Growing up one of my greatest gifts was the love of rational, logical, and empirical science. I loved to understand how things worked, and have always been curious and even cynical to things that didn’t make rational sense. This gift proved to be my greatest friend, but it was also my greatest foe.
A foe because this gift caused a division in how I perceived and understood God. For most of my life was a chess match of determining who was right—the religious teachings I learned in my youth, or the science that left me captivated…
I grew up in a religious household, and community where God was held supreme. Prayer, fasting, tithing, scripture study and so forth were drilled into me from infancy.
When young and innocent I held these things to be fact, but as my intellect became more formed, I started to question much of what I learned in church.
I just couldn’t understand how God and science co-existed. Much of the science I was learning was contradictory to what I learned in church and vice-versa. I was confused and felt I was living a duel life trying to be scientific, but also hold onto faith.
This division between God and science enlarged greatly in my adolescence, when I struggled with suicidal depression, behavioral addictions, and extreme social anxiety. At first, I thought I just had to try harder—“No pain, No gain” right? But, the more I tried the worse I got.
So, next I focused on doing the things which I was taught in church. I prayed, repented, read scriptures, tried to serve others, but still I was going downhill fast.
I had no idea why I felt the way I did, and I scolded myself for my behavior and hid everything I could from everyone else. I put on the mask of being fine, even though I was dying inside.
I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. I was a young Christian boy with a lot of things to be grateful for. So, I just tried to fake it, hoping that someday I would make it. But, the faking it was only making my life more disconnected and hopeless.
Eventually, my father could see through all my masks, and came to me one day, and sat me down to talk. I wouldn’t open up as usual, but he moved on and then handed me a book. “Will you please read this? It would mean a lot to me if you would?” He asked. “This book really helped me when I was younger and having a hard time.”
I promised that I would read it, and I am so glad that I did, because in so many ways that book changed my life. This book was about research done by a plastic surgeon, who had done research and development about the science of positive self-image and positive thinking. At first I was skeptical to the concepts, but the book was presented in a logical way, and as any good scientist should do—I decided I would test it.
I spent the next few months teaching my brain the habit of positive thinking, and would you know it—my depression started to go away. After 6 months it was completely gone. This left me empowered and I thought “If I can overcome depression from a book on a science.” Maybe I can overcome addiction and anxiety too by similar means.”
This divided me further from God because I didn’t perceive my improvement from depression to be appointed from a divine source but from science.
Next goal, was for me to find a way to fix social anxiety and to stop indulging in a behavioral addiction which was my menace. Positive thinking helped slightly with these, but not much. But, because of my success with the last book, I decided I just had to find the right books which will have the right “scientific techniques” to employ, and then I will conquer those also.
So, I searched for books with these solutions. For one thing though, NOTHING back then ever worked for my behavioral addiction, expect pure grit, will-power, and cue avoidance, but as for social anxiety I found many books on the science of making friends and influencing others.
I learned technique after technique of how to lubricate the tongue in order to get people to like me. This in turn didn’t work as well or as fast as positive thinking technique did for depression, but it was working all the same, and social anxiety lessened, to the point that I at least could start to talk to girls and score a few dates, and eventually to persuade my beautiful wife into marrying me.
One more score for science, which further lengthened my division from God.
By now in my life, I was becoming more and more cynical to spiritual things, because my saving grace each time with coping with my disorders hadn’t been church, but science.
My love for science and the empowerment it gave me grew and grew, but I realized not all science was created equal. The theories out there were vast, so which ones would I believe? Well, at this point I was in my core curriculum in college, working my way towards a bachelors in science. The science that seemed to me most accurate at this stage were the sciences I was learning in school. They had tons of research, did all they could to prevent confounding variables, and were for the most part—logical.
At this time, I grew to love the health sciences and wanted to be a healthcare practitioner of some sort. At first, I wanted to be a psychiatrist because the brain fascinated me more than anything else, but I learned I hated negativity, and I couldn’t handle hearing people complain. So, I knew psychology wouldn’t pan out. Next, I thought surgeon, but that wasn’t quite right.
