Happy 1st TMS anniversary. Join party with a guidance.

It's going to be a bit long. Sorry, it is going to be too long. Please do hold on with me.

I am a bit confused where should I begin because all dots started to connect so clearly that I was amazed about what was going on inside me. Yet, I do have TMS and its just lingering.

Last year, around same time, I was washing my clothes(bending). After I completed (unbend), icy feeling in lower back came up. Ignored it and took a bed rest. It remained for days. It was uneasiness in back, frustrating and hard to express. Went to hospital. Had my share of pills,physio,Ultrasound and wastage of little fortune I had.

I was having tightness in upper back (between should blade and spine). There was small bulge which would tighten and slowly sink down and there would be dark patch (with holes) in skin. That cycle would just continue.

Since I am in underdeveloped country, I couldn't find any books. Finally, I found sarno's first book. It was not intentional. I downloaded all books I could get about back pain and started reading. I am book worm which became my gift. I read books on yoga,exercise,posture management, physio, acupuncture, accupressure, aerobics.

Did yoga for few days, nothing nothing.
Did exercise and jogging, my body felt light and fresh but the part where there was muscle tightness it was as it has been.No change.
Did posture management. Didn't felt right. felt like robot. Left it.
Physiotherapy. Did for a while but soon realized the problem doesn't lie on physical plane.
acupuncture and all others, I couldn't afford with my fortune so never gave second thought. Ignored them.

Read books by Sarno. Just read it. Things made sense. Yet I thought myself clever. I was desperate to be healed, doesn't matter which way or how. I kept having muscle relaxant and read sarno's book. I didn't wanted to understand, I wanted to get healed anyhow. Desperation.

And just lingering here are there. Lingering with concepts. You know. something oo it may be posture, what if posture was cause and i ignored it? what if thoughts. sometimes it was tms, sometimes it was muscle relaxation. puzzled confused.

more i read sarno's book, things felt right somewhere. then i tore all my medical history and threw away all my medicine in dustbin and never looked back. and dots in my life started to connect. dots that i never knew existed under my skin. it was as if new movie of my life was being played infront of me.

I started to go back. Returned to first day of muscle spasm. I realized when I was washing clothes, I was hating myself so much. I was hating my house, family, my life status, how useless pathetic I was? and I was cursing my family for being so poor and I have to do my clothes myself. I was extra ordinary academically, and yet in this pathetic life!.... and it goes on...realized the starting point of muscle spasm was not PHYSICAL CAUSE , THE CAUSE WAS ALL THOSE RAGE REPRESSED EMOTIONS IN ME CROSSED THE THRESHOLD THAT BODY CAN SUSTAIN AT THAT MOMENT. SO BRAIN HAD TO DO SOMETHING FOR MY SURVIVAL, TO MAINTAIN BALANCE, SO IT CHOOSED MOST SECURE PLACE TO EXPRESS. BACK muscle. why? I use to do household work a lot. I am computer science student and sit all day programming. now, it was 100% evident that sitting all day, wrong posture were core cause of back pain. NO NEVER. ALL PHYSICAL ASPECT ARE RESULT,AFTERMATH, THE CORE CAUSAL POINT LIES SOMEWHERE INSIDE.

now,dots really started to connect in my life. lets go a semester back from my first day of spasm. I fainted. It took me couple of minutes to come back and realize all facts of my life. but, i still remember that moment of going black out. i was thinking so intense in my head, projecting around 10-20 years of my life within seconds and was seriously self bashing and cursing myself. i felt my life has ended. i am done. useless pathetic. i was cursing myself for not able to go to study abroad ( united states) due to poverty ( although extraordinary grades). and i fainted. later that day, i went to hospital and doc found everything fine. i kept this medical doc (didn't tore it up because the doc just wrote single word in: TENSION and underlined it, i realized that 6-7 months later.) after fainting, i was in deep extreme fear. couldn't do anything on my on. fear joined my journey of my life.

