Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Dealing with the Loss Generated by Change
By definition, transformation produces both gain and loss. Recovery and self-empowerment regain what has been stolen, misplaced, or lost. For social anxiety, it is our emotional well-being and quality of life. In self-empowerment, it is our self-esteem and motivation. By regaining these things, we lose their negative attributions. When we transform our adverse habits and create healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities, we concurrently experience the loss of the old.
In our renewed self-appreciation, however, we often fail to consider the emotional consequence of loss, which can be in the form of bad habits, addictions, or negative neural energy. We are impacted by an absence in our prior gestalt.
Replacement Creates Loss
To replace is to take the place of something. That something is, ostensibly, no longer extant. It is important to appreciate the sense of loss we experience, for example, when we moderate our adverse thoughts and behaviors. Even though we compensate with healthy substitutions, we are impacted by the residual effects of that which has been replaced.
Why is it important to be mindful of this loss? Because it affects us psychologically and physiologically. It is human nature to experience the loss of things that have been part and parcel of our being for years. In early recovery, this can have adverse emotional consequences. We are still fragile to change. Awareness of this inevitability, no matter how inappreciable, can help circumvent any potential recidivism.
To recover is to transform – to effect a rigorous and dramatic change in form and nature. Transformation changes our sense of identity, compelling us to reevaluate our attitudes, rules, and assumptions. It causes a readjustment in our behaviors and our perspective. It refocuses our cognitive efforts.
Through proactive neuroplasticity, we change the form and configuration of our neural network. It loses and gains synapses, causes neurogenesis, and rewires circuits. We experience loss when we replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones. In regaining our self-esteem, we lose the negative self-qualities that disrupted its growth. Hence, our form and nature change. This metamorphosis is evidence of the power of transformation. We are not the same entity. It is natural, however, to miss the former.
Our Resistance to Change
We are genetically hard-wired to resist change. We are physiologically structured to attack anything that disrupts our equilibrium. Experiencing loss produces changes in our heart rate, metabolism, and respiration. Inertia senses and resists these changes, while our basal ganglia oppose any modification in our patterns of behavior. A key part of our neural network, the basil ganglia is also involved in processes like emotions, motivations, and habits, so we are psychologically impacted by change as well.
Neurological Impact
We know that our neural network does not distinguish healthy from toxic information. It provides the same benefits whether the stimulus is negative or positive. It reciprocates the energy of that information in abundance, It activates the same long-term potentiation, provides the same BDNFproteins associated with improved cognitive functioning, and the same fifty or so chemical hormones that support us physiologically and psychologically.
Loss can also provoke confusion and depression, generate feelings of guilt, and cause us to withdraw from friends and activities. Mindfulness and preparedness effectively moderate any adverse reactions. As the godfather of positive psychology Abraham Maslow assures us, “…the loss of illusions and the discovery of identity, though painful at first, can be ultimately exhilarating and strengthening.”
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
It’s Not Your Fault!
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Part Deux – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Social anxiety is not behavior caused. We did not make it happen; it happened to us. Emotional malfunction is the consequence of childhood disturbance. Social anxiety sensed our vulnerability and infected us during adolescence. We did not ask for or encourage it. It is not retribution for immortal conduct or disagreeable habits. It is indiscriminate and ubiquitous and afflicts at least one in four adults and adolescents.
Attributions
We have examined the multiple reasons we resist recovery. Public opinion, the media, the pathographic focus of psychology, stigma, and even our families deter us from revealing our social anxiety. These external attributions to our resistance are the tip of the iceberg, however.
We contribute our baggage as well. Many of us choose to remain ignorant of SAD’s destructive capabilities. Some go to enormous lengths to remain oblivious to its symptoms as if, by ignoring them, they do not exist or will somehow go away.
We cling to irrational and misguided assumptions due to our willful pursuit of ignorance or fears of revelation. We avoid confrontation due to unjustifiable shame and guilt.
Cumulative evidence that a toxic childhood is a primary causal factor in emotional instability or insecurity has been well established. During the development of our core beliefs, we are subject to a childhood disturbance – a broad and generic term for anything that interferes with our optimal physical, cognitive, emotional, or social development. SAD senses our vulnerability and swoops in, negatively impacting our emotional well-being and quality of life.
