Does TMS come back when taking extended breaks?

[Jawarrior1]

Hey guys,

I haven't started a real journalspeak practice in about 4 years. Last time I did it I was completely out of pain after 4-6 months of consistency.

Nowadays I am back in pain, this time the knee and low back. Its quite a lot of pain and very depressing. Is it normal for TMS to return after some time?

Jesse

 

[Diana-M]

Yes. Very common. But the good news is, you know what to do and you’ve been successful before! Look for new events in your life that could be contributing.

 

[Cactusflower]

Yes, when you return to old habits and beliefs, TMS can pop up again.
Great thing is, you already know what to do!
Keeping up with TMS practices as a daily lifestyle and incorporating them as “normal” in daily routines is a great way to recognize when these things creep up on us again.
Why stop journaling if it helps your stress?

 

[Jawarrior1]

Yes, when you return to old habits and beliefs, TMS can pop up again.
Great thing is, you already know what to do!
Keeping up with TMS practices as a daily lifestyle and incorporating them as “normal” in daily routines is a great way to recognize when these things creep up on us again.
Why stop journaling if it helps your stress?

Yes. Very common. But the good news is, you know what to do and you’ve been successful before! Look for new events in your life that could be contributing.

Hmm why does pain not go away for some people? I have seen people post in these forums for years and they are still in pain? Not to be negative, just would like to ask.

 

[Cactusflower]

Hmm why does pain not go away for some people? I have seen people post in these forums for years and they are still in pain? Not to be negative, just would like to ask.

Many reasons! We’re all on our own journeys!

 

[Jawarrior1]

Many reasons! We’re all on our own journeys!

Hmm, I am trying to avoid staying in pain. I am curious about those that don't recover as I would like to avoid whichever reasons. Nichole Sach's story is amazing for example. But I have seen recurrent pain in some stories despite stories like Nichole's.

If you were me, how would you reconcile the recurrent (where the pain doesn't go away) stories with ones like Nichole's or the great testimonies seen here.

 

[BloodMoon]

Hmm why does pain not go away for some people? I have seen people post in these forums for years and they are still in pain? Not to be negative, just would like to ask.

I've been on these forums on and off since 2018. In 2018 I was often bedridden and housebound with symptoms to include severe pain and chronic fatigue and had a myriad of other disabling symptoms too, and now I'm not bedridden and am functioning pretty normally by comparison, but I still have some pain.

For some people recovery is a slow and gradual process. Personally, I think it's that, unfortunately for me (and I more than surmise for some other people too), my lizard brain is over zealous at perceiving danger and extra specially 'good' at creating symptoms to protect me from the dangers it perceives. It used to see danger in everything (and accordingly it gave me a huge amount of pain and other symptoms to hobble me so that I couldn't even get out of bed to go to the bathroom) but now, by my doing mind/body work, it has calmed down and sees danger in fewer things and so my symptoms ('alarms') are fewer and far less severe.

Hmm, I am trying to avoid staying in pain. I am curious about those that don't recover as I would like to avoid whichever reasons. Nichole Sach's story is amazing for example. But I have seen recurrent pain in some stories despite stories like Nichole's.

If you were me, how would you reconcile the recurrent (where the pain doesn't go away) stories with ones like Nichole's or the great testimonies seen here.

Sure, there are stories of people who read a Sarno book and bam they're sorted and pain free for life without doing anything else other than reading that book and realising that their symptoms are mind/body, but for most TMSers recovery/keeping symptoms at bay means changing the way you live your life and your attitude towards every day stressors, and so on. Accordingly, usually one can't expect to do some journaling and be sorted for the rest of one's life. (For some people it might be the case, but I wager it's not the case for many.) Dr David Hanscom (who was a back surgeon) is another practitioner who recommends a form of journaling that he calls 'expressive writing' and he has changed the way he lives his life to include doing 'expressive writing' every day and incorporated other techniques to become and remain symptom free of his own back pain.

JournalSpeak worked for you... so, as @Cactusflower advises, if I were you I would return to it and keep doing it... make journaling every day a part of your lifestyle. You might find that you only need to do it every other day or just once a week or whatever... or you might find you need to add doing some other mind/body techniques as well to your daily regimen to become pain free again and to keep that way.

 

[Jawarrior1]

I've been on these forums on and off since 2018. In 2018 I was often bedridden and housebound with symptoms to include severe pain and chronic fatigue and had a myriad of other disabling symptoms too, and now I'm not bedridden and am functioning pretty normally by comparison, but I still have some pain.

