Recent content by TheNewYorker

Interestingly, my therapist had "The Divided Mind" on her bookshelf. She is a big believer in mindfulness so I wasn't surprised. I mentioned Sarno and she told me she knows three people who worked with either him or his protege at Rusk. She described one man's recovery as "miraculous." He was...

It's taken me several days to move from Day 4 to Day 5 but I'm trying not to beat myself up over it. My pain has lessened in that time, but I'm not going to stop the work. Today was my first day of delving into a painful memory from the past and it only took about five minutes of freewriting to...

My mantra when I'm out walking and the pain starts is, "My pain is physical. Its source is emotional." Yeah, I'm journaling and doing the work. I have hope, and patience with myself.

Question to ponder: What was the most disheartening thing a doctor has told you about your symptoms? In what ways have you kept that in your mind? Hearing that there was no physical reason for the numbness and tingling I’ve had in my left hand and foot for nearly 30 years was certainly...

In answer to the question about the last time I did any exercise and how I felt: The last time I exercised with no pain was sometime in 2011, nearly six years ago, after four months of recovering from my stress fracture. I was doing hard workouts, training for a short road race off an enormous...

Ah, good. Also, I'm sorry I called you "Herbie." I have no idea why. It's been a long day.

Thanks for this extended list of definitions, Walt. I found the original ones a little sparse. Yes, I read "Healing Back Pain" over the weekend and now I'm reading "The Great Pain Deception". I'm on Day 3 of the program and have already started making changes to try to help myself. I took my...

Last night the my pain got worse the longer I stood in the kitchen and made dinner. Within 10 minutes it was excruciating. I had serious doubts about TMS and finally relented and took half a Vicodin. This morning I got up and did more reading, and then did the Day 2 tasks. I felt okay walking...

I'm brand new to TMS. I'm 9 months beyond a series of epidural injections for two herniated discs. Was getting better but the pain never went away totally. Then a week ago I fell off the mountain and I'm back to crippling sciatica. This morning I started noting each individual area of worry...