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Neuroscientific/Meditation approach

D

dxdydz

New Member
Hey guys,
I have read a lot the last few months. A lot of books, videos and movies about TMS.
Everything I could find about Sarno, his lectures, movies etc.
I am convinced that my problems come from TMS. In the last few months, when I let my mind deviate from this thought, and I try a more physiotherapeutic approach, I end up getting worse.
Out of the slightly different approaches regarding chronic pain, I have found that the neuroscientific explanation is more useful for me.

I enjoyed the work from Gordon. I have enjoyed and felt more help by books focusing on neuroscience, like the Explain Pain (Moseley), or the Brain's way of healing (Doidge) and less on books that focused on emotions. I also consider the work from Hansma excellent, both his site but also the videos uploaded explaining Sensitization. He did not invent the wheel. But I feel that he has managed to get some very helpful and main ideas from different TMS approaches and has explained chronic pain concisely in just a few short videos. Also, the tool that has helped me more than anything is visualization. Visualizing the areas in your brain that produce pain to be turned off and becoming inactive.

Would you suggest any other material in this direction? Whether books, sites or videos that see the issue more with a neuroscientific/meditation approach and less with an emotional/psychotherapeutic one?

Also what are the tools that have helped you the most?
Visualization, Somatic tracking, Tai Chi, Qiqong, Meditation, Breathing..

I do not want to argue that chronic pain can have a huge emotional part. Of course it can! But after having tried a lot of journaling and psychotherapy, I would also like to investigate the other approach. So please do not start a debate on whether journaling and rereading Sarno for 100 more times is the only way to proceed.
Thanks!
 
dxdydz said:
I have enjoyed and felt more help by books focusing on neuroscience, like the Explain Pain (Moseley), or the Brain's way of healing (Doidge) and less on books that focused on emotions.
Click to expand...

I know that what I'm about to say is not what you want to hear, but I believe your statement above is a red flag. This was the case for me. I wanted to avoid anything and anyone that had to do with emotions. It turned out that dealing with emotions was precisely what I needed in order to recover, but I avoided it like the plague at first. This was due to fear, and that is precisely what the TMS mechanism is about--protecting you from your fear of awareness and expression of your emotions. Changing our thinking patterns is helpful to recovery, but it will not get you there by itself. You must deal with the emotional stuff.
 
I kind of expected this response :)
I know that emotions can be greatly responsible to my chronic pain. But I do not have rage. I do not have guilt. I have anxiety.
But it is to be expected. I work, I have kids, I support my family. I must take decisions for my family and I am of course to some extent a perfectionist.
I never want to fail, I want to always get the best result for me and my family. I know that.

I know the effect of this anxiety. I also work in an environment with patients with cancer. This has made me to an extent hypochondriac.
I love my job, I love helping people but it also comes with a cost.
I am well aware that emotions are part of this.

However, as long as I live and I have kids, and I work I will have stress. I will have anxieties.
So If I cannot avoid them, I need to acknowledge them and build mechanisms.
 
Question @dxdydz: if you're so experienced/familiar with TMS tools, why are you asking for more of them?

Red flag indeed. @Ellen and I have seen this many times.

Mind you, I'm all about the TMS toolkit - as someone born with anxiety, followed by 60 years of various TMS symptoms "Before Sarno", followed, in the 14 years "After Sarno" by a world that seems to be rapidly falling apart, along with the existential dread of aging - I still need to employ my toolkit of self-talk, visualization, therapeutic breathing, self-compassion, etc. on a daily basis, just to deal with frequent little symptoms. I would probably need them less if I committed to meditation, but my brain is super resistant (fear of spending the time and failing I think).

I also have a strong belief that understanding how our brains are wired, and knowledge about sensitization, neuroplasticity, etc are also essential for recovery.

HOWEVER! While those tools are great for everyday tension and anxiety and the little symptoms that come and go, I sometimes realize that I've been feeling unwell for a number of days and it's getting worse, or sometimes I will wake up with a full RA flare. That's when I get out the pen and paper and let the stuff flow from my brain and onto the paper and see what falls out. Sometimes it will be a specific thing that my brain has interpreted as threatening and which needs to be repressed (it's usually laughably minor) other times it's just a buildup of petty annoyances and frustrations, and still other times it's an unacknowledged buildup of existential dread. I invariably feel much better, if not fully recovered, within hours.