Lastly, I came to the idea of pharmacist and everything clicked. It just felt right. It was good pay. It had good hours. I wouldn’t be on call on the weekends.
So, I went through the process of getting my doctor of pharmacy degree.
I had made it! I had my profession in science, I had a great wife, I bought a home, and then I had four children. I had gotten everything that I had hoped for as a child. I was living the American dream. But, I was perplexed to the fact that my life didn’t feel so dreamy. I knew something was missing. I was content, but not happy.
Not happy, because I always had to keep my guards up because depression, social anxiety, and addiction never really went away. I had created coping techniques to keep them dormant and manageable for the most part. But, NEVER were they conquered.
I started to realize that during all of this time, I was never FIXING the problem, but was just covering them up, with techniques, “brain hacks”, and other coping strategies. But, no matter how big the strategy was, eventually the disorders would relapse and resurface.
Take depression for example. After I became skilled in the habit of positive thinking, it seemed depression would still rear its ugly fangs in me from time to time, when life got hard. But, then I would respond by even more clearly defined positive thinking to get back on top of it.
In fact, my positive thinking became so compulsive that I wouldn’t allow anyone to complain or vent to me. Because I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t handle the least bit of negativity from others. I couldn’t “mourn with those who mourn.” Or I would get depressed. This left my wife and kids alone in their struggles because I “Didn’t want to hear it.”
Moreover, my social techniques, and stress reduction techniques also followed suite. I had to do more and more of those techniques as time went on to keep anxiety, stress, and depression at bay.
Eventually, my life was so full of incorporating all of these “coping techniques/brain hacks” just to keep my “mental issues” at bay, that my brain, and body reached exhaustion. I was stressed to the max. And I didn’t even know why.
But I grew up with the perception that good health came from good “Coping” techniques to deal with stress. I wondered, if I had had it wrong all those years, because I was doing everything I could to cope. But, it was no longer working, and I my mind and body were stressed.
At first, I was in denial about all the stress because I still kept a relaxed attitude. I thought because I kept a demeanor that was totally chill that I wasn't stressed out. Because stressed people were frantic right?
But, I was wrong. I could no longer deny the stress once my overwhelmed mind and body developed a chronic pain and fatigue syndrome. Constant headache, fatigue, nausea, chronic flem, arthritic pain, and shootings pins and needles sensations in my neck, back, chest became my daily companion. FOR 5 YEARS STRAIGHT!
I tried to keep up the positivity, but eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. And depression was regaining a stronghold. But, this was unacceptable to me. I made a vow it would NEVER overtake me again.
Depression was the one thing in life that I absolutely loathed. It is the worst feeling in the world. Feeling hopeless, and wanting nothing more but to not exist. It is the darkest despair. And I was not going back there!
But, I didn’t know how to stop it. I had hit bottom, and I took inventory of my life. I still was suffering with the issues I had been battling since adolescence of depression, addiction, social anxiety, and now to top it off I even had a chronic pain disorder.
I was living a lie, believing that I had found a cure to my disorders by a science, when in reality the science I was following said exactly the opposite—that these disorders are all chronic and progressive, that statistically speaking will NEVER heal. That I just had to learn how to “cope” with them.
But coping strategies were getting unmanageable. I was sinking into depression, and my body was dying. I knew I had to stop just covering up the problem. I had to fix it. But, I didn’t even know what the problem was?
I didn’t know why these things were a constant battle in my life? Is it really true that chronic progressive disorders are unfixable?
I had to find that answer…
When I looked at the data, I found that this was generally the case, but then there were the outliers, the anomalys. Many people just call them the “lucky ones” or the “miracles”.
But, as a man of science I didn’t believe people could just defy scientific laws. There is no such thing as luck when it comes to defying universal laws of science.
For example, people can’t defy laws of gravity, some may think an airplane defies gravity, but it doesn’t. Engineers of planes understand the laws of gravity and then use the laws of lift to counteract the gravity.
So, if we cannot defy these laws, then we must conclude two things if we see the results of the ones who defy the odds to be lucky: 1) We should realize that we do not have a full comprehension of the laws if we can't understand how the outliers do it. And 2) We must conclude that the "Lucky Ones" do something DIFFERENT than the ones who get stuck in their disorders.