again, lets go back, you will be amazed how all dots in my life connect and form single entity. again a semester back ( we are in 2nd semester of undergraduate in computer science folks ) i had bike accident and i was rotating in air. in those moment i realized, life is nothing. it is just gonna end. so whats use of anything? hopelessness joined journey of my life.

lets go further back a year ago, we are doing a level people! and I was rejected by a girl on my face. self lacking and incompleteness joined the journey. and i was into philosophy and self help. i improved myself. tried to change myself. did my best to become better. best. philosophy spirituality and self help books brought lot of confusion and made me feel M INCOMPLETE I DONT KNOW ANYTHING I AM USELESS.
you can imagine how much volume is repressed under my skin by now. folks, there is much more to come!

lets go further back, my schooling. and i stammered. not 24/7, i stammer just when i want to speak most. i traced back. went down deeper. i could go as far as grade 4 and memories get fuzzier. all i know from my mom is that we were is intense fear all my childhood due to various family conflicts ( sort of war ) there was constant air of fear. and poverty. so stammer is my coping way of fear which i create when there is none.

all those guilt of being mocked by people. stammer is like, you want to speak and be yourself, yet you don't want to speak due to fear and you just stay in middle frozen. something like a object is pulled from both side with equal force, what happens, it freezes unmoved. Exactly! that is stammer. a way to cope my inner state just like tms.

and i have huge volume of rage anger hatred guilt due to stammer, rejection,accident, confusing philosophies, self guilt. realized that.

read sarno, steve. couple of other books. got the idea and pain shifted from upper back to neck. now these days, i just keep shaking rotating my head to release my neck tension as a habit. and i just stretch my jaw automatically to release some of tension.

and again dots started to connect. i always had various diseases or lets say unstability. like i would have gastric, throat infections, eye infections, headaches repeatedly. i came to realized, if i have less severe neck spasm, i have more gastric or throat. it just mixture of two of above ingredients to release my tension.

in all these journey there was spiritual journey too. i read about spiritual oneness. inner silence peace. books by various spiritual masters. thich nat han. budhha. ekhart tolle. i meditated for few days. i realized feelings must be felt. but i felt meditation to be tough at times of neck tightness. when i stay for meditaition, neck tightens more.

i realized that we are ok. we are enough. life is here and now. it is ok. yet i have understood it intellectually. the things haven't sinked in.

after having said these, i do not know path of healing ahead. confused! stress comes. i have mixture of above ingredients. currently i am having headache and neck spasm and stress subsides. again stress comes. one way or other i am not able to control.

this far :
(i requested these material to people i know and they donated/gifted me)
read all of sarno's book
great pain deception
fred amir rapid recovery (did few days)
deep healing emillet miller
presence process by micheal brown(did 2-3 weeks felt very tough)
books on meditation, silence mind, happiness, anger

i don't know what worked and what didn't. i just went by all those . some puzzled me. some confused be. some relieved me. some i felt boring useless to do. some i loved and did for few days week here and there. some how i managed to decrease spasm. not that much. it just shifted. i do not have spasm in upper back anymore, i have in neck and skin patch. headache sometimes. sometimes tightness in throat. throat infections. skin rashes. eye infection. gastric. short breathing.

to wrap up my 1 year of TMS : UNBOXING OF MYSELF.
most important insight in a year : TMS OR ANY DISEASE IS NOT ENEMY. IT IS PART OF YOU, HELPING YOU TO EXPRESS THINGS YOU DON'T WANT TO ACCEPT.

i don't know where to go. path to healing? HOW CAN I ACCEPT AND BE OK WITH STAMMER? HOW CAN I ACCEPT AND BE OK OF REJECTED? HOW CAN I ACCEPT AND BE OK WITH ALL MY LIFE SITUATIONS FAMILY AND UNFULFILLED DESIRES?

please do give me your personal guidance .
happy 1st tms anniversary.
-silentflutes ( i even came to realization after realizing TMS why i choosed my digital name as silentflutes. it was word that came to me when i was in grade 9. when i was mocked for being stammer. i was silent, didnt talk in fear of stammer, but inside i want to be flute, to speak up hear my voice. and hence, silentflutes)

 

this is a great anniversary story, silentflutes! so much of it resonates with my own thoughts and experiences, especially the part I quoted above. I remember having this very same realization - actually feeling it and letting myself be angry in a way I hadn't felt in years! Congratulations on all the amazing progress that you've made in understanding and applying the techniques to live with TMS, and it's great to have you here on the forum!

what are you out to accomplish next on your path to letting go of the pain?

