Day 10 How My Treatment is Progressing

[dgold]

I am now completing Day 10 of the SEP. After having read both "The Mindbody Prescription" and "The Way Out" a second time, I began practicing somatic tracking around the same time I started this Structured Education Program. Initially, I felt as though I was having some success with having fewer headaches. But, now that I am actively engaged in journaling and completing other various assignments, I feel an increased level of stress and seem to be having more frequent headaches. I've suffered with chronic headaches/migraines for at least 40 years and am anxious to start seeing some results from the TMS program. I keep reminding myself to approach the assignments/exercises with a sense of joy, as opposed to pressure and preoccupation, but I have confirmed my suspicion that I do not enjoy journaling whatsoever. For me, it's a chore. And, a very unpleasant one, at that.

I am convinced that pain can be caused or exacerbated by repressed fear and anger and that the TMS program has healed many people. At this stage in the program, I am struggling with two concepts. First, while I have no doubt that the psychological component is a huge factor in causing my pain (headaches, IBS/SIBO, eczema, tendonitis, etc.), I still believe there might be a physical component to my headaches, such as, swelling or inflammation. My headaches are consistently caused by the same triggers (fatigue, stress, direct sunlight, or a rare alcoholic beverage) and the pain is consistently located in my temples, stretching across my forehead. I really haven't been able to compile much of an evidence list would suggest my pain is entirely psychogenic but definitely believe that my emotional state can impact the severity of the pain.

The second TMS concept I am struggling with is how we can heal though journaling and revisiting unpleasant experiences from our past. I actually have so many of these experiences stored in my memory banks, it's difficult for me to know where to begin. Since I was very young, I have often laid in bed with these thoughts cycling through my mind, one wave after another. It's a rare occasion when I am actually able to stop this viscous cycle and shift my thoughts to something more pleasant, in spite of how badly I want to. And, while I understand that having even more negative thoughts is somewhat expected during this stage of the TMS program, I'm afraid that's where I'm at right now. I do hope that these thoughts eventually subside once I become more adept at practicing the TMS techniques and that I am able to heal.

 

[BloodMoon]

@dgold I really related to what you wrote about journaling feeling unpleasant — I had a similar experience. I didn’t have to “dig” very far to find old emotions or memories; they were always just under the surface. For a lot of people though, it seems they need to go rooting around, and journaling helps them access stuff and examine and express their anger. The closest thing to journaling that was of some help to me personally, as it released some tension, was writing 'unsent' letters to individuals who'd 'done me wrong'. Some people do say that the thing you avoid doing or would prefer not to do, is the thing you actually need to do, but I haven't found that to be the case for me on my particular recovery 'journey' with respect to journaling. (I've gone from being bedridden and housebound to functioning pretty well these days by comparison without it.)

Dan Buglio, though not against journaling per se, recovered from 13 years of mind/body back pain without journaling playing a major part (he has said that keeping on returning to old hurts etc., just served to depress him) — You’ve probably heard of him, but if not, here’s a YouTube video where he talks about his take on journaling, which imo is a balanced view:

Instead of journaling self-soothing has helped me a tremendous amount, so if you're not already doing any or much of it, I would think that it would likely help you too. (In his book The MindBody Prescription Dr Sarno suggested to do this to balance out the stresses in life.) Here's another Dan Buglio video where he talks about self-soothing:

Also, you might want to take a look at The PRT (Pain Reprocessing Therapy) Workbook by Vanessa Blackstone. It’s a very approachable, step-by-step guide with daily exercises drawn from Pain Reprocessing Therapy — focusing on feeling safe in your body, reducing fear around symptoms, and gently retraining the brain’s pain pathways. It’s especially good if journaling feels like a chore, since it uses short reflections and somatic awareness rather than deep emotional digging.

 

[Ellen]

.At this stage in the program, I am struggling with two concepts. First, while I have no doubt that the psychological component is a huge factor in causing my pain (headaches, IBS/SIBO, eczema, tendonitis, etc.), I still believe there might be a physical component to my headaches, such as, swelling or inflammation. My headaches are consistently caused by the same triggers (fatigue, stress, direct sunlight, or a rare alcoholic beverage) and the pain is consistently located in my temples, stretching across my forehead.

I had a problem with thinking my migraines that I had all my life were TMS. But then I learned about conditioning and how often certain things can be associated with a headache, but are not causing it. For me it was changes in barometric pressure. I was certain it was causing my migraines, but I learned that my brain had merely associated this with migraines. I kept using my rational logical brain to "talk to" my illogical, subconscious brain and I eventually broke the association. I've been free of migraines for over 10 years now.

 

[dgold]

@dgold I really related to what you wrote about journaling feeling unpleasant — I had a similar experience. I didn’t have to “dig” very far to find old emotions or memories; they were always just under the surface. For a lot of people though, it seems they need to go rooting around, and journaling helps them access stuff and examine and express their anger. The closest thing to journaling that was of some help to me personally, as it released some tension, was writing 'unsent' letters to individuals who'd 'done me wrong'. Some people do say that the thing you avoid doing or would prefer not to do, is the thing you actually need to do, but I haven't found that to be the case for me on my particular recovery 'journey' with respect to journaling. (I've gone from being bedridden and housebound to functioning pretty well these days by comparison without it.)

Dan Buglio, though not against journaling per se, recovered from 13 years of mind/body back pain without journaling playing a major part (he has said that keeping on returning to old hurts etc., just served to depress him) — You’ve probably heard of him, but if not, here’s a YouTube video where he talks about his take on journaling, which imo is a balanced view:

Instead of journaling self-soothing has helped me a tremendous amount, so if you're not already doing any or much of it, I would think that it would likely help you too. (In his book The MindBody Prescription Dr Sarno suggested to do this to balance out the stresses in life.) Here's another Dan Buglio video where he talks about self-soothing:

Also, you might want to take a look at The PRT (Pain Reprocessing Therapy) Workbook by Vanessa Blackstone. It’s a very approachable, step-by-step guide with daily exercises drawn from Pain Reprocessing Therapy — focusing on feeling safe in your body, reducing fear around symptoms, and gently retraining the brain’s pain pathways. It’s especially good if journaling feels like a chore, since it uses short reflections and somatic awareness rather than deep emotional digging.

Excellent videos and excellent suggestions! Thanks so much for the thoughtful response, BloodMoon.

 

[dgold]

I had a problem with thinking my migraines that I had all my life were TMS. But then I learned about conditioning and how often certain things can be associated with a headache, but are not causing it. For me it was changes in barometric pressure. I was certain it was causing my migraines, but I learned that my brain had merely associated this with migraines. I kept using my rational logical brain to "talk to" my illogical, subconscious brain and I eventually broke the association. I've been free of migraines for over 10 years now.

Ellen, I had to laugh as I was reading your reply to my posting. I'm sitting here now, looking at a headache log (one of many) that I maintained from June 2020 through March 2022. At the time, I was almost certain that certain weather conditions were triggering my migraines. I suspected humidity or, possibly, high humidity combined with excessive heat. When I finally discontinued maintaining that particular headache log, I could see that there was no consistent relationship between the intensity of my headaches and the humidity, wind speed, or air quality index. The only condition where I did find any consistency with the intensity of my headaches was air pressure. But, even then, the pressure changes were so subtle I had to question whether they could really be the cause of my headaches. So there was some doubt.

In any event, you've given me some encouragement. I think I need to really focus on deconditioning my brain from believing my headaches are triggered by some external, physical factor and shift my focus to myself. Thank you.