Day 8 Emotions

[Kickflip]

I'm not sure how much success I'm having recognizing the emotions connected to my pain. I know it comes up when I'm working or thinking about work, when I'm talking to my girlfriend and am concerned we're not seeing eye to eye, when I'm watching a movie or TV on the couch.

Maybe it's sadness? I typically don't feel that often - so maybe it's because I'm repressing that?

Or maybe it's anger - I experience that frequently. Have been reading that anger is very unaccepted in society and so we cover it up. I get angry but have done a lot of work on not yelling at people or being rude when I am. So am I repressing not necessarily the emotion but the expression?

On the first day I really accepted TMS I watched the All The Rage documentary and I cried - which I don't do often. I think that was good for me. I've done it a couple times since while Journaling.

How do those emotions make me feel - I mean anger makes me feel angry lol - what kind of a question is that?

What do I think is preventing me from finding which emotions are connected....maybe being hesitant to jump into some of the more difficult things on my Journaling lists? Have been doing that recently though. Maybe my mind still doesn't think it's safe to really experience the emotions? Maybe I'm just not going to be able to do this?

 

[Diana-M]

Maybe I'm just not going to be able to do this?

You can do this! Something about your honesty in your posts makes me think you’ll go the distance.

 

[Ellen]

Or maybe it's anger - I experience that frequently. Have been reading that anger is very unaccepted in society and so we cover it up. I get angry but have done a lot of work on not yelling at people or being rude when I am. So am I repressing not necessarily the emotion but the expression?

Welcome to the Forum!

It is common for people to confuse emotional repression and emotional suppression when they start this work. Emotional repression is when our emotions are occurring outside of our conscious awareness. We are out of touch with our true feelings and don't even know what they are. According to Sarno's theory of TMS, emotional repression is largely responsible for TMS. Emotional suppression is when we are aware of an emotion, but choose to not express it outwardly. There are often good reasons to suppress the expression of our emotions. Getting along with others in society requires suppression of emotions. No one wants to be around someone who is displaying anger much of the time, especially in the home or workplace.

You're doing a great job exploring your emotions. Keep going.

p.s. All the Rage made me cry too. So did Howard Schubiner's film This Might Hurt.

 

[Kickflip]

You can do this! Something about your honesty in your posts makes me think you’ll go the distance.

Thanks Diana! Appreciate the encouragement

 

[Kickflip]

Welcome to the Forum!

It is common for people to confuse emotional repression and emotional suppression when they start this work. Emotional repression is when our emotions are occurring outside of our conscious awareness. We are out of touch with our true feelings and don't even know what they are. According to Sarno's theory of TMS, emotional repression is largely responsible for TMS. Emotional suppression is when we are aware of an emotion, but choose to not express it outwardly. There are often good reasons to suppress the expression of our emotions. Getting along with others in society requires suppression of emotions. No one wants to be around someone who is displaying anger much of the time, especially in the home or workplace.

You're doing a great job exploring your emotions. Keep going.

p.s. All the Rage made me cry too. So did Howard Schubiner's film This Might Hurt.

Thanks Ellen!

That's really great information about the difference between repression/suppression!

I actually read something in John Sarno's book The Divided Mind the other day that had me thinking about this and really influenced what I wrote about anger . On page 112 he talks about someone with TMS who had learned to control his temper, and then shortly after starting having back and leg pain. He says "...now that he no longer had the safety valve of conscious anger-rage, the accumulated rage in his unconscious became threatening in its intensity and the result was physical symptoms..." and then "This is the symptom imperative at work. When he learned to curb his temper, the back pains began."

I'm realizing it left me pretty confused. Based on everything I've read (from Sarno and others) before that, it doesn't seem like this would cause TMS? And if it did, then in theory this person could get rid of his pain by not controlling his temper??

It was such an emotional film. I hadn't heard of This Might Hurt until now - I'll have to watch that too! I just ordered Howard's book earlier today.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

I'm realizing it left me pretty confused. Based on everything I've read (from Sarno and others) before that, it doesn't seem like this would cause TMS? And if it did, then in theory this person could get rid of his pain by not controlling his temper??

