Day 1 Let's give this another go

[Chris909]

Day One is the easy part. I've done Day One many many times over in life. The commitment of doing a little bit every day over the long term is what is important. And often we don't stick to something because we don't see immediate results. You get bored and hopeless again. But I am so convinced this is my solution that I'm back again. And hopefully to stick with this every day.
I have read several books, watched a lot of videos, and I do fully embrace the concept of TMS, neuroplasticity & the mind/body connection for my neck and back pain. I had glimmers of success. But the pain always came back. So then you get resigned and distracted and it goes on the back burner again.
Basically I'm trying to make my introductory comments from a place of wisdom, rather than just recount my own sob story of chronic pain and when and where it hurts. I've got 30 YEARS of chronic neck and back pain. No injuries. Pain comes and goes. Pain moves around. It's a ghost. We can leave it at that.
The only thing I will say is my one fear.
So the pain is my subconscious relieving its pressure valve of my repressed emotional baggage by sending pain to various places in the body.
My fear is that I cannot solve my life's problems. My existential worries will never fully go away. My anxiety of retiring broke, and will I be ok, and I never amounted to much in life, and I was a disappointment to my father, and all the deeply rooted insecurities that accumulate through life - I can't just turn those off.
So.. Can I heal my chronic pain without solving my deepest existential fears and failures?
I can't solve my life's problems in a month. Or maybe at all.
So, how can I retrain my deepest inner voices - my subconscious - to stop sending these pain signals, knowing I will always have the pain of life?

 

[Cactusflower]

You can most certainly become pain free without solving all your "Life's problems". The SEP will help you look at what you current view as a "problem" and give you the perspective to choose a different outlook.
Seriously, is it really your problem that you didn't live up to your parent's expectations. NO - that's THEIR problem.
Why is it a problem to be ordinary? I mean we can't all be extraordinary, and perhaps in your own way you will become extraordinary by living a full life that you enjoy.
Also consider that this program is a month long, but like any course that is taught, that's just the duration of the information provided. You learn more by utilizing that information when the program is over. A month is not the time frame for "healing" there is NO time frame, no expectations (I see in your post over and over gain the idea of expectations comes up - expectations of "others" not yourself). Fears, worries etc. are common signs of generalized anxiety, and Claire Weeks will give you exact guidance on how to deal with all those thoughts - any one of her small books will help you immensely, and her audio books are gold because she reads them herself.

You can absolutely turn "those off" - you just haven't learned how to do that. With knowledge and practice you can turn the volume down.

You will get there if you decide that self-conviction and stepping out of a mindset of helplessness and self-victimization is worth an investment in yourself.

 

[Chris909]

Ok thank you... It's not just what my parents expected, that was just an example. I put a lot of pressure on myself to "live up to" some standard of productivity, accomplishment, anything in life. But it's been such a failure. This is all pressure I put on myself. I am angry at myself for having failed over and over and over and over. For always being a day late and a dollar short. It is definitely not something I only place onto others... Part of me does not GAF about anybody, or what anybody thinks of me. So this get into anger and generalized anxiety and therapy topics, not for this forum.
But anyway.. Who is Claire Weeks? I have absolutely no idea who that is. What books do you recommend?

 

[Cactusflower]

You were TRAINED to put that pressure on yourself so that you'd live up to your parental expectations (your parents were probably trained by their parents too!).
If you think about your SUBCONSCIOUS rage, you aren't really angry at yourself. It's just that it's acceptable to be angry at yourself, and it's not socially acceptable to be angry at your loving, and now passed away parents who many have simply done their best to love you. THAT is enraging, and that's the kind of thing Sarno suggests we look at in ourselves. You'll be led to look at these things as you move through the SEP. It's eye opening and begins to help you take the pressure off of yourself and sort through all the baggage we carry.
Claire Weekes Was an Australian doctor wrote books on anxiety for her clients outlining exactly how she overcame her own anxiety or "nervous suffering" as she terms it. ANY of her books are recommended.
Anger and resentment are common symptoms of TMS - and it's something you really need eventually focus on changing your mindset about. We choose anger, over feeling other emotions because for some of us, certain kinds of anger are acceptable and I think for men, is considered "manly". FEELING the anger: letting the emotion pass through your body is normal, and it helps dissipate the emotion, but hanging on to the resentment happens because we fear feeling the anger in our bodies, and the other assorted emotions which can go along with it: guilt, shame, sadness. This stuckness in anger is simply another defense mechanism - and if you view it as this, you will be able change your mindset and choose a different mindset to follow. Once again, mindset is covered in the SEP, so you'll get there eventually. The journaling that the SEP takes you through is so helpful for all of this.
Recommended book: anything by Dr. Sarno's Divided Mind and anything by Claire Weekes. Those are two great places to start. As you work through the SEP and begin to find your way through some of this work, there might be other books you'd wish to explore (or not!).

