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Dr. Hanscom's Blog Am I Operating on Your Pain or Anxiety?

JanAtheCPA

JanAtheCPA

Beloved Grand Eagle
This is the title of Dr Hanscom's latest podcast and short accompanying article. It's another piece of the puzzle regarding the pain/anxiety cycle, as well as more of the back story that led Dr Hanscom to abandon his surgery career in favor of mindbody education.

From the article: "Pain, anxiety, and anger are tightly intertwined. As long as the anxiety/anger pathways are fired up, they will keep the pain circuits firing."
 
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Oh! Bravo❣️ Spot on! I accidentally but happily landed somewhere that talked about TMS/MBS 10 days ago! I’ve had chronic back pain for 4+ years, 2 now very unhappily on pain meds that I have already started tapering from on the 2nd day of piling up information up over my ears. I happened upon Sarno. I downloaded a book on kindle and got busy reading. I’m in the middle of at least 6 books-some audio, some tactile (who doesn’t love the feel and smell of printers ink?) Anyway, on day 4, I forced myself to go for a walk at night (too darn hot in the desert atm). I was listening to sarno and I was thinking through his 12 Daily Reminders. I hadn’t actually started them yet because I’ve truly become a slug. Just into the walk, I remembered sarno saying “Resume all activities”. I currently have none BUT I used to jog. I NEED the endorphins. I said screw the pain and I started running. I ran and ran. I even added a lap because I felt SO GOOD! I didn’t have a single twinge of pain. Nothing. It’s still at a 3-4. I can happily live with that. My next pain management appointment WAS going to be about my surgery, said my really very kind (that’s currently pretty unusual) pain management doctor. In my heart, I didn’t believe I needed surgery but something was wrong. All the injections, ablations, stem cells - through ALL of that, nothing touched my pain but I can read an mri. That didn’t make sense either. My husband is far better at reading MRIs so I had him go through Every. Single. Part. and I asked with each one: could that cause this level of pain? The answer was no, I don’t think so to everything so i AGAIN for the thousandth time got back on that computer. My Dr, I’m absolutely sure, would have operating on my fear of pain. I’m so grateful that the thousandth and 1 search brought me to Sarno and TMS/MBS. I have a long way to go but the only cut I’ll have is in my brain and the scars are in my heart which are always a reminder of hard things that have been overcome and I’ll take those scars any day over one on my spine!
 
JanAtheCPA said:
What can I say, @Jak, except danceadanceadancea

You go, girl! :joyful:
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Thank you❣️❣️ And thank you for posting that article. I'm still trying to learn my way around this bizarre website - there's so many rabbit holes. I don't know how I got there but I did and it's absolutely Spot On! I've wallpapered my brain with pain, fear of pain, fear of being fearful of pain and I'm starting to paint over that nonsense. I'm not a particularly good painter but I know it needs at least 4-6 coats - 1 for every year I've spent thinking about pain and 1 extra because I tend to try to over-achieve. Thx again.
 
Jak said:
I know it needs at least 4-6 coats - 1 for every year I've spent thinking about pain and 1 extra because I tend to try to over-achieve.
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This is a pretty brilliant @Jak. A lot of people would benefit from taking this advice to heart.

I sense that you are ready to do this work with a lot of self compassion, which is another essential for success. Looking forward to hearing more from you on your journey!

~Jan
 
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JanAtheCPA said:
This is a pretty brilliant @Jak. A lot of people would benefit from taking this advice to heart.

I sense that you are ready to do this work with a lot of self compassion, which is another essential for success. Looking forward to hearing more from you on your journey!

~Jan
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That phrase "self-compassion" is hard for me to accept. I actually need to think that through. I (the old me) was a server. I would"pour myself out" at all costs. It absolutely goes against the grain to even think about showing compassion to myself. My husband and my motto was, when we felt wronged, used, taken advantage of was "we have to pour grace over this" even in situations that abused our care, abused our sense of right/wrong. That's not me right now though. I'm hard, bitter and angry. I don't know where the middle ground is - I've never looked for it before. I would always rather absorb the wrong done to us, pour grace and move on. I am seeing I don't treat myself all that well but I will admit that I don't think I deserve it but it's kept me in excruciating pain for 4 years and that stops now whatever the cost at the moment, except for our elderly neighbor. I WILL absorb pain for her but that's my limit. She needs a friend. I'm empty but I'll keep our once-a-week meal going and 3-4 x a week chat going. I feel like it would be too selfish (navel-gazing my dad called it) and work HARDER at self-speaking to get through the pain that occurs. It goes against the grain to not ALWAYS be looking outward while now knowing I need to work on myself too.
 
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