Recent content by Stiffbreeze

My muscles in my back are so tight and painful from stress and repressed emotion that I can't fall or stay asleep (both from pain and difficulty breathing) and it's causing me to have panic attacks that I'm never going to sleep again, and somehow this will cause me to die. I'm so sleep deprived...

After journaling on a past trauma and feeling quite emotional and exhausted, going through this meditation and body scan helped me find peace and serenity. I was able to relax my muscles, mostly in my face and upper back more so willingly than I normally am. I'm an experienced meditator, so...

I'm partway through "Healing back pain" now, and on day 5 of the SEP. It's already working. :D

@Hedger Thanks for the insight! That sounds really promising. It resonates with me. I think it'll be hard to do without caring about my sleep, but the idea that I'm just putting the whammy on myself each night makes sense.

As someone on Day 4, this is so heartening to hear. <3

@JanAtheCPA woohoo! Despite my back feeling "injured", I forced myself to go for a run yesterday for the first time in far too long. Handled it like a champ, and the back hurts less today than yesterday. Thanks for the push.

@JanAtheCPA Thanks so much for taking the time to write all that out. I've been practicing mindfulness meditation for years, but never did much visualization work. I'll give that a shot. I've tried the Waking Up and Calm apps before, but I haven't tried Ten Percent Happier yet, I might look into...

The most disheartening thing a doctor told me was that I have early onset arthritis, that I'm not a good candidate for surgery, and there's nothing they can do except try to manage the pain. I felt like after months of trying everything, this doctor was telling me that this pain is just part of...

Hahaha :D You may be right. It's...really hard to give up the belief though. I assume this just requires me to do the things that I don't think I should do if I'm injured, and see that my back can handle it no problem, and then do that repeatedly as I gain confidence.

So I guess I don't know. To me it feels like the initial tension is caused from TMS, and that tension passes a threshold where now the physical muscle is injured and regardless of what I do, it just needs a few days to heal up. I'm not sure that is correct, but it feels that way.

Hahaha I thought you were about to say "She wrote a book, and then threw it away!" Thanks for the recommendations. I think I understand the stream of consciousness writing idea, and I like the idea of adding something I'm grateful for afterwards. I'm definitely struggling with sleep right...

So I've been fortunate enough to break through the barrier with Yoga, and I can do yoga with little effect on activating my back pain, but basically anything else is just...not working. Specifically running. If I can get back to running, it's almost like everything will be ok, I have it so...