Day 1

My name is Carlie and I just started the SEP today. I have had chronic pain on my entire right side of my body for 5 years. I have been to every specialist & doctor over the years but Sarno's approach had come up many times in the past. Recently, it all just clicked with me that the emotional components of the pain are truly the root cause.
I am definitely able to comprehend the approach on a conscious level but I guess I worry that I still have hesitations at an unconscious level. I want to feel confident about it on all levels. Also, I know I have a lot of layers to work through but I want to trust that I will work through them all and that in the meantime, the pain will get better and better as I am doing the work.
Any other advice or suggestions for me, as a beginner, would be greatly appreciated...Thanks!

 

Hi, Carlie. Welcome to this community of TMS healing. The SEProgram will lead you to discovering emotions you have been repressing that are causing your pain. Journaling will help you in this. I also suggest you follow Dr. Sarno's 12 Daily Reminders, and think you will find the following extended version helpful:

Herbie Douglas's Extended Version of Sarno's 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1. The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but it's 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 are in pain 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 can but its better to lose some of the pain through losing your focus on the body and not fearing the pain. I can start my life over, I don't have to be in pain trying to heal cause I can face the repressions through awareness and journaling.
   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 and my patience in flow will be my power. I will not fear moving 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 it's hidden -- it's illusion, It's 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.
   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.
   12) 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 physical 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.
   

 

Hi Charlie! It will reach your unconscious with time. The more you believe it in a gut level and the more your fear and attention towards the pain chips away your unconscious will get the message. Try talking to your brain every now and than..when the pain is coming on really strong or you catch your pain theamed thoughts coming up laugh at your brain tell it you know what's going on and it's not going to work!

The best advice I can give you is don't be a perfectionist about your healing. It's really easy to forget that being a perfectionist and so self critical is one of the contributors to the pain! Your only on day 1 and your already second guessing your self. Your worrying about if you completely believe it and your frightening that child in you! Stand up to your self, tell your brain it has no right to try and scare you and make you second guess your self!

This is also completely normal for you to be thinking this way I'm sure everyone on here has and I know I have too. Try making your goal not getting rid of the pain but just to better understanding of your self and to enjoy life more! even with the pain. Because if your goal is to for the pain to get better guess what your brains doing... thinking about pain?" How's the pain now? How was the pain yesterday?" The word pain will come up in the brain a million time, and when the brain here's pain pain pain pain pain... guess what it does.

Some other advice added that helped me when I was staring out.
Check out this Ted talk on self compassion...

It helped me a lot and I think anyone with TMS should watch it.

 

Woaps wrong video link