A Poignant TMS Moment

I had a TMS experience the other day that I wanted to share with you all.


I was chatting with an acquaintance over lunch, first about her children, and then about what to eat for lunch. Out of nowhere she told me how she suffered from gastritis, and how it has limited what she could eat and when and how many issues it's caused her. I couldn't help but think, "This has TMS written all over it."

Because of my experience of TMS, I know that people tend to use physical concerns as a way of eliciting sympathy for their real concerns, which are emotional in nature. Not confident enough to bring up the whole mind-body issue directly, I gently asked her if she ever journaled--wrote down things in her life that were bothering her--since in my experience these kinds of ailments are often stress-related.

Without missing a beat, her eyes began to well up with tears as she told me about her daughter who had a problem with drugs and abusive men and how much it hurt her that she couldn't do anything about it. She was in so much *pain* because of it. Her distress was palpable to me. I knew that any physical distress related to the gastritis couldn't compare to the anguish of feeling like she had failed as a mother.

I pointed to where she complained her food got stuck during the digestive process, which was near her esophagus. I told her the real pain was not far away--right around her heart. Though a bit sappy, it was a poignant moment for both of us, and I felt empowered for being able to draw out such emotions from someone I don't know well, whose suffering I could surmise from limited information. Thanks to all my training with TMS ;-)