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The Creation Healing Code Revealed
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Alpha-Omega
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Jul 30, 2003 16:55 PDT
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The Creation Healing Code Revealed
The Three Failsafe Steps to Healing
By Jim Moore
"And God said, 'Let there be light."
In the Beginning ... intent preceded sound ... sound preceded light ...
and light preceded matter. As above, so below.
The healing process is, after all, nothing more than a re-Creation, a
remaking of unhealthy cells into healthy ones. Healing comes from within
- and thus it must come from above.
We are surrounded by the hands of peddlers and practitioners offering us
"the way" to health, happiness, fame and fortune. Each claims their way
is the "True Way".
And what is "Truth"? Truth is that which was before all else. Truth is
that which does not change, though all else changes. Truth is eternal.
Truth is constant. Truth always was, is and always will be.
In our relentless quest for healing and for health, as for so many other
quests, Truth is what is left after the temporary excitement of
discovery has faded with all the other answers.
When the drugs, the surgery, the chemotherapies, and all the other
approaches seem to have brought us no closer to that elusive healing we
seek - be it physical or emotional - we find ourselves standing alone in
this vast world with no answers. "Nothing works."
That is when it is time to look within, deep into that marvelous
hologram God created when God created man (humankind). The amazing thing
about a hologram is that you can cut it up into tiny pieces with a pair
of scissors, and each tiny fragment still retains the whole.
So it is with the human hologram. All the answers lie within each of us.
Peek inside that tiny fragment of humanity that is you or me ... and you
still find the whole of that original, long ago Creation.
Take a look around you and you will see the eternal truth of these
words. Just as we were created by our Creator, so, too, we are creators,
though in a much paler, lesser extent.
There is a well-defined healing process laid out for us not only in the
Bible, but in the religious cultures of the world. I call it the
Creating Healing Code and to make it easy to remember, use two acronyms
we already know in other contexts: TWA and ISLAM. In this case, neither
stand for what we typically think. You will discover their meanings at
the end of this article.
Imagine any manmade object you can think of, then ask yourself: what was
the process of its creation?
First and foremost came the idea, the intent. Second came the
articulation of that intent, the process that formed the details. Lastly
came the material creation itself. From the simple pencil to the world's
tallest skyscraper or most complex scientific facility ... all followed
this simple three-part process.
It was not necessarily a linear process, since in our role as "human
creators" we are fallible. Sometimes, as the material formation takes
place, we run up against an obstacle and so it's "back to the drawing
board" - or back to the articulation. Sometimes even the intent itself
must be altered and reshaped, and so the process moves back and forth
among the three until finally a pencil is created. Or a skyscraper. Or a
book, a song or a nuclear fusion plant.
So you're sick and want to get well? You seek healing?
INTENT - The First Step
You must start with intent. Intent is that vision created within, that
first foggy mental mist of creation.
Intent is more than just a vague idea; it's an evolving process in
itself. A purifying, cleansing process of thought and being and
awareness. This is particularly important in healing. It is also the
most difficult. The reward is in knowing it is the most powerful and
that without it, no follow-up process will work anymore than a pencil
could be created without first there being the idea of a pencil.
If healing is a process of re-Creation, a reforming of human health in
the original, pure state of health in which we were created, it must by
this very definition start with a purging or cleansing of all the dark
and hurtful components that led to dis-ease (sickness) in the first
place.
Motives must be examined. Why are we seeking healing? Is it because we
fear death? Because we fear pain, aging, immobility, sexual dysfunction,
etc., etc.? If we are driven by fear, we are driven by the very opposite
of what we truly seek. God did not create man out of fear, but love.
Don't try, at this early stage, to convince yourself you're going to
wash away all the fear and doubt and dark, ugly little thoughts that led
you to this state. At this stage, it is simply too overwhelming a task
and simply more than we are capable of doing.
"By your faith were ye healed." Not by your meditations and certainly
not by your "good works."
Start simple. Make a list of those fears and doubts that hide within,
taunting us to illness. Be as specific as possible. For example:
1. I am afraid of this cancer because I am afraid of dying.
2. I am afraid of this arthritis because I am afraid I'll be unable to
work and take care of myself or my family financially.
3. I am afraid of this obesity because I am a doctor and it sets a bad
example for my patients, who will then stop coming to receive my care.
4 I am afraid of this impotence because I am afraid it will make me
appear to be a wimp or a sissy.