For some people recovery is a slow and gradual process. Personally, I think it's that, unfortunately for me (and I more than surmise for some other people too), my lizard brain is over zealous at perceiving danger and extra specially 'good' at creating symptoms to protect me from the dangers it perceives. It used to see danger in everything (and accordingly it gave me a huge amount of pain and other symptoms to hobble me so that I couldn't even get out of bed to go to the bathroom) but now, by my doing mind/body work, it has calmed down and sees danger in fewer things and so my symptoms ('alarms') are fewer and far less severe.

Sure, there are stories of people who read a Sarno book and bam they're sorted and pain free for life without doing anything else other than reading that book and realising that their symptoms are mind/body, but for most TMSers recovery/keeping symptoms at bay means changing the way you live your life and your attitude towards every day stressors, and so on. Accordingly, usually one can't expect to do some journaling and be sorted for the rest of one's life. (For some people it might be the case, but I wager it's not the case for many.) Dr David Hanscom (who was a back surgeon) is another practitioner who recommends a form of journaling that he calls 'expressive writing' and he has changed the way he lives his life to include doing 'expressive writing' every day and incorporated other techniques to become and remain symptom free of his own back pain.

JournalSpeak worked for you... so, as @Cactusflower advises, if I were you I would return to it and keep doing it... make journaling every day a part of your lifestyle. You might find that you only need to do it every other day or just once a week or whatever... or you might find you need to add doing some other mind/body techniques as well to your daily regimen to become pain free again and to keep that way.

Thank you, this was enlightening. To think people have different levels of TMS. Is there a section of a book by Sarno, Nichole or another person who verifies this phenomena by clinical practice? That all of us need varying amounts of mind/body work.

 

[BloodMoon]

To think people have different levels of TMS. Is there a section of a book by Sarno, Nichole or another person who verifies this phenomena by clinical practice? That all of us need varying amounts of mind/body work.

Quotations from Nicole Sachs videos (I made a note of them but I'm afraid I didn't make a note of the links to the actual videos):

"I call it the emotional reservoir. It contains the biggies. It contains the stuff that you really don’t want to feel. We walk through our day, and only a portion of what we feel gets processed; the rest gets repressed automatically to allow us to function. The amount of emotional pain that converts to physical symptoms varies by individual nervous system thresholds."

"Healing is an internal process; it requires honest emotional excavation. People do it to different degrees depending on resistance and emotional load, which explains why everyone has a unique healing journey."

 

[Cactusflower]

Nichole has had recurrent pain. She is a human being! Dr. Schubiner has rid himself from his initial chronic symptoms yet tells stories about instances where he has a mysterious symptom but because he's learned and keeps up with the skills he has, these symptoms don't become chronic. Dr. Sarno had headaches and gastro symptoms that would come and go. His would go when he thought deeply about the things that were enraging his subconcious mind or suppressed in his conscious mind - things he was conflicted about for eg. being angry at someone even though he was a nice guy and didn't identify as being an "angry" person.
Dan Buglio has had a few instances of symptoms popping up. He has mentioned them in passing - they aren't his fixation and focus. They don't happen very often because he has a "practice" (he wouldn't call it that) of chilling out every day and taking time for himself to just "be" (he often starts his videos during this time to show himself taking a few deep breaths, hanging outside, noticing when the lawn mowing guy is making him annoyed again etc).

My advice is to stop thinking you need to be 100% perfect to be good enough and "HEALED" of a normal, human biological function such as feeling sensations in your body. Those sensations and the pain isn't what TMS is about. It's about your emotions and thoughts and the way you react instead of respond to the stressors in your life.

You've been on this forum lots in the past and have gotten so much great and caring advice...follow it! It's that simple!

 

[Cactusflower]

Thank you, this was enlightening. To think people have different levels of TMS. Is there a section of a book by Sarno, Nichole or another person who verifies this phenomena by clinical practice? That all of us need varying amounts of mind/body work.

I think this is where you use your own experience to judge what you need.
You are looking for someone to tell you exactly what to do to stop ever having symptoms.

I don't think people have "different levels" of TMS - I think that their experiences are different because of the drivers of their TMS might be slightly different eg. people who have had a small, recent injury that they freak about about healing vs. people who have had some pretty horrendous things happen in their life. One giant key to healing is to stop comparing yourself and your journey to anyone elses. Maybe you heard someone had a "book" healing. However, did you ever hear from that person how many other symptoms they've had since then? Most likely not, because they learned the first time how to deal with anything that they suspect is TMS.

