mrefreddyg
Well known member
Having been more active on the TMS Forum recently it has been pretty clear how much fear of activities is just if not more limiting than fear of pain. Not that they can be separated often.
Getting back to exercise and activities was the absolute game-changer in terms of being confident that I could recover from my 6 years of pain. Let me share some things that worked for me and hopefully they will be of help to any of the other wonderful people who come to this online sanctuary.
My first step was consuming a shit load of TMS information - Dr Sarno, Steve Ozanich, Alan Gordon etc... they became so deeply ingrained that for a while all I could talk about was TMS and started to be confused why people couldn't see that they had TMS too. "Like it is so obvious dudes" - evangelical Ed. Anyway, I have classical TMS personality traits which include wanting every last bit of information - otherwise known as a bit obsessive.
^As a disclaimer: this hunt for information has to stop at some point as it easily becomes too much of an obsessive focus on fixing but at the start I found it helpful to be immersed in the TMS work
Second step was having Dr Sarnos 12 daily commandments on hand all the time. They were in my notebook, in my journal, in my mind, on the kitchen side, on my bedroom table... I'm sure you are getting the picture. I needed to be reminded over and over again that my symptoms were psychological and harmless.
Third step of confidence building was building a long, living evidence list. It has all the evidence that my pain wasn't structural - nothing was too small to be on there. Examples ranged from anything like, my pain started when my parents got divorced, to I didn't have pain for 5 minutes of my morning walk, or wow my pain was terrible just before that hard conversation and has now disappeared. This was beyond helpful in realising that my symptoms were TMS.
At this stage I had eliminated most of my doubts which was the perfect place to start exercising again. Now it was a question of finding exercise I ENJOYED. This was the real crux of the matter for me. As TMS is based on repressed rage forcing myself to exercise, for example going to a gym and lifting weights, was going to cause more symptoms.
I can't tell you how much of a switch it is to do something I enjoyed and wanted to do rather than felt forced by a harsh inner critic. Completely different mode of being.
As I was in the beautiful English countryside I decided I would go on runs as I was already enjoying going out for gentle walks with my dads two dogs: a wee border terrier and black lab. I prepped for each run by going through the commandments, checking in with how I felt - often their was some fear that I soothed with doing 5 second by 5 second breathing and affirmations that I was safe, and reminded myself of Alan Gordons "authentic indifference" - no matter how I feel on this run going on the run is the measure of success - "I don't need to be pain-free to enjoy a run" (that is my interpretation of that concept).
My fourth step was to start small, I ran for 5 minutes the first few days. Of course I had pain, sometimes really bad, but the feeling of liberation was winning out. Every time I came back from a run I celebrated which looked like: cuddling with the dogs, enjoying a bath, having a sweet treat, just saying aloud how well I had done - anything to keep a state of positivity to teach my brain that this was a safe and worthwhile thing to do. Starting this small keep the fear to a manageable level rather than being completely overwhelming.
Fifth step was using visualisation which I learned from the Great Pain Deception by Steve Ozanich, where he describes running while imagining soft, pillowy snow on the ground for his knee pain. So as I ran further and my shoulder pain started to ramp up in intensity I started to imagine that I was a character called Inspector Gadget who is made of metal. If my shoulder was metal I couldn't feel pain right... weird as this sounds it was really effective for me. It took the edge off the pain and fear just enough for me to enjoy the runs.
As I built more and more confidence which was growing with each and every run, I got to a key point which is the "Bring it on, come on!" attitude. I went from being deathly scared of the pain to inviting it in, letting it be as large as it could be without fear as I knew it was TMS. That was my tipping point - I have rarely been afraid of exercise since then and have re-engaged fully. I even did a short stint carrying 30kg tents around for work just to prove to myself that I could do it.
Obviously this was not a linear process -> I didn't just run further and further and there were times of great pain and great doubt. All of which are a totally normal part of the process. But the overall trajectory was that I could do more with more confidence which is one the ultimate goals of recovery from chronic pain.