This first list should simply deal with the physical illness. Make it
like an outline and expand it as necessary. For example:
1. I'm afraid of this cancer because I'm afraid of dying.
a. I am afraid of dying because I'm afraid there's nothing beyond
death.
b. I'm afraid of dying because I've done some bad things and I'm afraid
I'll go to hell.
c. I'm afraid of dying because I don't believe in hell or heaven - but
I don't want to find out I'm wrong.
d. I'm afraid of dying because there are too many things I still want
to do in life, but haven't.
e. I'm afraid of dying because my family will be left without an
income.
f. I'm afraid of dying because I don't know what's on the other side.
Someone once said, "There are two things we should never worry about -
those things we can do something about, and those we can't."
As you create your list, you will find your fears of illness or death
are based not so much on physical conditions, but upon the consequences
of those conditions ... and those consequences almost invariably fall
into mental, emotional or spiritual categories.
Your fear of arthritis is not so much of the arthritis itself, but of
the consequences of that arthritis ... the pain, the loss of income and
mobility, the likelihood of poverty and perhaps even isolation.
"I keep all my friends close ... and my enemies even closer."
Fear is your enemy. Fear, if allowed, drives intent. Now some might say
it is "harmful" to make such a negative list, but I say to you, it is
not. This list is the first step in your healing, for it identifies your
fears, it names your true enemies, and keeping it in a prominent place
gives you a target. One cannot fight an invisible unseen enemy.
"Know thyself."
As you begin this healing process, starting with INTENT, you will
disover your "enemies" are within. As Pogo, the old cartoon character,
immortalized, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Are you your own
worst enemy? Some would respond in repulsion that is making the "victim"
into the "criminal."
Not so. It is the first step in separating yourself from the enemies
within. Start to think of (visualize) these fears, these "enemies", not
as a part of yourself, but as something separate, something that has
invaded your spirit and destroyed yourself, like bacteria or a virus.
They are "little critters" that will, one by one, be plucked from you
and discarded. They are dark little ugly shadows, thoughts upon which
you will shine the bright, healing Light of Truth. (The Light comes
later, after Intent and after the Word, or Sound).
This process of Intent is also the process of Diagnosis. Self-diagnosis.
Self-diagnosis is actually more important and accurate than any
diagnosis that could be made by a doctor. Why? Because it is truer. You
know things your doctor will never know.
If you're familiar with the cartoon "Mama Hobbs," you know she's a
hypochondriac who is always going to the doctor, seeking confirmation of
her worst fears, her worst thoughts about how close she is to dying. Yet
the doctors find she's healthy as a horse. In truth, she seeks the
attention of her children and this is the way in which she does that -
sympathy. But like the little boy who cried wolf too many times, she
isn't taken seriously, so her "illnesses" get worse. If Mama Hobbs were
not merely a cartoon character, she would have died long ago. Yet the
plight of Mama Hobbs has a lesson of truth for us.
Another example was Redd Fox, the comedian, who immortalized himself on
the TV sitcom "Sanford & Son" with the words, "Here comes the Big One!"
Whenever something happened he didn't like, or when his son did
something he didn't agree with, he feigned a heart attack to get his
way. Was it mere coincidence that in real life, Redd Fox did have "the
Big One" on the set one day? Did life imitate art?
It's been written that "we are what we eat." Yet there are those who
smoke a pack of cigarettes and drink a quart of whiskey a day and live
to be 110. If they were "what they eat" or drink they would have been
dead long before. The truth goes deeper. We are our intent. We are what
drives us. We are our motive. If we are driven by fear, we become fear
and it is fear that kills us, not the cancer or arthritis.
Intent is two-fold - the internal and the external.
It is what we do unto ourselves, and what we do unto others. Now you
understand why we can't just say, with New Age glibness, that we're
going to reform our Intent and be healed. Looked at as the big, ugly
mass that it is, it's just too much for our frail human abilities.
And yet, undeniably, it must be done.
Making the list - or lists - is critical to this process. It breaks this
big, ugly mass of fear down into smaller little clumps of fear. Perhaps
we can deal with a smaller clump better than this big, intimidating,
overpowering ball of fear that consumes us.
Many evangelical or fundamentalist Christians, and even many Jews and
Muslims, spend their lives trying to instill in us the fear of this
angry, wrathful God (or Allah) we will encounter on - gulp - Judgment
Day. Oh, let us hide from that Judgment Day!
