at a crossroads..

Yep, what iwire said.

Here's my story:
About a year after I started doing this work, I was vacuuming my carpeted stairs, and I swear, the instant that I thought: "Sh**, these stairs need to be properly cleaned and I don't have time" I experienced a screaming pain that went from one side of my lower back to the other, settling painfully on one side. And it stayed. I tried to ignore it, and I went to the gym a few days later but it got way worse after that, to the point where I was using a ski pole to get around, five days after it happened.

Note that the thought I had was not deep or traumatic. The implied "should" and the negativity of "I don't have time" probably go to negative emotions about self-worth that my brain wanted to repress, and the fact that vacuuming IS kind of hard on the back provided a perfect opportunity for a lovely muscle spasm.

In desperation after five days, I called my favorite PT, who was too busy to fit me into his schedule - but he suggested a little book by a New Zealand chiropractor whose introduction states: "80% of the clients who come to me with back pain do not need an adjustment". Which I loved. He provided a short set of simple exercises that ranged from gentle- to modified- to full-Cobra (yoga) positions, culminating in being able to do a short set of full Cobra push-ups.

So I did the exercises - which only took a few minutes a few times a day. But to me, his most important message was this: "You can totally recover from back pain. It does not mean that you are permanently damaged, or that you're disabled and it certainly doesn't mean that you are doomed to have pain the rest of your life, so stop thinking like that". I'm paraphrasing, but that's the message I got, loud and clear. Of course, being committed to the knowledge of TMS, I was wide open to that message.

I was astonishingly better in 24 hours, and significantly better every day after that until I had no pain at all in less than a week.

Look, I'm not a TMS purist, and I really never have been - when it comes to self-healing and taking charge of my immune system, I've actually gone beyond Dr. Sarno to fully embrace the theories of Dr. Mate - who many people think is kinda out there. In any case, I firmly believe that we all sometimes need a little help - a little boost from outside interventions that help us visualize a healing outcome. I don't care whether it's an OTC pain reliever, or a little heat, or ice, or hands-on therapy of some sort - any of these things are okay once in a while when things are going badly - as long as we use them mindfully, and consciously turn our brains towards soothing and self-healing.

Not wanting to go through that again, when I vacuum now, I really try to be a lot more mindful of my thoughts, as well as my posture.