When we research its origins, we uncover the likelihood no one is responsible. The disturbance may be accidental or intentional, real or perceptual. The suggestibility of a child is legendary. A toddler whose parental quality time is disrupted by a phone call may develop a sense of abandonment. Nonetheless, as I’ve said before, while not liable for the cards we have been dealt, we are responsible for how we play the hand we hold.
The negative cycle we find ourselves in has convinced us that there is something wrong with us when the only thing we are doing is viewing ourselves and the world inaccurately. That is a natural reaction to our symptoms. SAD sustains itself by feeding us irrational thoughts and behaviors.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
We are Not Alone
Roughly, 124 million U.S. adults and adolescents experience anxiety disorders. 60% of those have depression, and far too many resort to substance abuse. Anxiety and depression are the primary causes of the notable increase in adolescent suicide over the last decade. An estimated 40 million U.S. adults experience social anxiety disorder and roughly one-in-three college students have a lifetime anxiety disorder diagnosis. So, when you start to sweat and hyperventilate at a social event, remember, you are in good company. Social anxiety is common, universal, and indiscriminate.
It is Not the Consequence of Our Behaviors
Combined statistics reveal that the vast majority of emotional malfunction onsets at adolescence or earlier. Excepting conditions like PTSD or clinical narcissism that impact later in life, the susceptibility to disorders originates in childhood. Emotional malfunction is hereditary, environmental, or the result of trauma. Perhaps parents are controlling or do not provide emotional validation. Maybe we were subjected to bullying or from a broken home. Behaviors later in life may impact the severity but are not responsible for the condition itself. While our lifetime behavior can impact the severity, the origins of our malfunction happen in childhood. This disputes moral models that we are to blame for our disorder, or that it is God’s punishment for sin.
We are Not Mental
Not only is the description inaccurate, but it promotes hostile perceptions of incompetence and derangement. It is the dominant source of stigma, guilt, and self-loathing. The word mental defines a person or their behavior as extreme or illogical. In adolescence, anyone unpopular or different was a mentalcase or a retard. The urban dictionary defines mental as someone silly or simpleminded. It is often associated withviolent or divisive behavior.Add the words illness or disorder and we have the public stereotype of the dangerous and unpredictable individual who cannot fend for themselves and should be isolated. Emotional malfunction is not ‘mental,’ biologic, hygienic, neurochemical, or psychogenic, but all of these things.
To the early civilizations, mental illnesses were the domain of supernatural forces and demonic possession. Hippocrates and diagnosticians of the 19th century favored the humours (bodily liquids). Lunar influence, sorcery, and witchcraft are timeless culprits. In the early 20th century, it was somatogenic. The biological approach argues that disorder is due to our brain’s physical structure and functioning. The pharmacological approach promotes it as a brain chemistry imbalance. The first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1952) leaned heavily on environmental and biological causes. Social anxiety sustains itself through the simultaneous mutual interaction of mind, body, spirit, and emotions.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
We are Hopeful, Powerful, Desirable, and Worthwhile
In his extensive examination of anxiety and depression, Aaron Beck, the pioneer of cognitive-behavioral therapy, asserted that social anxiety generates feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and unworthiness. The concept of undesirability revealed itself in my SAD recovery workshops. Until we commit to recovery, we continue to be guided by these destructive self-beliefs.
We are not helpless unless we choose to be. Multiple resources are available to anyone with the motivation and commitment to recover.
Likewise, we are not hopeless. Once we recognize the irrationality of our fears, we see them for what they are: powerless abstractions.
We are not undesirable. SAD compels us to view ourselves inaccurately. It reinforces or justifies our negative self-image, convincing us our cognitive distortions are the truths of a situation instead of emotional interpretations.Our fears and anxieties manifest in how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process that information. Any assumption of undesirability is self-centered and irrational.
We are not worthless but integral and consequential to all things. We are unique in every aspect; there is no one like us. We are the totality of our experiences, beliefs, perceptions, demands, and desires with unique DNA, fingerprints, and outer ears. There is and never has been a single human being with our sensibilities, our memories, our motivations, and our dreams.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
Yet, we continue to beat ourselves up for our perceptual inadequacies. We blame ourselves for our defects as if they are the pervading forces of our true being, rather than symptoms of our dysfunction.
We are not defined by our social anxiety disorder but by our character strengths, virtues, and achievements. When we break our leg do we become that injured limb or are we simply an Individual with a broken leg?
