Feel your feelings but...

[Lessmore]

Hello everyone!
I just want to make a story short as possible. I know about TMS 3 years now. I read a lot of books, did a therapy, did meditations,did journaling, tried to ignore it... everything except medications.
One thing I don't understand. Everyone says you need to feel your feelings which are not cozy...and when you feel them the pain will subside,or move,anyway.
In last year i feel them. I feel anxiety every day. It's awful life now. But guess what, my low back pain and stiffness didn't move at all, not a singe minute. How's that?
Did anyone experienced same?
Just desperate

 

[Cactusflower]

The mind is complicated.
Perhaps you still have fear: fear you will never get better, fear of movement. Perhaps you never are truly able to relax and get out of fight or flight -the constant anxiety is a big sign your nervous system is still on “high” or senses some sort of “threat”
And perhaps your mind lets you think it is feeling your feelings but you are not able to allow or accept all of them, without any judgement. Sometimes it is how we treat and “talk” to ourselves in our mind that holds us in anxiety.
I know for me it was doing everything “I was supposed to do” but doing it intellectually, not genuine with feeling, sort of like a robot because that was the way I was used to doing everything. I still have pain, I still have some fear. I am still working on allowing all my feelings without judgement. Sometimes it also takes time.

 

[Baseball65]

feel your feelings

I have been recovered from TMS for a long time. I have read various approaches to this, But this was one experience with that.

I INITIALLY thought what you said here. I read Healing back Pain and started really investigating all of the stuff I generally blew off, and I began to be angry ...a lot and intensely. I recovered from my pain very quickly . However, the anger got so overwhelming I had to go get counseling because I was in danger of losing my job, friends, family and virtually on the edge of an altercation many times.

The counseling DID help with the anger without a return of symptoms

Now, the longer i have been doing this, I realized that the stuff I am consciously angry about is just 'surface' and TMS is really coming from my unconscious SO, I really have no idea what is going on down there...hence 'UNconscious anger. If consciously being angry banished TMS, all of my vicious politically minded friends would be pain free... but they tend to have the most pain. Ironic, huh?

Then I started really looking at myself from a different viewpoint. I started 'watching the thinker' like Eckhart Tolle teaches. I do my writing from that vantage point whenever i can get there... I need only spend my attention Speculating what MIGHT be going on down there to stay pain free. I suppose I'll never know what it is in detail until I'm dead sitting with God (assuming it even matters, or that I matter, or God cares LOL)

...and as I adopted that strategy, I have LOST interest in what I feel. It's usually passing through. "there is anger in me...right NOW"... "There is jealousy in me Right NOW"... these bad feelings are like weather, they come and go BUT the stuff that causes TMS is usually rooted much deeper (childhood) and tends to be static. I only need to remind myself about that when I feel some TMS coming on and it usually defuses it without a lot of messy 'feelings'

...and as I have lost interest in my moment to moment feelings, I have not only stayed pain free, but been happier in general.

Our culture has seemed to focus on getting in touch with our feelings.... For me that is like getting in touch with Rats in a dumpster. I know they are there. I know they are gross and everybody has them. I also have noticed that people who focus on them have a lot of anxiety and unhappiness. Life's too short. Not saying bottle it in, especially during the recovery portion, but once you know what they are, you don't need to give them every waking moment

 

[JanAtheCPA]

In last year i feel them. I feel anxiety every day.

Just to add on to what Cactusflower and BB have said, and just so we're very clear about this: anxiety is not what the phrase is talking about. In this phrase, the word "feelings" is actually referring to unconscious repressed emotions, including ones from your past, that need to be uncovered, acknowledged, and accepted.

Anxiety is technically a "feeling", but only in the way that your pain is a feeling. Anxiety is just another dysfunctional symptom, an indication that there are deeper issues. Anxiety is a symptom of the fear that Cactusflower mentions, and fear is a symptom of the repressed negative emotions that BB mentions.

 

[Lessmore]

Thank you all for your answers and insights!
I think it's really complicated cause everyday there are lot of new "tms scientists" who are telling different stories.

Even Sarno said that those unconscious feelings are not needed to be felt. Just acknowledged.

I did try. A lot. But losing my hope.

 

[Cactusflower]

Why not stop trying so hard to feel those feelings? Perhaps that is not the problem? Perhaps doing what many tms books call “striving” is part of the problem -that is doing, but with your head, and not with your heart. It is pushing yourself, and a form of perfectionism.
Noticing, is without self pressure. It’s very small, and it is a form of training. Notice when maybe you start to feel something but squelch down the feeling with thoughts. This might especially happen with loved ones or authority figures. I remind myself in these times that these emotions are human. It’s ok to feel anger or annoyance at your child (but it’s not necessary to act on it), or sadness and grief with an aging parent. Once you notice you internally stop these feelings then you can try to “feel” them in your body. Did your hands clench, your jaw tighten? Did you feel that tickle in the throat you might get when you want to cry? Did you get a pain somewhere? A symptom? These are all emotions doing what they are supposed to do, feel in the body. Nobody had really broken it down to explain it to me (not even my first tms coach), so I could not fathom what I was trying to sense. It can take months, even years! I saw an interview with Forrest, who created this tmswiki and he said he STILL doesn’t much feel things, but has no chronic symptoms - I imagine he tried these methods, they did not work so he stopped trying so much.
Allen Gordon focuses on dealing more with fear, worry and striving (emotional work is there, but it’s more used to see patterns of why we react to triggers, and does not focus on current emotionsl feelings so much) in his method of Pain Reprocessing. Maybe that method will help you?