 

[Chris909]

Thanks very much for the talk. I will challenge one point, mindful that all of this is debatable and limited to what can be discerned in a texting thread. I do not think anger is acceptable in men. This is also a social stereotype. Women have stereotypes too, but they are not as directly harmful as anger. I do have anger issues, and I know for a fact it is not socially acceptable in any way. It is not romanticized, it is not tolerated. Cracking in public or at loved ones, showing anger openly to people, is totally off putting to everyone. It ruins relationships, divides you from other people, drives people away. No one wants to be near anyone with anger issues, especially a romantic partner.
Another thing I notice that I do is I ruminate extensively on negative things. This is a very bad habit. I constantly dwell on the negative. A perceived slight, a misunderstanding, some interpretation of something that happens. I immediately go to a place of conflict. Like I am terrified of the world.
Recently I went on an amazing vacation with my son in South East Asia. We moved around a lot, and there were many opportunities for things to go wrong. But they never did. I would get SO ANXIOUS because we needed to catch a taxi to get to the train station in time, and I'm freaking out about missing the train, and can we rely on the system here? And things always go wrong right?! And the language barrier makes everything 10x harder. Another example, every time we'd get the check in a restaurant, I expect there to be a mistake. I am anxiously stewing inside because I expect a problem. I have this perspective where I am always expecting something to go wrong. This is my outlook, of fear and suspicion, of being taken advantage of. I know where it comes from too. This part of my neurosis at least started about five years ago after a set of experiences. Now a sustained radar for being used and taken advantage of is part of my normal world. It permeates into everything, and overall contributes to a sustained level of constant anxiety. Gotta work on that.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

I will challenge one point...
I do have anger issues, and I know for a fact it is not socially acceptable in any way.

Hi @Chris909 and welcome.

I can see that this topic of anger is really significant for you, and possibly emotionally triggering, because of the pressure you see that anger is not acceptable. I'm going to suggest that you may be resisting the concept of Rage as described by Dr Sarno, which he took straight from Freud.

I'm going to recommend another TMS book for you, because not only is it written by someone who himself felt that he suffered from anger issues, but he did the best job I've ever seen (in my thirteen years doing this) of explaining the Freudian basis for Dr Sarno's theories. The book is written by Steve Ozanich, and the title is The Great Pain Deception. It's definitely in my top 10 list of TMS resources, although people either tend to love or hate Steve! He's not a licensed professional, but he sure as hell writes like one and he really gets the point across. He also has a profile on this forum and back in the day he spent a lot of time writing detailed and incredibly helpful responses to many, many community members.

We all have rage at the heart of our TMS. We have to acknowledge it, express it privately (this is what journaling is for, and/or therapy) and accept it as a normal aspect of being human.

We also need to identify the true source, which is often not the perceived subject of our observable anger. Observable or publicly expressed anger, in fact, is usually a distraction - like pain, it's just another TMS symptom, any of which damage our ability to live our lives and maintain our relationships. Expressed anger is a shallow and misdirected representation of something else that is being repressed.