Here's another Truth for you to digest: We live with that Judgment Day
every day, for we are both the Judge and the Judged.
Who knows our fears and our "sins" (wrongs of commission or omission
against both ourselves and others) better than ourselves? That part of
"ourself" is the tiny part of God that was implanted into us at our
creation. Some call it "conscience." The conventional image of Judgment
Day is one that has been implanted into us by the high priests who
falsely see themselves as our controllers, handing out punishment and
reward, intimidating us to "confess our sins" to them. And who are they?
Mere mortals like ourselves.
But what of those who seem to have no conscience? Who rob and rape and
plunder and kill without a thought or remorse? For them, there is indeed
a higher, more collective judgment or, better put, coming of awareness.
They do not see themselves in this life as they are - but they will. Of
that be assured. Their eyes will be opened unto themselves at some point
and as part of a plan we don't fully comprehend, and the timing of which
is beyond our control, as it should be.
And when that time does come, and they see the magnitude of their crimes
- be it Richard Speck, Adolph Hitler or Osama bin Laden (and I mention
these only as possible examples, not in passing my own judgment, for the
list of such names is far longer and reaches deeper into our own
government and leadership than you could possibly imagine) - yes, there
will be a great "gnashing of teeth" as they come face to face with who
and what they are.
Still, with their eyes newly opened, they will be their own harshest
judge.
For this reason, we should not preoccupy ourselves with the sins of
others. We have more than enough of our own to keep ourselves busy.
The purity and sincerity of our Intent - that Intent which begins the
healing process and without which healing is impossible - deals not just
with what we "want" for ourselves, but what we want - and will give - to
others.
At this point, overwhelmed with our own shortcomings, we might think
it's hopeless - that it would be easier to just lay down, die and get it
over with. Honestly, if I were to write down all my fears, all my
shortcomings (real or imagined), and all the slights and hurt and pain I
have caused others, all my greed and insecurity that has made me grab
for myself and to hell with my neighbor ... well, I'd find it pretty
damned depressing.
But the truth is - these are the very things that make me ill, or
unsucessful, or unliked ... or, as some would gleefully say, damned to
hell forever. How am I going to get well with something like that
staring me in the face?
The alcoholic or drug addict faces no hope of cure until denial is
replaced by reality.
OK, so we have this morbidly depressing (and long) list of what we fear
most about our illness, and what is impure about our own life and
behavior. This list is like last year's New Year's resolutions. We'll
never overcome all of these things, so now what do we do?
THE WORD
Now that I have your attention, welcome to the Second Phase of the
Creation Healing Process.
"In the Beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was
God."
If we examine the basic tenants of many of the spiritual paths of the
world, we find a commonality in them. They all share the belief that the
world was created through sound. Here are but a few examples.
In Western theology, a deity's logos, or Word, plays a major role in
creation. Among many peoples of the New World, the emphasis on logos is
replaced by singing. Here, for example, is the sacred creation
narrative of the Navajo wherein creation emerges out of sacred chants
sung by the Holy People in the First Hogan.
In Hindu creation lore, Siva's dance is composed of the ever-flowing
combination of his five scared activities, panca-krtya. Srishti, the
power to create, is represented by His upper right hand and the damaru
(drum), upon which he beats Paranada, the primal sound from which issue
forth the rhythms and cycles of creation.
In Genesis, from the Old Testament, one of the first statements is, "And
the Lord said 'Let there be light!"
In St. John, from the New Testament, it is written, "In the beginning
was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
From the Vedas of the Hindu tradition comes the writing that, "In the
beginning was Brahman with whom was the Word. And the Word is Brahman."
The Ancient Egyptians believed that the god "Thot" created the world by
his voice alone.
In the Popul Vuh, from the Mayan tradition, the first real men are given
life by the sole power of the word.
The Hopi Indian's story of creation tells of the animation of all forms
on earth by having the Spider Woman sing the Song of Creation over them.
Many of us know of Pythagoras as the father of geometry. However, how
many are aware that in the 6th century B.C. in Greece, he had a school
that taught, not only the magic of numbers, but the healing powers of
music. Pythagoras taught of the Music of the Spheres and how the
movement of the heavenly bodies could be perceived and reflected in the
intervals of plucked strings.
Once, at a time more distant than human memory, the storm god
Susanowo-no-Mikoto left his home on the seas and began to ravage the
land. His wild rages so upset his sister Ameterasu Ohmikami (the sun
goddess) that she fled to a cave and, rolling a boulder over its
entrance, vowed never to show herself again.
