Comment 2 to Janov's Reflection on Awareness and consciousness

First when You did not hear me and did not publish my comment with some quotes from M. Feldenkrais, it disappointed me. Wether You did not dare to disclose it for some reasons, or if you want to keep your Reflections orthodox, is of less importance. It had the result that I tried to put F.’s definition into my own experiences.

During my horrorfilled birth process parts of my head, arms and legs were numbed and during stressful situations the same thing repeated and happened for decades. For many years, behind it all, I had consciousness of a pain that was possible to get rid of. When I read the Primal Scream, I became aware of my pain behind my epilepsy. Later with a harmonious Primal awareness/consciousness, I could benefit and explain the consequences of the far too reckless Rolfingsessions in Boulder 1979. I lived the pain, the fight for life and death over and over again for years and became increasingly conscious of my real feelings. I felt relived when I no longer needed part of my neurotic, leftside, intellectual act outs to protect me against my pain.

Now, doing Rolfingsessions for the second time I am somewhat surprised and pleased to experience how the numbness from birth has stayed and grown solid in crucial parts of my body’s muscles and fascia. When trying to change these conditions I realize that the left brain’s awareness is not knowing how deep lying, unconscious, realities are working. However, introducing the basic movements according to the gravity, I am starting to get aware of my consciousness, and my feelings and reactions are getting better and more natural.

It seems all complicated when I try to describe it in a compressed few sentences. Seen over a lifetime it is a marvellous, real, liberating feeling to be both aware and conscious. ”Evolution in reverse”.

Jan Johnsson

PS

You always wonder why You write when there are so many bright people out there who turn a phrase better than You? As in Primal Therapy we all need a wise catalyst!

Janov's Reflection on "More on the Difference Between Awareness and Consciousness"

More on the Difference Between Awareness and Consciousness

May I respectfully suggest that most of the current problems in psychotherapy today lie in the inability to differentiate between awareness and consciousness; thus, the cognitivists and insight therapist believe that if the patient is aware she will make progress. And I suggest that awareness has little to do with progress unless you are happy to get well from the neck up and leave the body behind.

So, let’s define things: awareness involves the last evolved neurologic system, the neocortex where ideas, beliefs and perceptions lie. Consciousness involves the three levels of consciousness, the three key brain systems working in harmony and fluidity. Consciousness involves all of us and particularly our history. Awareness is ahistoric and since we are historic beings we cannot hope to get well if we leave our past behind; if we ignore our history and what happened to us from our life in the womb onward.

When we rely on awareness we are dealing with a thin sliver of brain function, disconnected from physiologic processes which areprimal the motor for how and what we think. Thinking and beliefs (which is what we are asked to do in cognitive therapy, believe the therapy and therapist) are ultimately malleable and change with the wind; not so with lower brain processes which involved survival, and should not be so malleable. When we rely on awareness we are avoiding our life blood, our feelings; that is what makes us feeling human beings.

Why is feeling so important? When we speak of “quality of life,” we are dealing with feeling. So we have one brain, the left, that is fragmented and the other that sees the whole. To become whole we must manage to recruit the fragments of our lives into a complete picture; for that we need both brains hemispheres working in harmony. That is one definition of consciousness and its differentiation from awareness. In therapy we see how this works when after a feeling, the patient will begin a litany of, “That’s why I did this and why I did that.” The fragmented behavior begins to make total sense. It has a gestalt context—consciousness out of unconsciousness.

