Personality that just doesn't feed TMS

[Seraphina]

Hi all,

I recently found my family members have many chronic pain but never told me about it seriously. Some of the symptoms were even severer than mine, but they have been just living with them as the pain is not there. They have pain time to time, sometimes severe but sometimes none, but they do not think it's any fatal. I came to think that their pain is not growing whether or not it's TMS because they genuinely know how to just ignore them and not get stressed.

I am the eldest child with a sister and a brother after me, and my dad and I have typical TMS perfectionist personality alike. He is even more perfectionist than I am, but he knows he sometimes needs to let things go. My dad recently started having mild back pain and tinnitus. He has angina pectoris, too (both genetic and stress-related).

On the other hand, my mom and my younger sister are the very ones who are not supportive of my pain journey. We even had a big argument over the pains I have. They said they were sick of my whining about my pain all over. They don't understand why I can't just ignore. They are such a not-TMS type of people; more detail follows. (FYI, they don't know TMS concept at all)

My mom, I think, has a very ideal personality--she does everything what she needs to, but she can also ignore what doesn't have to bother her. She had severe sacroiliac joint issue every time she gave birth, and it took much longer than average women for her to recover. She admitted it had been the biggest fear for her when having a baby, but she anyway had 3 babies even though she had known she would have such extreme pain. She injured her wrist two years ago while moving a extremely heavy thing, but did not even go to doctor. She just assumed some ligament was out and waited because she believes in the auto-curing power of human body. She said, "It all gets better slowly but gradually. If not, then it's either psychological or a fatal thing." She still feels pain time to time, but she does not limit her physical activity. She does house works, bowling, driving, etc. even though there is some pain. The only complaint that I heard from her continuously was pain and annoyance from menopausal symptoms. She was annoyed then because it's rather a hormonal issue that she doesn't know where it goes. But she's not complaining about it anymore since it's gone over time, too. She told me "If it doesn't kill, then that's all okay."

My sister is rather too loose. She often misses her responsible works, but she forgets about it soon. She recently told me she often had too much hip & groin pain to walk, and she said "Then I just resolve it by snapping the joint open & close." This amazed me because I would rather be anxious and horrified if that happens to me. She just deals with it as a normal daily thing. She thinks it'll go away over time--if not, it won't get worse. She had RSI on her wrist that made her wear a wrist wrap for a month. She also didn't have a limitation on doing physical activities. She's now with mild soreness on her wrists that does not bother her at all.

I believe TMS can happen to any people. I think some of the symptoms my family had could be TMS, too. However, whether or not their pain symptoms were TMS, it seems their let-go personality doesn't just feed the pain cycle while my anxious personality easily does. What do you guys think about this?

 

[angelic333]

I think you are exactly right! Energy flows where attention goes!
For me, when I focus too much on a pain, it escalates. When I am able to get out of my head, it decreases or goes away...

 

[Tennis Tom]

Hi Phina,

What I'm thinkin' is that you've come a long way baby! Your post reflects that you are there in understanding TMS theory. It's not rocket science but one has to wrap their mindbody around it and that is the hard part. A few weeks ago your posts were all about the physical: cushions, crutches, wrist protectors, etc.

TMS/psychosomatic dis-ease revolves around three areas: childhood development (the subconscious knows no time), the personality (goodism, perfectionism, procrastination, the universal inferiority complex, etc.) and current affairs, the NOW, exemplified by the Rahe-Holmes list that I keep harping on, stress creating events on the home front, work place, the environment (the subway), etc. These three areas combine to create the "reservoir of rage". When it overflows, the sub-c creates TMS symptoms as a PROTECTOR from feeling socio/culturally unacceptable rage and the fear that we will follow through on these ugly thoughts and appear on the six o'clock news, and be banished from the hot-tub.

Phina, in the short time you've been here you got it, as shown in your above post--good job!

 

[Forest]

Heya, Seraphina,

That's a fascinating story and possibly an inspiring one. What do you think is going on in their heads when then ignore their symptoms. Do they dislike them but fundamentally not worry about them? Or do they ignore them out of a sense of obligation to do the right thing.

If one can ignore the symptoms and dislike them while not fundamentally worrying about them, that sounds great to me. The TMS is dying for your attention and the attention makes it stronger. Making a conscious decision to not care at all about it because the symptoms don't matter starves the TMS of the attention that it feeds off of. That's really good stuff.

On the other hand, if we are angry at the symptoms but feel like we must ignore them out of a sense of obligation, for some I could imagine that leading to goodist rage and TMS.

So I guess it depends on the person and what is going on inside of their head.

But if they can ignore the symptoms authentically and simply not care about the symptoms, I think that that is wonderful. In some sense, that is a real pinnacle of TMS healing, because it takes away the power that the symptoms have over you. And, in some sense, it's even easy. The symptoms are there and if you live in the moment you can see that there is nothing that you can do about them right now. So why not accept them right now.

It's okay...

So, like your relative, you can focus on other things in your life -- hopefully things that make you feel good.

By the way, I love your phrase, @angelic333. Mind if I borrow it?

Energy flows where attention goes!
For me, when I focus too much on a pain, it escalates. When I am able to get out of my head, it decreases or goes away...

 

[angelic333]

Forest,
Borrow it! Advertise it! Make a billboard! It's all about which "wolf we feed"!
Sometimes we forget, lose sight, get caught up in stuff, whatever, but really,,, be grateful for what we have and not focus on lack. Those of us on the spiritual path are kind of caught up sometimes. How does one not seek to be "better" without coming from a place of lack? The goodist, the perfectionist, always wanting more. Let it go, give it up to God, pray for guidance, not for things to be different from what they are. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Find your inner peace. We are all fractals of Source. Everyone is beautiful and everyone is Love. We are not defined by our stories.

