Day 16 Insights and building confidence

I really liked the material for today. Reading Enrique's story reminded me of my own recovery from RSI (which of course featured in Day 11, and which I also posted about) and reading what Dr. Schubiner wrote about triggers was extremely helpful. I especially like what he said about how you can identify a trigger:

I've generally found Dr. Schubiner's posts really helpful and I had not worked a lot with his material before except the workbook he created so I'm glad that the SEP takes advantage of them.

One thing that is great about Enrique's story is that he went on to do lots of athletic stuff even though he hadn't before. This is inspiring to me because I want to get more active as I overcome my worries about my ankle. I am still doing well with doing more walking.

I also had some really interesting experiences yesterday. For one thing, the dialogue method of working on an emotion turned out to be very helpful for me - it seems to bring on the kind of reflective awareness that's so far been more helpful to me than the venting-type feeling. I also went to a concert and as I was arriving I stepped down a step and my ankle hurt, sharply but not in a way that seemed like an injury. This did kick up my symptoms, but not in an obvious way, more that I kept wondering "Does it really hurt?" As I was sitting still anyway I tried to just disengage from the emotional cycle and think "OK, I'm having some sensations. I want to notice those, and just see what they are like." I found that although my symptoms are very predictable at a macro level - consistently my left ankle and foot hurt or experience abnormal sensation - at a micro level they were just moving constantly, to different parts of the ankle and foot, and different types of sensations. This was an insight that I had not picked up on before with regard to TMS. There are a few macro-level things about my symptoms that help make me skeptical that they are structural, but the constantly shifting micro-changes really made me much more skeptical. After a while, with the fear cycle disengaged, the symptoms died down and everything felt normal again. That built some confidence for me.

 

It's great that you went to the concert and didn't let the false step pain take over.

I also find Dr. Schubiner's posts very helpful, as lots of others have.

There are some good videos on Youtube for exercising. I'm 84 so I go to the ones for seniors.
It's so important to exercise, even if we feel some pain or discomfort. We need to keep our muscles and bones working.
"Use 'em or lose 'em" I've heard.

I live in a Chicago suburb and we're having an old-fashioned spring snowstorm.
4 inches of snow already and more coming. I needed to shovel the front walk for a delivery
so I just did it. Heavy wet snow, so I shoveled slowly and in layers. No real pain, just a bit.

Keep up your good work in the SEP.