Day 4 let's go on!

[Pietro Carloni]

Hello people!
the rehabilitation program has just begun, it's been two weeks since I started reading dr. Sarno and I'm slowly starting to enter the psychological dimension of the problem.
After the first week I started to practice light physical activity and during this week I returned to running after 3 years of total stop. I began to think about the negative emotions that caused the onset of the disease, just as I began to list the traumatic events that occurred in the past and to evaluate the tension states that accompany me every day. helped by my psychotherapist I'm trying to get out all the rage accumulated by a life.
Although legs pain is always present and even if I decided that it must not condition my daily actions it always reminds me how fragile I feel and how far I am from perceiving the deepest states of my unconscious and I feel uncertain, sometimes, if the cause of so much suffering is due to TMS or a physical problem.
I realize that I have become unable to bear further tensions without experience pain, but how can I change my perspective on the problems that have conditioned my life up to now? I must confess that I had in the past and, occasionally in the present, episodes of panic attacks, linked to a depressive state. My psychotherapist, made aware of the methodology of Dr Sarno based on knowledge, tells me that I am a subject too rational, he is convinced my rationality tends to mask the emotions that I do not want to experience and that the right path to follow is to try to live the emotions present and relive the emotions that I experienced in the past. Do you think there is a way that can combine the two methods that, in my case, seem very useful?
grazie a tutti di cuore!!

 

[EileenS]

My psychotherapist, made aware of the methodology of Dr Sarno based on knowledge, tells me that I am a subject too rational, he is convinced my rationality tends to mask the emotions that I do not want to experience and that the right path to follow is to try to live the emotions present and relive the emotions that I experienced in the past. Do you think there is a way that can combine the two methods that, in my case, seem very useful?

Hello Pietro,
This does sound like what Dr Sarno teaches about us and our pain. We are too much in our head, rationalizing instead of feeling. What do you see as the difference between the method of your therapist and the method prescribed by Dr Sarno?

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Do you think there is a way that can combine the two methods that, in my case, seem very useful?

Hi Pietro - I can't figure out what you mean by "the two methods". However, I'm not sure that this question needs to be answered - it's not the point...

My psychotherapist, made aware of the methodology of Dr Sarno based on knowledge, tells me that I am a subject too rational, he is convinced my rationality tends to mask the emotions that I do not want to experience and that the right path to follow is to try to live the emotions present and relive the emotions that I experienced in the past.

Yeah, THIS is the point. Based only on my personal experience of doing this work, and of course knowing nothing about you, I nonetheless agree 100% with your therapist.

Being rational, being intellectual, and over-analyzing this process and how you got here, accomplishes nothing constructive. It's what your fearful primitive brain wants you to do, because staying in your head effectively keep you distracted, and it keeps you repressed, and you remain stuck.

You have to get out of your head and into your heart and your gut. Allowing yourself to FEEL the emotions that your fearful brain has repressed in the past, and to feel the emotions that come up NOW, is what leads to recovery. You just have to open up your heart, to yourself. Love yourself enough to feel what you need to feel!

 

[Pietro Carloni]

Good morning EileenS and JanAtheCPA,
Thank you for paying attention to my words, I'm probably still trying to learn the method outlined by Dr. Sarno and also the discussions with my psychotherapist reflect my lack of knowledge in this method.
what I mean above is an advice of the psychologist to stop "thinking" about emotions and to analyze the causes and physical functioning of emotions; and instead of experiencing emotions in order to understand the innermost states of our body, of the our mind and what I call spirit in each of us. what we do during the sessions is precisely a dialogue with what in life I believe has caused pain, fear, anger and resentment; what it is trying to do is to bring out this resentment in a guided and conscious way to try to create a bridge between my rational being and the part of me that is afraid to show itself and to express what is intimately trying in this difficult moment of my life.
Only today I realize how much for years I am worried about the most superficial facts of my life and have neglected my deepest emotions. I know that a difficult job awaits me I just hope to find the constancy and the strength to face the problems highlighted by this pain. In the end what I believed to be my enemy (pain) proved to be my most intimate ally. A warm hug Pietro

 

[EileenS]

This therapist sounds wonderful Pietro. As we say in Toronto, go for it! I agree with your therapist. Still too much analyzing. Sometimes I think, I'll watch a sad movie, or listen to music, or listen to opera while cooking and that will draw out my emotion. (For myself, I have done enough analyzing of my past.)
A warm hug to you too.

 

[iwire]

. In the end what I believed to be my enemy (pain) proved to be my most intimate ally. A warm hug Pietro

Hi Pietro...This sentence from your comments is such a help to me..... My doctor has been reminding me that my discomfort comes from my brain trying to protect me....even though it is "over-reacting" to my situation..... your reference to your pain being an ' intimate ally' has given me a new way to think about it and I think it is going to help me shift my feelings from frustration to appreciation. Thank you so much...