Day 3 Exercise

"When was the last time you exercised or did another physical activity? What was this activity? How did it make you feel physically and emotionally? If it is has been a while since you last exercised, why?"

I went walking today, and went to the gym yesterday, lifting weights. Exercise always makes me feel energised and content, and I try to do it every day. Weight lifting makes me feel like I can do anything afterwards, a fantastic feeling.

Although I've kept up exercise while I've had TMS, it has limited my progress. I used to be very much into weightlifting. I've had shoulder and hip pain from TMS, almost 2 years for my shoulder and 1 year from my hip. This prevented me from progressing at all in terms of lifting weight. I was terrified of injuring my 'fragile' body or causing more damage. I didn't like carrying shopping or lifting heavy things out of fear. So while I persisted in exercise, I never made progress and was fearful all the time.

I made great progress on Wednesday. It was the first time in almost a year I had no hip pain in the gym. My shoulder pain went down to a 1 instead of a 4-5. I was doing the same exercises I've always done, in the same way. There was a little pain after but that didn't make sense. After that session my gut acceptance of TMS increased hugely.

 

Hi, HP. You're making great progress after just 3 days in the SEP. It's wonderful that you are exercising and lifting weights again. Try not to bully yourself that you are not lifting as much as you want to. Do a little more each day, if you can. You've learned that fear works against healing. Keep believing in TMS emotions being the cause of your pain, and journaling to discover them. Dr. Sarno says we don't even have to solve our emotional problems. Just discovering and accepting them is enough for our subconscious to stop the pain it is sending.