 

[Ellen]

If one can ignore the symptoms and dislike them while not fundamentally worrying about them, that sounds great to me. The TMS is dying for your attention and the attention makes it stronger. Making a conscious decision to not care at all about it because the symptoms don't matter starves the TMS of the attention that it feeds off of. That's really good stuff.

On the other hand, if we are angry at the symptoms but feel like we must ignore them out of a sense of obligation, for some I could imagine that leading to goodist rage and TMS.

Forest, that is a great explanation of the difference between not caring about symptoms, and ignoring symptoms. A subtle but importance distinction.

 

[Seraphina]

If one can ignore the symptoms and dislike them while not fundamentally worrying about them, that sounds great to me. The TMS is dying for your attention and the attention makes it stronger. Making a conscious decision to not care at all about it because the symptoms don't matter starves the TMS of the attention that it feeds off of. That's really good stuff.

On the other hand, if we are angry at the symptoms but feel like we must ignore them out of a sense of obligation, for some I could imagine that leading to goodist rage and TMS.

Forest, this is really a good question to ponder for me! Yeah I thought about this deeply, wondering why their pain only decreases over time even though they don't know TMS at all. Are they genuinely not distressed or are they just pushing themselves hard to ignore it to pursue their normal life as a housewife and a student which should give them a lot of stress over pain?

They were the former case. They of course hate the feeling of pain, but they don't worry about them. They are true "present" people who don't trap themselves in the fear of future. When I talk about the fear of the worsening pain or not recovering, they say "that's none of the present's business." Moreover, they don't push themselves to ignore the pain out of a sense of obligation. They just don't care that much.

SEP's day 6 video by Dr. Schubiner also taught me about the difference between the two mindsets. Ignoring out of a sense of obligation is just another "should" from our inner parents. It only gives more stress to our inner child.

I still find myself annoyed at the pain and try to avoid it when it appears. BUT I don't get panicked by the pain anymore, which is a big progress for me! I don't want to push myself to immediately resume everything that brings out TMS pain to me. That certainly works for many people, but I know I'm sometimes a slow-adjuster. So I'll give myself enough time to change gradually, not distressing myself out of "the recovery time frame." I really wanna be pain-free, of course! but I also understand I should rather let myself be myself, not trapping myself into the cage of shoulds, thanks to the pieces of advice I had here. Being a pain-nonchalant person is the very core of TMS healing, right?

Thanks Forest...!

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Hi, Seraphina. You got it right. Don't stress over how fast you can heal from TMS symptoms. Let it happen through
practicing TMS relief techniques. Try not to think about any pain. Spend more time enjoying each day, each hour.
Being "pain-nonchalant" is a wonderful way to go.

 

[Forest]

Heya, Seraphina, I couldn't agree more with everything you wrote! I think you are on exactly the right track. It's all about finding a part of yourself that you can tap into to honestly and authentically not care about the symptoms. I learned a lot from reading Monte Hueftle's book and listening to the associated recordings on this count. He refers to TMS as having a "strategy" to distract us from our unacceptable emotions such as rage, etc. He calls it "the pain strategy." By finding other things in our life that bring us happiness and joy and by accepting the diagnosis so that we lose our fear, the pain strategy loses its ability to distract us. The TMS mechanism is thwarted when the pain strategy can no longer distract us.

Incidentally, I have a copy of Monte's book, if anyone wants to borrow it. Just send me a personal message. I don't agree with everything he says or does, but, despite it's rather poor writing, the book summarizes a lot of hard lived experience, and a lot of people have told me it helped them.

 

[Birdie]

Seraphina, very interesting post! It's the same with my husband. He's suffering from some ailments from time to time like migraines or runs or a sore itchy skin. But all that doesn't bother him at all. When I ask him if he isn't worried about his pain he says "why should I? It will go away and I'll be fine again".
So I often ask myself which purpose serves this symptoms which are clearly psychosomatic in origin? He really isn't the type of personality who worries about symptoms or is anxious in genereal. So which mechanisms is at work in these cases? Perhaps TMS is only one psychological strategy of many? The symptoms do have to serve some purpose, otherwise they won't be there. But obvioulsy it's not the typical TMS-mechanism to catch ones full attention!?

 

[Seraphina]

Let it happen through practicing TMS relief techniques.

Yes, Walt! Let it happen through! I'll absorb the TMS relief techniques so that it can soak into my unconscious naturally but strongly over time. I won't get stressed because full curing will be done when my unconscious is fully "pain-nonchalant" and because how fast I achieve it is out of my (conscious) control. It will literally "happen through" naturally as my unconscious is ready. My job is to continuously and naturally help my unconscious to get on the right track so that it deviates from it less and less.

Thanks @Forest! I'll check up his website. I see many people mention his name and healing techniques on this forum.

Hi @Birdie! I think the mechanism the pain is initiated is TMS on those types of people, too. They are the same ordinary human as us, and they should have past anger, current stress, etc. Such emotional sides might provoke TMS strategy on them, too. However, thanks to their personality, they just don't care when the pain starts, and this doesn't feed the pain cycle. Therefore, the pain doesn't last long at a high level, or it even disappears pretty quickly because they are not distracted by the pain at all (TMS mission dismissed!).