7 Things DNRS Is Not
While I've said before and will say forever that everyone would benefit from the tools of DNRS (more on that in a future post), there are some things that DNRS is not for that I should probably point out.
DNRS is not a bandaid.
If you are having some health issues related to obvious physical causes (like eczema from heavy metals or gut issues from a poor diet or energy issues from not trying to be active even though you are able), you can absolutely retrain your brain concerning the topics that could help give you the motivation needed to make lifestyle changes. But retraining your brain can't magically replace addressing harmful lifestyle choices you choose to remain in. Retraining your brain is part of living healthy, and living healthy includes all areas of your life.
DNRS is not for rehashing trauma and working through it.
I have shared before that it is not recommended to pursue therapy while doing DNRS because the nature of therapy tends to bump up against the principles of DNRS. For example, in therapy you will be frequently thinking about and talking about traumatic things that happened to you, which only solidifies those brain pathways in your brain. All of that to say, if you are dealing with the effects of trauma and you keep talking and thinking about it, you'll keep talking and thinking about it. DNRS helps you abandon old pathways that may be tied in with past trauma. It is my opinion that if you have done therapy before without much success, after doing DNRS you will likely be better able to handle any rehashing--if you still feel you need therapy.
DNRS is not just thinking positive and pushing through.
It is no secret that pushing through, pretending to be fine, and faking it til you make it have somehow become badges of honor in today's society. And that is not what DNRS is about.
"Positive thinking" has taken on such a negative connotation nowadays, and it is a shame. Because DNRS does involve positive thinking, but none of the "toxic positivity" so many bemoan. DNRS isn't about pasting on a smile and pretending to be something you're not--it's about literally u-turning old brain pathways to new, life-filled, healthy ones. It's an art form that will soon become natural, not a dangerous trend you fall into while running from life.
And the nature of "pushing through" and "faking it til you make it" implies one thing: accepting how miserable you are and going on about life as usual anyway. DNRS, on the other hand, is about recognizing where your brain really is, what symptoms are happening, which ones are legitimate and which ones are ingrained false alarms. It's about taking stock of reality over a confused limbic system and lovingly guiding your brain out of emergency mode back to the state of peace and safety--not continuous doing in spite of your burned-out body's screams.
DNRS is not turning off communication with your body.
Some who read about DNRS fear that it entails shutting down all symptoms in your body, especially considering that symptoms are the way our bodies communicate with us. But those who assume this are missing a key part: DNRS is for retraining brains that have a limbic system impairment, meaning they are stuck in emergency mode. When your brain is stuck in emergency mode, it will trigger all kinds of red-alert symptoms because it thinks you are in danger... when you're actually just in a loud room or just walking up the stairs. DNRS results in relief from overdrive symptoms, not normal, regulated symptoms. But that leads to an important point:
DNRS is not targeting a symptom and telling it to stop.
Even more than the fact that DNRS does not turn off your body's normal method of communication via symptoms, DNRS actually does not target symptoms. You don't repetitively tell your head to quit hurting or your body to suck it up and have energy. You are gradually, actively addressing your limbic system--not your symptoms--and reasoning with it, calming it down, cooling it off, and altogether rewiring it from chaos to peace. And peaceful limbic systems have normal, reasonable symptoms when needed.
DNRS is not for people who are not at least a little open-minded.
DNRS
is not your run-of-the-mill approach to healing chronic illness. You
have to be at least a little open-minded going into it in order to take
any of it seriously and let yourself benefit from it.
DNRS is not for people who don't want to heal.
You
may read this and think, "Why would anyone not want to heal?" Trust me,
I've met some. It's not that they don't want to be healthy; it's that
they either don't want to do the work to heal, they don't truly believe they deserve
to heal, or they don't want to lose their familiar (albeit miserable) world
of illness. DNRS is not for those people, because it is hard work and it works when you commit to it--but it is for those people once they finally
reach the point where they truly want to heal. DNRS is waiting for them when they do.
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More to see:
My DNRS FAQs | all my DNRS posts | the DNRS website