Day 8 Day 8

[Kira790]

Q: Are you having success at recognizing the emotions connected to your pain? If you have, how do these emotions make you feel?

Late last year, I listened to the audiobook version of The Mindbody Prescription. I remember taking a walk and stopping in my tracks at some point early in the book when Dr. Sarno was describing the personality traits most commonly present in people with TMS. I felt like my actual personality was being described.

I have understood for quite some time that fear plays an outsized role in my life. What I'm coming to learn through the SEP and the journaling exercises is that there is a lot more anger underlying my emotions than I realized. Is the anger built on the fear, or the fear on the anger? I'm not sure, but in writing a letter to a personality trait today, my first inclination was to be angry at it for causing me so many problems. I went on to have compassion for the adaptation that helped me survive childhood and the anger dissipated. I offered that personality trait a new job and told it that its services were no longer needed in its current job.

But I am angry, this is the repressed rage Dr. Sarno was talking about that I thought only mildly applied to me. I am seeing how my good-ist traits and habits have not just created outcomes I don't like, but they caused deep, burning rage due to neglecting my own desires. For sure, pushing this rage down would cause fatigue, dysautonmia, depression, anxiety, OCD - how could it not? How would your brain and body, your very nature, not do everything it can to shake you and say "whoa there, stop this! we are way off track!".

Since I started TMS work, I often have felt sad and frustrated. But now, more rage is bubbling up and it feels good in a sort of unhinged way. Not that I'm going to go around being an asshole to everyone, but it feels liberating, comically so, to have these recent thought-jolts of "this is not my responsibility" or "not my problem to solve" or "whatever, they can deal with it".

Since I'm posting this, I realize it may sound like I am indeed an asshole, but I have spent literal decades assuming responsibility for others and putting others first - initially because I didn't have much of an option, and later because it became a habit and I thought it was "right".

Oh look, there I go people-pleasing again, explaining myself. Ha!

Every time I complete a journal exercise, I feel lighter. A combination of being at ease and more energized. I am so grateful that the SEP exists and that people here put in their own time to maintain this website.

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

Since I started TMS work, I often have felt sad and frustrated. But now, more rage is bubbling up and it feels good in a sort of unhinged way. Not that I'm going to go around being an asshole to everyone, but it feels liberating, comically so, to have these recent thought-jolts of "this is not my responsibility" or "not my problem to solve" or "whatever, they can deal with it".

Since I'm posting this, I realize it may sound like I am indeed an asshole, but I have spent literal decades assuming responsibility for others and putting others first

And the ironic thing is you don't sound like an asshole at all, what you said is actually completely normal (and with someone without the personality, what you said would just be common sense - there's nothing unhinged about balancing your needs with others, completely neglecting your own needs is more unhinged if anything, although it's understandable). Having the TMS personality myself it does indeed feel like that, but all this is is you recalibrating more back to the centre (a good balance) after being way too far to one side (we all people please to a degree if you look at it on a spectrum). Moving back to the centre will feel like being an asshole because you didn't realise just how far away from the centre you were (you think you were in the centre before, so movement from there would mean you're going too far the other way, but you weren't in the centre) - hopefully that makes sense (I have a little self-drawn diagram of this)

 

[Ellen]

Since I'm posting this, I realize it may sound like I am indeed an asshole, but I have spent literal decades assuming responsibility for others and putting others first - initially because I didn't have much of an option, and later because it became a habit and I thought it was "right".

Great insight! Now feel how angry your inner child is about this.