10 DNRS Misconceptions
If you've heard of DNRS, the Dynamic Neural Retraining System, or if you have started looking into it, you may have picked up some notions about it that aren't quite true. I did too when I first learned about it! This post will lay out some of the most popular misconceptions I've encountered about the program, and I will likely add to this list over time as I hear more.
DNRS is all about thinking positive.
While part of retraining the brain from a state of fight or flight to a state of health does involve thinking positive things, that is but a fraction of what the program entails. The flippant "just think positive!" cliche thrown by people who have no idea what they're talking about in no way encapsulates the complexity of limbic system impairments, chronic illness, or the work that retraining the brain entails.
DNRS brings fast healing.
Nothing about healing is fast, and DNRS is no exception--but most worthwhile things in life aren't fast either!
The progress with DNRS is straight-forward.
As no healing is linear, healing with DNRS isn't either. It is normal and healthy to go ahead and expect that there will be "ups and downs" in the process. But just like plowing a field, keep your eye on the goal or you will end up all over the place: discouraged by stones and dips when they were merely speed bumps on the way to your goal.
In fact, it is not only common to experience a "setback" in the healing process but normal: switching gears in your brain can feel like a sort of crisis in itself, which is why some refer to the "setbacks" as a healing crisis.
DNRS is about getting over yourself.
Literally nothing about DNRS--or healing from any chronic illness--involves just getting over yourself and sucking it up. It actually involves the complete opposite: taking yourself and your health seriously and valuing it for the treasure it is, instead of just trying to move on with life as you are.
DNRS is for people who aren't as sick as me/for people who are sicker than me.
When I first perused the testimonials on the website, I had this thought too: am I sick enough for this? I was watching stories of people who were bedridden and on feeding tubes who absolutely transformed. And while I had my own list of 75 symptoms, my body was technically still functioning. Interestingly enough, your level of illness has nothing to do with the program being right for you or not: if it involves your brain, you need to consider it.
DNRS is too easy/too simple/too hard.
It did look too easy and too good to be true when I first looked into it. When you hear that you "only" have to practice an hour a day for six months, it sounds pretty simple. And then you've also probably heard (mostly from people who quit) that it is too hard.
I would say this: nothing about it is easy. It is pretty straightforward once you wrap your brain around how the program works, and it is fairly simple on paper, but living it day to day is not simple. And it is as hard as you would think defying gravity should be: fittingly hard, but by no means too hard to succeed at. Look at me!
DNRS is about ignoring symptoms, so it can be harmful.
I have heard this concern before and have to say simply that it comes from a place of not understanding limbic system impairments. Watching the initial videos that explain the program or just learning more about LSIs from any number of places will help with this. The point of LSIs is that, while they result in real symptoms, the source that is alerting your body to turn on those symptoms is over-firing and overall inaccurate due to a learned state of trauma. DNRS does not teach you that if you break your leg, it is not painful. It rewires the overdrive and inaccurate pathways your brain is running on--which were resulting in chronic, unnecessary symptoms--and builds new pathways of accurate health. It does not numb symptoms but rewires the traumatic brain injury-induced sources of them.
And what's more, once your brain is functioning in non-emergency mode, you will be more accurately attuned to your body when something is actually wrong.
DNRS is too expensive.
Besides the fact that we all have
brains that change, this is one of the biggest reasons I think anyone
should do the program: because it is not expensive. In a world where the
chronically ill are used to having to pay thousands upon thousands of
dollars merely looking for answers, not to mention for treatment, and in
that same world where people who are not sick easily spend a couple
hundred dollars a month on things they could forego for one month, a
program with the potential to transform your life for less than $300
seems like a no-brainer to me. I know $300 is a ton of money to a lot of
people, but as I said, in the grand scheme of chronic illness life and the program's potential, I would not agree that it is "too
expensive" but actually a steal and would advocate that it is worth
saving up for if not doable immediately.
DNRS won't work for me.
This is the biggest complaint/concern I hear from anyone, whether considering it or starting it. While you're allowed to have some doubts (I sure did), if you decide this, you're right: it will not work for you.
While I can't tell anyone what it best for them, I would wager that
DNRS would help anyone, chronically ill or not. It is interesting to me
the people who say the program did not help them at all, because we all
have a brain that changes everyday, under the same rules of
neuroplasticity. I'll expound in a future post why I think anyone would
benefit from the program, and why people often prematurely decide that DNRS doesn't
work for them.
DNRS will change me to someone I'm not.
Besides it not working for me, this was my biggest concern about the program. And then I watched a testimonial of a woman who healed through the program talking about how this had been her fear and how terribly inaccurate that was. It does not change who you are. It helps your brain break free of the symptom-inducing state of illness you're in and operate in a state of health. You healthy is not someone you're not--it's just you at your best, all polished and shiny, the you that's been waiting to come out and live.
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