on the brink, last try

Lady Phoenix said:
-I read the book over and over (about 6-8 times) underlining and highlighting.
-Journaling - I hated this part and did not do it very often, about 2 weeks. Too painful emotionally.
-Talking to my inner child. This took a few days to become effective.
-Rewarding my inner child. From Steve Ozanich's book. If I walked up a steep hill, reward with music, ice coffee, good book in the hammock, etc.
-Listening/reading success stories
-affirmations "I have a healthy body" "I'm fine, thank you"
-Imagining I am confronting a problem person from my past. Screaming at them, cursing , throwing things, etc.
- Yardwork

Everyone is different. You need to figure out what works for you.
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Gardening is America's #1 Hobby, here's a good article extoling it's vertues that have many benefits for TMS'ers:​

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/glenn_county_transcript/every-blooming-thing-gardening-is-america-s-most-popular-hobby/article_fc346610-e88e-11e4-a0b2-6f0adfe70c19.html (Every Blooming Thing: Gardening is America's most popular hobby)

Reading Sarno's books and books by his devotees is fundamental. The books have all the answers. I've read each of his four books twice, slowly word for word and constatnly go back to them for clarifications. The best thing one can do, when it seems nothing is working, is to crawl up with a TMS book and absorb it. Lady Phoenix has got it right!
 
Thank you, Tennis for the article about gardening. It makes me anxious to do even better next year. If you think about it, we are likely wired from an evolutionary standpoint to reap many benefits from growing our own food.
 
For what it is worth, I wanted to address the panic, anxiety and worrying. BC, before children, I worried about everything. I didn't realize it then but I had night terrors, and would become paralyzed with fear in the night rather often and worried so much about my health, my life, who didn't like me, why they didn't like me, which terrible disease was taking hold of me, problems with my parents, etc.. My blood pressure was very high for a young, thin, active, woman and I worried constantly about that. As soon as my first child was born it all stopped. If I even remembered doing these things I would laugh and think "I can't believe I ever had time to worry about that shit!"

I guess my point is, maybe the key to stopping all the panic and anxiety is to find something you are passionate about, something that takes up your time and energy and exhausts you.

My pain didn't start until my kids started leaving home. My daughter made the connection recently. I am now doing very well but it took me 7 months to get here.
 
eskimoeskimo said:
After the encouragement of this thread, I went out and socialized last night. At times, I even forgot about the pain. And for me, that essentially means that the pain wasn't there. Sometimes I'd 'remember' it and it would jump right back... but sometimes it wouldn't.
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Congratulations, Eskimo, my friend! You've experienced recovery from TMS! I've said many times on this Forum that forgetting about TMS and recovery from TMS IS the same thing. Our mind creates the pain and our mind can take it away--it's what you choose to have it focus on. To me it's similar to the experience of when I've had a sore in my mouth. My tongue just wants to keep touching it, and every time it does I experience the pain of it. When I forget about it, it doesn't hurt.

In my opinion, all the strategies that we refer to as the "work" of TMS recovery (e.g. reading, journaling, therapy, CBT, meditation, etc.) are all to help us let go of painful, stressful, tension-inducing thoughts/emotions/behavior patterns, and shift our attention to living in the present moment. That is where recovery and joy are found.

So now you need to re-create that experience that brought you relief from pain, and then once you figure out how to re-create it, you can sustain it longer and longer until all your time is TMS free. Become aware of when you have chosen to focus on the body, pain, negative thoughts, etc. and then shift your attention outside yourself to something else. It takes practice and repetition, but every success builds on the last one.

Wishing you more success...
 
Lady Phoenix said:
I guess my point is, maybe the key to stopping all the panic and anxiety is to find something you are passionate about, something that takes up your time and energy and exhausts you.
My pain didn't start until my kids started leaving home. My daughter made the connection recently. I am now doing very well but it took me 7 months to get here.
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This journey is so different for everyone - how we developed (or were born with) TMS, how we got here, and how we find recovery.

In my case, I can see that I had TMS symptoms off and on all my life, but I was one of those people who was relieved whenever a doctor told me "There's nothing wrong with you, except that you seem to be anxious/stressed and you might want to do something about that". I didn't want anything to be wrong, and I totally accepted that stress was causing whatever symptom it was. And of course didn't "do something" about it.

Without really recognizing it, various symptoms got worse as I got older, but they were all "explainable" (chronic neck pain was the result of a skiing injury in my 30s, digestive problems were the result of getting older and more sensitive to certain foods, etc.). But it was only after I was separated and eventually divorced that I reach a crisis point of increasing symptoms, new symptoms, and alarming weight loss due to digestive issues. Some people I knew assumed it was the loss of the marriage, but that made no sense to me, because I was happy being single again (at age 60, after 23 years) and I'd never wanted to have babies, so that wasn't it, either.

It was only by doing the SEP that I learned about the distraction mechanism of TMS, and also about my deepest and most repressed rage issue, which was about growing old and facing mortality. And it was crystal clear that the problems in my marriage acted as the distraction my brain needed to repress that rage. Once I was free of that distraction, my brain had to find something else - thus the physical symptoms which started piling up between 2009 when we separated, and 2011 when I was in serious danger of becoming housebound. I found Dr. Sarno just in time and got my life back.
 
Lady Phoenix said:
I guess my point is, maybe the key to stopping all the panic and anxiety is to find something you are passionate about, something that takes up your time and energy and exhausts you.
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Yes, that's what SteveO and Dr. Sarno say to do, substitute the negative TMS distractions with positive ones.
 