The world fell into darkness and devils sprang from their hiding places
to roam freely across the earth in its endless night. Knowing that all
life was doomed without Ameterasu Ohmikami, the gods of heaven and earth
gathered at the cave’s mouth. They reasoned. They begged. They
threatened. At last, they tried to force the rock from the cave’s
entrance but Ameterasu Ohmikami would not budge from her refuge. All
creation seemed doomed.
Until, Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto, a small goddess with a face creased by
age and laughter, made her way into the midst of the other gods and
declared that she would coax Ameterasu from the cave. The mightier gods
looked at the old woman and sneered. Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto smiled back
at them, poured out a huge sake barrel, jumped on its head, and began a
wild dance.
The loud, hard, frenetic pounding of her feet made a sound unlike any
ever heard before. The rhythm was so lively, so infectious that soon the
other gods, caught in Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto’s revelry, began to dance
and sing as well. Music filled the earth and the celebration became so
raucous that Ameterasu Ohmikami peeked out from her cave and, seeing the
joyful faces, brought her light to the earth again. Thus, Ameterasu
Ohmikami’s light returned to earth, Susanowo-no-Mikoto was banished, and
taiko music was born.
So goes a variation of an old story from the Nihon Shoki, a chronicle
from 7th and 8th century A.D. Japan. The story is pure myth. The truth
of this myth is that taiko has the power to bring joy and expel anger.
And, in accordance with Shumei’s philosophy concerning art, it brings
light into the world. However, the historical origins of taiko are less
straightforward and hazier than the myth.
Some claim that, because a drum’s sound is as fundamental to us as our
own heartbeat, the first musical instruments used by cultures throughout
the world generally are percussive. If so, the precursors of taiko drums
could go back at least 2000 or 3000 years deep into Japan’s prehistory.
If Intent is the first ingredient of Creation and therefore re-Creation
(healing), then "the Word" is clearly the second ingredient. This is
expressed in New Age "theology" in many forms - from chanting to toning
to the use of chakra tones, planetary music, tuning forks ... the list
goes on and on.
In the Christian tradition, it is expressed simply in prayer. And in
that simplicity may lie the truth. All of the other approaches would
seem to be only various manifestations of this.
Prayer is what we use to call forth the Power (or powers) that will help
drive away all those dark, ugly little fears that make up the list you
created in Intent, the first step.
But there is a difference between prayer and meditation. Meditation gets
hung up on Intent and does not go to the next step. Prayer means
vocalization; for prayer to be heard, it must be spoken - out loud. Via
"the Word." The Word of Prayer. Understanding this is critical!
For years, I "spoke" my prayers in the silence of my thoughts, believing
that "If God is aware of my thoughts, then God knows I am praying." It
wasn't necessary for me to speak it out loud. I was wrong, very wrong.
Like those into meditation alone, I was not taking the next step. I was
like the infant who had taken the first step - and then just stood
there, waiting for God to take the next step for me. All the while, God
has patiently waited - God, what patience! - for me to take the second
step.
"God helps those who help themselves" ... "Ask and it shall be given."
Meditation can be a mindless humming or chanting, while prayer is
specific and therefore more powerful than just the impersonal "Om."
While "Om" may have been enough for the Creator to create the universe,
we must remember: we are not the Creator. We do not possess that
infinite power. Our "Om" must be more specific and more personal.
Vocalization is a common barrier between man and woman. In a
relationship, all too often, the man will rarely, if ever, say the
actual words, "I love you." The woman, on the other hand, craves this
vocalization, this open, unashamed confirmation of that love. The man,
bewildered, waits until it becomes an issue, then says, "Well, you KNOW
I love you."
"HOW do I know?" the woman replies. "You never say it."
Somewhat sheepishly, the man answers, "Because I do" or "Because of the
way I show it."
On the other hand, the charlatan in love will shower the woman (or man)
with the words, but the action is lacking. Both are important. First
comes Intent, then comes the Word, then comes the Action. One must be
borne out by the reality of the other. The Action is born from the Word,
the Word is born from the Intent.
"By a man's deeds (actions) is he known" ... "Action speaks louder than
words."
Just as God is believed by some to be a Trinity - the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit (feminine aspect), so is Creation a Trinity -
Intent, Word, Action. And thus healing.
