If you need hope…

I’ve been on the forum 18 months. I was working on my TMS before that, but my efforts and knowledge drastically increased from forum participation.

I started here hopeless, afraid, severely depressed and in pain. Dr. David Hanscom calls it The Abyss. There’s no better word for it. Today, I’m drastically better. Sometimes, I get blue, but briefly. And I never feel hopeless anymore. Most days, I’m downright happy. And my pain has greatly subsided.

To get here: I did a lot of reading, a lot of TMS work, a lot of journaling, soul searching, exploring of my emotions and past, and learning from forum members. I worked at it every day.

Physically, I’m progressing slower. But I’m progressing! I’m doing the baby step method, because it works for me. I’m tricking my brain to expand my boundaries. I add a little more each week. Yesterday, I let go of my walker, put my hands out and balanced and stood for a few minutes. I just did it without thinking. I laughed out loud. No way I could do that even a month ago.

My sensitized nerves are calming and soothing. That has eliminated about a dozen symptoms for me, very slowly over time. I attribute all this improvement to me practically memorizing the book Hope and Help for Your Nerves, by Claire Weekes. Seriously, I read parts of it every day.

There are a bunch more improvements— the way I treat myself is so much better; I can say no now; I removed some toxic people from my life; I’m less afraid to see the people I want to see.

The point is: I believe I have a future. I believe life is good now and will be even better. If you are reading this, and you are discouraged— just know there is a way out of the Abyss. It’s possible! If you don’t give up…you’ll get out of this. We all will.

 

Go Diana!

 

I'm so pleased to hear this; such good news, it brought tears to my eyes!

I was thinking today that the approach is kind of like 'going under the radar'... our lizard brains either don't see what we're doing or if they do spot it, it's viewed as being so insignificant that it's not a threat.

 

Thank you, dear friend! Your coaching has helped me so much! First, you said to do half the dishes. And I added getting something out of the fridge. Just little tiny steps that almost seem silly, they are so small. But you convinced me that it worked for you to get you out of bed, off a walker, and now living your life more fully. I can testify it works!

Ha! Yes! This is so true. I would imagine this approach would work for anyone at any level of physical capacity. But there is a little pain and fear involved with each step when you do it the first few times. But just very little, relatively speaking.

 

Yes, it still takes courage and endurance to even do a tiny bit of 'pushing the envelope'. The pain or discomfort can increase a bit too, but the great thing is that our lizards don't tend to think we're in mortal danger (with baby steps) so they are less likely to overreact really badly.

 

Symptom flares aren’t setbacks, they are opportunities to practice safety according to Alan Gordon.

“Flares feel like failure. But in mind-body healing, they’re actually where the real progress happens.
A flare is your brain asking, “Are we still in danger?”
And your calm response is the new data it needs: “Nope. We’re safe now.”
That’s how you rewire.”

I also like Fred Amir’s suggestion of setting goals for yourself & rewarding your brain on completion with something nice like an ice cream. Doesn’t have to be ice cream, could be anything.

 

The Abyss! Oh my goodness, yes, we know this. So important to hear others describe crawling out.

 

This made me smile.