Day 8 Emotions

[djamesharm]

I am on day 8. I am still having a hard time knowing what emotions are causing my pain or what emotions are associated with it. It doesn’t make sense when or why my symptoms increase.
I will say I was doing Egoscue postural exercises diligently everyday for about 6 months. They did help but came to a standstill. Pain didn’t seem to get better other symptoms arose and almost seemed like I would feel more pain after (although the exercises were not strenuous at all). After starting to read Healing Back Pain I started to do more activities and found this wiki page. I stopped the Egoscue for about 5 days. I started to really feel better. I then had my appointment and knew I would have to do some exercises and get a new menu to do. Despite my better knowledge, I followed through, did the follow up and now since Tuesday I feel I have slid on a downward spiral of pain and anxiety.
I’m not sure if these are emotions all coming to the surface or if doing the exercises made my nervous system feel unsafe. I am trying to stay positive and remind myself this is all just TMS and my mind doesn’t want me to feel these emotions. Just kindve confused about it all. I have stopped the exercises again but am still going through it.
Also, because of trauma growing up I’m pretty sure psychotherapy is needed and would help. Just don’t know where to find someone in my area qualified and specialized in mind/body pain therapy. I live in the Central New Jersey area. Any information will be appreciated! Thank you!

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

I am on day 8. I am still having a hard time knowing what emotions are causing my pain or what emotions are associated with it.

Just wanted to clarify that it isn't the emotions themselves that cause symptoms, but rather because we aren't accepting of them (which is the reason for suppression/repression). I don't want you to become frightened (perhaps even more so) of your emotions

 

[Volcano1963]

don’t know where to find someone in my area qualified and specialized in mind/body pain therapy

the psychotherapist i got through insurance wasn’t familiar with Dr Sarno or TMS but she helped me access feelings and worked with me to explore my emotions and (i think?) probe my subconscious. This has been very beneficial for my mind/body pain therapy.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

the psychotherapist i got through insurance wasn’t familiar with Dr Sarno or TMS but she helped me access feelings and worked with me to explore my emotions and (i think?) probe my subconscious. This has been very beneficial for my mind/body pain therapy.

Indeed, @djamesharm, the mindbody connection has been a significant feature of many psychotherapeutic models long before Dr Sarno, and even before Freud. IMHO, any therapist who doesn't incorporate a model of the mindbody connection in their practice is probably not competent to practice - and probably suffers from their own untreated TMS, lol. I had a few therapists as tax clients years ago (they would refer each other) and a couple of them were not what I considered to be mentally healthy - in fact I had to extricate myself for my own equanimity

The most professional and authoritative book I would recommend for any therapist who is not familiar with the concept of symptoms covering up repressed emotions, would be one of the books on the stress-disease connection by Gabor Mate, MD - even though he never mentions Dr Sarno. His first book, When the Body Says No, was hugely influential in my 2011/12 recovery. His new book, with extensively updated resources and citations, is The Myth of Normal. Both books are beautifully and compassionately written.

 

[Volcano1963]

Gabor Mate, MD

Thank you @JanAtheCPA for recommending Gabor Mate. I hadn’t yet run across his work so I did a search on him and was humbled and awed by his biography on Wikipedia. My Libby has a bunch of his books. I’m looking forward to some insightful reading that might help me uncover emotions driving my (at times) extreme procrastination and scatter-brainededness.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

His area of special interest is addiction,and he's also done a lot of work around caretaker sydrome/burnout. The new book includes a very interesting take on ADHD, among other things.

My Libby has a bunch of his books.

I do love Libby. I might buy my own copy of seminal mindbody books by my favorite authors, but 99% of what I read is downloaded from Libby. And I'm sorry, book industry, but I'm not going back to books on paper - the kindle is the way to go, they did a great job designing it and it works sooo easily with Libby. I am, however, a subscribing monthly donor to both my city and county libraries. I urge other Libby users to do the same at any level, because they will use your donations to buy the books, in all formats, that ultimately support the authors.

 

[Cactusflower]

I am a book format person and an audio book person. In case someone's library doesn't use Libby (which is the most expensive of the electronic book apps to carry) see if they use another app. Mine uses Cloud Library, some use Hoopla which I believe is being phased out. Cloud Library has limited mind/body or TMS audio books but more for use on e-Readers (I think that most of these books simply haven't gotten made into audios). It doesn't seem to get the newer ones.