By vocalizing our prayers, our requests, our gratitude, we invoke the
holy sounds of the Word, and thus we bring Intent to life, taking it
beyond there mere thought form.
It's vital that prayer come from our own mouths. Prayer circles and
prayer groups are well and good, and serve to amplify our own prayers -
but if there is no vocalization there on our part, there is nothing to
amplify but our silence. Our voice, our prayer - comes from within us,
and so it is more a part of our core being than any prayer from a prayer
circle.
Like the Japanese creation legend, the prayer, the Word, begins with one
individual. As others around us take it up and join with us, it becomes
more and more powerful.
Some believe, and perhaps rightly so, that the 144,000 spoken of in the
Bible is not a clue to some "Rapture" but instead a clue to the magic
number needed to affect global change through a unified and synchronized
vocalization of the Word. The number 144,000 was the number of the
people of the tribes of Israel. If this only applies to "the Rapture" (a
word never used in the Bible), then only 144,000 Jews would go to
heaven. The rest of us would be doomed.
Also pulling from the Bible, the trumpeters surrounded Jericho and for
six days (the same number as the number of musical notes of the Ancient
Solfeggio) blew their trumpets. During these six days, the children of
Israel were told to stay away. On the seventh day, after all the
vibrational power had been set in motion, the tribes of Israel gathered
and shouted in celebration ... and the walls of Jericho tumbled down.
Ancient Hebrew tradition has it that on each day, the trumpeters played
one of the six holy notes (Sacred Sounds), coming back the next day to
play a note one degree higher.
All of this illustrates the power of sound, the Word, especially as it
is amplified by the many. But in every case, it begins with the one. So
it is with prayer and with Creation Healing. It only takes one opera
singer to shatter a glass with her voice. Think of the power we could
invoke if 144,000 opera singers sang in unison!
Those ugly, little demon fears that lurk inside us and stand in the way
of our healing know this - and they are terrified that if we were to
know this "secret" they would be banished forever from our souls and
bodies. How nice it would be to turn our fears against themselves!
THE LIGHT
Light may be considered to be the Act or Action. Just as Intent by
itself is not enough, neither is the Word, as powerful as it may be. The
Trinity remains unfulfilled without Action.
Had God never spoken the Word "Let there be Light" ... there would never
have been Light. We would never have been created. Light required sound.
Or vibration. Or frequency. Call it what you will, the terminology is
unimportant; it is the reality that matters.
Take a look at what we call "the electromagnetic spectrum" - that
pitifully inadequate chart of "all that exists" in the human experience.
You will note that the Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) range between 3
Hertz and 3000 Hertz still doesn't even show up on our charts. Yet
without it, there would be no chart whatsoever. All that is sprang from
the lower vibrations, the lower frequencies of Intent.
It is interesting to note that the lower frequencies have the most
penetrating power. You can hold up a piece of cardboard and block off
light; you can hold up a sheet of insulation and block heat. But sound,
being a lower frequency, is harder to block. The very first Creative
frequency, the Word, must have been the lowest frequency, for it
penetrates all. It penetrated the void of nothingness to create what is.
And what is Light but higher-pitched sound? And what is matter but
higher pitched Light?
It is sometimes pathetically amusing to watch our earthly scientists try
to accomplish such things as reaching absolute zero in their frigid
laboratories. Why are such learned men so ignorant? To reach a state of
no vibration is to completely reverse Creation, to revert to a state of
non-existence. Do they actually believe themselves capable?
On the other hand, it is gratifying to see astronomers admit their
discovery that light (photons) are "neither matter nor energy" but a
form that possesses the characteristics of both. Conversely, it is
comical to see the physicists try to bring light to a halt (they've
actually managed to slow light down to 38 miles per hour!)
Einstein once observed that neither energy nor matter can be destroyed -
the best we can do is simply convert one to the other. We burn logs in
our fireplaces, but we don't destroy the logs. We simply convert them to
energy (heat), which then joins the rest of the universe's energy in its
cosmic dance.
Consulting the electromagnetic spectrum charts, we find that if we take
sound - say Middle C on the piano and increase its pitch to the 49th
octave, we have light instead of (or in addition to) the sound. This is
why musical notes have certain harmonic light counterparts 49 octaves
higher than the notes themselves.
Think of the light spectrum for a moment as a piano keyboard. On a
typical keyboard, you have C, followed by C# (D-flat), then D. But what
of all the infinite tones in between those? Our music is limited by the
mechanical aspects of our instruments. Using light, we break free of
those limitations - and a wondrous spread of color grows before us,
containing all the intricate variations.
