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To start this response, and to add to what @miffybunny just said, please keep in mind we are all creating these situations, but we are absolutely not doing it consciously or on purpose. The funny thing is, after a certain age, the subconscious programming is ‘driving the ship’ far more than we realize, but this is info for another time

The first, and overall the most important part of my healing process, was knowledge.

First, knowledge of how I got there (my Dad had bad PTSD from Vietnam, so it was an abusive household from birth). But that was normal to me, so most of my life I just thought I was more driven than other people, an over-achiever with a bit of a bad temper. But that was just ‘me.’

My sister had the same experience, and her TMS was so bad she was in a wheelchair for several months with terrible back and neck pain. 12
Specialists in Boston, and no one could figure it out. I talked her out of Suicide several times in my early 20s before she found Sarno, and to this day I credit him with saving her life.

I say all this because the first part of my healing process was to objectively look at my whole life, and humbly saying ‘oh, yeah, this affected me FAR more than I ever wanted to admit.’ This helped ‘open the door’, to understand why my body was stuck in survival mode.

So after several years of debilitating back pain, reading TMS books cured it after several months.

It was a blessing and a curse that that happened so fast, though, because I never really had to dig any deeper.

Years later, after I started my own office, bought my first house, and had all the typical adult stresses start around the same time, the TMS came back with a vengeance, but this time it was about 20-30 other symptoms that would fluctuate. I suspected TMS immediately, but reading Dr. Sarno’s books didn’t help this time. I found the other TMS forum and Hillbilly’s posts, and immediately started to look at things differently. I tore through Weekes, Low, and host of others. This helped, but I couldn’t seem to fully get ahead of it. So I’d keep re-reading, and slowly things improved.

So for me, step one was admitting I had a problem (sounds like an addiction, right?), and that it was housed in the mind/emotions.

The second step was re-assuring myself though the things I read repeatedly. Hundreds of times, over and over, drilling it into my head. I felt better slowly over time, but it was still a struggle, and I’d have some really bad days. But the information laid a solid foundation, which was a big part of it.

Believe it or not, this went on for several years. I had MRIs, blood tests, etc. Looking back, my analytical/medical mind worked against me for sure. Fear, concern, fixation....were all winning, and this delayed my healing. No matter how much I meditated, read, talked about it...I just couldn’t fully get ahead of it. And to make it worse, my main symptom was constant dizziness. It always felt like I was on a boat in big waves. So just ignoring that was nearly impossible. I began to feel trapped, like ‘if I can’t ignore this, how can I ever heal??’ I fought depression and suicidal thoughts regularly at that time. I tried every modality out there, and many helped a bit, but nothing was fixing it.

From reading these comments, I think quite a few people are stuck in that place.

But then, like Hillbilly, I had an epiphany of sorts. And it’s exactly what anyone who healed had said, but I realized I just wasn’t doing what they recommended. I realized even though I was trying to ignore it, I was waiting for my situation to change to feel/think differently about it, instead of changing myself. I noticed that fear ruled a lot of things in my life. I didn’t fear my actual symptoms as much, but I noticed I feared confrontation with my employees more.

The situation didn’t matter, the feeling did (and the chemical release that comes with it).

So after noticing these patterns, and after getting so sick of being sick, I finally started just doing things and thinking differently. As much as I could, I’d just let thoughts and sensations come and go, and on top of that, I just kept trying to think and feel as if I was already healthy.

This was very, very difficult at first! Especially when symptoms were bad. But the absolute ’I am done with this!!’ energy kept focused. So with practice, even in the midst of dizziness and other things, I started to smile more. I kept asking myself ‘what would perfect health feel like right now?’ Over and over. I shed my old skin so to speak. I spoke up when I didn’t want to, I did things I was afraid to, ALL while feeling shitty.

I keep thinking of how it would feel when all this stuff was gone, even if I felt horrible. Bad thoughts would come in, but I’d catch them and shift them immediately.

No more I said, and this is it. Do or die, really, because I couldn’t live with it anymore (still sounds like an addiction, doesn’t it?). That ‘post in the ground’ saved my life. Your resolve has to be greater than your addiction.

Knowledge->experience/practice—>being/becoming.

That is basically how I did it. Practice, practice, practice until you shed the old you (and with it all the pain and dysfunction)!