In need of your advice

hello guys and nice to meet you all! I'm a newcomer in this forum and I want to learn more and more everyday about mind body connection. for me this is all new and I really want to go deeper and understand i almost perfectly (since perfect does not exist, only god is perfect). I have a doubt, I have been reading "healing back pain by doctor sarnos" and to be honest im feeling a heck lot better, but heres the thing. I don't know what to do when i go back to physical activity. for example, lets say I want to start progressing on doing bodyweight squats, today i did 3 and it started to hurt a lot. do i stop completely and go thro the pain and think that im completely normal and don't have any back issues (herniated disc), or do i rest until next day and progress to 5 squats and continue next day like this? or do you guys stop until you're completely pain free (even if it takes a week to rest)? this is the only part of the book i dont get much.

I see myself in literally every page of healing back pain. no doubt i have tms, constant fear, anxiety, anger and just a lot of tension.

 

Congratulations. You have made it to the frontlines of battle

This is where you are challenging it at it's face. And just like the book says, you need to break the conditioning. We have all gone about the process in different increments. I went back to cycling, baseball, weightlifting around 7-10 days in. Of course my pain wasn't gone... but none of that stuff made it worse (aha!) If I was at the batting cages and I started noticing I was focusing on the pain I would step out and 'go inside myself'. I would remind myself as many of the 12 daily reminders I knew, but most importantly THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY BODY! Than I would turn my thoughts to a certain person who I couldn't stand (see other posts) and step back in the cage. The pain went away one activity at a time
In fact, the proof that it is all conditioning is the fact that at 5 weeks I was back to my heavy labor job pain free, but I would get a twinge of sciatica when I sat down to drive home at the end of my 12 hour shift (I had conditioned myself to fear sitting)

One of the big 'give aways' for me before reading the book was the fact that I always had my LEAST amount of pain right after vigorous activity. I was in one of those stupid "chronic pain" centers and I would lift weights, ride Exercycle and such...that was proof of Sarno's very scientific observation that Ischemia rather than structure was the culprit.

One thing I will say about 'gym rats'... I always have worked out alone at home, or with a friend, at home. Those gym dudes are constantly focused on the exterior...they also have an whole folklore associated with structure. The fact that you are doing heavy weight squats made me think you might be around this type of mentality. ANY advice, discussion, protocol, support tools that focus on structural stuff is going to make it difficult to stay focused on the mental. Hearing the word 'disc' made me cringe during my return...even if it was 'compact disc'... conditioning is a bitch, but we can beat it.

pax

 

thanks a lot pax!!!! omg good read there. im so happy you recovered! i still have a question. you said when the pain kicks in you step out and think of a certain person who you couldn't stand (this is something that sarnos said about think psychologically and not mentally, like family discussions or bills), but what if I'm getting pain because I'm conditioned to think that sitting for example causes pain? example, right now i sit down and im scared because it causes pain, WHERE DO I SUPPOST to turn my thoughts to? thats the only question i have of all this? do i think that all of this is mental or do i just think of other life stresses? because the thing thats causing the pain is my conditioning and thinking it will cause pain. i dont know what to think next. should i do like THERES NOTHING WRONG WITH MY BODY, ITS ALL TMS AND NO ABNORMALITY IN MY SPINE and just think of something beautiful or am i suppost to think of other stuff thats causing me issues?