Day 17 More confused than ever

Today, as usual, I start my TMS work and start the educational reading. (http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/MonteH:_Investigate_Your_Emotions (MonteH: Investigate Your Emotions)) I'm reading it, slowly, so that I can let it all soak in. And then I read this:

You should regularly (hundreds of times per day) be investigating what is going on with you.

Wait. What? Hundreds of times per day?! *breaks out calculator* So, assuming 16 waking hours, and 200 being a low estimate for hundreds, that would be.... every five minutes?! At the very least?

OK, this sounds counterintuitive, but my usual logical way of thinking has not served me well, so, I'm game. Let's give it a try. What's going on with me? ** Hm, this is making me anxious. Anxiety. I can feel it rising in my throat. It's getting worse. Just let it be. Just accept it. Nothing's going to happen, OK? You're safe. Keep breathing. Just riiiiiide it out, you can do it. And I can. I feel calmer already. Now what? Do it again? I guess so. So, now what's going on with me? Aaaand, back to **

After a couple of rounds, I get tired of it, and I get up. Immediate limp. That has never happened inside the house, and yet, how very predictable!

I sit down again, and give it another try. What's going on now? This time immense sadness is what's going on. Sadness and despair, I can't even be bothered to think about what might be causing this despair, but I'm letting it wash over me. And it subsides. I get up, because frankly, I've had it for now. No limping.

I can't do this all day, I just can't. And forget about doing the journalling exercise. Not going to happen, not today. I'm going to watch some giggling babies and frolicking kittens on YouTube, is what.

I do kinda sorta understand what's going on here, but not totally. It's like I can see it, but I can't reach it. It's confusing and hard and painful.

 

Hi Rosebud! I'm glad you're trying to keep your sense of humor throughout this - I can see it in there :^D

Look, perhaps what this excerpt from Monty doesn't illustrate properly is that your brain is currently being bombarded hundreds of times a day with negative and fearful messages - designed to protect you, keep you on your toes, and always worried about danger.

This is no kind of way to live in our modern world, when the actual physical threats to our lives are minimal (for most of us lucky enough to live in a peaceful and regulated society, anyway). Yet the number of different stresses we have to worry about today, and the number of years we are expected to keep worrying about them, FAR exceed what our primitive ancestors had to deal with in their short, fragile lives.

So anyway, what Monty is trying to tell you is that as you proceed in your recovery, the goal is to become so mindful that you will automatically be able to quickly question and counteract what's going on whenever your brain tries to send you a fear message. This is something that ideally would only take a few seconds when you become the master of your unconscious thoughts.

I don't do this myself hundreds of times a day - but in thinking about it, I do it automatically a lot more than I'm consciously aware of - less on distractive days, more on mindful days. I've been doing this work for a while, although admittedly kind of coasting since my first couple of years. Others spend much more time and effort on their mindfulness goal, and have even more success. Still - when I do it very consciously during a setback, I experience a noticeable turnaround.

My advice for the SEP is to take from it what makes sense to you - and at the same time, try to be less of a perfectionist, and without obsessing over doing it perfectly, still make an effort to find the bits of information that are useful and that you can do.

I suspect that your experience of a wave of sadness is significant, and that doing one or more writing exercises about it will also be significant and revealing. Your brain will try (and it probably did, based on your description) to get you to reject doing this, so you have to fight it, and do the work anyway. This is totally based on my own experiences.

Good luck!

~Jan

 

Great post, I’ve been feeling the same way! I keep telling myself I know what you’re doing brain, please go away! Send oxygen to the brain and relieve tension headache. I’m with you though in trying not to getting obsessed with this all day long.

Today I was a basket case and haven’t been sleeping well at all. I’m anxious for no reason in the morning when I wake up then when it subsides after a few hours, the head pressure/tension headache starts and when the anxiety subsided, the tension comes back, it’s a cycle. My legs started shaking today for no reason and my body has been so heat sensitive! I kept trying to ask myself why is this going on? What emotions are causing this? But it’s driving me nuts.

I keep trying to practice mindfulness but it’s really hard and exhausting right now.

 

Hey Jan,

Well, that certainly makes more sense than the way I was seeing it!

And what you're saying about the wave of sadness is very true. I've been more and more reluctant to do the journalling this week, and reluctance is how anxiety manifests with me. I have minor fear of heights, and when I'm on the tenth floor and there's a big window, and I look through it, I feel pure, unadulterated physical fear and I could tell you very precisely where I feel what I feel in my body. My mind isn't afraid, but my body most certainly is! When I have to speak in public, I don't feel afraid. It feels more like I really, really don't want to do it, and I couldn't possibly tell you what I feel in my body. (I am now somehow looking forward to the next time this happens. I'll be paying attention!) In the past, I've even wondered why I wasn't more nervous for certain legitimately scary things. I was truly not aware of my anxiety/nervousness, and looking back, I don't even understand how that's possible. So, yes, I'm scared of what such a writing exercise might reveal, even though until now, the exercises haven't revealed much that I didn't already know.

I'm giving it one or two more weeks, and if I stay stuck, I will have to find a therapist of some sort. I really don't want to (See! Anxious!), but I might just have to to.

Thanks for helping me out, Jan!

 

It's really hard for me too. I've been meditating with the Headspace app for about two weeks now, but lately whenever he says something about checking on your emotions, bam, the floodgates open. Urgh.

 

It has been a year since I started reading and re-reading Sarno. I started therapy immediately. The therapist is not familiar with TMS, but he practices Freud style psychoanalysis, which should help with repressed emotions.
But after a year I wanted to quit because I didn't see any results. I took a brake for a couple of weeks, and then decided to keep at it but with a kind of "success indifference". It's hard, but I always feel better after the session.

I found this site a couple of months ago, and finally a couple of weeks ago decided I need to do something about it, so I started the program. Take things into my own hand so to speak. It's day 12 for me, pain and anxiety are pretty much the same, but still I feel different. Something is happening.

What I wanted to say basically is - be patient with yourself. Give it time. (Keep in mind that I am an extremely unpatiend person

I'm a little bit jealous with your for crying so easily. I still can't. Not even in therapy.

 

It's a very mixed blessing!

If you feel better immediately after therapy, that's pretty much success right there, although I can see how if you're hoping for some breakthrough regarding emotions, it doesn't feel like success. Lots of people feel bad right after therapy, but keep it up because of the long term results.