Hey @Kickflip - these are great questions!

My answer to this one is that this is exactly what journaling is for.

What might not yet be clear to you yet is that the things you are learning now are tools that you will want to use for the rest of your life. TMS is not an illness that can be cured. It is not one and done! It is a normal mechanism in the brains of all humans, designed to keep us safe in the primitive world and always alert for actual life or death threats - the mechanism literally prevents us from feeling true emotions. And it doesn't work at all in the modern world and it certainly doesn't work now that we are expected to live three times as long as our primitive ancestors lived. So there's there's that aspect.

Journaling, as we use the term, has nothing to do with keeping a journal or keeping a diary. This type of writing is meant to be thrown away, something which is not always made clear, but which is recommended by the best experts, such as Nicole Sachs or Doctor David Hanscom. Dr Hanscom calls it expressive writing, Nicole calls it JournalSpeak, and I call it writing shit down.

In the SEP, you might not yet have come across the writing exercise called the Unsent Letter. I found this technique to be one of the most effective ways to express true unacceptable rage at anybody. As we're doing this work in the early stages many of us find ourselves writing to individuals who are not even with us any longer, but the letter can still be written. As is obvious from the name, instead of putting it in the mailbox you put it in the trash, after thoroughly destroying it of course. Burned, even!

Obviously, we can't function in a society where everybody expresses their true, primal, even childish (Freud's Id) rage at the many ways in which life (and other people) cause us to lose our shit.

The expressive writing allows us to say what we really want to say and still function in society and in our relationships. The ultimate goal, however, is to eventually see the patterns in the anger, relate them to our earliest childhood development, and figure out how and why certain circumstances continue to create rage which inhibits our emotional maturity and results in the repression which uses pain as a distraction. My personal belief is that the highest level of freedom from mental and physical pain comes from emotional vulnerability.

Does this help?

 

[Kickflip]

Hey @Kickflip - these are great questions!

My answer to this one is that this is exactly what journaling is for.

What might not yet be clear to you yet is that the things you are learning now are tools that you will want to use for the rest of your life. TMS is not an illness that can be cured. It is not one and done! It is a normal mechanism in the brains of all humans, designed to keep us safe in the primitive world and always alert for actual life or death threats - the mechanism literally prevents us from feeling true emotions. And it doesn't work at all in the modern world and it certainly doesn't work now that we are expected to live three times as long as our primitive ancestors lived. So there's there's that aspect.

Journaling, as we use the term, has nothing to do with keeping a journal or keeping a diary. This type of writing is meant to be thrown away, something which is not always made clear, but which is recommended by the best experts, such as Nicole Sachs or Doctor David Hanscom. Dr Hanscom calls it expressive writing, Nicole calls it JournalSpeak, and I call it writing shit down.

In the SEP, you might not yet have come across the writing exercise called the Unsent Letter. I found this technique to be one of the most effective ways to express true unacceptable rage at anybody. As we're doing this work in the early stages many of us find ourselves writing to individuals who are not even with us any longer, but the letter can still be written. As is obvious from the name, instead of putting it in the mailbox you put it in the trash, after thoroughly destroying it of course. Burned, even!

Obviously, we can't function in a society where everybody expresses their true, primal, even childish (Freud's Id) rage at the many ways in which life (and other people) cause us to lose our shit.

The expressive writing allows us to say what we really want to say and still function in society and in our relationships. The ultimate goal, however, is to eventually see the patterns in the anger, relate them to our earliest childhood development, and figure out how and why certain circumstances continue to create rage which inhibits our emotional maturity and results in the repression which uses pain as a distraction. My personal belief is that the highest level of freedom from mental and physical pain comes from emotional vulnerability.

Does this help?

Thanks Jan, that absolutely helps! Yes I did do the Unsent Letter exercise.

That's a really interesting point about living 3 times longer. Certainly the reservoir is going to start to overflow if it was only meant to hold enough for 1/3rd of our lives.

I started doing Journaling (which I learned about from Nicole Sachs) a little over a month ago, so it's been nice to already be familiar with it while doing this program.

Your last paragraph especially is really helpful to me