Day 2

Okay. Since yesterday was Day 1, and this is only an educational program, I didn't know what to expect. I did spend 6 hours reading a book about TMS 2 days ago, so I thought, I am so miserable with so many pains, just go ahead and do the educational program.

Yesterday, I tried it and was successful in sitting for much longer periods of time, and walking a short distance. However, I got into an argument with my husband about politics, and became furious.

Overnight, I didn't sleep well, and began to think that in this program I was going to have to re-visit all of the things I have been afraid of, sad about, or angry about, in the past, and I went into some kind of overwhelm and shock.

Today I found the Q & A section from practitioners and found this answer to someone's question about fear:


Ideally any investigation of feelings will be driven by a desire to more deeply know and accept yourself, as a way of treating yourself better and having a more full experience of your life. To that end, I usually tell my clients that it is not necessarily essential for them to actively dredge up painful events and go over them time and time again looking for anger. Very often, that will result in the actual roots of the anger remaining elusive - you end up going through the markers of emotion because you feel like you're supposed to, not because of what's really going on. This is why I often tell my clients they that they don't need to seek out feelings of sadness and anger - they will come up in their day to day life and it is far more important to open oneself up to being present with their feelings as they arise rather than pressuring themselves to reinvestigate previous events ad nauseum.

This is compatible with my meditation practice, and such a relief. Finding this answer brought me out of shock and realizing that I can stop, after many months, trying to dredge up old resentments, that I thought were feeding PTSD.

I can stay in today, and begin to learn what I am afraid about, sad about, and angry about today. I can't say how great my relief is. I just did the exercise for day 2, and am going to go for another short walk today. I am also going to cancel my chiropractic appointment for tomorrow and a possible massage therapy appointment I had made for Wednesday.

Thank you all for creating this online program. On with regular life today. Out of shock.

I do see a mind body therapist who I will see on Thursday, but will stop dredging up past stuff and focus on today and this week, and getting in touch with how I am feeling now.

 

RFJ, this is great news on so many levels. I'm going to find that post so I can bookmark it, because it answers a question that so many people have. And I'm thrilled to see that you are finding your way around and discovering all of the wonderful information and insights that our wonderful practitioners have so generously provided.

As we often say, one size does not fit all, but we've got a huge range of resources that has accumulated in only a few years. Anyone who arrives here to heal will be able to find ideas and advice that resonates for them.

Thank you for posting, and keep it up!

 

Hi, readyforjoy. The argument with your husband about politics... that surely can be stressful and cause pain. I tried to force my political opinions on a couple of friends and they did not like it so they ended the friendship. I learned from that experience that I should keep my politics to myself.

I keep thinking how amazing it is that those two campaign managers, one for the Democrats and the other for the Republicans, disagreed so much, but it didn't keep them from falling in love with each other and marrying. I guess to them, politics is not to be taken seriously. At least, it is not to be shared, especially with friends or loved ones.

It helps to tune out politics and not watch tv news.

The educational program helped me heal from back pain, and has helped many, many others. It will heal you, too. You've just begun the program so give it some time to help you. You will have to delve into your past, to find repressed emotions causing your pain.I did this in journaling and it really worked for me. It was essential to my TMS healing. Journaling into the past can be stressful, but does lead to healing. A lot of the healing has to do with forgiving others and ourselves.

Remember, while doing the SEP, practice deep breathing, mindfulness (living in the present, not the past or future), and try to laugh as much and as often as you can. If you can't laugh, just smile. Here is some advice on smiling:


Is It True That Smiling Can Reduce Stress?

Until the 1960s, people were brought up to hide their feelings (especially the bad ones) and show a brave face to the world.

Then the human growth movement introduced the idea that repressing was bad, and it was much healthier to express your feelings.

There are good things about being more emotionally honest – it opens the door to real human connection. But – maybe there was wisdom in those old traditions. Now studies are showing that simply smiling can reduce stress…. which is healthy in all sorts of ways, for your body and your mind.


A study by two psychologists at the University of Kansas looked at different types of smiling, and how this might affect a person’s response to stress:

Smiling can reduce stress – and it’s even more effective when your eyes smile too!

The participants were instructed on how to perform an unusual task: holding chopsticks in their mouths in particular ways that prompted various facial expressions. They were divided into three groups, one that was taught how to form a neutral expression, one that learned how to form a normal smile, and one that was instructed to form a Duchenne smile (also known as a genuine smile), which involves the use of eye muscles, as well as those around the mouth.

Additionally, only half of the smilers actually heard the world “smile” during the learning phase; the others were simply taught how to hold the chopsticks in a way that produced smiles, without the expression being identified as such.

The participants were put into different stressful situations. Their heart rates were monitored, and they were asked to report their levels of stress.

The experiment’s findings were startling. As a whole, the smilers had lower heart rates while recovering from the stressful tasks than those who had assumed neutral expressions, and those with Duchenne smiles had lower heart rates yet. Even those who were smiling only due to their instructed chopstick position—without explicitly being told to smile—showed the same effect.

Since heart rate is an indicator of the body’s stress response, it seems as though the act of smiling actually reduced the participants’ overall stress level.

Nobody is quite sure how exactly facial expressions are related to a person’s underlying mood, but researchers have found a definite connection. For example, studies have shown that people suffering from facial paralysis, and without the ability to smile, have been found to suffer more from depression.

You may think that people smile because they are happy, but scientific research suggests otherwise. ‘Simply using the same muscles as smiling will put you in a happier mood,’ explains Dr Michael Lewis, psychologist at Cardiff University. ‘That’s because use of those muscles is part of how the brain evaluates mood.’

Charles Darwin was one of the first to suggest our expressions may actually intensify our feelings. This theory is known as the ‘feedback loop’ or ‘facial feedback hypothesis’. A smiling expression feeds back into how we experience mood, therefore making us feel happier or a joke seem funnier.

 

Hi Walt. Well, I decided to take a break from politics for awhile . I did listen to a 4-5 part audio interview with Dr. John Sarno on youtube this morning, and I did cancel my chiropractic appointment today and my massage appointment for Wednesday.
It seems the TMS community is divided between having to find deeply repressed old emotions and release them, and simply "think psychological" now.
Not being much of a writer, and loving to make visual art, I am going to start doing some visual art instead of using words.
I already know, from family history, that the most significant traumas that I experienced were at birth and before the age of 2 years old. So, I was pre-verbal.

Do you want to sound in on the schism in the TMS Community about the need to discover old, deeply held repressed emotions and the idea of practicing "thinking psychologically" on a moment to moment basis?