Nicole Sachs, LCSW Journaling prompts—really good!

I preordered too, but I missed this somehow! These are AWESOME. I think someone needs to bump this thread once a day

 

I just reviewed my pre-order email acknowledgement "from" Nicole. It's dated September 20, which I believe was the first day or two that preordering was available. There were no links in the email to additional content - just promises of digital extras and the yet-unscheduled online event. I haven't received anything further, but I see now that the pre-order web page promises a downloaded PDF with journal prompts. I've sent an email query and I'll let you know what I find out, @Ellen!

 

well crap, now I don't see how to do that after the fact. Apparently I should have done it right away while her web page was still in my browser after I clicked through to Amazon... her page won't accept my order number now.

 

Yep, already did that! I didn't expect to hear back right away, but I got an auto-response.

 

Nicole recommends 10 minutes of meditation which Diana referred to, which yes, is meant to calm and soothe and allow emotions to settle. I like to end any writing session with at least one thing for which I'm grateful or which I appreciate about myself (preferably both) - I picked up that recommendation somewhere along with the way, and since I typically resist the meditation it's a decent way to wrap up.

Nothing is written in stone. Any one author can't possibly cover all the possibilities or they'll lose their audience, but I have always believed that an important part of this journey is relaxing into what works for you. Curiousity is a powerful component to recovery.

 

@diletant, my heart breaks to see this. Please tell us a little more about your background, and about how much you know, books you have read, or programs you have done, regarding the mindbody connection (which we call TMS on this forum, in honor of Dr. Sarn0). Also, have you had therapy?

To answer your question even though I know nothing about you or your background, I will state that self-loathing is developed in childhood. Always. Not "usually" or "typically". ALWAYS.

If you would immediately like more insight into this, got to this short thread (linked below), go to the recommended link in that top post, and read the short explanatory article. Then answer the ten Yes/No questions from the highly-regarded "ACEs quiz", which will take less time than reading the article.

Understand that the number in the score is meaningless in comparison to anyone else who answers the same questions! The significance of your score serves to identify the circumstances in your childhood which resulted in your current state of suffering. Once these are identified, you'll have a substantial starting point to actually work on your emotional awakening. I'm going to guess that it won't be easy, but it's very possible that right now, you are floundering on the surface instead of going where you really need to go. It sounds like you are ready to make that change. Or at least seriously consider it!

This is a forum thread with a link and description of the "ACEs Quiz" and its relevance to physical suffering:
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/aces-quiz-online-printable-versions.27061 (ACEs "quiz" - online & printable versions) (ACEs "quiz" - online & printable versions)

 

Thank you, @diletant, that's very helpful!

The reason I recommend the ACEs quiz is because it actually gives you more focus for "doing the work". I had a better-than-decent upbringing with nurturing and progressive parents, and thank goodness no religious BS. But you may have heard Nicole say, as she often does, that "no one escapes childhood unscathed". I already knew that I was born with anxiety due to the circumstances of my mother's first pregnancy - so I was starting with that awareness, along with a realization from doing the Structured Educational Program back in 2011, that I experienced isolation during my childhood, somewhere around age 5 and so. I really put all of this together when I did the ACEs questions. Even though I couldn't even manage a full score of 1 from the list of adverse childhood experiences, the question about isolation triggered a realization that I actually undoubtedly WAS isolated for several years - a bit emotionally neglected, in fact - due to having been the anxiously-desired and possibly over-nurtured first child (after three years and a miscarriage) for almost two years, who was suddenly and rudely subjected to three younger siblings who came along every couple of years after me! LOL. No doubt my dear parents were quite overwhelmed (they only wanted two, as it turns out - but this was the fifties. My father had a vasectomy after the fourth - did I mention progressive?!) Anyway, realizing all of this explained a LOT, including why my mother would take me out of school every once in a while when I was about nine or ten, for a movie and lunch at the drive-in. I think she was making it up to me when she finally got the others into some form of daytime care (I would have been 9 when the youngest got into nursery school).

Long story short, in the realm of adverse childhood experiences (the ACEs) none of this was earth-shattering or remotely traumatic by any stretch of the imagination - and yet the combinatnion of anxiety and brief isolation affected me and informed my emotional responses for the rest of my life. And indeed, I spent a lifetime with minor TMS symptoms that would go away as soon as a medical professional pronounced me to be perfectly fit and healthy, other than an obvious tendency towards anxiety. About which I did nothing, until I hit age 60 and my mind caused my body to react fairly radically to the inevitable existential crisis brought on by impending aging and mortality. Enter Dr. Sarno (and Claire Weekes and Gabor Mate) to save my life. That's the short story. Then there's my RA diagnosis as a result of multiple extreme stresses in the spring of 2020 (the pandemic was only one) and I have a bunch of opinions and successes around that. I'm trying to maintain my equilibrium in spite of the trash heap that was 2024 and is obviously not getting better any time soon. I struggle with disappointment that the world is in dire shape as I contemplate (at age 73) that it might not turn around in what remains of my life. This is all big-time shit that is much healthier to acknowledge than to repress - which of course is what basic TMS theory is all about. I'm still in better shape at 73 than I was at 60, thanks to this work.

Answer the questions. Just do it, and be sure to be honest with yourself, which I think is part of your struggle. Just a Yes or a No. If you do the online one at the NPR link, you'll get a whole-number score. Technically my score is 1, but I feel like it's really more like a 0.2-something since I only experienced mild emotional neglect for 4 or 5 years out of 18, with 18 being the arbitrary age cutoff.

I know that you know that you can't just "work a bit" and you definitely can't avoid, but my dear, you also can't beat yourself up for avoiding and resisting. This is not YOU, this is your brain on TMS. And your brain, for whatever reason, is really resistant! It is doing whatever it can to get you to avoid emotional vulnerability, because emotional vulnerability is terrifying. It is also required for recovery.

Look, Nicole is a terrific resource (spoiler: she interviewed me on one of her podcasts, and I'm a super fan) and wouldn't you just love to be able to see her as your therapist? Sadly she doesn't do that anymore, although she does have at least two self-directed programs you can do if you are willing to make the difficult commitment to keep doing them even when your brain is trying to get you to quit.

As Nicole says all the time, you gotta do the work. "Believe, Do the work, and Practice kindness and patience for yourself" is her mantra. But first you need to learn to love yourself, because if you can't love yourself enough to know that you deserve to heal, you will not recover. It's that simple.

If you go to the podcast page on her newly-reorganized website and put self compassion into the search box, you will get a list of episodes where self-compassion is addressed. Here's one from 2020 and the title may resonate. I need to copy this over to another thread that's currently going on... #85 S1 Ep85: Episode 85 - When The Person You Hate Is Yourself
Oh, and she also has a 2-hour recorded mini-retreat specifically on self-compassion:
Recorded Mini Retreats | BreakAwake by Nicole Sachs

For the record, in my experience, somatic tracking ain't gonna do it (it works temporarily, and is particularly useful for someone who has recovered and has honest and vulnerable self-reflection skills for temporary flares).
Random and inconsistent meditation ain't gonna do it (I believe that it can bring significant relief if you're willing to devote yourself to achieving a lengthy and deep practice every single day)(personally, I'd rather journal!)

That's a lot - sorry! Too much to absorb at once. Take it one step at a time, as we we say around here.

~Jan

 

June 7th
https://www.yourbreakawake.com/podcasts/the-cure-for-chronic-pain-with-nicole-sachs-lcsw-2/episodes/2148744110 (S3 Ep90: Healing Into Our 70's and Beyond - Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Migraines with Jan)