Accept or ignore the pain?

Hi everyone,

in some books I read that the best is to accept the pain and in others there is written that I should ignore the pain and tell myself that it' s all in my brain. For me the first advice is the opposite of the second, isn't it?
Now I am really confused how I shall deal with my pain.

 

....there is another thing that I don't cope with: feeling my feelings and using affirmations - how does this fit together? Don't I ignore my feelings by using affirmations?

 

Hi Renate,

Good questions! I'm also relatively new, so I don't have all the answers - but, here's the way I look at it. To me the topics you listed are different techniques to use to break the cycle of pain and recover from TMS. There are many, many techniques you can use - you'll find more the more you read!

To me, the important take-home point from all of these techniques is: listen to your body, your inner wisdom, your pain. And, try all these different techniques and see which ones are most effective for you. I think you'll see, if you read a lot of other posts and stories, that different people find different techniques effective and a lot of people use a blend of different techniques at different times.

For me, it is helpful to consider all these techniques different "tools" in my recovery "tool box." I just happen to use all the techniques you listed:

1. I find it helpful to just ignore the pain a lot of the time and proceed with living my life. This helps me NOT obsess and NOT worry (those two things feed the pain cycle).
2. I often tell my brain, "I know what's going on, and I'm not going to stand for it. I can feel and face my feelings, so you don't have to try to protect me. I'm moving forward." etc.
3. For me, it's vital to feel my feelings. This has given me many new insights - and it takes away the purpose of pain (to distract me from my feelings).
4. I use affirmations all the time. At first it felt a little silly, but I think it is a great was to create new neural pathways and move along your recovery.

I might add, most of us tend to be perfectionists - but, there is no one "perfect" technique. So I encourage you to be patient and gentle with yourself, try many techniques, keep using the ones that resonate with you and let the others go!

I hope this makes sense to you and helps! Please let me know! Sunny

 

Hi Renate,

I don't see acceptance and ignoring the pain as opposites.

I think of acceptance of pain as non-resistance, meaning that I'm not focused on getting rid of it and catastrophizing about having it. Just letting it be. And I find rather than using the term ignoring, it is easier for me to think of it as focusing my attention elsewhere. By accepting and not resisting the pain, I give myself the space to focus elsewhere and to forget about the pain. This is a major key to recovery.

 

Not exactly. Say for example your at work. Lets pretend like you can't leave but you want to . Say your co-workers are making a lot of noise and yelling and your stressed out because you have a project due at the end of the day. Lets say you can't tell them to be quiet because they have to yell for whatever the reason. Lets say your an introvert and it bugs you, but you value your boss/work . So if I were to apply your question to that story I think the authors of the books are saying ACCEPT the yellings. IGNORE it which in theory is possible. But it is not possible to consciously ignore something without NOTICING it first unless your doing the process unconsciously

 

Hi Renate, I think this is all psycho-babbling, it's trying to give a "new age" overlay to fundamental and proven psychological Freudian/Jungian ideas about psychosomatic dis-ease. It's nice to ponder these thoughts listening to Echard Tolle, or sitting on cushions in a meditation class discussing who is the seer and the see'e, but at the end of the day you still have to make rice, chop wood and do the laundry. Dr. Sarno says the body is strong, it's the mind that is weak. The Good Doctor advises to JUST DO IT!--use it or lose it--atrophy is the enemy--the TMS gremlin and the chorus wants you to sit on your butt.

G'luck!
tt/lsmft

 

Hi Renate,
I think accept the pain/symptoms or ignore it is pretty much the same. Both try to help us achieve the same goal, which is don't give the symptoms any value. Our symptoms create fear and fear is the way our mind tell our body we are in danger (real or perceive), and then our body respond by creating fight or flight respond, which will produce changes inside our body that will continue to create symptoms. We tmser's got stuck in this Symptoms - Fear - danger - Fight or Flight - symptoms - fear .....
So our goal is to:
- stop your fear (ignore it, accept it, meditation, positive affirmation, use positive distraction...)
or
- Analyze the danger, see that the danger is temporary, not real, just a sign of our body telling us we are under stress/trauma...
or
- accept it. Think of it like we are born with the symptoms. Same as if we were born without hand or blind. We can sit there and feel sorry for ourselves and cry all day or we can go out and get involve and be happy.

Doctor Weekes also taught that we should just recognize the symptoms, observe it, "float" over it. Let it do what it want to do without having any reaction to it. Over time we will recognize that it is not as "dangerous" as we perceive it to be. We can still live with it, we can still be happy... and eventually the symptoms will just disappear.

Whatever you focus on will get stronger and intensified. So choose to focus on positive and happy "thing".

good luck Renate.

 

Renate,
There is some excellent advice in this thread.
ACCEPTANCE IS THE opposite of RESISTING. Because what we RESIST WILL PERSIST.
I agree 100% with what Balto advises. This is helping me to recover. Staying in the present moment and NOT FEARING the symptom no matter what.

Resisting the symptom is fighting with it or letting it scare or frustrate you, which will only fuel TMS...........cut off its OXYGEN SUPPLY .

