Good progress report!

Diana-M

Diana-M

Beloved Grand Eagle
  1. Cooked dinner and did dishes 2 nights in a row! (It was hard, I didn’t give up or give in.)
  2. Decided I’m going to freelance again instead of sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself. I think being retired has been killing me. I’ll have to write using audio, but at least it will work.
  3. Resurrected a novel I started a while ago. Worked on it all weekend (long-hand) Super fun!
  4. Thinking much less about TMS.
  5. It was weirdly easy to go up the steps last night. Like my legs were almost my old legs.
  6. Started doing some really fun math games on my phone. (I used to hate math. Now I crave it. What?!!!)
  7. Had an argument with my husband and instead of feeling nothing, I closed my eyes and imagined smashing an entire shop filled with precious glass items with a baseball bat. I felt it! It felt awesome! Then I told him how I felt & why.
  8. Planned another trip to the beach for Sept.!
  9. Doing a bunch of self-soothing techniques daily.
I feel like things have finally taken a turn for the better. :D

Many thanks to all of you for your help this long past year!
 
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Diana-M said:
  1. Cooked dinner and did dishes 2 nights in a row! (It was hard, I didn’t give up or give in.)
  2. Decided I’m going to freelance again instead of sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself. I think being retired has been killing me. I’ll have to write using audio, but at least it will work.
  3. Resurrected a novel I started a while ago. Worked on it all weekend (long-hand) Super fun!
  4. Thinking much less about TMS.
  5. It was weirdly easy to go up the steps last night. Like my legs were almost my old legs.
  6. Started doing some really fun math games on my phone. (I used to hate math. Now I crave it. What?!!!)
  7. Had an argument with my husband and instead of feeling nothing, I closed my eyes and imagined smashing an entire shop filled with precious glass items with a baseball bat. I felt it! It felt awesome! Then I told him how I felt & why.
  8. Planned another trip to the beach for Sept.!
  9. Doing a bunch of self-soothing techniques daily.
I feel like things have finally taken a turn for the better. :D

Many thanks to all of you for your help this long past year!
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So wonderful to read the list of things you did.

Healing will be non linear & there will be pain flares or symptom imperatives but you are ready. When & if those happen, know that its your brain rewiring & wondering 'what the heck is she doing'? & it will want to protect you. But you have that deep knowledge now & you have evidence of the things you have achieved. Keep building on that evidence list.
Enjoy your pain free moments & welcome the flares coz it means you are succeeding & have got the pain on the run.

I'm very happy for you.
 
Loved reading this, @Diana-M!
So eager to hear more about all this - the novel and the upcoming beach trip and all. Hope you will continue to keep us updated.

And, interesting as I am delving more into this unrelated project about perception and lately looking more and more at how a lot of phrases and words we use seem to have an effect on perception and even physical aspects - the word "retired" just stood out to me in your post.
Diana-M said:
I think being retired has been killing me.
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I know it comes from the French word, but wow, the word seems to have so many connotations in English that don't feel particularly empowering (some other cultures seem to have a much different approach to this) and clearly has a lot of other attributes that seem to signal the end of things.

Sounds like this is unfolding in the realization you are having and are moving beyond the assumed "retired" label and moving into the "reinvented" or "reintegrated" or..... something that is much more empowering and is more aligned and alive.

Looking forward to hearing more about your journey...onward!
 
NewBeginning said:
And, interesting as I am delving more into this unrelated project about perception and lately looking more and more at how a lot of phrases and words we use seem to have an effect on perception and even physical aspects - the word "retired" just stood out to me in your post.
Click to expand...

In relation to this, I've not read the whole book, but this is an excerpt from Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Waldman's book 'Words Can Change Your Brain', and according to them...

"A single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress. By holding a positive and optimistic word [such as peace, love, gratitude] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.

Functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself and the people you interact with. A positive view of yourself will bias you toward seeing the good in others, whereas a negative self-image will include you toward suspicion and doubt. Over time the structure of your thalamus will also change in response to your conscious words, thoughts, and feelings, and we believe that the thalamic changes affect the way in which you perceive reality."
 
NewBeginning said:
Sounds like this is unfolding in the realization you are having and are moving beyond the assumed "retired" label and moving into the "reinvented" or "reintegrated" or..... something that is much more empowering and is more aligned and alive.
Click to expand...
Thanks! The other day I had a dream, and I actually remembered it when I woke up. It was about how I used to feel when I was “tough.” I wrote a post about it. https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/tough-girl-speaks-up.29872/ (Tough Girl speaks up!)

I think that’s what precipitated this reinvention. I missed being me. And I held myself back because of symptoms that I LET discourage me. I couldn’t picture writing a whole book longhand, (although believe me, I come from days gone by when we wrote everything longhand!) What’s really beautiful is that I’m liking writing in longhand now. It’s slower and more thoughtful. (A gift from my subconscious?! Probably. What other gifts are waiting to be opened?)

What surprises me the most is how easy it is to get pulled into the vortex of complete despair. I will never forget how dark and toxic that place is. But the remedy lies in DOING SOMETHING YOU REALLY LOVE. That’s the key to getting better.

Everyone says to do fun things—but until you’re ready, I don’t know if it will happen.

And yes, retirement is an interesting phase of life, no less overwhelming than adolescence. There’s a lot to sort out. But exciting things can happen! Just like TMS can cause a good overhaul of your life, if you let it. :D
 
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Diana-M said:
The other day I had a dream, and I actually remembered it when I woke up. It was about how I used to feel when I was “tough.” I wrote a post about it. https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/tough-girl-speaks-up.29872/ (Tough Girl speaks up!)
I think that’s what precipitated this reinvention. I missed being me.
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Excellent, @Diana-M!
Definitely, the way in which we see ourselves --- self-perception --- can have such significant effects on our physiology, our emotions, and our behaviors!
Sounds like you are doing so great at bringing together the pieces that serve you now, reconciling all, and integrating the wisdom you have gained as you reclaim and reinvent!