 

[Cactusflower]

You are doing great work! If you feel that anger is not socially acceptable (some men do think it's acceptable and "manly" to be "the angry guy" vs being what they think of as a "weakling"...and I'm sure some women too..) then that might be an internal source of rage as well. Your feeling that anger isn't acceptable - you are speaking of a form of expressive anger where it is visible to others. It's normal to have some anger (but not to live or dwell in it, of course) and FEELING the anger, within your body and letting it dissipate as does every emotion, within a few minutes is absolutely the way the human body was made to deal with things like anger. Once that happens, it's so much easier to express yourself to others by letting them know what triggers you (instead of pushing your anger on to others and blaming them for it). All of this is of course, subjective to the situation. There are some people you just don't talk about your triggers to, because of their own unique issues. The SEP journalism helps you to recognize if the journalism helps you dissipate things like long term anger and resentments and other "negative" emotions we are often trained into thinking are "bad" emotions. You get to explore if this method is helpful. Others find meditation is their best way...or other things. For myself it was a few months of EMDR that really helped me recognize times I shoved anger down, felt helpless or felt I'd be rejected if I expressed my anger.

"Another thing I notice that I do is I ruminate extensively on negative things. This is a very bad habit. I constantly dwell on the negative. A perceived slight, a misunderstanding, some interpretation of something that happens. I immediately go to a place of conflict. Like I am terrified of the world." Ah, Claire Weekes is your woman for this! She helps people get out of this mindset by letting you see that thoughts aren't reality by her simple, wonderful methods.

Keep it up!

 

[Chris909]

Hi @Chris909 and welcome.

I can see that this topic of anger is really significant for you, and possibly emotionally triggering, because of the pressure you see that anger is not acceptable. I'm going to suggest that you may be resisting the concept of Rage as described by Dr Sarno, which he took straight from Freud.

I'm going to recommend another TMS book for you, because not only is it written by someone who himself felt that he suffered from anger issues, but he did the best job I've ever seen (in my thirteen years doing this) of explaining the Freudian basis for Dr Sarno's theories. The book is written by Steve Ozanich, and the title is The Great Pain Deception. It's definitely in my top 10 list of TMS resources, although people either tend to love or hate Steve! He's not a licensed professional, but he sure as hell writes like one and he really gets the point across. He also has a profile on this forum and back in the day he spent a lot of time writing detailed and incredibly helpful responses to many, many community members.

We all have rage at the heart of our TMS. We have to acknowledge it, express it privately (this is what journaling is for, and/or therapy) and accept it as a normal aspect of being human.

We also need to identify the true source, which is often not the perceived subject of our observable anger. Observable or publicly expressed anger, in fact, is usually a distraction - like pain, it's just another TMS symptom, any of which damage our ability to live our lives and maintain our relationships. Expressed anger is a shallow and misdirected representation of something else that is being repressed.

Thanks so much for the friendly and thoughtful comments. I will make notes and do some reading.

 

[Chris909]

You are doing great work! If you feel that anger is not socially acceptable (some men do think it's acceptable and "manly" to be "the angry guy" vs being what they think of as a "weakling"...and I'm sure some women too..) then that might be an internal source of rage as well. Your feeling that anger isn't acceptable - you are speaking of a form of expressive anger where it is visible to others. It's normal to have some anger (but not to live or dwell in it, of course) and FEELING the anger, within your body and letting it dissipate as does every emotion, within a few minutes is absolutely the way the human body was made to deal with things like anger. Once that happens, it's so much easier to express yourself to others by letting them know what triggers you (instead of pushing your anger on to others and blaming them for it). All of this is of course, subjective to the situation. There are some people you just don't talk about your triggers to, because of their own unique issues. The SEP journalism helps you to recognize if the journalism helps you dissipate things like long term anger and resentments and other "negative" emotions we are often trained into thinking are "bad" emotions. You get to explore if this method is helpful. Others find meditation is their best way...or other things. For myself it was a few months of EMDR that really helped me recognize times I shoved anger down, felt helpless or felt I'd be rejected if I expressed my anger.

"Another thing I notice that I do is I ruminate extensively on negative things. This is a very bad habit. I constantly dwell on the negative. A perceived slight, a misunderstanding, some interpretation of something that happens. I immediately go to a place of conflict. Like I am terrified of the world." Ah, Claire Weekes is your woman for this! She helps people get out of this mindset by letting you see that thoughts aren't reality by her simple, wonderful methods.

Keep it up!

Thank you very much for the thoughtful comments. I have found a regular meditation practice helps me very much, I must do this again. I will research Dr. Weekes and get started on the deep work so to speak. Thanks for the pep talk!