 

This is a wonderful exchange of posts and viewpoints. Myself, I prefer to think positive and try to ignore and not even feel the pain.
Steve Ozanich says in his book THE GREAT PAIN DECEPTION that he kept playing golf despite the pain and didn't think about it.

I also don't spend too much time thinking about the psychological causes of my TMS pain. I just tell myself 100 percent that the pain comes from emotional and not structural problems.

Dr. Sarno gave us the best advice for TMS healing in his 12 Daily Reminders in his book Healing Back Pain.
I like the revised version of them from Herbie, another TMS healer:


Herbie’s Extended Version of Dr. Sarno’s 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1. The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but its caused by subconscious tensions and triggers, stressors and traits to your reactions and fears and also when at boiling point your conscious tension can and does cause real pain too.
2. The main reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation. This means that when you get in pain or in anxiety then the the blood is restricted from going to your lower back for instance. The blood being restricted causes oxygen deprivation which causes the pain - remember, where theirs no oxygen then there is pain in the body. Also, The pain stays because of fear and focus to physical organic symptoms and repressions.
3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my REPRESSED EMOTIONS so even though you think you can harm yourself from the years of pain you have felt and how you feel in general -- so far no reports have been heard from tms healing knowledge causing damage to anyone, it only helps.
4. The principle emotion is your repressed ANGER -- this means under your consciousness lies something that happens automatically to everyone. Tmsers have repressions that are stored because of our personality traits,traumas, stressors, fears, strain, etc... When these stored repressions build and build then eventually they cause the brain to send pain into your body to keep you from having an emotional crises. The mind-body thinks its helping you.
5. TMS exists to DISTRACT your attentions from the emotions, stressors, tensions and strains of your personality traits because if you can get distraction then you wont have to be in emotional turmoil. When you don't face and feel your emotions and they get repressed cause you didn't want to deal with something -- they are just adding up in this beaker, ready to pour over and create real pain and anxiety in your body.
6. Since my body is perfectly normal, there is nothing to fear. So in reality when I fear the pain or anxiety I just cause myself undo strain and tension adding to the beaker of pain. If I fear then I feed the pain, If I fear Its impossible to recondition. Fear keeps the pain and anxiety alive in the body through focus.
7. Therefore, physical activity is harmless.If I want to work against the pain I could but its better to lose some of the pain so when I start my life over I=t have to be in pain trying to heal cause facing the repressions and all the other activities that cause the pain and reversing my fear and focus to them then I can heal.
8. I am resuming all normal physical activity. I don't fear moving anymore. I believe in my bodies ability to heal now. I can move how I want. I will not fear moving with a bent back anymore. I will also practice going out and acting normal again, not in fear of what pain might do to me.
9. The pain is unimportant and powerless. Its only power is how its hidden -- its illusion, Its fear.
10. I will keep my attention on the emotional issues. I will think about my emotions and feel my emotions throughout the day. I will not judge, criticize or fear my emotions. I will not run from my emotional issues but face everyone of them. I will feel my emotions fully and cry if I need to. Then I will release the emotion and get my mind and thoughts back to my life and living in the present, in flow.
11. I am in control of all of this. This is how I recover.
12. I will be thinking PSYCHOLOGICALLY AT ALL TIMES. This means I will keep my thoughts on psychological issues like happiness, fear and anger -- traits and triggers, conditioning and journaling. The science behind mind-body/tms healing, etc.... This way I will not feed my thoughts to the body -- that is a trick of tms. Tms will always try to get me to focus on the body caused by the pain until I break its show and flair. When I get my attention off psychical symptoms and on emotional issues and psychological issues then I will not feed the fear of the physical issues anymore thus making the tms of no effect. This will in return, give us the cure.

 

Yes, too many here suffer from "paralysis by analysis."

 

Thank you all for your helpfull responses!
Due to the fact that I am lying (I can sit only 5 minutes) on my couch for 9o% of the day - since 4,5 years - and because I am living alone, I have very much time to read. So I read many of the books that are recommended here in the forum and when you have too much information, you get confused.
I was diagnosed from RSD in my foot in jannuary 2011.
After heaving read John Sarno in March 2015, I startet slowly to make some progress: twice a day I can walk now for 10 minutes! I can make soft gymnastiks on the floor and I don't need any more flip-flops to take a shower, I can stand there bearfoot. This may sound funny, but since more than four years I couldn't do this.

Since my post I tried both: ignore and accept the pain. I found out that ignoring the pain and telling myself affirmations works best for me!

 

RENATE

For ME accepting the pain and being with it settles me down I almost want to reach for it and when I do it goes away….Ignoring the pain fro ME was resistance it caused more pain the more I ignored it the worse it got…I wish Steve O would chime in on this one, I can't figure this one out.

 

"Each situation has no link to the past unless you create the link. A horrible performance of the past will not be repeated if you take different actions in the present and the magnificence of the future cannot happen without you doing the work in the present." David Sammel, "LOCKER ROOM POWER", pg.7.

 

I would say, neither accept or ignore the pain. But more to the point of understanding the pain, it's triggers, causes etc and breaking the toxic thinking that causes it. Try and think clean and be the change.

 

Excellent ……..

 

"understanding" = TMS KNOWLEDGE THERAPY