I really feel everything you're saying. Over the two years that I've been working with tms approach I have felt "healed" at times and also frustrated at times. It is not a linear progression for me. Just this morning I collapsed a little bit in pain as I felt the familiar pelvic/lower back pain that used to destroy my life.

But you know what? I was very angry and frustrated with something when that happened. Coincidence? Maybe. I tried to meditate/calm down and it backed off.

A couple hours later I was going for a run and feeling fine. As I started my run I felt the old left knee pain start to kick in on one of my strides. The same that used to stop me. I don't stop for it anymore. I feel I have "conquered" that one in the sense that I can usually shake it off and it just goes away.

The thing is, this doesn't make sense. I used to have horrible, excruciating jaw pain until the day a dentist told me I was fine. It just went away the same day. I used to not be able to sit down for 5 minutes. Now I can sit for hours on end. My pain makes no sense except as tms.

Hopefully your own pain history also has examples you can look back on that make you think "wait, this makes no sense except as mentally generated." Looking back on those moments helps me keep going.
 
JanAtheCPA said:
This journey is so different for everyone - how we developed (or were born with) TMS, how we got here, and how we find recovery.

In my case, I can see that I had TMS symptoms off and on all my life, but I was one of those people who was relieved whenever a doctor told me "There's nothing wrong with you, except that you seem to be anxious/stressed and you might want to do something about that". I didn't want anything to be wrong, and I totally accepted that stress was causing whatever symptom it was. And of course didn't "do something" about it.

Without really recognizing it, various symptoms got worse as I got older, but they were all "explainable" (chronic neck pain was the result of a skiing injury in my 30s, digestive problems were the result of getting older and more sensitive to certain foods, etc.). But it was only after I was separated and eventually divorced that I reach a crisis point of increasing symptoms, new symptoms, and alarming weight loss due to digestive issues. Some people I knew assumed it was the loss of the marriage, but that made no sense to me, because I was happy being single again (at age 60, after 23 years) and I'd never wanted to have babies, so that wasn't it, either.

It was only by doing the SEP that I learned about the distraction mechanism of TMS, and also about my deepest and most repressed rage issue, which was about growing old and facing mortality. And it was crystal clear that the problems in my marriage acted as the distraction my brain needed to repress that rage. Once I was free of that distraction, my brain had to find something else - thus the physical symptoms which started piling up between 2009 when we separated, and 2011 when I was in serious danger of becoming housebound. I found Dr. Sarno just in time and got my life back.
Click to expand...
 
mirepoix said:
I really feel everything you're saying. Over the two years that I've been working with tms approach I have felt "healed" at times and also frustrated at times. It is not a linear progression for me. Just this morning I collapsed a little bit in pain as I felt the familiar pelvic/lower back pain that used to destroy my life.

But you know what? I was very angry and frustrated with something when that happened. Coincidence? Maybe. I tried to meditate/calm down and it backed off.

A couple hours later I was going for a run and feeling fine. As I started my run I felt the old left knee pain start to kick in on one of my strides. The same that used to stop me. I don't stop for it anymore. I feel I have "conquered" that one in the sense that I can usually shake it off and it just goes away.

The thing is, this doesn't make sense. I used to have horrible, excruciating jaw pain until the day a dentist told me I was fine. It just went away the same day. I used to not be able to sit down for 5 minutes. Now I can sit for hours on end. My pain makes no sense except as tms.

Hopefully your own pain history also has examples you can look back on that make you think "wait, this makes no sense except as mentally generated." Looking back on those moments helps me keep going.
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SOUNDS LIKE A TMS SUCCESS STORY TO ME! beerbuds
 
JanAthe I can relate to this so well. It seems to me that some people are frustrated that their pain is not going away but they do not have the knowledge you need to make it go away. The distraction mechanism of TMS is so important to understand.

I always told myself I could never take care of a seriously ill person because I would become too depressed. My husband had pancreatic cancer at 56 and my headaches were so severe I never imagined I could be in such pain. It was all a distraction I see now. Then when he died it was actually worse if that's possible. I was 90% bedridden and had great difficulty caring for myself. Dr. Sarno's theory about TMS was so obviously me, that I made great strides initially so this inspired me. I am so very grateful that my sister told me about Dr. Sarno, thanks also to Howard Stern. This is why I am compelled to tell people about it even if they usually look at me like I'm nutty.
 
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Hi, eskimo and everyone. This is a wonderful exchange of postings about mutual pain and problems. About being 100 pain free through TMS knowledge, I'm one of the best examples I know of. I'm 86 and "healed" from severe back pain three years ago after learning about TMS and reading Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain. It took 100 percent belief in TMS causing the pain, and journaling to discover boyhood traumas that I believe caused it. I encourage you all to keep believing totally in TMS. And I also agree with those of you who say to have a "Happy day!" I think that many of those in pain spend too much time thinking about it. It's better to do what another Steve, Steve Ozanich, said in his book The Great Pain Deception. He was in great multiple pains until he believed in TMS and kept playing golf despite the pain. Together with discovering his repressed emotions, he healed. It took about a year, but it happened and since then he's been free of pain. You could also get more inspiration if you read his new and shorter book, Back Pain: Permanent Healing. Buy it from amazon.com books in paperback or Kindle. It's not just about back pain but all kinds of pain.

Pain can go away with TMS belief, but it also can return or move around because we all have to deal with new stresses from life. The more we can fill our days with pleasant thoughts and activities, driving out fear, the faster we heal and the more we stay healed.
 
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