My goal is to fundamentally alter my relationship with fear and make my primitive brain feel safe.

I have dozens of fear thoughts every day, I will not get good grades, my daughter will fall ill, I will get laid off, I will never recover 100%, my boss will not like my presentation, oh shit i just got pulled over by a cop what will happen now, my daughter's teacher asked me to come in and see her a week later so now i have a full week to catastrophize.. etc etc

I dont leave thoughts at thoughts but catastrophize on them and build the worst possible result of it and add more fear to the TMS foundation.

After reading outcome independence, I was able control the fear levels that pain symptoms brought by self talk and reading but forgot that fear of getting bad grades is no less than the fear of pain. I have not been able to recognize daily destructive thoughts unrelated to TMS and control them.

Having stayed in a very physically and verbally abusive marriage for 10 years followed by 4 years of contentious famuly court battle, my neural pathways have learnt to gravitate towards fear at every small little incident on a daily basis. This causes a lot of dalily anxiety, fear, state of flight or fight and my primtive brain is in usafe mode mostly. I feel this is the main cuase of TMS symptoms for me. When me fear level for any reason (TMS related or unrelated) is high so are the TMS symptoms. How do i change the neural pathways behavior to gravitate towards fear all teh time. Trsut me things that i can worry about would seem fine and normal to my 7 year old.

 

shmps, your situation resonates with me 100% - I am the same way.

I thought of my fears a lot and, on day 5 of SEP, I wrote a long letter to my fear. Things started moving for me since.

Remember, we are biologically programmed to fight or flee in response to any fear and since we can't release our fears of bosses, bad grades or kids' illnesses through fist fight or run, we get pain! The main thing is to recognize the fears as they come up and deal with them, through talking to our brains, meditation, breathing or whatever works.

Best of luck to you!

 

Thanks for you quick response. Its such a liberating idea to write to your fear. What was the tone of your letter ? Angry or Sad.. was it like begging that bully to stop harassing you or were you like ordering and demanding it to leave you alone.

I have several times found myself at the mercy of the fear thoughts, at my own mercy and wishing that this behavior of mine i.e to catastrophize everything stops.

Its become such a bad habit that I have had very dear friends move away from me. They avoid me because they feel like I am reading a catastrophic script to them all the time about my problems when we talk. My relationship with my brother has deteriorated so much because of this behavior of mine. Finally after two years of pain (in which one year has been 8-% good thanks to Dr. Sarno), now I know the foundational cause of my TMS. Its there to tell me that my behavior of fearing and pressurizing myself has been enough for my mind and my mind is now acting up and rebelling by sending pain symptoms. I have to change the neural pathways or my behavior. Just don't know how ?? I think such ingrained behaviors are so hard to change.. can an introvert become extrovert ? Can a shy become social ? Can a pessimist become optimist ?

If it was easy and possible why would people have a certain personality based on their nature and nurture ..!!

 

My letter was very much unemotional, business-like statement: thank you for encouraging me and giving me motivation to take care of myself and family, but now my inner child really needs a change. I would have shared it with you, but it is very personal and I am a very private person. I think the trick is to follow your heart and find the right tone. It may be different for different people.

So:

1. Write and re-write before it feels right and you see the change in your behavior.
2. Find inner strength to be an optimist: if you have not been one, you would have not ended up on this site. We all come here driven by hope, not by gloom. Uncover unknown self in you!
3. Celebrate every little victory over your fear and talk to your primitive brain about how great it feels to win - it will sink in. Set the goals and achieve them!
4. After all, I have no doubts that your boss often likes your presentations and you are still holding onto your job and your daughter sometimes is not sick - isn't that an argument that your fear is wrong and you are right?

BTW, I am still climbing this slope myself. Let's support each other!

 

I know what you mean about staying in a bad marriage I finally got the courage to leave my cheating wife...after 10 years of trying to work it out. It did a number on me but I am slowly getting bettet