I’m aiming for pain free for my 40th bday

hey all

As per my user name, my goal is to banish my various pain points by 40

My story:

I 39, and have been suffering from various ailments since 2002. I discovered Sarno’s teaching via Annie Grace’s book “this naked mind”. I had read it to help control my drinking

Just finishing Sarno’s the mind body prescription has provided partial relief over the past week. I’m now reading “the great pain deception” by Fred Ray Ozinich. His story is profound and providing additional guidance on my recovery journey

I will update this thread with my progress over the next while

 

I wonder how much time do you have? I will be 30 in 6 months and I really would want to be painfree by then, but I already try TMS approach last 6 months and nothing changed.

 

As I understand it, each person’s recovery process is different. For me , a lot of what is defined as TMS I had already been thinking about. So I was in a good mental state to start the recovery

 

Update: Today was an interesting test, for several reasons

1 - I helped my wife put away our Christmas tree, as well as move a heavy shelf across the living room. These activities would normally cause joint pain once completed, not today!

2 - I slipped on some ice while taking the dog out just now, I didn't fall, but slightly hyper-extended my knee. As soon as I did, I started an internal conversation with myself "you have the blood flow going through that area to prevent immediate pain, there's no need to worry" As I live in Canada, slipping on ice is common ; I would normally start to suffer an ache in my knee within 10-15 minutes of such an event, not today!

3 - I ate several meals that would normally cause my intestinal discomfort, not today.

Overall, i'm very happy with my progress so far. Next week, I'm going back to the gym and will re-start a previous exercise routine I had suspended a few weeks back when my symptoms were at their worst

 

Update for Jan 9, 2019

Had an upsetting discussion with my wife yesterday, and resulted in not getting a lot of sleep last night. Around 10 am this morning, one of my long-standing symptoms returned: a pain in my right knee

I discussed it with my wife when I got home, and am now starting to feel better. I still believe in the process, but i'm aware there will be days like this until i'm fully recovered

 

"Trying" to heal by a certain time can often cause anxious feelings which can create other symptoms.
Age isn't the goal. The thought is that you can accept that your symptoms are 100% psychological. There is no "getting better," only an acceptance that sometimes takes a while to get to the subconscious mind and the nervous system. But, it will. Maybe rethink having a strict deadline.

 

I second what MWsunin said.

One of the biggest moments of my recovery was realizing that I could be in pain/have symptoms and still live the life I wanted. (For what it's worth, I'm largely symptom free now.)

 

Well that's your case, but what if in my case pain prevents me from living the life I want? I know it's not structural because I had tons of tests, but it still hurts like hell every second of my life. What if I done ton of TMS work and still it helps in 0%? Right know it's just as helpful as law of attraction or healing codes. Mindfullness meditation was better because it helped me to better cope with pain, but that's all.

 

Whatever helps you best, you should do. And mindful meditation isn't separate from TMS wotk.

 

This is solid advice. Thanks for this. I got excited by early progress , and that was turned around on me when the symptoms returned. I have a long way to go , but this is surely expected based on having these symptoms for 16 years

 

Totally!

Another way I think of it is, if you rush it it will take longer. Going slower, letting the process go at its own speed, ends up being the fastest

 

I'm keen to have multiple avenues to recovery, so I've booked myself an appointment with a CBT therapist later this month. I'll let you all know how it goes

 

Update for Jan 26, 2019
CBT session one this past Wednesday went well. My therapist believes some of my anxiety / stress / rage comes from how I let tasks stack-up. This is something i've thought about for years, but have not done much about. This week I did
Going forward, even if it's a simple task like taking out the trash, doing the dishes, or replying to a long email, I'm going to JUST DO IT.
until today, I was feeling great. unfortunately, I had another fight with my wife, and now i'm super tense. I went to the gym to release some tension, but it made it worse. It's now a waiting game till I loosen up again.
I will be visiting my CBT therapist again next week, and i'm hoping he gives me additional tools on how to control my stress / anger response to infuriating conversations

 

It's Steve Ozanich.....read his book and don't keep track on when to heal.

 

Hi PainFree440,

@MWsunin12 and @Free of Fear both gave you good advice about not being so rigid (ie: perfectionist!) in your goals and expectations.

I highlighted your sentence above because I want to tell you that the brain mechanism that we call TMS is not actually a condition that we 100% "fully" recover from. You might think that's the bad news, but my intention is to show you a path where you can realistically learn to understand and control this mechanism that was created millennia ago by our primitive brains to keep us safe in a physically unsafe world, during a time when we lived very short lives. The chances of living past 30 in that world were slim. But as long as you had done your job of breeding the next generation, there was no need for you to live longer than that. Right? Modern medicine has completely done away with Nature's plan in that regard, thank you very much. But there are consequences.

I believe this is a normal mechanism, but I think it has gone haywire in the modern world, because we live so much longer, and because our lives are so much more complicated - and we have a lot more things to worry about. I absolutely believe we can experience recovery - but you can't expect to "fully" recover and never have to deal with it again. What you can do is develop skills that you will use now, and in the future when you experience setbacks.

And look at you - you've already had a lot of success, so you know it can be done!

I always recommend doing one of our programs. In doing the SEP many years ago, I discovered that my brain wanted to hide things from me - it was convincing me that writing down or examining certain things, incidents, whatever - were too embarrassing and not necessary. It's scary how easily I could have been misled, and failed to accomplish anything substantial. The thing is, these things weren't earth-shattering at all - but forcing myself to look at them, and to accept myself in spite of them, was revealing and freeing, and it helped to open up other emotions that I'd been repressing - all of them going back to childhood, which is where our life's disappointments and regrets start building up - and I believe that this is true for every human being who has ever lived. It doesn't matter how good a childhood someone had (mine was great, in fact) - from the moment we are forced to give up our mother's breast, we experience disappointment, resentment, shame and guilt, and all of the other emotions that go with having to grow up and start interacting with the rest of the world. Our brains start repressing those emotions at an early age. And those who do not have a loving or supportive childhood will invariably end up with even more emotional and physical issues to deal with.

Again - you've already made really good progress, and you are on the right path. Letting go of rigid expectations and accepting that this work is not linear, not measurable, and extremely individual, can only help in your recovery process.

~Jan

 

Thanks, Jan, for sharing that! I have just bookmarked it so that I can read it again and again! It makes so much sense! My childhood was also blessed, causing me to doubt a bit whether my symptoms were all TMS. I also have been looking for a time of "cure" rather than a recovery -- creating a space for using the tools that we learn in the wonderful programs that are available. I'm in the third week of Dr. Howard Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain program and and with the help of you and others on the forums, am finally beginning to "get" it. For some of us, it takes a long time and a lot of work! I have learned so much, a bit at a time, and suspect that my recovery will always be a work in progress!

Gratefully,
Suky