The Problem with Left Brain-Centered Psychotherapy:

Unfortunately, we tend to glorify left brain awareness to the neglect of the right feeling brain. We expect the left brain to fight our battles, particularly, the internal enemies. We do this without taking into account that left-brain development came into being much later in evolutionary history than the right brain, and in each of our individual lives, in part as a means of disengaging us from the other side. One kind of brain tissue cannot do the work of another. The left brain developed different abilities to avoid a redundancy between left and right. The left brain’s activity helps soothe and calm us. It allowed and continues to allow us to defend against feelings that were too much to bear. We use the left hemisphere to rationalize a hurt or insult so it won’t create so much pain. Or at the mercy of needs of which we may be only dimly aware, the left brain can superimpose all kinds of needs onto a romantic object and imagine her to be wonderful, only to be disappointed two years down the line because it didn’t see reality. It didn’t listen to the right because communication was either reduced or non-existent. When perception is detached from need and feeling, we misperceive. For instance, if we need a strong protector, we will overlook the other person’s weaknesses and ignore his flaws. We "see" protection where it may not exist, or we get protection accompanied by total domination.

It is difficult to know what is real about humans if we take words alone as a sign of reality.

The left frontal area is also where we conjure up or embrace beliefs(*). Insights given by a therapist are ultimately beliefs to soothe and ease pain. So of course the therapy patient feels better after a session. She has knocked down painful feelings; that is one of the key roles of the top level neocortex—suppress feelings. Indeed, the words of a therapist, no matter whether right or wrong, can be soothing to our agonies. It is not only the content of what the therapist says, but just his words offered in soothing tones. Oddly enough, that tone affects the right brain, not the left. The content of the insight remains in the left. We can be fooled into thinking that the content of an insight is what makes us feel better, but in reality it is the reassuring tone, all along. It dampens right side pain, the pain of a father who never cared, was never soft, and whose tone was unrelentingly harsh. The therapist’s presence says, “I’m here now. It’s going to be all right.” Just being in his office can make us feel better. In other words, the left side allows us to be partially oblivious to ourselves. This is particularly egregious when it comes to psychotherapy, which traditionally has been left brain focused for over 100 years.

It is now apparent, due to an abundance of new research, that psychotherapy must address the right brain and consider how to affect right-left brain connections—as this is the way feelings become integrated. Psychotherapy must work to help not only ourmental state but our entire neuro-physiologic system. This is the difference between dealing with words (left brain) and the use of images, scenes, and feelings (right brain). The former is what occurs when we “reflect” on our past, while genuine emotional retrieval, which is what is needed for integration and genuine healing, requires access to the right brain feeling structures. Once again we see that it is not possible to use ideas and thinking processes, which literally came along millions of years later in brain development to affect what is lower in the brain, and developed millions earlier.


(*) The right frontal area is as involved as the left, although the contributions to the ideas are different. The right will tend to “like” grander ideas.

Jan Johnsson's comments:

Consciousness and awareness

I  am confused re. the definition of consciousness and awareness. It is one of the important reasons that I started again to spend time with Rolfing (and Feldenkrais) to find out of the essential difference between c. and a. (the borders are certainly not clear in our use of the language) and to be able to charge certain processes to be aware and in control of the involuntare muscles, senses, emotions and creative abilities.

The following quotations from ”Awareness from Movements” (http://www.spiritual-minds.com/easternrelgions/Meditation/Awareness%20Through%20Movement-Health%20Exercise%20for%20Personal%20Growth%20-%20Moshe%20Feldenkrais.pdf), together with your Reflections bring my confusion to a more positive, improved, level:

All the more highly developed animals have an adequate amount of consciousness. They know the surroundings in which they live and their place within the family group, herd, or flock. Man is endowed with not only a more highly developed consciousness but with a specific capacity for abstraction. 

That enables him to distinguish and to know what is happening within him when he uses this power. Thus, he may know whether he does or does not understand something he knows. He is capable of a still higher form of abstraction that enables him to evaluate his state of abstraction and the extent to which he uses it. He can tell whether he is using his full power of awareness in order to know, and wether he realizes that he does not know something.

Awareness is consciousness together with the realization of what is happening within it or of what is going on within ourselves while we are conscious. Abstraction is the basis of verbalization. Abstract thought and verbalization capture the most prestigious place in science and social achievement. However, at the same time abstraction and verbalization become a dictator who deprives the individual of concrete reality; this in turn, causes severe disturbances in the harmony of most human activities. Frequently the degree of disturbance borders on mental and physical illness and causes premature senility. As verbal abstraction becomes more successful and more efficient, man’s thinking and imagination get further estranged from his feelings, senses, and even movements. 