You learned yourself how to heal your initial symptoms. You know what to do.

 

[Jawarrior1]

I think this is where you use your own experience to judge what you need.
You are looking for someone to tell you exactly what to do to stop ever having symptoms.

I don't think people have "different levels" of TMS - I think that their experiences are different because of the drivers of their TMS might be slightly different eg. people who have had a small, recent injury that they freak about about healing vs. people who have had some pretty horrendous things happen in their life. One giant key to healing is to stop comparing yourself and your journey to anyone elses. Maybe you heard someone had a "book" healing. However, did you ever hear from that person how many other symptoms they've had since then? Most likely not, because they learned the first time how to deal with anything that they suspect is TMS.

You learned yourself how to heal your initial symptoms. You know what to do.

Yes, true I sort of do know what to do. I know to reach out to yall, what to listen to and read. Excuse the questions as if I were a "new" person. I recently went through about two years of rejections of TMS by other people. Specifically my church, whom I value most highly. One person said I was in a "demonic delusion" for thinking journaling would heal chronic pain and that I should talk about it to the priest ASAP.

Almost everyone in my life denies TMS is real and I gave going through life without TMS work a real "college try" and to "depend on Christ alone" type thing (this was the reason I stopped journaling) and what I found was ignoring emotions just doesn't work for me.

I have decided to ignore what other people say about TMS. And just do what is right for me.

Forgive me as I have to relearn a lot of material now that I "believe it" again. I forget also that I used these forums a lot in the past and tend to think of yall as infinite resources. So forgive me also for taking yall for granted. I kinda viewed it like a Facebook page with like 6 month turnover. But we are quite tight knit here actually.

 

[Cactusflower]

@Jawarrior1
My dearly departed pastor, who had been a cop, prison warden then pastor always reminded us that God gave us a brain to use! We were gifted the ability to ascertain, and also to discern. Why on earth would God not want you to heal, and lead you to a way to do that very thing?
If you want to re-learn journaling, why not use the SEP as your guide. Remember that you were created in an image of perfection and that perfection is an imperfect human - your thoughts and feelings are all accepted as they are, because humans were meant to feel all emotions without judgement of good or bad. Many of your fellow humans may not be so enlightened.
Reading Sarno again would also be of benefit.
It sounds like there are many areas in your life that could be conflicted. Perhaps you are at a turning point.
Enjoy getting to know your true self in this work!

 

[JanAtheCPA]

I'm going to be a bit flippant here, @Jawarrior1, because you've been around long enough that I think you can take it. I certainly agree 1000% with everything you've been told above, and it sounds like you've had a breakthrough which I really hope you will follow through on.

Hmm, I am trying to avoid staying in pain. I am curious about those that don't recover as I would like to avoid whichever reasons.

My flippant response to this is: Yes! I can think of two things you can do to achieve this goal:
1) Don't get old (so you can more easily avoid facing the truth about mortality) and
2) Fix the state of the world (so you don't have to deal with uncertainty ever again).

Okay, that seems a bit unlikely - but these are the two big triggers which often cause me to encounter symptoms these days. I say encounter, because I have not endured or suffered symptoms for very long - not since I received my TMS education thanks to Dr Sarno, the SEP, and this forum. It's been 14 years since that time. Now at age 74, which believe me is no picnic, and with what I feel is the world I thought I knew rapidly crumbling around me, I'm STILL in WAAAAAAY better shape now than I was at 60 (even when I had a big setback in that other hellscape which was 2020). Symptoms regularly try to bring me down, but whatever they're selling, I ain't buying.

Nicole Sachs says it best, which is that there is no cure for human pain, but there is a cure for chronic pain. She regularly describes her setbacks, and what it takes for her to get past them each time, which of course always involves her own JournalSpeak practice. She frequently admits to falling off in her practice, and it often ends up catching her unawares with some kind of flare or symptom. Lesson learned. Over and over and over again, and this too is part of life as we are destined to know it.

In other words, you can not avoid the innate pain that comes with life. I believe that Buddhism has taught this for centuries. Dr Sarno knew this, as he described encountering symptoms after developing his own theory. I doubt that you will find a single TMS practitioner who says they are 100% cured 100% of the time. There's no such thing. The people who report success are enjoying their lives and know how to deal with their setbacks. That is all. You can join that club!