Day 3 Exercise

Prior to reading Dr. Sarno's book in June, I have been very inactive for not quite 2 years. My pain went from frozen shoulder, to plantar fasciitis, to low back/sciatic pain. So, I was afraid to further injure myself. After reading the book, watching the lectures, I accepted the pain was from my head, not back. So, I am now walking 1 1/2 hours per morning, working out with (light) weights, doing abs, etc. My goal is to start jogging again, but I don't think I'm quite ready yet (I'm walking with my daughter, pregnant with our first grandchild - I don't want her to jog!). When she resumes teaching in the fall, I plan to resume running.

Initally, I walked through the pain. I just decided to accept it, and tried hard to not think about it too much...Lately, I'm noticing less and less back & leg pain with walking. And, when it's there, I try to think about what's stressing me out! My foot has been hurting some - I've just been telling myself, NO, we're NOT going back there!!! It feel wonderful, feeling free to do things again. I even thought I couldn't load and unload my dishwasher - I've confessed to my husband, I can now!!!

 

I hope very much to get back to the gym and my group of friends there. I withdrew from them last December. I don't want to tell my husband I can shovel snow next winter--but I see how pain helped me to isolate from difficult situations.

 

Hy, Ladies. LindaSue, you're making great progress. Walking and ignoring any pain is the way to go. Your pain moves around because
your subconscious still wants you to discover why you are in pain, the emotional reasons causing it.

riv44, keep as active as you can, do at home whatever you would do at the gym with your friends. Ignore any pain. Remember it's mental,
not structural, and will not harm you. Keep working on discovering the emotional causes of your pain. Journaling helped me discover
I was repressing emotions going back to my parents divorcing when I was seven. I learned to forgive them and my back aches went away.

The SEP is a wonderful guide to healing.

 

Forrest said once he stopped caring is when the pain began to go away. I think when we begin the TMS structural education program some of us still focus too much on the pain( I did). I can understand the dishwasher situation I couldn't load and unload clothes in the washer when my problem was at it's worst