 

thank you are reading. @Laughalot i am not sure of it, i am asking guidance for that.

 

Hi silentflutes,

I appreciate your story very much. I love how much you have explored and learned, and also how genuine your questions are. Since you ask for advice, I will give you some.

Remember that Dr. Sarno did not say we had to get rid of anything in our lives to heal. Your insight is tremendous. You have seen symptoms shift and change; you found the thinking/feeling you did the day of the accident --the extreme tension-- was the root of the pain (with bending), etc. etc. You have a deep understanding of the whole Sarno picture, and how you fit into it. But remember that it is this awareness, and knowing your awareness can work, without having to get more accepting or better at anything, that will undo TMS. You know why you are in pain. This knowledge is the heart of Dr. Sarno's work. And you have it. It just needs to go deeper, which can be gently and patiently supported, by you.

As long as you think you need to do more, be more, educate more, meditate more, forgive more, you are acting out a tension personality stance on yourself. One way to see this is to ask your Inner Child: How do you feel about having to do more and more and become better and better? And figure out, and change deep life patterns? Even if it is in doing Dr. Sarno's work? If that was my inner child I would feel overwhelmed, pressured, and sad that I was not given support. Does any of the ways you pursue your Sarno inquiry/learning seem familiar, or similar to the way you have treated yourself all your life?

So I have written about two pieces. One is that you already have the knowledge, just keep remembering that. The second is observe how you act out your tension personality on you, moment-to-moment. Just observe the pressure, and inquire into how the Inner Child might feel.

Here again on this part, you do not need to stop this activity. It is very deep in all of us, and we can't help it much. But connect this moment-to-moment observation of yourself to the Sarno theory. And I think you will see why you are in pain. Just seeing more and more the real cause is enough to undo the pain. It loses its distraction purpose when you see underneath the pain to the Inner Child, and deeper feelings. This includes just observing the pushing, striving /tension that we all do.

As you observe your moment-to-moment pushing, or Inner Bully, or whatever, you can simply acknowledge it with a statement like: "I am pressuring myself right now." or "I am really angry right now." Period. By observing and not trying to push things away, you can make more room for your self, for your "experience just as it is."

Of course it is natural to "want to fix and get better" when you are in pain. So here's the third piece for you. Try to develop a stance toward the pain that "I don't care." This goes back to one and two above. As long as there is more to do to fix the TMS, you are caught. If you know that you'll be in pain, because that's the way things are, there is nothing to fix! Sometimes I say to myself, if I am in a little pain: "Of course you're in pain, you have TMS! What else did you expect to happen in this moment??" This acceptance that I have TMS is a very powerful treatment. Why fight it? When I stop fighting it, it goes away. This is not easy to do, but quit possible for you, with a little practice and time.

Finally, keep a very good list of when pain responds better or worse to your own inner tension, and also when there are exceptions to the pain patterns. Review that list every day. Very small stuff can be noticed and reviewed. Nothing to fix, just observe.

So there is a long letter, and I hope that some words I write might be of service to you. Try to use the whole Sarno work with a light hand, an easiness. And when you're in pain, remember, this is not because you need to do more, or are a failure. If you have thoughts that you are a failure, you can name them too: "I see there is a belief that I am a failure."

To me this is a very deep "prayer." You want to live a life of peace, and love, and understanding, a life of satisfaction. I think this is a most beautiful statement. With this kind of intention, you will find your way toward what you want: this acceptance, this peace. I do not believe all this must be done to lose the pain. It is a wonderful wish for yourself, for your precious life.

Andy B.