Day 19 Pain fear cycle

[EileenW]

So funny how it goes sometimes...
My symptoms got really worse in the last 4 days, so really needed to read something about the pain fear cycle. And there it was.

I was going to a concert on Tuesday and I had the worst headache before. Was telling my brain that there is nothing wrong with my head, it's just suppressed emotions that are giving the wrong signals to my brain.

During the concert I didn't feel my headache so that was good.
It's just that it's difficult you can't really enjoy the time leading up to it, you're in a struggle if the pain will go away etc.

I've been trying to feel why my symptoms are so much worse over the last days. I've been thinking about what could give me stress right now, situations, people. But then I think of a couple of things, really let it in and feel it. But there is no relief. I also went to a therapist for 6 times specialized in Chronic Pain and recognizing where the pain could come from. But I still find it difficult to find and feel...

 

[Jettie1989]

Sounds like you're doing the work actually, I think what trips us up is when there is no immediate relieve of symptoms.
I feel like it's very difficult to believe in the process -and that we're doing it well- when there are no results, but we must get ourselves through this phase. It can be especially difficult when the symptoms flare up..

I've recently read something about a TMS visualisation method that said "you won't see results for 4 to 6 weeks" and I felt this helped me immensely with outcome independence. Just knowing that I won't see results in the next 1,5 month made my intense focus on results relax.
(it was this one, if you're interested https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2019/08/03/rewiring-the-brain-to-get-out-of-pain-the-moskowitz-approach/ (Rewiring the Brain to Get Out of Pain: the Moskowitz Approach - Health Rising))

I hope you're doing well and are delighting a little bit in the fact that your headache disappeared during the concert that's great evidence!

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Perfect response from @Jettie1989! To which I will add just this:

Expectations lead to Pressure.
Pressure leads to Self-judging.
Self-judgment results in Repression.
Repression (Sarno 101)results in symptoms.

A concept we often refer to for dealing with expectations and self-pressure is called Outcome Independence, as described in this 2012 thread written by Alan Gordon, from back in the day when he often posted here:
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/a-word-about-outcome-independence.562/ (A word about outcome independence)