I have also been in counseling (I'm not allowed to use the T word because of state licensing rules) ever since I contracted RA in 2020, as it was clearly the result of mindless goodism in the face of some extreme outside stressors.

It takes a combination of skills and practices.

Personally, I don't believe that true recovery is achievable without a significant commitment to a journey of emotional vulnerability.

The emotional work is the surgery, the other stuff is first aid.

Regarding my original question: if you're still searching for answers, you may be looking in the wrong place. Perhaps try the new PRT forum (there's a link at the top of the main TMSWiki.org home page)
 
To answer your first question, I believe that I am a perfectionist. This is why I often overcommit to things.
This is why I would like to do everything into my powers to help my self in this case. I know TMS is also letting yourself relax. If you overtry, somehow you give more importance to your pain. If you do 50 things to reduce your pain, somehow you overfocus on your pain, which is the opposite of what you want to do. I understand that. I am aware this is my flaw. But if somebody can suggest 1 tool that I currently do not know and can help me, that would be great. Visualization was 1 thing that has helped me greatly, and it took me several months to hear about it. What if I am missing more helpful tools?

Currently I am conditioned to pain. This pain is on the lower scale, but it is always there. If I wake up and the first thing that I think is "do I have pain", I am more afraid of the pain. It is a vicious cycle of pain and fear of pain.
Of course if one day I get much more pain, I have to think "what feelings do I have, that have caused the pain or the tension or the extra anxiety" Did sth happen in my personal life that has caused the extra pain?

But for my daily stable everyday neck pain, I feel that it is my chronic anxiety/pressure which I can unfortunately cannot completely get rid of, that is why I need the coping mechanisms.
 
And what if not emotional things contribute to these “chronic anxiety/pressure which I can unfortunately cannot completely get rid of, that is why I need the coping mechanisms.”
Chronic anxiety IS an emotional thing. Creating internal pressure IS because of your inner emotional life.
Have you really read a book by Dr. Sarno and believe when he says “think psychological” and to look for REPRESSED rage. You are simply not conscious of this rage. That’s normal! It is also common for TMS-ers to think in black and white - to not recognize when their minds are closed and simply can not open to possibilities.
Lorimer Mosley writes scientifically, but his lectures and his courses do contain emotional elements. He’s just not a psychologist so he doesn’t focus quite as much on that in books(a friend has studied under him). This same friend just took Alan Gordon’s Pain Reprocessing to be certified in it, and it has changed to incorporate more of the psychological (however he wrote the program so that non-psychologists can still provide support to others.
Sarno himself sent people with anxiety etc to his psychotherapist colleagues.
I think our point is to keep your mind open.
You might really like Dr. Hanscom. Less his book, more his blogs that quote copious scientific studies and discuss mindset and the chemical reactions of the physical body with thought and mindset. It’s fascinating.
 
Thank you guys for all the answers. I really appreciate it. Sometimes the most helpful answers are the ones we do not agree with! :D
I will take a look at the work of Hanscom, I want also to take a look at the work of D.Schechter and my plan is to also read from Schubiner. I have seen several movies/videos from Schubiner, but I did not have a chance to read his books.

By now I am completely convinced my symptoms are mindbody symptoms. A few weeks ago, I had a very stressful day at work, later that day I got debilitating low back pain. I never have low back pain. Only neck and upper back pain.
The reason was clearly Mindbody.

After studying for several weeks, about TMS my chronic upper back pain from a constant 5/10 almost went to a 1 or 2/10 and I started having knee pain. :)
When I decided (wrongly) to start massaging my upper back and do physio exercises (so I focused again on the physical), my back pain within 2 days went back to a 5/10 and my knee pain disappeared.

I am also convinced there is nothing wrong with me.
I really do believe this 100%. It might just need time to sink in.