In my bright moments when I am capable of grasping the definitions of and the relationship between consciousness, and awareness I got senses that I am coming a bit closer to a true interpretation of ”Mens sana in corpore sano”.

Jan Johnsson

This is the original version of "Please Hear What I Am Not Saying"

Original Version

           

               

               Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

               Don't be fooled by me.

               Don't be fooled by the face I wear

               for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,

               masks that I'm afraid to take off,

               and none of them is me.

               Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,

               but don't be fooled,

               for God's sake don't be fooled.

               I give you the impression that I'm secure,

               that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well

               as without,

               that confidence is my name and coolness my game,

               that the water's calm and I'm in command

               and that I need no one,

               but don't believe me.

               My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,

               ever-varying and ever-concealing.

               Beneath lies no complacence.

               Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.

               But I hide this.  I don't want anybody to know it.

               I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.

               That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,

               a nonchalant sophisticated facade,

               to help me pretend,

               to shield me from the glance that knows.

               But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,

               and I know it.

               That is, if it's followed by acceptance,

               if it's followed by love.

               It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,

               from my own self-built prison walls,

               from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.

               It's the only thing that will assure me

               of what I can't assure myself,

               that I'm really worth something.

               But I don't tell you this.  I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.

               I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,

               will not be followed by love.

               I'm afraid you'll think less of me,

               that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.

               I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing

               and that you will see this and reject me.

               So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,

               with a facade of assurance without

               and a trembling child within.

               So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,

               and my life becomes a front.

        I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.

               I tell you everything that's really nothing,

               and nothing of what's everything,

               of what's crying within me.

               So when I'm going through my routine

               do not be fooled by what I'm saying.

               Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,

               what I'd like to be able to say,

               what for survival I need to say,

               but what I can't say.

               I don't like hiding.

               I don't like playing superficial phony games.

               I want to stop playing them.

               I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me

               but you've got to help me.

               You've got to hold out your hand

               even when that's the last thing I seem to want.

               Only you can wipe away from my eyes

               the blank stare of the breathing dead.

               Only you can call me into aliveness.

               Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,

               each time you try to understand because you really care,

               my heart begins to grow wings--

               very small wings,

               very feeble wings,

               but wings!

               With your power to touch me into feeling

               you can breathe life into me.

               I want you to know that.

               I want you to know how important you are to me,

               how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--

               of the person that is me

               if you choose to.

               You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,

               you alone can remove my mask,

               you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,

               from my lonely prison,

               if you choose to.

               Please choose to.

               Do not pass me by.

               It will not be easy for you.

               A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

               The nearer you approach to me

               the blinder I may strike back.

               It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man

               often I am irrational.

               I fight against the very thing I cry out for.

               But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls

               and in this lies my hope.

               Please try to beat down those walls

               with firm hands but with gentle hands

               for a child is very sensitive.

               Who am I, you may wonder?

               I am someone you know very well.

               For I am every man you meet

               and I am every woman you meet.

               Charles C. Finn

               September 1966

I have a Dream Vision! (Article 32 of the history of my epilepsy.)

According to those involved, there are two reasons why something occurs, one specified reason, and one that is true. I have been no exception, and I have always given my own colored version for a behavior, and for how my life has evolved. That was the reason why I wrote the story of "My Epileptic Journey", with the intention to the give the real story behind my epilepsy, which to such a large extent has dominated my life, my feelings and thoughts.

I think that because of the way my life has developed, I have had much more success than poor luck and that I have had a fascinating and instructive life. There may be people who believe that my life has been difficult and scary. However, even if I got a life with heavy pain engraved into my body and mind from the start, my subjective opinion of what I have been through has been positive. I have achieved, with measurable, natural methods, to reduce the heart rate, lower the blood pressure and adjust my body temperature. To that I can add what it means not to feel anxiety and be humiliated by my own neurotic behavior and not to feel an uncertain fear of epileptic seizures and their origin.

