends carefully, and had total freedom from trauma.
I understand if you have questions, concerns, and even sharp disagreements at this point. I’ve said a lot in here that will likely be unpopular with many, including those who deal with one or more of the disorders I’ve discussed. My points and conclusions in this post are also quite different than the typical information and ideas that are shared in exchanges around these subjects. It took years for my perspective on all this to come together as much as it has, and I’ve discussed this with hardly anyone so far. However, whenever I think I might be barking up the wrong tree, I keep coming back to my own experiences with trauma healing, improving my sleep, and changing my breathing, as well as the many stories I’ve heard of people who have lived better lives than they ever thought possible through improving one or more of the above areas. The other big factor in all of this is neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to rewire itself. Various life experiences have ability to change the brain, including learning new skills, languages, abilities, ways of thinking, trauma, unfortunately. Fortunately, healing also changes the brain, and, in the process, eliminates many of the symptoms that get grouped together and diagnosed as various disorders. All of those make me think that there’s something to this and prompted me to share my ideas publicly through this post.
I believe that there’s a better way forward that others before me have already found and I want to help make that way better known to more people through this blog. Think about how profoundly positively it changes someone’s life for them to get their nutrition on point, or heal all their trauma, or improve any other single thing I’ve talked about here. Now imagine how much greater the impact would be if they improved all of the areas I’ve mentioned. Imagine how much better their life would be to have so much peace, good health, great relationships, and freedom, and all without having to regularly consume drugs that just treat symptoms while ignoring underlying issues. I see no good reason that that couldn’t be done for anyone who wants it, and I firmly believe that it would create a much better world for everyone if even a fraction of the world’s population experienced this. I’m going to keep healing as much as I can so that I can find out for myself what my life will look like once I’ve climbed to the top of that healing mountain. I hope you will join me so you can find out what’s waiting for you at the top of your own mountain.