So happy to hear you are exploring the things you LOVE again too... and through the process, I'm sure that will lead you to even more and even different new things you LOVE.
Good stuff!
 
P.S. So so cool that you are writing long hand.. and this gave me an idea for another thing to integrate for this "rewilding" process that I am doing, write something by hand each day as part of it (Fascinating to me that I can go for extended periods of time without ever writing anything out by hand)
Excited to hear more about your novel!
 
Diana-M said:
Who would have thought? We forget about this in our times.
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Right? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially as it relates to our body's innate ability to heal.
What if we have more powerful capabilities for healing than we can even possibly imagine - and we've just simply forgotten that it was an ability we have?
What if the dominant narrative of limitation (e.g. it's not possible to recover from xyz or you have to take x med to ever heal from that) is just a kind of amnesia of what we’re truly capable of?
:)
(And, now, I'm imagining writing this in my personalized version of cursive writing. ha ha)
 
NewBeginning said:
Right? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially as it relates to our body's innate ability to heal.
What if we have more powerful capabilities for healing than we can even possibly imagine - and we've just simply forgotten that it was an ability we have?
What if the dominant narrative of limitation (e.g. it's not possible to recover from xyz or you have to take x med to ever heal from that) is just a kind of amnesia of what we’re truly capable of?
:)
(And, now, I'm imagining writing this in my personalized version of cursive writing. ha ha)
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The US and Soviet Union and probably a few other countries studied extra sensory perception pretty extensively a few decades ago, and the files that were released (the juicy stuff is likely still classified) indicate there is some truth to it being a real concept that people are capable of. So yes, I think you’re on to something, I think our modern world is very good at dulling our senses and throwing us out of balance. I’d say even just believing in this (mindbody) work, even partially indicates a high degree of intuition, I think this work is a stepping stone to something greater, but getting there is likely nearly unobtainable for most, as this modern world makes it difficult to get in touch with our ‘true’ self.

granted these are just my ramblings, and I’m a huge conspiracy theorist, although in a world this crazy I no longer see that as a bad thing!
 
BloodMoon said:
In relation to this, I've not read the whole book, but this is an excerpt from Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Waldman's book 'Words Can Change Your Brain', and according to them...

"A single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress. By holding a positive and optimistic word [such as peace, love, gratitude] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.

Functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself and the people you interact with. A positive view of yourself will bias you toward seeing the good in others, whereas a negative self-image will include you toward suspicion and doubt. Over time the structure of your thalamus will also change in response to your conscious words, thoughts, and feelings, and we believe that the thalamic changes affect the way in which you perceive reality."
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing this, @BloodMoon!
I hadn't heard of this book -- I'll check it out.
I’ve been delving into various areas of research on perception, and it’s truly fascinating to read about the real physiological and neurological effects that even subtle shifts in perception can have...like those you quoted.
In my own life, it definitely helps me when I can be more mindful about the things that are affecting how I see the world, even what kinds of things I am consuming through my "mental diet" (media/ads, etc) / cultural expectancies, etc that have an effect on my overall perceptions.
Annnnnd, with more awareness, these perceptions and the cascading effects can fortunately be shifted in empowering ways over time.
 
Rabscuttle said:
I think this work is a stepping stone to something greater, but getting there is likely nearly unobtainable for most, as this modern world makes it difficult to get in touch with our ‘true’ self.
Click to expand...

It just seems so damned easy to outsource more and more, but what are we giving up?
Was talking to a friend the other day who was telling me how he slept only based on how his fitness tracker told him he slept that night. When I asked how HE thought he slept, he could only refer to the data (which if you want to think about conspiracy.... could soooo easily be altered to show him any wild different data).

Happens gradually and subtly. I've experienced it in so many ways -- finding myself checking the macros in food, the UV before going out in the sun... so much!
(That's what my rewilding process is focused on - moving away from all the checking/outsourcing... so I can begin to remember)

Our bodies potentially sitting here with virtually infinite capabilities, and slowly over time as we outsource more and more... eventually, will we be like, "Wait, people used to know when they were tired?" "How did they know that?"
It sounds absurd, but....

Anyway, I'm so curious now to explore more and more what the capabilities of this body are - and maybe it starts with remembering?
 
Diana-M said:
the remedy lies in DOING SOMETHING YOU REALLY LOVE. That’s the key to getting better.
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I think you have almost certainly hit the nail on the head with this!

I've gone from being bedridden for months on end to functioning pretty well by comparison, but I think this may well be my achilles heel and a possible barrier to me losing all of my symptoms... I've tried lots of hobbies/activities and have found them to be quite interesting, but wanting to pursue them, and having a real love/passion for anything has alluded me my whole life and I haven't found that finding a lot things 'quite interesting' adds up to being equal to having a passion, not in recovery from TMS terms or, for that matter, for general happiness.

I'm going to make a daily habit of writing down at least one thing every day that I'm grateful for (and I know that I do have a lot of things to be very grateful for) so maybe that will make a difference to my outlook, and make up for not finding something that I really love to do, at least in terms of contentment, anyway. I know that contentment can be found in savouring the little, good things in life, which I have generally been doing in recent years.

I just wonder though whether a lot of TMSers are restless souls like me who haven't found 'a calling', if you will, and how that is overcome-able if it is, as we surmise, important in terms of TMS recovery. Not that I'm expecting you to know the answer to this, but I would be interested to hear anyone's experience of this, as for me not finding a passion/ 'a calling'/something I love doing has been like an ever increasingly widening hole in my heart, that I feel deep down at my core, like a backdrop to my life.
 
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