How do I stop obsession?

[575]

I suffer from sitting pain in my buttocks and, damn, it's annoying.
My problem is that when I try to ignore it and live normally I always have these thoughts like
"this would be so much better without my pain". I'm so obsessed with my pain that I even get mad when I see people just sitting. Does anyone have some personal tips to share against this?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Anne Walker]

It is very difficult to ignore the pain I know. Have you ever tried to not think about something and then you just end of thinking about it more? This is very common. So much of what increases the intensity of the pain is all the worry and concern over whether there will ever be any relief, whether it will ever go away. Try your best not to resist it, fight it, and reassure yourself that although the pain is intense in this moment, it is only this moment, and open the possibility for it to change in the future. Although it is very uncomfortable, is it manageable right now? Practice bringing your attention to some place in your body that does not feel pain. This is very challenging but you will feel the payoff if you can master this technique. It takes practice and patience. Our minds are trained right now to only think about the area causing pain. Try to train you mind to be able to focus on an area that is not in pain, feel into what that feels like, imagine what it feels like. Breathe. The goal is to create just a little room, make it a little less. Small increments can get you there in the end.

 

[Ellen]

I suffer from sitting pain in my buttocks and, damn, it's annoying.
My problem is that when I try to ignore it and live normally I always have these thoughts like
"this would be so much better without my pain". I'm so obsessed with my pain that I even get mad when I see people just sitting. Does anyone have some personal tips to share against this?
Thanks in advance.

For me the key is the ability to suspend judgement--this is probably the key to everything we experience, but especially with pain or other physical symptoms. If I can just experience pain as another physical sensation without all the judgments about it being wrong that it's there, that I don't deserve this, that it means something horrible and tragic is wrong with me, that it's ruining my life......and so on. Then I'm just left with a sensation and, well...peace of mind.

So when pain is disrupting my peace of mind, I use a guided meditation that helps me focus on the physical sensations in a neutral, non-judgmental way. And miraculously this often results in the pain leaving and my peace of mind returning. I've read the descriptions of other forum members who use similar methods. I think some terms for this technique is Focusing and Somatic Experiencing. Have you started working one of the structured TMS programs like the SEP found on this site? This is the only way I know to actually move toward diminishing the pain, rather than just coping with it.

Hope you are able to find some relief.

 

[575]

Thank you for the quick and detailed response, I appreciate it a lot.
I will start to practice your techniques but also just knowing that people care makes me feel better already

 

[tarala]

Along the lines of the excellent posts above by Anne and Ellen, I once read in an Abraham book to view the pain as the cells in that area forcefully summoning healing energy. It helped me be less judgmental about the pain being a bad thing to be pushed against. Since that time, I have come to wonder if doing that was actually allowing the blood into an oxygen deprived area, a la Sarno.

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

I love all the responses for sure
you do good to always try and seek what might have
you got mixed into emotional turmoil
of any kind, even if its silly.
We have to try harder to find the connection
to our pain with the emotional or psychological thoughts.

You said you get mad when you see folks just sitting
start there to let those emotions go
and be greatful for those sitting- youll be next in line soon

Have you read sarnos books?

If you up-tight and tense all the time then that's it
Tell us how your doing- do you practice meditation?

 

[BruceMC]