To moderate our social anxiety, we identify the situations that provoke them. Further self-examination unpacks the associated fears and corresponding negative thoughts and behaviors. We need to know the enemy to conquer it. We cannot fix the complexity of our emotional malfunction unless we know what is broken. SAD is the most underrated, misunderstood, and misdiagnosed disorder. Nicknamed the neglected anxiety disorder, few professionals understand it, and fewer know how to challenge it. One has to experience it to know it.
We dread situations that provoke our fears of criticism and ridicule. We anticipate being judged negatively. We reject overtures anticipating rejection. Unless we are fortune tellers or mind-readers, assuming to know what another person is thinking or planning is irrational. It is a symptom of our condition.
We worry we might do or say something foolish. Fretting about something that may or may not happen is illogical. If it happens, it happens. We learn from it and move on. Avoiding doing things or speaking to people out of fear of embarrassment eliminates opportunities and diminishes possibilities.
Once we know ourselves and know the enemy, nothing is standing in the way of recovery. The process is theoretically simple, albeit time-consuming, repetitive, and personally revealing. However, the rewards dramatically outweigh the commitment.
SAD sustains itself by inflicting anxiety and fear, but they have no power on their own. We fuel them; we give them strength and power. We control our emotional well-being and quality of life, and only we can compel change. The onus of recovery is on us.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
The Role of Active Neuroplasticity
We learn through hemispheric synchronization. Both hemispheres of our brain are exploited in recovery workshops. Their collaboration reinforces and strengthens neural restructuring. Hemispheric synchronization is a state of consciousness where both the right and left sides of the brain work together. This accelerates and consolidates our three goals or strategies: to (1) replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones (2) produce rapid, neurological stimulation to restructure the polarity of our neural network, and (3) regenerate our self-esteem.
Both proactive and active neuroplasticity are necessary for optimal recovery from emotional malfunction. They are the two processes of what Jeffrey Schwartz coined, self-directed neuroplasticity. Our brain’s right hemisphere is responsible for our emotions, creativity, intuition, and imagination. That is the function of active neuroplasticity. Proactive neuroplasticity attends to the rational, analytical, and quantitative pursuits of the left hemisphere.
Neuroplasticity
Plasticity is the quality of being easily shaped or molded. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s continuous adaptation and restructuring to information.Science recognizes that our neural network is dynamic and malleable – realigning its pathways and rebuilding its circuits in response to all stimuli.
The definition of recovery is regainingpossession or control of something stolen or lost. Self-empowerment is making a conscious decision to become stronger and more confident in controlling our lives. In neuroses such as anxiety, depression, and comorbidities, what has been stolen or lost is our emotional well-being and quality of life. In self-empowerment, it is the loss of self-esteem and motivation. So, both recovery and self-empowerment deal with regaining what has been lost. And both are accomplished through neuroplasticity.
We accelerate and consolidate learning and unlearning by compelling our brains to restructure their neural circuitry. This confirms that our emotional well-being is self-determined. While we are impacted by outside forces over which we have limited to no control – life’s vicissitudes, physical deterioration, subjected hostilities – our psychological health is determined by how we react to things. How we respond to adversity as well as fortune and opportunity. The onus of recovery and self-empowerment rests with us. We control our emotional well-being.
If there is an underlying theme in recovery and self-empowerment, it is that we are not defined by our faults and defects, but by our character strengths, virtues, and attributes, rediscovered and affirmed utilizing a synthesis of targeted scientific and psychological approaches. Mindfulness of this strengthens our self-reliance, reboots our self-esteem, and promotes positive neural repatterning.
Human Neuroplasticity
Through neuroplasticity, we consciously and deliberately transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities. Our informed and deliberate engagement provokes change rather than reacting and responding to it. Information alerts a receptor neuron that sends electrical information to a sensory neuron, stimulating presynaptic neurons that forward it to millions of participating neurons, causing a cellular chain reaction in multiple interconnected areas of our brain.
Additionally, deliberate neuroplasticity activates long-term potentiation, which increases the strength of the nerve impulses along the connecting pathways, generating more energy. Additionally, the process creates higher levels of BDNF(brain-derived neurotrophic factors) –proteins associated with improved cognitive functioning, mental health, and memory.
The neural chain reaction generated by repetition reciprocates, in abundance, the energy of the information. Millions of neurons amplify the electrical activity on a massive scale. Positive information in, positive energy reciprocated in abundance. Conversely, negative information in, negative energy reciprocated in abundance. Thus, the value of positive reinforcement.
