Day 1 Hell yes, it's TMS!

I have had fibromyalgia symptoms for more than half my life and I am 56. What a relief it was to realize this is my wacky brain trying to distract me from feelings. I read the Sarno book on back pain a few weeks ago and found this site about a week ago. I've been doing the Pain Recovery Program for the last week and I am noticing that my pain in my neck, shoulders and arms has increased. That shows me I am on to it and I've just got to keep at this. I am so grateful to have found this!

 

Yay! Happy New Year to you, @gratefulgirl . You have given yourself a grand present

 

Yes. You are on it. Your long history of pain is a good support for your TMS diagnosis. Best to you.

 

Hi everyone.
I was just curious - which Pain Recovery Program are you working on?
Personally, I just finished Alan Gordon's new pain recovery program, but then I just noticed there was a different 42-day program which includes journaling (Alan's doesn't). Now I'm not sure I did the right one.
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

 

Hi MTL_Jon,

There is no right or wrong way to do this work, and there is no right or wrong choice if you do one or both of our free programs. Thinking that you might be doing this work "wrong" is, in fact, a symptom of the perfectionism that plagues the TMS personality.

The work is going to be different for every person who does it! You have to trust your instincts, be willing to push yourself, take some risks, and above all be rigorously honest with yourself as you do the work - that's what is required for success. You have to be able to not do it "perfectly" or and you really can't expect any kind of linear results.

Here's the specific deal regarding the SEP vs. Alans' RP: The Structured Educational Program was developed by the founding volunteers of this forum before 2011. Alan developed his own program and very generously donated it to tmswiki.org a number of years later (I can't even remember when, but not that long ago). They are different in their approach, but the goal is the same. Many people have done both.

I did the SEP in 2011 long before we had Alan's program, and I've thought about doing his program, but haven't gotten around to it, even though Alan is AWESOME and he did a couple of webinars for us back in the day, which I found enormously helpful in my recovery process.

~Jan

 

Jan, thank you so, so much for your reply. It's greatly appreciated, and you definitely make some excellent points. Especially the one where I think I may be doing the work "wrong". (I do, in fact, have a perfectionist personality. Something I definitely need to work on).

It's great to know that the SEP and Alan's RP, while different in approach, have the same goal. And now that I know that they do, I can't wait to throw myself into the work - without any expectations, timeline or pressure, of course.



Thanks again, and hope you're feeling happy and pain-free!

 

@JanAtheCPA - thank you for "and above all be rigorously honest with yourself as you do the work"
I find this to be the most challenging and most important part of TMS recovery - or at least my TMS recovery. When I'm avoidant of my feelings because I'm scared of being "negative" my subconscious gets very angry and wham-o here comes the pain.
Honesty is the name of my game and thank you for this reminder.

 

It may be even more helpful if you think of it as your subconscious primitive fearful brain continuing to do its best to repress the negative emotions. It's that negative brain that you're fighting in this battle!

When I was doing the writing exercises for the SEP, I was fascinated when I realized that my subconscious brain kept trying to convince me "Oh, don't write that down - that's too embarrassing, and I'm sure it's not important"! Fighting that message was actually really hard!

 

I am almost finished with Alan Gordon's program and have been dipping into the Structured Education Program.

As I have all the fibromyalgia symptoms and have for so long, I know that I need to do some deep emotional work and forgiveness, so I have been looking for a way to do this in a gentle way. I was doing a search online for ways to let go of childhood abuse and saw a link for Gary Craig's unseentherapist.com program. (He is the inventor/founder of EFT - tapping and I love his generosity and integrity. This program a PDF is free of charge.)

It is a simple way of going back through painful events in your life and letting them go. I've been doing this as well and it is having a huge impact on my pain as well as my outlook on life. I'd highly recommend it if you don't feel it would be traumatic for you to go back into past events. Even when I feel the process may not be working, I just do it and assume I've done it well enough as I can always go back and re-process an event. I'm finding that forgiveness is organically happening - the hurt, blame or anger is letting me go, not me having to effort to do that.

Lots of love!

 

@gratefulgirl you are an emotional warrior!!!!!! This post was very uplifting and inspiring!

 

Awww, thank you, srton! It feels like my whole world view has changed since I read Dr. Sarno's book a month or so ago. I feel so empowered! I've always loved the teachings in "A Course In Miracles", but could never see how I could be creating the unwanted things in my life, so I would drift away from studying it. Dr. Sarno's work has given me a way to see that I'm not to blame for these unwanted things, it is how our brains (and the universe) are set up. I now see this pain as a huge gift, as it has opened my mind to accept some beautiful teachings. I feel like a warrior!

 

@gratefulgirl
Thank you for providing the Gary Craig link! I'll definitely check that out!
And like srton said above, you are certainly an emotional warrior.
Honestly, there are so many amazing people on this Forum. It's been an absolute godsend.