I had a nice bout of sciatica in my left butt cheek this Friday night (where it usually is for me) after hiking 2500 feet uphill to a 12,000 ft plateau and then back down again. There was a 50 knot gale on top, the temperature was near freezing, and to add insult to injury I walked into a creek only about 300 ft away from my car on the way back to the trail head. However, the sciatica did not start until after I got back and changed into some dry things while sitting in the front seat of my car. Bingo! The old programmed pain from sitting came back. Likewise, when I walked into a restaurant for dinner later, the pain really took off when I took a seat in a hard chair at the counter. Again, programmed pain associated with sitting! The pain did start to subside about an hour after dinner when I crawled back into my sleeping bag inside a tent in a campground. But before I dozed off to sleep, I started to wonder to myself exactly what it was that I was doing that led to this outbreak of pain? Then, it hit me: For the past two weeks I had been pushing myself to perform like a slave driver. Bicycling, weight lifting, doing pull ups and dips, and bouldering at the climbing gym. Obviously, pushing myself to drive up to the mountains and then doing a 2500 ft uphill hike in the freezing cold was the point at which my internal child finally rebelled over all the stuff I had been forcing him to do. Too much was finally enough, and then the pain started up. Suddenly, it became very clear to me the pattern of self-imposed torture I had been embracing for the last two weeks or so. Never doing anything for fun, just push, push, pushing relentlessly without a break. Only now, a couple of days later, I've pulled back, relaxed and my sciatica has gone away. I even seem to have moved on up to another level of flexibility and pain-free movement. So glad I've become intuitive enough to have had that moment of insight about what I was essentially doing to myself unconsciously. Seems to me that you need to achieve that sort of understanding of the underlying motivation that's driving your pain if you want it to let up. That sciatica is like a warning mechanism that is trying to give you a message about something you're doing wrong or in a real unbalanced way. You just have to gain enough distance on your situation and pain symptoms to be able to decipher what it's trying to tell you about what you're doing wrong in your life. Take it easy, Bruce! Don't get so obsessed with self-imposed patterns of achievement that you aren't being nice to yourself. If it's helpful, I should probably add that I was doing some mindfulness meditation, listening of Howard Schubiner's CD in the front seat of my car just before crawling off to the sack. Don't think it was an accident that that led to my moment of insight. What Alan Gordon says about not listening to the drill sergeant in your head is also most apropos.

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

This is an awesome story of trial and error
over adversity BruceMC, you still won

sounded like a battle, keep them storys coming buddy
Were all rooting for ya-

 

[BruceMC]

Yes, thanks, Herbie. Isn't it funny though how I realized I was trying to provoke a "crisis" only after I'd encountered the pain and overcome it. No easy way for me. I'm just a slugger, but the pain was trying to teach me something, wasn't it? Seems like the whole TMS thing is about learning from experiences that largely occur in the unconscious where you're unaware of them. You just need to connect the pain with the unconscious behavior patterns to see what it was really all about. Sort of like going into a biker bar and looking for trouble! Would be nice if I could learn my lesson without having to beat myself up first. I guess some of us have to do everything the "hard way".

 

[tarala]

Bruce, I am exactly the same. My main TMS pain point is sciatica in the left butt, and it has taken me ages to recognize that my slave driver approach to my body can cause a major flare up. I try to imagine how I would treat a beloved child, then transfer that thinking to my body. But usually lack of mindfulness means that happens after the fact.

 

[BruceMC]

Well, talk about Freudian slips, Tarala. I just realized that I left my 18-200mm Nikkor super zoom up on Dana Plateau two days back. Now, I have to return to the "scene of the crime" and walk uphill 2500 ft at altitude to retrieve it. And I know right where it is too. It's like your unconscious mind knows everything, but the conscious mind is always suffering lapses and failures to pay attention in the now. Well, I sure hope this teaches me a lesson! Maybe going through the whole episode twice will make it sink in once and for all. Very interesting though that now my sciatica has disappeared and my range of motion and flexibility have improved tremendously, like the whole episode was part of a psychodrama that was teaching my ego a hard lesson about being kinder to myself. Who knows what it all means? At least the TMS pain went away!

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

Along the lines of the excellent posts above by Anne and Ellen, I once read in an Abraham book to view the pain as the cells in that area forcefully summoning healing energy. It helped me be less judgmental about the pain being a bad thing to be pushed against. Since that time, I have come to wonder if doing that was actually allowing the blood into an oxygen deprived area, a la Sarno.

I like this tarala, ive never practiced it like the way you describe
Now I do imagine healing white light flooding my body
but (the pain is seeking healing energy) is different or new to me.
I do think it was helping blood flow to the pain area.

In a Way I guess you could say when I imagine the
healing white light and my body and mind feel better
then I did summon healing energy and I did think of the pain
diminishing and the healing energy giving me my vigor back.
Also it helps fight away depression if I awake with that emotion.

Ill look at Abraham lows books on -line to see if
I can find the one with this philosophy
maybe he has it as a concrete step in his healing out- lines.

It is Abraham low right?
Thanks....