The heightened activity of our axon pathways boosts the neurotransmissions of chemical hormones, feeding us GABA for relaxation, dopamine for pleasure and motivation, endorphins to boost our self-esteem, and serotonin for a sense of well-being. Acetylcholine supports neuroplasticity, glutamate enhances our memory, and noradrenalin improves concentration. T date, neuroscientists have discovered over fifty chemical hormones.
Three Forms
Human neuroplasticity happens in three forms. Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural response to things over which we have limited to no control – stimuli we absorb but do not initiate or focus on. A car alarm, lightning, the smell of baked goods. Our neural network automatically restructures itself to what happens around us.
Active neuroplasticity happens through intentional pursuits like creating, yoga, and journaling. We control active neuroplasticity because we consciously choose the activity. A significant component of active neuroplasticity is our altruistic and compassionate social behavior, e.g., teaching, compassion, and random acts of kindness.
Proactive neuroplasticity is rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network from toxic to positive. This is best consummated by DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive neural input of information.
What is significant is our ability to deliberately accelerate and consolidate learning and unlearning. Over the years our brain structures itself around negative neural input, forming in childhood and increasing exponentially due to our inherent negativity bias and the vicissitudes of life. The primary objective in recovery and self-empowerment is replacing or overwhelming that negative information with positive neural input.
Proactive Neuroplasticity
Proactive neuroplasticity is the most effective method of positive neural restructuring. Through the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information (DRNI), we compel our brains to change their negative polarity to positive. The process has its limitations, however. Restructuring our neural structure achieves one goal of recovery. It is executed by our brain’s left hemisphere – the analytical part responsible for rational thinking. We are still concerned with replacing our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones, and regenerating our self-esteem.
Proactive neuroplasticity attends to the mental and the rational, while active neuroplasticity the emotional, social, and spiritual. What the former lacks in productivity is fulfilled by the latter. They complete each other.
Active Neuroplasticity
Active neuroplasticity focuses on replacing our self-destructive thoughts and behaviors while simultaneously regenerating our self-esteem. Creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities also requires positive and repetitive neural input. Active neuroplasticity happens through intentional pursuits geared towards counteracting the years of adverse neural input. To transform our thoughts and behaviors we move our focus away from the negative towards a more balanced perspective by rediscovering and utilizing the character strengths, virtues, and attributes disrupted by our emotional malfunction.
We pay attention to our bodies through exercise, dancing, and yoga. We improve our cognitive functions through culture, creativity, and other mental pursuits. Introspection, meditation, and self-compassion enhance our spirit.
The brilliant simplicity of the eightfold path of Abhidharma psychology comes to mind here: right understanding, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. Equally important are good intention and logical choice.
Beyond the synthetic and creative products of active neuroplasticity is our ethical and compassionate social behavior. Contributions to others and society are extraordinary assets to neural restructuring. The value of volunteering – providing support, empathy, and concern for those in need – is extraordinary, not only in promoting positive behavioral change but in our neural restructuring. The social interconnectedness established by caring interconnectivity augments the regeneration of our self-esteem and self-appreciation.
Necessary Collaboration
Both proactive and active neuroplasticity assist in the positive transformation of our thoughts and behaviors. Their collaboration reinforces and strengthens neural restructuring. Proactive neuroplasticity (rational, analytical, and quantitative, DRNI) is self-oriented; active neuroplasticity (emotional, creative, intuitive, qualitative) is both self- and other-oriented. Their activities collaborate as do our two hemispheres and the left and right sides of our physical structure.
Gestalt psychology considers the human mind and behavior as a whole. Radical behaviorism not only considers observable behaviors but also the diversity of human thought and experience. That calls for a collaboration of science, philosophy, and psychology. Philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight. Neuroscience is supported by proactive neuroplasticity and psychology by active neuroplasticity. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Self-Esteem/Self-Appreciation
Self-esteem is mindfulness of our qualities and character as well as our defects. It is how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process that information. Healthy self-esteem tells us we are of value, consequential, and desirable. The inherent byproduct of healthy self-esteem is self-appreciation. It is self-esteem paid forward. The consolidation of our self-regard and the recognition of what we have to offer drives us to share it with others. Self-appreciation is the natural evolution of self-esteem.
Proactive and active neuroplasticity are necessary formidable tools for neural restructuring, the regeneration of our self-esteem and appreciation, and the corresponding positive transformation of our thoughts and behaviors.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