Getting back to exercise and activities was the absolute game-changer in terms of being confident that I could recover from my 6 years of pain. Let me share some things that worked for me and hopefully they will be of help to any of the other wonderful people who come to this online sanctuary.
My first step was consuming a shit load of TMS information - Dr Sarno, Steve Ozanich, Alan Gordon etc... they became so deeply ingrained that for a while all I could talk about was TMS and started to be confused why people couldn't see that they had TMS too. "Like it is so obvious dudes" - evangelical Ed. Anyway, I have classical TMS personality traits which include wanting every last bit of information - otherwise known as a bit obsessive.
^As a disclaimer: this hunt for information has to stop at some point as it easily becomes too much of an obsessive focus on fixing but at the start I found it helpful to be immersed in the TMS work
Second step was having Dr Sarnos 12 daily commandments on hand all the time. They were in my notebook, in my journal, in my mind, on the kitchen side, on my bedroom table... I'm sure you are getting the picture. I needed to be reminded over and over again that my symptoms were psychological and harmless.
Third step of confidence building was building a long, living evidence list. It has all the evidence that my pain wasn't structural - nothing was too small to be on there. Examples ranged from anything like, my pain started when my parents got divorced, to I didn't have pain for 5 minutes of my morning walk, or wow my pain was terrible just before that hard conversation and has now disappeared. This was beyond helpful in realising that my symptoms were TMS.
At this stage I had eliminated most of my doubts which was the perfect place to start exercising again. Now it was a question of finding exercise I ENJOYED. This was the real crux of the matter for me. As TMS is based on repressed rage forcing myself to exercise, for example going to a gym and lifting weights, was going to cause more symptoms.
I can't tell you how much of a switch it is to do something I enjoyed and wanted to do rather than felt forced by a harsh inner critic. Completely different mode of being.
As I was in the beautiful English countryside I decided I would go on runs as I was already enjoying going out for gentle walks with my dads two dogs: a wee border terrier and black lab. I prepped for each run by going through the commandments, checking in with how I felt - often their was some fear that I soothed with doing 5 second by 5 second breathing and affirmations that I was safe, and reminded myself of Alan Gordons "authentic indifference" - no matter how I feel on this run going on the run is the measure of success - "I don't need to be pain-free to enjoy a run" (that is my interpretation of that concept).
My fourth step was to start small, I ran for 5 minutes the first few days. Of course I had pain, sometimes really bad, but the feeling of liberation was winning out. Every time I came back from a run I celebrated which looked like: cuddling with the dogs, enjoying a bath, having a sweet treat, just saying aloud how well I had done - anything to keep a state of positivity to teach my brain that this was a safe and worthwhile thing to do. Starting this small keep the fear to a manageable level rather than being completely overwhelming.
Fifth step was using visualisation which I learned from the Great Pain Deception by Steve Ozanich, where he describes running while imagining soft, pillowy snow on the ground for his knee pain. So as I ran further and my shoulder pain started to ramp up in intensity I started to imagine that I was a character called Inspector Gadget who is made of metal. If my shoulder was metal I couldn't feel pain right... weird as this sounds it was really effective for me. It took the edge off the pain and fear just enough for me to enjoy the runs.
As I built more and more confidence which was growing with each and every run, I got to a key point which is the "Bring it on, come on!" attitude. I went from being deathly scared of the pain to inviting it in, letting it be as large as it could be without fear as I knew it was TMS. That was my tipping point - I have rarely been afraid of exercise since then and have re-engaged fully. I even did a short stint carrying 30kg tents around for work just to prove to myself that I could do it.
Obviously this was not a linear process -> I didn't just run further and further and there were times of great pain and great doubt. All of which are a totally normal part of the process. But the overall trajectory was that I could do more with more confidence which is one the ultimate goals of recovery from chronic pain.