After having written my story of my Epileptic Journey, I have a desire. It is a dream that many more should have access to a combination of physical and psychotherapeutic help to achieve a healthy mind in a healthy body. I know that there is a method available to peel off mental blockages and neurosis down to imprints created in the womb life. There exists as well  techniques to release the physical consequences of the mental deadlocks and imprints. I have had the chance to have had access to therapies from both sides. Add to that a growing awareness of the importance of minerals and vitamins in the human body.

I have undergone treatments in dynamic psychotherapy and physiotherapy, and I feel with increasing clarity that I have been a successful case through my particular problem and its relation to epilepsy, almost on the verge of an exception. Two outstanding personalities, in the metaphysical world, have fascinated me during 30-40 years, Dr Art Janov and Dr Ida Rolf. Their ideas/theories of a natural way of healing mind and body, fit into my needs and experiences in my search for a remedy of my epilepsy and its negative psychological aftermaths. I became fast convinced of the geniuses of both, and with a combination of luck and skill, I could get their support.

My dream vision is that the best of Dr Janov could be merged with the best of Dr Rolf into a professionally managed therapy treatment. To develop their, still metaphysically dominated, insights into the tight circle of scientifically proven knowledge have obsessed these two therapeutical gurus. Dr Janov is a gifted author and has over 40 years written a number of terrific books to document his work and to achieve this ambition. Dr Ida Rolf, was a chemist, physicist and doer who hated to write, even if her followers have documented quite a few of her wise philosophies. For both goes that a manual, accessible to a broad audience, could be useful. I do not think the sufferers in the world mind, wether  their therapies have scientific backing. We all know that patented pharmaceuticals are killing hundreds of thousands of sufferers (which the therapies could have helped) annually in the name of scientific determinism. Of course, science is crucial and necessary, but, with shrewd economical and political behavior, it is easy to exploit over long periods.

One first step, in a dream, is to build a test center around the treatments of the Janov Solution / “Evolution in Reverse” and the Rolfing Physical Restructuration and keep them in association by professionally trained therapists from each side and of course with organizational resources to achieve, train, document and create a reliable follow up. The envisaged test center has to recruite / train proffessionals to be able to find universities to establish research collaboration.

I cannot see any obstacles for the establishment of a test center of the type I recommend. The concept of “evolution in reverse” like the principle of Gravity and Fascia is a free, unpatented, right, available to anyone. There may be some legal aspects to consider if the current brand-names are being infringed. As Dr Janov has told us, the idea of his therapy was by ”accident” initiated by the famous and notorious, destruction artist Raphael Montañes Ortiz in a New York Theatre (see under chapter ”Hidden Agenda”). Eventually Dr Janov developed it into a principle of ”evolution in reverse” used in his current therapy treatment. For me and countless others, his books, written over 40 years, have been and are masterpieces in helping us understand the problems and, at the same time, to understand the principles of healing, that is, to live/experience the underlying, imprinted pain.

Dr Janov has over 30 years, unfortunately, not managed a follow up on the research he wanted in the early 80ies. Moreover, important handbooks in Psychotherapy for university students in USA and Europe do not after decades with a word take up his therapy and a certain skeptical attitude prevail in many circles. The original, dramatic marketing success of the Primal Scream, as a quick fix, has died off long ago, which is an advantage seen with serious eyes. However, despite the fact that the general success, for the Primal Therapy, has not reached the originally expected proportions, I have regained a decent life.  After having lived and experienced much of my repressed mental pain, following the advice of Dr Janov, I have with growing conviction, over 40 years, experienced the potential in his ingenious ideas to resolve imprints of pain. 