But, I didn’t know what those “lucky ones” were doing differently than what I was doing. The medical science I was following didn’t have that answer. I went to physician after physician and couldn’t find it. I “Yahooed”, “Googled” and “Binged” ever thing I could but was only getting more confused with the overload of data to be found.
I was lost in a sea of information and I couldn’t figure it out by science and logic.
This was a miss for science. But what about God?
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and succumbed to my last resort, and prayed vigorously to the God that I no longer believed in for answers. After a short time of prayers and faith, I received an answer…
The answer came during the most mind boggling spiritual experience of my life. I can’t even put it into words, all except the epiphany that radiated in my head...
That all my issues were the result of just one thing—misunderstood emotions.
After that experience, I realized I had to understand emotions, and stop just “numbing them out with all my coping techniques.” But, where would I turn to find reliable information?
I first looked for answers within standard health literature like how I was taught in school. But, to my dismay, I found very little in standard healthcare literature about the science of emotion. I was confused and even upset that I spent almost $200,000 for my health degree but I learned very little about emotions.
But, why, why didn’t healthcare focus more on emotions and changing them for the better?
I found the answer—it is because healthcare science is based upon the health of the population as a whole. And within that population the science just looks for anything that can change health outcomes by a statistically significant degree for the whole population.
But, statistically speaking only a very small portion of the population actually ever changes their emotional state from the emotional state predisposed to them by their own genetics. Therefore, because this is such a small data set, the data wouldn’t show: that in the treatment of the masses, the alteration of emotional habits, would elicit a statistically significant positive change in public health.
Moreover, the standard health sciences find that the only statistically significant changes in health with regards to emotions are when people employ positive “Coping Techniques” and strategies to deal with stress and emotions. But, as I stated earlier, these techniques only cover up the problem, and do NOT fix them.
In fact, my research shows that in the long run, techniques to cover up emotional weaknesses only allow emotional tendencies to progress and fester. Requiring greater and greater doses of “Coping” in order to mask the underlying disorder. It is the treatment of only treating a symptom while completely ignoring the root cause.
So, now you may have already figured out what the “lucky ones” or “miracles” do which transform their lives, which the rest of us do not do.
The “lucky ones” have a “change of heart”. Or In other words they change their emotional state of being from the emotional state predisposed to them by their genetics and their environment to a NEW emotional state. They do this whether intentionally or unintentionally. They move beyond “coping techniques” and change the way their brains interpret the world.
Now, many skeptics will say that my research is not valid because much of it doesn’t come from double blind, placebo compared healthcare studies. But, as I just stated this data set is such a small population that you will not find clear results this way.
Moreover, you may ask then why not have the “miracles” all be part of a double blind study? Well its simple, these people have more important things to do than to be a guiney pigs. After their “Change of Heart” they usually go on to try to change the world into a better place. All we can do is research their stories and find patterns.
And this is what I have done. I have researched these “lucky ones” and then I have integrated my new knowledge with my current knowledge of what I have learned in my healthcare degree, to create the most comprehensive theory that I know of that explains the disorders of addiction, depression and chronic pain disorders.
Next you may be asking, so where exactly did I find my data on changing emotions, and also where did I find the stories of the “lucky ones” who conquered major disorders?
Well because I found very little information about changing emotional states in health literature, I had to think outside the box, and follow my intuition. Intuition first told me to start by looking at the references that came from the marriage conference were I had my big spiritual epiphany. (If you haven’t heard MY STORY yet, Click Here). The presenters seemed to know a lot about emotions so I started there.
Most of the book references from the marriage conference were from the entrepreneur/success space in the self-help industry. In the sciences of success psychology. This is where I found heaps of great information and case studies from the likes of authors/researchers such as: Napolean Hill, Steven Covey, Bob Proctor. Plus much, much, more.
When I first started reading this literature I thought it was a little out there. I thought it seemed a little too good to be true. But, it was based upon principles of science. The researcher all looked for patterns, they tried to account for variables, they put everything together into a theory, and then those theories were tested. I saw points of data, after points of data which demonstrated what helped ordinary or should I even say weak people transform to do extraordinary things.