It is a long journey!
 
dxdydz said:
However, as long as I live and I have kids, and I work I will have stress. I will have anxieties.
So If I cannot avoid them, I need to acknowledge them and build mechanisms.
Click to expand...
How about practising the '5 Whys' to acknowledge the anxieties? In my experience it gets to the nub of things more easily and quickly than anything else I've tried, even if you might have to ask more than 5 Whys (in my case it's often 8 or 9 Whys!) to find the exact issue and acknowledge it, and move on. Although you're not wanting advice about dealing with and feeling your emotions, I find it works for that too. Here's a thread about the 5 Whys: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/the-5-whys-to-get-to-the-root-of-the-anger-issue.28378/ (The 5 Whys (to get to the root of the anger/issue))

dxdydz said:
I know that emotions can be greatly responsible to my chronic pain. But I do not have rage. I do not have guilt. I have anxiety.
Click to expand...
What about employing Dr Claire Weekes' advice too, to 'float' through anxiety? You've said that you like visualization, so it might appeal enough for you to stick to it and feel the benefits. This is imo a good article about Dr Weekes' 'floating' https://www.anxietycoach.com/claire-weekes.html (Claire Weekes: Float Through Anxiety).

I've adapted Dr Weekes' 'floating' and applied it to my bodily symptoms in a visualization -- When I awake in the mornings and turn over to get up from bed I am acutely aware of any parts of my body that hurt or are stiff or whatever, and in response I lie there for a while imagining that my symptoms are in the sea and I'm on a surf board enjoying going around and under and over those symptoms, whooping with joy and laughter as I do so. (I've never surfed in my life, but I've seen others do it and it looks exhilarating.) Before I started doing this on a regular basis my movements were like a rusty old robot.

Something I've recently been doing as well is when a bodily symptom is 'shouting' at me and doing a good job of attracting my attention, I focus on it and imagine that I'm an artist (usually I'm just a kid) reproducing what the symptom looks like in my mind's eye and feels like to me onto paper using imaginary paints, choosing the colours, matching the intensity of the pain and any movement to it with static shapes and flowing brush strokes, making a free-flowing 'anything goes' kind of abstract art work. (Afterwards one can either frame the artwork and put it on the wall or rip it up and throw it in the bin, whatever works for you.) It doesn't take very long to do this in my mind and then I get on with my day, often with the symptom in question having reduced in intensity, but more often there's a gradual/subtle response and a day or so later I notice that the symptom has reduced or I suddenly realise that it has actually gone. I guess it's a variation of somatic tracking combined with 'art therapy'.

Imo the above visualizations teach your brain that you are indifferent to the symptoms it's producing. It might increase the symptoms or give you new ones and/ot move them around your body for an impossible to predict amount of time (the so called 'symptom imperative') but with repetition you will be reprogramming your brain through neuroplasticity...

"Indifference to the symptoms really is the silver bullet" ~ Rita LaBabera (aka on this forum as miffybunny, who fully recovered from 'Complex Regional Pain Syndrome')
 
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dxdydz said:
Hey guys,
I have read a lot the last few months. A lot of books, videos and movies about TMS.
Everything I could find about Sarno, his lectures, movies etc.
Would you suggest any other material in this direction? Whether books, sites or videos that see the issue more with a neuroscientific/meditation approach and less with an emotional/psychotherapeutic one?

Also what are the tools that have helped you the most?
Visualization, Somatic tracking, Tai Chi, Qiqong, Meditation, Breathing..

I do not want to argue that chronic pain can have a huge emotional part. Of course it can! But after having tried a lot of journaling and psychotherapy, I would also like to investigate the other approach. So please do not start a debate on whether journaling and rereading Sarno for 100 more times is the only way to proceed.
Thanks!
Click to expand...

My answer is all the above. I used every tool you listed, including somatic tracking - before it was named somatic tracking. Add yoga to your list if your physical ability allows it at this point. I credit meditation for being the major contributor to my eventual success. BUT, and it is a big BUT, you must connect it with your emotions. @Ellen is exactly right. Somatic tracking and meditation are not done right if you do not link them to your emotions. Mindfulness means that your link your behavior to your emotions and analyze how you repress them. Note that TMS-ers often lose their connection with their emotions, leaving anxiety and fear the only ones still abundant. I was one of them. Traditional journaling made my anxiety worse, so I stopped it, but creative writing a la Dr. Hanscom helped. You already were given excellent recommendations here. One of those tools individually would likely not be sufficient, but using them together and systematically will. Oh, and of course listening to Dr. Weekes audios 100 times, her voice is a magic anxiety relief medicine.
 
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