A Man And His Ideas

Denver Post Newspaper Boy Joseph Flanigan, Loveland, Colorado. September 2016 Sometimes when I am cycling, I think about 1961, I was 11 years old, and the two years I delivered The Denver Post newspaper near our home in Aurora, Colorado. I remember Mr. Colten, the Denver Post paperboy manager, and my job of delivering the Denver Post every day. Every afternoon and Sunday morning to pick up the papers, for my route,  I would ride my bike about a mile and a half to a converted garage called the newspaper shack. Inside, attached to the walls, were folding benches. The Denver Post truck would drop bundles of papers off at the newspaper shack where the boys would unbundle and count out the number of papers for their routes. Carrying the stack, they would go to their assigned folding bench, fold, rubber band and load the papers into the bike bags. Often there was a race to see who was fastest. Once loaded, each boy road to their route. A good route was 50 papers. Canvas bags wra...

Shingles Then Postherpetic Neuralgia (PHN) Then Apathy Then Grit Shingles and Postherpetic Neuralgia Selfie Picture On April 7, 2017,   shingles broke out on the upper left side of my face. In about 2 weeks, the shingles pox left, but I spent the next 6 months in bed from postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) pain on the V1 of the trigeminal nerve on the upper left side of my face. The pain from itching was so bad I could not walk.  After more than two years, and the itching persists, but it is not as debilitating. The first PHN drug treatment was gabapentin. It did not work. Ice packs helped. I am glad I am a veteran, and my VA neurologist is a serious doctor.  He switched gabapentin to the drug to Lyrica, and that provided more relief, at least I stopped screaming. I started wearing Lidocaine patches on my forehead.  I made my own concoction of Lidocaine, CBD and THC lotions to replace the patches. I read about some experiments using Botox ...

Veterans Day Speech at Loveland High Corporal Joseph Flanigan Marine Corps January 1968-January 1971 San Diego, California Veteran’s Day Speech, November 11, 2014. In 1967, when I graduated high school, I wanted to be a nuclear physicist. I just thought it would be amazing to study the insides of atoms. Well, it was Vietnam time, and the draft enlisted youth to the military as soldiers. In college, I soon realized I needed more money for tuition, and I volunteered for the draft to get 3 years of college for 2 years of service using veteran’s benefits. While in boot camp, I learned the first of many Marine ideals, like, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” On November 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution staring the Marine Corps. From that date, every Marine is trained in combat to defend our United States. As I was to learn, for every Marine on the front line, there are many jobs Marines do to support missions.  Yesterday was our 239 th ...

Fitness Model Primary Elements The Fitness Model shows the body's connection relationship of physical, neurological and cognitive. If are sitting in a chair and you want to walk out the door across the room, three activities must happen.    Must have the physical prowess to move.    Must have neurological coordination of movements    Must have cognitive plans to direct movement. Movement activity requires millions of body system's connections. Movement performance requires different systems to work in harmony with each other. Tone exists wherever the connections among the different movement elements perform in harmony.  When connection tone  does not exist - a new skill or are weak - not used  or broken - due to trauma like an accident, illness or diseases like multiple sclerosis then connection toning (contonix) training uses the connection relationship to remodel the connections. Mind-It is the training technique m...

Connection Toning Elements The Finite Elements of Conditioning

The Hero In Us and The Hero In Me From August 2014 The Hero In Us by Joseph Flanigan Loveland, Colorado As an Ambassador of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, I have given many talks about MS to groups, organizations, and individuals.    My speech script is about the disease, its diagnoses, its symptoms, and the Society. During the talk, I will weave in personal anecdotes and experiences.   These off-script anecdotes seem to make the most connection to the audience.   I enjoy telling the stories because they reveal some of the real-life challenges and consequences of living with MS. Living with MS is not a script nor is it a story.   In looking for a way to tell about living with multiple sclerosis, I discovered another way to explain the disease and uncovered new insight about how to live with MS. A friend, Brandon Harrington, told me about the 10-step model of a hero's journey often found in the literature. The steps derive from Josep...

Greif Adapt Matrix PPT Slide: Grief Adapt Matrix

Life Principles PPT Slide First and last thrive principles PPT Slide  When is thinking's black start

Nervous System Communication Model PP Slide:7 Layer Communications PPT Slide: Thoughts in Affinity Space PPt slide: Structures of the Mind

MS Wound Attack Zones Think about it. You get the feeling something is not right. You deny the possibility the feeling is MS. It has been 24 hours since the feeling stated. Anxiety drives desperation to make a neurologist appointment. Once in the examining room, the medical assistant prompts answers to a litany of questions.  The assistant finishes, stands, then exiting the door, turns and announces, "The doctor will be with you shortly". The door closes and you are alone. Hundred times the same visit scenario happens a the doctor's office s. Th is time I am sitting stressed about the possibility of an MS attack. My heart knows the truth, but I pray the neurologist will offer an absolution rather than blessing my fear is true. As much as you want it to be, the examining room is not a sanctuary from the fear. The emptiness fills with worry. Am I having an MS attack? Where is that doctor? I do not want to be here. Should I just walk out? Where is the doctor?  I kno...

Maslow's Needs Flanigan Wants PPT Slide

The Damn It Cycle

Keep Your Grit. Keep Your Ability to Thrive.   The mood change between apathy and grit is a journey of mood changes. 8 change states and 4 motivation states. What not is apathy is grit. Each term represents a mood. To find the opposite ask "What not is _______ is __________. What not is confidence is doubt. To describe a term ask "what is not _________ is________. What is not grit is uncentianly and no passion. Mood change happens by trigger moods. 8 trigger moods prompt grit. 8 trigger moods prompt apathy.

Neurologist and Brain Health Neurologists are the enablers that make remodel possible. They help identify relapses, provide the means for remission (steroids) and prescribe DMTs to sustain modeling. They are the relapse-remission-remodel bookends in an MSer's story. By necessity, neurologists are the outside-in viewer. When a doctor makes symptoms diagnosis, that is the art of clinical affinity modeling. My favorite  term I use to describe MS is a neurological complex trauma syndrome (CTS). By itself, trauma has four factors, injury, emotional challenges, social impact, and disability adapting.  A lesion is a wound that injures the complex interconnection of the body systems. Common speak from the outside-in view refers to MS as a disorder of the central nervous system. But as a CTS, the injury is one trauma's factors. While the lesion injuries the interconnected body systems, the wound multiples the complex trauma impact with emotional, social, and disability interc...

Pronouns - why do we care? If you ever get a chance to work with a client to develop information models for the client's business, pronouns are watchwords that cannot be modeled as facts. However, pronouns do point to the facts and can be used to discover the facts. Pronouns do provide a view of the facts. "send them a bill" "when will it start" Information modeling is an activity everybody does. From birth to death, our mind constructs information models of our personal world. Everybody's information model is unique. No other person has one's information model. The senses provide the gateway allowing world information to engage with the brain and mind. Language is an expression of people's information models. Words are the seeds of thought. The nine types of pronouns indicate the person's internal reference to something else.  It is a fact that pronouns identify something else. but not the actual fact to be modeled. From an information m...