Common computer monitors can now display 10 million colors, scanners can
detect 16 million. By comparison, our musical scales are severely
limited. But that is a self-imposed geographical and cultural
limitation, since other cultures use different musical scales.
Nonetheless, we possess enormously awesome powers, gifted to us by our
Creator, with even the limited sounds we can make.
Looking again at the electromagnetic spectrum, we can find another
interesting observation. Why can't we see bacteria or viruses with radio
waves? It takes a wavelength smaller than the object we wish to observe
in order to observe it. It is no coincidence that microwaves - above
sound and below visible color - can heat up food. Microwaves are about
the width of a baseball ... or a hamburger. Infrared waves can kill
bacteria; their wavelengths are about as big as bacteria. Visible light
and ultraviolet light (just above the visible light on the spectrum) can
kill viruses and proteins. X-rays kill proteins. Their wavelengths all
approximately match the physical dimensions of the matter they affect.
If Intent precedes Sound and Sound precedes Light (by 49 octaves), then
at what point does Light become Matter? Is that also 49 octaves? Or is
it higher? Our scientists are still trying to definitively answer that
one, I think.
At any rate, we discover the progression, like a musical progression on
a piano, from Intent to Sound to Light to Matter. Intent is the most
penetrating, while Matter is the least penetrating.
Is it any surprise then, that our modern medicines - based upon oil
(matter) - are as ineffective and temporary as they are? Their effects
are short-lived and full of harmful side effects. They are, in terms of
physics, the least penetrating medical or healing approach we could
possibly take.
Those ancient shamans and medicine men who chanted and prayed over their
sick, and painted them up in colors to ward off "the evil spirits" were
far more attuned to the ways of the Creator than are those white coats
in laboratories with their pills and test tubes. The ancients somehow
knew, if only intuitively, that Intent, the Word and Light are more
powerful healing agents.
So let this be your healing guide, or code if you will.
Intent is your first and most powerful healing aide, but it must be
supplemented by sound (the Word) in the form of prayer (chanting,
toning, music and tonal therapy, etc.), which is then supplemented, in
this order, by Light (sunshine, color therapy, etc.). Drugs (Matter) is
the last - and weakest - resort.
In Western society, built upon materialism, we have it just backwards.
There are two terms that are widely in use today - TWA and ISLAM. One
refers to an airline, the other to a religion. But for our purposes,
they mean something entirely different and I hope it makes it easier to
remember the Creating Healing Code and the order in which the healing
process must take place if it is to succeed.
TWA - Thought, Word, Action.
ISLAM - Intent, Sound, Light, Action, Matter.
Copyright 2003 by Phoenix Technologies and Jim Moore. All rights
reserved.
Our Bodies, Our Fears - Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.com/news/873610.asp?0cv=HA01&cp1=1
Anthony Lepre started feeling awful almost as soon as Tom Ridge put the
nation on high alert for a terrorist attack last week. The normally
well-adjusted Los Angeles chiropractor started tossing and turning
instead of drifting off to sleep at night. He awoke in the middle of the
night short of breath, his heart pounding. And the sound of his
telephone seemed a sure sign of bad news.
BY MIDWEEK, HE was rushing off to Costco to stock up on fruit juice,
bottled water, peanut butter, canned tuna “and extra food for my cats
Monster, Monkey and Spike.” He also picked up a first-aid kit, six rolls
of duct tape and a bulk package of plastic wrap to seal his windows.
“The biggest problem was that I felt helpless,” he says, “completely
powerless over the situation.” The health-conscious 46-year-old even
found himself chomping pizza and sweets, figuring a few treats would
help him “forget about the situation for a while.”
What sort of precautions have you taken against a terror attack?
We've got water, an escape route, duct tape--the whole nine yards
We've talked about where to meet if we get separated
Nothing. Who knows what's going to happen?
Vote to see results
What sort of precautions have you taken against a terror attack?
* 6304 responses
We've got water, an escape route, duct tape--the whole nine yards
6%
We've talked about where to meet if we get separated
7%
Nothing. Who knows what's going to happen?
87%
Survey results tallied every 60 seconds. Live Votes reflect respondents'
views and are not scientifically valid surveys.
