saltyessentials
New Member
Hi. My name is Dan.
I first experienced TMS symptoms about 15 years ago and, after several weeks of back pain, came across Sarno's Healing Back Pain. My pain quickly disappeared as I read the book, and when the pain disappeared I stopped working the program (about a week in). The pain has recurred a couple of times with several years in between occurrences, but a quick review of a chapter or two would quickly banish it. And that has worked pretty well for me until recently. Which means I've never really worked the program to its completion, as far as getting at the emotions driving symptoms.
About a week ago, my back pain returned and I assumed another quick reminder from the book was all I needed. That didn't do the trick; in fact, the pain was increasing. So I started into more serious reading and doing some of the list making exercises Sarno recommends, also to no avail.
Which is about the time it occurred to me that the work I'd done up to that point was all at the intellectual level, and little to none at the emotional level. Which was fine way back when, because it worked and did what I needed it to do. But the hit I got as I journaled on all this was that it was time to do some deeper work and really address the emotions underlying. So, part of that, for me, is doing this structured program, as well as working with a local therapist specifically around learning to move old, stuck emotion through and out.
So my take on this reflects my past experience. I'm not feeling hopeless or to frightened (although I've had my moments of "why isn't this working?!" and "what if this time it's different?!" and such). I'm already a true believer in the program and have been recommending it to others for years. It's just time for me to dig deeper, is all. Which I'm excited to do--and which I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be doing if the pain hadn't shown up again in such a persistent way. So, in that light, this latest pain is a bit of a gift, although an inconvenient one.
I first experienced TMS symptoms about 15 years ago and, after several weeks of back pain, came across Sarno's Healing Back Pain. My pain quickly disappeared as I read the book, and when the pain disappeared I stopped working the program (about a week in). The pain has recurred a couple of times with several years in between occurrences, but a quick review of a chapter or two would quickly banish it. And that has worked pretty well for me until recently. Which means I've never really worked the program to its completion, as far as getting at the emotions driving symptoms.
About a week ago, my back pain returned and I assumed another quick reminder from the book was all I needed. That didn't do the trick; in fact, the pain was increasing. So I started into more serious reading and doing some of the list making exercises Sarno recommends, also to no avail.
Which is about the time it occurred to me that the work I'd done up to that point was all at the intellectual level, and little to none at the emotional level. Which was fine way back when, because it worked and did what I needed it to do. But the hit I got as I journaled on all this was that it was time to do some deeper work and really address the emotions underlying. So, part of that, for me, is doing this structured program, as well as working with a local therapist specifically around learning to move old, stuck emotion through and out.
So my take on this reflects my past experience. I'm not feeling hopeless or to frightened (although I've had my moments of "why isn't this working?!" and "what if this time it's different?!" and such). I'm already a true believer in the program and have been recommending it to others for years. It's just time for me to dig deeper, is all. Which I'm excited to do--and which I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be doing if the pain hadn't shown up again in such a persistent way. So, in that light, this latest pain is a bit of a gift, although an inconvenient one.