Unfortunately, Dr Janovs ability to pass on his strength to his employees has never been an apparent success and this has kept his treatment mainly a local business. The traditional therapist business is ideal for rapid cell division because of low costs to start up a treatment, which the entrepreneurial personalities made while the weak stayed without being able to contribute with any development. The success of my own treatment is to 100% due to the personal guidance and impact of Dr Janov, which I received in his books, during occasional meetings in LA, Paris and a few other places and through a mail and email communication stretched over many years. 

Maybe the time has come for a reorganization. This can, if done correctly, with the help of the dynamics of the Internet, be done relatively quickly and at a reasonable cost. It can be a success if dedicated and knowledgeable people can be gathered around a project with a scientific ambition and a vital, strategic goal. The people in the whole world need a solution like this. The question is whether there are enthusiasts, dedicated persons with enough resources available. Without a strong organization, the wisdom of Dr Janov will never have a chance.

The mighty enemy is of course that part of the pharmaceutical industry and its trillion dollar revenues, which by different kinds of legal ”corruption” is giving absolute control to politicians, cientists, research centers, doctors and therapists who are basing their treatments on drugs. I suppose the pharmaceutical industry, many years ago, had given plenty of research grants to Dr Janov, if they or their allies in the universities only could have smelled future premiums.

Dr Janov, earlier, often claimed that his therapy was the only true democratic treatment. With my experience, I can only agree and hope that many others who believe in democracy will join and build something stable on his concept of ”evolution in reverse”! One day both Americans and other inhabitants on Earth will get sick and tired of the fact that hundreds and thousands of people, every year, suffer and die, due to incorrect diagnosis and inappropriate medication.

Jan Johnsson 

janakejohnsson@gmail.com 

Genovés Jan/Mar, 2011

The Epileptic Journey is not the end. (Article 31 of the history of my epilepsy.)

Genovés, Saturday 19, 2011

Art,

This morning, I have experienced something that might be the ending of a six-month period, which I would consider being an individual, developmental, ”pregnancy period”. I will later explain what this period has consisted of, but first I want to mention this morning primal which I lived during a couple of hours.

The primal has everything in common with what I have been through for more than 40 years. However, I have the feeling that the experience that I’m living / experiencing now is close to what I would consider a "normal"culmination of a gestation period. (This is of course equivalent to my own subjective conclusion of everything I have known through feelings, through empathy and after reading about the birth process.) It is long but not overextended. It is intensely pain-filled, without panic and fear, and it feels appropriate. I’m in a state of hyperventilation with mostly positive emotions coming to the surface. Afterwards, I feel tired but alive.

As I mentioned in the introduction, this morning’s experiences, was a highlight of a six-month period after a modification of my lifestyle: 

I have written, translated and put 30 chapters of my Epileptic Journey + 30 other articles and comments on my blog.

I have been through a three month-period of intensive Rolfing Body Restructuration, which has meant 30 hours of effective treatment. My Rolfer, Jordi, is a natural talent and follows the Janov expression from Primal Therapy, that the patient is the therapist, learning how to access her/himself and how to feel. She/he has all the insights. The therapist is the catalyst allowing the healing forces to take place. Jordi would make an excellent Primal Therapist.

I have studied and gone through a vitamin and mineral treatment under my own guidance at the same time completing my change of physical exercises from working with weights and push-up just to work with a variation of stretching exercises using, for example, rubber hoses with or without the combination of my vibration machine.

During a few nights, I have reread the Janov solution. Among the many excellent personal stories told by patients, I was particularly drawn to the one about / of ”Jules” on page 47.

Both the fact that many people are reading my blog (according to Google statistics) and the fact that almost no one make comments or need / dare to discuss with me what I’m telling, surprises me.

The way neurotics use religion as both an escape and a brainwash has bothered me for a lifetime. Living in a catholic culture, I see consequences daily and feel thankfulness to my parents that they never forced their religiosity on me and my siblings during the first 3-6 years of our lives. The other night I happened to listen to a prominent British historian in religions who said that the fascinating and common denominator between the Judaism, Christianity and Islam, (which all are remarkably different), is that we shall not treat others the way we do not want them to treat ourselves. Even if, it is no novelty in itself to me, I see her statement with new eyes being a positive, common denominator for these widespread religions. I need to dethrone myself every single day from the center of the world, and not only myself but my group and every single other group. Olof Palme once said, that democracy must be won and conquered every single day. I thought then that he exaggerated...