And so it went for millions of Americans. The recent barrage
of bad news—nukes in North Korea, snipers in Maryland, a failing
economy, an imminent war, a threat of domestic terror—has left this
privileged nation feeling unusually vulnerable and uncharacteristically
anxious. Gas masks and biohazard suits are selling as briskly as duct
tape and plastic sheeting. Winter vacations are on hold.
Psychotherapists are working overtime. And even people who soldiered on
after 9-11 are now blinking. Thirty-five-year-old Kateria Niambi, a
lifelong Brooklynite who works as a marketing director in lower
Manhattan, never thought of leaving New York during the grim fall of
2001. Yet she recently bought a house in suburban New Jersey and now
plans to pack up her two daughters and move. “It was like, ‘Where can I
go that my kids will be safe?’ ” she says.
As Drs. Afton Hassett and Leonard Sigal of New Jersey’s Robert Wood
Johnson Medical School wrote recently, we’re living in a “chronic
heightened state of alertness and ... helplessness,” prompted by a
“poorly defined ... danger that could strike at any time in any form
without warning.” Such feelings can be as unhealthy as they are
unpleasant, impairing immunity, interrupting sleep and exacerbating
everything from acne to ulcers. “The psychological state of fear affects
us biologically,” says Los Angeles psychiatrist Carole Lieberman.
“People who are anxious drink and eat more. They have more accidents.
They’re more likely to get colds or suffer heart attacks.” In short, as
University of Michigan neuroscientist Stephen Maren puts it, a brain
system designed to keep us from getting eaten is now “eating away at
us.”
When you consider that 19 million Americans suffer from fear-related
disorders even in the best of times, the value of such insights is hard
to exaggerate.
Twenty years ago no one knew how fear conditioning worked. But by
surgically removing discrete parts of rodents’ brains—and performing the
same simple conditioning experiment—researchers have detailed the
underlying mechanisms. The fear system’s command center is the amygdala,
a small, almond-shaped structure that rests near the center of the brain
and is elaborately tied to other regions through nerve fibers. A rat
lacking an amygdala won’t freeze at the sound of a tone, no matter how
often the tone is paired with a shock.
An activated amygdala doesn’t wait around for instructions from the
conscious mind. Once it perceives a threat, it can trigger a body-wide
emergency response within milliseconds. Jolted by impulses from the
amygdala, the nearby hypothalamus produces a hormone called
corticotropin releasing factor, or CRF, which signals the pituitary and
adrenal glands to flood the bloodstream with epinephrine (adrenaline),
norepinephrine and cortisol. Those stress hormones then shut down
nonemergency services such as digestion and immunity, and direct the
body’s resources to fighting or fleeing. The heart pounds, the lungs
pump and the muscles get an energizing blast of glucose. The stress
hormones also act on the brain, creating a state of heightened alertness
and supercharging the circuitry involved in memory formation. “The
amygdala tells the rest of the brain, ‘Hey, whatever happened, make a
strong memory of it’,” says James McGaugh, a neurobiologist at the
University of California, Irvine. “It makes a strong correlation between
the significance of an event and the remembrance of it.”
Like any aggressive defense establishment, the amygdala and its army of
stress hormones can divert resources from other critical uses. It can
also cause extensive collateral damage. Consider the experience of
Elizabeth Brace. She was 37 years old and living in Rancho Cucamonga,
Calif., in 1994, when a powerful earthquake struck 100 miles away in
Northridge. The temblor didn’t knock her house down, or even break her
dishes. But it jolted her out of bed and sent her running, terrified, to
pluck her son from his crib. When she didn’t come back, her husband went
to the child’s room to find her face down on the floor, bleeding from
the nose and mouth, dead. By all indications, the quake had scared her
to death.
Harvard neurologist Martin Samuels collects stories like Brace’s to show
just how dangerous the stress hormones can be. “Norepinephrine is toxic
to tissues—probably all tissues, but in particular the heart,” he says.
Israel recorded nearly 100 excess deaths during Saddam’s 1991 Scud
missile attacks—not from bomb injuries but from heart attacks presumably
triggered by fear and stress. And a recent study suggests that heart
patients around New York City suffered life-threatening heart
arrhythmias at more than twice the usual rate in the month following the
World Trade Center attack. “Prolonged stress has physiological
consequences,” says Dr. Jonathan Steinberg, chief of cardiology at New
York’s St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center and the leader of the study.
“These patients experienced potentially fatal events, even though many
of them had trouble identifying themselves as unduly fearful.”
In other words, acute fear is not the only kind that can hurt you.
