Recent content by swandive

Wonderful! I hope it works well. I did get a migraine this week and I tried the technique and it didn't work--so I think it may be a strategy of differentiating tension-triggered from structurally-triggered pain. Although the fact that I was attending to my emotions probably helped to prevent...

Absolutely!! If this can help anyone else I would be ecstatic. As always, thanks for the support Herbie!

Day 34 of the program reintroduces this idea: "In most cases, at least the purpose of the pain is to preoccupy or distract you from painful unconscious emotions, then anything that leads to preoccupation will serve as a reinforcer." The implications of this concept have bothered me since the...

I completely understand where you're coming from. So many passions of mine have been destroyed with the drive for external validation. So how the f#&k (putting on my polite face for y'all) can we a) get back in touch with intrinsic motivation and b) savor and prioritize internal over external...

I think it would make sense if those people are attracted to you, especially if the sensitivities that make you vulnerable to TMS may be attractive to people battling similar demons who sense a kindred spirit who may understand them. It sounds like you are already making progress in setting some...

Ha! I doubt it! But then again I would have smacked someone upside the face if they had told me my chronic pain could mostly disappear through "education" and "journaling", so there's always a chance, right? W/ respect to our other conversation on living the experience of...

That is definitely something I am trying to do. I suppose it makes sense that we constantly move to an external perspective when so often our internal lives are filled with fear/anger/shame/sadness/boredom that is pretty uncomfortable to breathe into. I do hope with more MM practice that as time...

Hi 331, I had a wise therapist once tell me that the only thing we can be accountable for is our contract with ourselves. In this situation, you contracted yourself to loving a person the best way you could and loving them monogamously. Your partner likewise entered that contract and broke it...

Hi John, I have the same problem and will probably take 80-100 days to get through the 42 day program. The worst part of it is the self-flagellation you endure for skipping a day even though you know that's reinforcing the mental patterns that got you into this mess in the first place. My friend...

Thanks for both your comments! Just today I thought about the psychological concept of "self-objectification," where women are often more sexually aroused by someone being attracted to them than from looking at someone attractive, and wondered if that is what I constantly do to myself, outside...

I'm doing actually pretty well at Day "25" (in quotes due to time proceeding more consistently than my program compliance). My elbows have almost been entirely pain-free, even with typing and sporadic tests of activities I could never do before without triggering pain (swimming, yoga, chopping...

Thank-you Dahlia. I have actually used Kabat-Zinn's CD (I purchased his depression book a few years ago, and I find mindfulness a good strategy when self-talk fails). I agree that it may be a "bandaid" as often I feel better immediately afterward, but am very easily triggered into emotional...

Thank-you Stella! I did find that envisioning hugging and comforting the toddler version of me w/ a bowlcut in 80's gender-neutral colored overalls and ganging up with her against the internal pageant parent/drill Sargent really helped. How interesting that such visualization helped the...