Really, when I first started reading books like “Think and Grow Rich,” from Napoleon Hill I felt a little uneasy, because I really didn’t care much about getting rich. I was already content financially and I didn’t want to be greedy.
But, what I did want was to learn how to fix my health, by learning about emotions. And I must say that even though books like these are not perfect, they brought me to an understanding of how much more we could become, if we just took control of our minds, and managed our thoughts and our EMOTIONS.
I was still very skeptical though—and at this point, I still hadn’t had much relief to my disorders, because even though I had a spiritual experience, I still hadn’t changed my emotions because I still hadn’t done any work to do so. All I had done was study. I understood the concept but had to incorporate those concepts into my life in order to have results.
So, the next thing I decided to do was my own science experiment. I tested out the concepts of these success books for a few months and was amazed at the change to my health.
It worked!! It worked great! It worked better than I expected. I was blown away with how much my energy levels and health changed by following these “success” principles.
But, I was confused. These books explained well how these concepts helped to build wealth, but I wanted to know how these concepts affected health to a more logical degree. I had to know. I had to know why my health, energy and joy in life was changing so dramatically. Most of all I had to know why the chronic disorders I was constantly battling throughout life were drastically changing and healing right before my eyes.
I HAD TO KNOW WHY! I had to KNOW the science!
I made a vow right then, that I would figure that question out, refine it, and then share it with the world so that others could know step-by-step what needs to be done to have similar results. At that point I wanted nothing other than to be able to help those who were willing to put in the work, to be able to conquer their disorders, from the emotional roots up.
So, I searched vigorously in success psychology to find that why, and I found pieces here and there that helped me develop my understanding, however, I was still confused about many things. But, still I progressed on...
After, finding many pieces of the puzzle but, before I had a full understanding of the data, I decided that I needed to start learning how to market my research/ideas to the world. I knew that in the world today with all the distractions, that I wasn’t going to capture anyone’s attention without knowing the science of how to market my ideas.
It was during this time when I started to study the science of marketing/persuasion that I unexpectedly, found many answers to questions that had previously perplexed me about emotions.
The study of marketing/influence is about what gets people to buy into new things and ideas. And do you want to know what is that “THING” that gets people to buy—EMOTIONS. Emotions create the majority of our decisions and behavior. Therefore, marketing is all about understanding the tendencies of emotion, and then directing those feelings towards a sell, and this science was a wealth of knowledge in understanding emotions.
Lastly, I integrated everything together: standard healthcare science, success psychology, marketing science, and most importantly my own experiences to test and validate all of the information.
Then, I had to see if my theory worked and resonated with others, so I started sharing it. And guess what—it works, it helps others find more freedom, and it makes a lot of logical sense.
This theory is the most comprehensive and logical explanation that I have ever seen of how emotions work, and how they, NOT GENETICS, are the CORE producer of clinical depression, addiction and chronic pain disorders.
It only appears genetics are the core producer of these disorders because genetics are by far the strongest INFLUENCER on someone’s emotional state and emotional tendencies. Breaking away from this “default” emotional state created by our genes takes work, and perseverance, BUT emotional habits and tendencies can be changed. DNA on the other hand, not so easy unless you want to be a mutant…
In conclusion, I must say that this journey has transformed me. My health, my relationships, and my excitement for each day has exceeded all my expectations. Plus,not only have I found something that has worked for me, but it is also working for others, and in some way I know that God has been a part of it.
Moreover, even though it has taken many years for me to subdue my pride, I have learned that the only way I find sustainable health is when I find a balance between logic and intuition. Between the known and the unknown. Between science and God.
And, as for the chess match which we often play, of who is right--God or science. I have finally found that there can be no loser or winner, because they are ONE. Both are on the same side. God is science, and He rules by His laws. However, our science isn't always His, because of our lack of comprehension. But as we fine tune our methods, grow in enlightenment and start to relinquish the con-founders. We find that God was at the center all along.
For a condensed version which includes book references-Click Here