In my daily life, I have a difficult situation with my daughter Isabel (1994). She does not like to study and want to leave after this semester. She is repeating my own experiences from adolescence when I became a drop out myself. This has brought up feelings and appreciation for my father who did not try to force me. I tried to force Isabel in the beginning (pushed both by status and fear for the future). Isabel and I have talked through the situation, and she says that she realizes the consequences but that she is unable to motivate herself. Consequently I have decided to support her in her desire to try a more practical approach in the future as a mean to find an inner motivation. She has a natural talent for languages and speaks daily Spanish, Swedish, English and Catalan.

I want to quote Sir Winston Churchill after having written my Epileptic Journey: ”Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. I am glad that I wrote my story about epilepsy and therapies. That way I got to know myself, and I learned to express things about which I earlier not even dared to think.

I am now planning about writing a fiction story in two to three parts with my own life, story as a base. This way I can let my life experience from business, finance, private life, therapies, different cultures, love stories and tragedies be building blocks in an intriguing story in which an essential part will be a reality but dressed in fiction. I can of course draw inspiration from many sources, books, research etc., and I do not have to bother about scientific references when I put words into the mouths of my main characters. 

Dear Art, I do not always agree with your way of organizing the Primal Therapy, but I feel 100% loyalty with your theory of ”evolution in reverse” and that the patient is the principal therapist. I also need to express the most powerful and overriding of all facts: My appreciation for the inspiration You have meant during more than 40 years for a sane, healthy and democratic life!!!

Jan Johnsson

Do I have any advice? (Article 30 of the history of my epilepsy.)

After a successful struggle with epilepsy, it might be tempting to make a long list of suggestions to others that want to get out of a similar dilemma. Of course, I have opinions, but they are not easy to implement in reality. To eliminate or alleviate epilepsy require a complex description of many different conditions. To make a short list of advice is like making a DVD presentation of 20-40 minutes trying to explain my psychotherapy experience that lasted 40 years. It becomes a one-dimensional part description. What seems advantageous when described from one side may be counterproductive from another angel.

A rigid plan can short term be extremely powerful, but will also require a willingness and aptitude to adapt the approach as one gain access to repressed pain and eventually got rid of neurotic behaviors. My own course of action has gradually gone through continuous developments and adaptations to new realities. My needs and practices have in many respects changed. This has also modified the arsenal of tools, training efforts and mental crutches that I surrounded myself with. 

This has meant an exciting and ever ongoing evaluation. Outwardly, this may create an unpredictable impression which especially in the beginning can be difficult, but it is part of a relief and recovery process. In general, there exist a common evolutionary system in the big context. However, all neurotics and epileptics have their personal "fingerprints" from an etiological point of view, and each specification of advice and support need its own unique blend. 

The hardest part is not to understand the importance of recommendations and suggestions and not to realize that they need flexibility and adjustments. The difficulty is usually to get the local environment, families, friends and other influential contacts to accept a novel and flexible lifestyle, and as if this is not enough one have to fight one's own neurotic behavior, which can be more unreasonable than a hostile mother in law. A skeptical reaction from a conservative surrounding combined with pain and anxiety-driven neuroses are why much excellent advice on nutrition, physics and avoidance of stimulants, etc. are not already a widespread success. Free will is a tiny bit of the fact we are extremely largely controlled by unconscious forces, according to Dr Janov.

It is not my ambition to give advice; however, this does not stop me from telling a few examples of what has worked well for me for decades. Like my epilepsy, they do not always follow the dictionary, but I have developed and used them as inspiration and demand have coincided. They have been a part of my epileptic journey and have been as entertaining as my psycho therapeutic part. Silly mistakes and pleasant experiences have spiced my journey, and I have provided mind and body with about equal doses.