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

It is very difficult to ignore the pain I know. Have you ever tried to not think about something and then you just end of thinking about it more? This is very common. So much of what increases the intensity of the pain is all the worry and concern over whether there will ever be any relief, whether it will ever go away. Try your best not to resist it, fight it, and reassure yourself that although the pain is intense in this moment, it is only this moment, and open the possibility for it to change in the future. Although it is very uncomfortable, is it manageable right now? Practice bringing your attention to some place in your body that does not feel pain. This is very challenging but you will feel the payoff if you can master this technique. It takes practice and patience. Our minds are trained right now to only think about the area causing pain. Try to train you mind to be able to focus on an area that is not in pain, feel into what that feels like, imagine what it feels like. Breathe. The goal is to create just a little room, make it a little less. Small increments can get you there in the end.

I love this one Anne Walker, ( Practice bringing your attention to some place in your body that does not feel pain. )
I've used it countless times with only success
I love this tool-
I read about this first in Steveos book, the Great Pain Deception
Then I learned it more in depth through my studies on Visualization and Hypnotherapy.

The First part of your remedy sounds like Focusing or Somatic experiencing
or even Claire Weekes, These are all powerful in the fight on any pain or emotion

I love your thoughts, thanks Anne Walker

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

Yes, thanks, Herbie. Isn't it funny though how I realized I was trying to provoke a "crisis" only after I'd encountered the pain and overcome it. No easy way for me. I'm just a slugger, but the pain was trying to teach me something, wasn't it? Seems like the whole TMS thing is about learning from experiences that largely occur in the unconscious where you're unaware of them. You just need to connect the pain with the unconscious behavior patterns to see what it was really all about. Sort of like going into a biker bar and looking for trouble! Would be nice if I could learn my lesson without having to beat myself up first. I guess some of us have to do everything the "hard way".

Yea I know, it would be very interesting to see how schools would teach this curriculum
Would student A stand up, Yes mam- I Believe we need more meditation and love plus
awareness to bring out the power in our school winning this weekend football game
All in favor say I.

Now see we have had to go our whole lives not knowing this powerful direction.
When we were taught it was like backwards. I always thought I had to feel good to be happy
Now I know I have to think happy to feel good.

Those ideas aren't easy to learn in our systems of knowledge now days less we run across the Tmswiki here
and then if we practice and understand it.

I think you really got it down pat BruceMC with connecting the pain to the emotion
and all the other tools you practice.

Im just glad we know now partner, and pray our schools will begin to teach these tension removers at
our schools one day in the next hundred years. It would be astonishing to see a school taught nothing but Tms healing
along with every tool that's in the arsenal- and you'll finally graduate when you can teach others how to heal.
Just as a course of course like Gym or Math.
No one has to even get spiritual, just believe in your power over your emotions.

I bet they would catch the bullies and bombers a lot sooner since they really wouldn't want to participate
in this life giving Power that we generate with our minds.

Do you think BruceMC that we were meant to go threw all these trials? in order to
build us into twisted steel or do you think the education system dropped the ball?

I thank god for good DR.s and our Schools

but aren't we taught all physicality in our schools ?

Hum.....

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

For me the key is the ability to suspend judgement--this is probably the key to everything we experience, but especially with pain or other physical symptoms. If I can just experience pain as another physical sensation without all the judgments about it being wrong that it's there, that I don't deserve this, that it means something horrible and tragic is wrong with me, that it's ruining my life......and so on. Then I'm just left with a sensation and, well...peace of mind.

So when pain is disrupting my peace of mind, I use a guided meditation that helps me focus on the physical sensations in a neutral, non-judgmental way. And miraculously this often results in the pain leaving and my peace of mind returning. I've read the descriptions of other forum members who use similar methods. I think some terms for this technique is Focusing and Somatic Experiencing. Have you started working one of the structured TMS programs like the SEP found on this site? This is the only way I know to actually move toward diminishing the pain, rather than just coping with it.

Hope you are able to find some relief.

This is an awesome reply Ellen- Thanks

 

[Forest]

Eric is right. Ellen your post was terrific! The answer to so many questions about TMS involves changing how we view things. If you can change the meaning of the pain, from something that is ruining your life to a simple sign that you need to get in touch with your emotions, then you can reduce the fear and anger you have towards it.

Another, perhaps more tangible, way to stop obsessing about your symptoms is to use an evidence sheet, as described by Alan Gordon. This is simply a sheet where you list all of the reasons you have TMS. When you feel overwhelmed by your TMS, take out this sheet and use it remind yourself that your symptoms are benign and you have TMS. Hopefully, this will reduce the fear and obsession of your symptoms.