Constant, low-grade adrenaline baths may subtly damage the heart,
raising the long-term risk of cardiovascular disease. Continuous
exposure to cortisol can dampen the immune system, leaving stressed
people more vulnerable to infections and possibly even cancer. Stress
hormones can harm the brain, too, severing connections among neurons. In
both hu—man and animal studies, researchers have found that prolonged
stress also shrinks the hippocampus, a brain structure that plays
critical roles in processing and storing information.
Even when it doesn’t wreck the heart or the brain, prolonged
stress can have countless subtler effects. And Lepre, the L.A.
chiropractor, is not the only one feeling them. Pierluigi Mancini, the
director of a community counseling clinic in Norcross, Ga., says his
clinic’s family and adolescent program has recently seen a sixfold
increase in the number of people seeking help. “Kids are acting out, and
adults don’t know what to do or who to talk to about the terror alerts,”
Mancini says. “People are reporting head-aches, insomnia, back pain,
neck pain, disorientation. But after a physical exam, we can’t find a
physical cause.” Such complaints are common among worried people, and
you don’t have to be a hypochondriac to experience them. “Stress almost
always comes out in a bodily symptom,” says Afton Hassett, an expert in
psychosomatic illness. Even at low levels, she says, anxiety causes
muscle tension, which leads in turn to aches, pains and twitching eyes.
FEAR AND KIDS
Children are especially vulnerable to fear and anxiety. “I’m
seeing a lot of regressive behavior,” says Lieberman, the Los Angeles
psychiatrist. “Lots of parents are telling me their kids are afraid to
sleep, or go to school, because they don’t want to be separated if
something catastrophic happens.” Anxious children are even more likely
than adults to experience their anxiety as a stomachache or a physical
malaise, and emotional experiences have deeper effects on their
still-developing brains. “Kids learn everything faster than adults,”
says Dr. Bruce Perry of the ChildTrauma Academy in Texas. “If they have
the stress response turned on a lot, their bodies say, ‘I’m in a world
where I need to use these systems a lot’.”
Genes and temperament make some kids less vulnerable than
others. But when a susceptible child experiences too much fear, the
consequences can extend beyond general anxiety to include phobias and
posttraumatic stress disorder—conditions in which the amygdala hijacks
the rest of the brain every time it encounters some cue. Like a rat in a
conditioning experiment, the sufferer reacts as violently to a harmless
stimulus as she would to a life-threatening emergency.
Some 11 million Americans (mostly women) suffer from phobias.
Some phobias are general, others specific, but they’re all tenacious—for
unlike names, our fears are never forgotten. What keeps most people from
being paralyzed by them is not erasure but a phenomenon known as
extinction, in which neurons in the cortex create new memories to
compete with the visceral ones managed by the amygdala. Researchers have
recently traced this fear-busting capacity to a particular part of the
prefrontal cortex. In a recent study, stimulating this brain structure
helped rats extinguish their conditioned fear responses more rapidly.
Experts now hope that electromagnetic devices will help phobic people
down the same path.
TREATING FEAR
But in truth, the path is already open. “We can take people with
very severe phobias and treat them in a day or two,” says Dr. David
Barlow of Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders.
The treatment has several components, but at its heart is an exercise
that Barlow calls “talking to the amygdala.” Instead of simply telling
people that high places can be safe, he takes them to high places. By
surviving the experience, and surviving it again, they form the new
memories needed to temper the oppressive ones. The technique is as old
as fear itself, but neuroscience has begun to show us why it works—and
why avoiding what scares you is so futile.
That’s not to say that fear is never rational.
Sixty-nine-year-old Doro Adelstein considers herself a gambler and, as
such, likes to improve her odds. When the Queens, N.Y., widow heard the
warnings of impending terror last week, she decided to use a free plane
ticket she’d been saving to hide from Osama bin Laden among the white
tigers and crap tables of Las Vegas. “I know I can’t stay here forever,”
she says as she tugs a slot-machine arm at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino,
“but I was in Manhattan on 9-11 and it was the worst day of my life.
Whenever they say there’s going to be another attack, I remember what it
was like that day. This time it seems really real, and I figured the
terrorists are less likely to attack Las Vegas than New York, don’t you
think?’
Anyone with a TV and an amygdala is sure to experience anxiety in the
coming weeks and months. For those lacking tickets to Vegas, the best
remedy may be to turn off the set, venture into the world and come home
alive to remember it.
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