Daniel L. Feeling stuck

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Question

Hi there,

I'm struggling with a setback. About 2 years ago after 12 years of constant intense back pain I read Dr Sarnos healing Back Pain and put the principles in it to work. I had previuosy been diagnosed with 2 herniated discs and the mdi scan meant the doctors wanted to operate. I did a lot of research and found that operations were only 50% effective so decided to go it alone. I had been doing yoga about 6 months when I read the book and kept it up. After about a month of meditating on the principles and ignoring the pain it just disappeared. Like completely. For the next 2 years I've lived the life of a teenager surfing, skating, driving as far as I like all without any problems at all. I had kept the yoga up also - (usually a class twice a week). About mid way through last year I started slacking off on the yoga as I didn't think it was really so important to do it religiously. But then after about 3 months of not doing it my back went into spasm. This would have been in September. We'd just bought a new car and it was a BMW with low slung seating which I know shouldn't be an issue. So I went back to the book to meditate and I journalled and have looked to try and see if anything else happened around that time to set it off. I know I was busy with work but I've recognised that. I've now spent the last 3 months with the pain seeming to get worse to the point where I'm now taking cocodamol daily and feeling quite lost. I can't do much yoga as its too painful to do and I don't want to focus on my body too much however I have searched my inner feelings for anger or resentment and fears and just can't seem to find a release. It feels like I'm back where I was before I read the book. I know I have feelings of doubt when the pain flares up which is scary and I'm trying to ignore them but don't seem to be winning!
Any ideas you have would be very gratefully received.
Thank you very much
John

 

[Daniel G Lyman LCSW]

Answer

I can hear my boss’s voice in my head saying that first thing’s first: Go to your doctor and get an MRI to see if anything’s changed. I doubt anything has, but it doesn’t hurt to get your back checked out.

Secondly, go back to yoga. It doesn’t matter if you can only just sit in the class and do some mild stretching. Do that until you can do a bit more. You need to push yourself, but not through the pain. Push yourself through the fear instead.

When we push through our fear, we build confidence, and when we build confidence, fear and anxiety fall away. Your body will respond in turn, and pain will decrease. Confidence is a large part of TMS healing.

I know that the pain can be sometimes be unbearable and it’s easier to give into it. That said, you have three ways of growing new neural pathways and decreasing your pain (and let me quote these steps from an earlier post I wrote):

(1) Tell yourself that you’re safe. Anxiety is closely related to our pain, and anxiety arises because part of us feels unsafe. Reminding yourself that you’re safe over and over helps to calm down the unconscious part of your brain that is terrified.

(2) Get angry at the pain (this is personally my least favorite, but many find it useful). When we’re angry we’re empowered and when we’re empowered we can move forward through the pain.

(3) Laugh at the pain. This is the hardest one to do, but I have found it to be the most effective. Once you are truly able to laugh at the pain (no fake laughing), you won’t care about it and it’ll lose its power. This one takes some practice, so don’t be hard on yourself if it takes awhile

Good luck!

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