The oldest of my recipes to keep the mental pain and anxiety at bay has been to try to eat things that made me feel good, and, which was not seizure-inducing. Fresh fruits and vegetables have dominated, nothing unusual with other words. During long periods, over 50 years, freshly squeezed lemon juice, carrot juice and garlic have been on the menu in combination with the season's other fruits and berries depending on availability. The first three are cheap and easy to get but not always appreciated by the immediate surroundings. Garlic caused problems that I often was not willing to acknowledge, and two incidents over the years meant that I did take long rests in the consumption.

The first occurred in 1972 when I took the night train from Malmö to Stockholm. Hundred kms north, a colleague would join in Osby, and we would split sleeper. My friend had trouble finding the sleeper car and got help from the conductor to look. Suddenly, during their walk through the train my friend felt a sharp smell of garlic and knew immediately that here I was. After having understood the impact that garlic could have, then I made a few years' break. Next time I was made aware of the Swedish anti-garlic shock effect was exactly 30 years later, this time at a Christmas concert. When I found my place in the auditorium, a woman seated just behind me exclaimed loudly: "If that mother fucker is going to sit in front of me throughout the show then I'm leaving!" However, I stayed and longed to Spain, where the garlic smell has perfume status. Otherwise, when it comes to food, I have followed the principle that 1-2 sumptuous meals a week is acceptable if the other 20-21 meals consist mainly of fruits and vegetables.

Number two of my anti pain and anti tension tools have been physical exercise and massage. From a survival point of view, my bodily exercises do end up on the top. Over the past 47 years, I have not missed many exercises with my dumbbells and doing push-up. These exercises I have done regularly since August 23rd, 1963. As my neuroses have dissolved and my age put new limits, I pulled the push-ups from 2 x 125 on my fingertips, to 2 x 20 on the palms. Nowadays, I walk 40 minutes with Puskas in the hills around Genovés instead of jogging in the hills in northern Helsingborg and playing golf. Depending on the mood, I can combine and enjoy the use of a vibrating machine, rubber hoses, a step-up-machine and a Power ball made for outer space. Maintaining motivation is vital! It should be fun and enjoyable to practice!

I have in previous chapters told about Rolfing, the deep tissue massage, I went through in Boulder, Col., United States. Rolfing of this profound nature, I could not get in Sweden so, for many years, I invited myself to a session with a traditional physiotherapist. What I undergo every day and have done since my years in LA 78 and 79 is a treatment of Zone therapy. For some years, I got help when I was not able to access the reflex points in my feet. The last 15 years, I have switched to using massage soles that are extremely helpful and will replace all need for Zone therapists at a rate that is laughable low.

Over many years, perhaps too many, I ate Tegretol, which I unofficially regard as a rat poison, so of course the brain became slow and viscous and becoming aware of that I have started a memory training and Asian finger gymnastics, so the brain would not doze off entirely. Since I am an old and scarred veteran, I was around in Mary Poppins’ days and remember when she sang ”supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, or the other way around ”dociousaliexpillisticfragicalirupus”, which were terrific memory exercises. They lead to other long words like ”floccinausinihilipilification”, which was the longest word in the Oxford Dictionary until ”pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” took over as the longest word. Long words may scare someone and keep them away from these memory exercises, so there's a word for fear of long words: ”hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliofobia”. On the Internet, there is said to be a club for people with this disorder...

Another of my treatments for several years has been to improve my ability to write down my feelings and capture the moods I experience. This is a matter of speed, access to verbal expressions, which I get from much reading and much practice. The speed I need to capture memories while feeling remains in the brain before the memory clusters dissolve. If I had known earlier, what I know today, I had taken these exercises more seriously already 50 years ago. It gives an immense self-satisfaction of getting to know myself and my reactions and emotions. I had noticed that the only way to recall a memory, coming close to the true feeling, is if I later can read what I immediately wrote down when it happened. 

Learn to love what You do!