Day 15 Question about program

I'm a little confused because I have very few present stresses that are people at the moment. So the journaling about this doesn't yield much. Am I missing anything? I have good relations with my family and my friends right now. I journaled the other day about my concerns about the future and my dad, but compared to events in the past, they don't give me much stress.

Today, I substituted a person from the past who caused me a lot of pain in the past to journal about (one of my cousins I don't speak to much.) Would this be a problem? In any case, I'm working through the list.

During the past two weeks has your pain been moving around? How has this affected your belief in the diagnosis?

Yes, it is interesting. It moved from my shoulder to the back of shoulder blades. Recently, it is going back to my hip which set me back a little because I got scared of the return, but then I realised nothing had changed and I was feeling pretty stressed out. So the moving around has given me more faith in the diagnosis, since it moves around for no good reason.

 

Hi, HP JM. If you don't seem to bring up any major repressed emotions from present or childhood, your TMS may be from a perfectionist and/or "goodist" personality. Maybe do some journaling about those. The friend you don't speak to much may also be a part of your TMS. If you're like me, friendship is very important and I hate to lose a friend. I've lost a few from being so strong about my political opinions. I've learned not to express them with anyone who has an opposite opinion. I've apologized and made up with most of those with whom I had been on the outs, but at least one of them has not replied to my several emails to reconcile. It leaves a sad feeling in me.

Pain moving around for no structural reason is definitely TMS. Keep going in the SEP and you will learn more about yourself.

If you are a perfectionist or "goodist" wanting everyone to approve of and like you, try modifying those character traits. You don't have to change them, just modify them. Ease up on yourself and others. Good luck and keep posting. When worries surface, do some deep breathing and then laugh it all off.

 

Hi HP -

Like you, I didn't feel like I had any deep repressed emotions around particular people, and I think that Walt's advice is right on. As you do this work, you may discover, as I eventually did, that even a simple interaction with a close friend can be hurtful, and your brain will bury it with a distracting symptom. One of my best friends and favorite people made an off-hand comment that I didn't realize until later, really bothered me. I as doing a writing exercise for the SEP, and once I brought it out into the open (eg, onto my paper), a little symptom that had been bothering me went away. I didn't have to confront her about it - I just needed to acknowledge that it hurt me, and then I could move on.

As I did more of the program, I found that I had an unsent letter in me, addressed to my mother. She wasn't a bad person by any means, and not even dysfunctional - but there are always ways in which our parents didn't live up to our expectations, and the child within us still resents those things. The thing is, that the brain has repressed those resentments, thinking that it's doing us a favor by hiding those unpleasant thoughts. Getting those out in the open is the goal of the writing exercises, and I not only found them useful when I did the SEP, but I still find it useful to sit down and do some writing exercises whenever I'm getting symptoms again. The funny thing is, I will put that off, thinking that I have so much TMS awareness that I don't need to sit down and do the exercises. But the reality is that if I don't write them down, my subconscious keeps nattering away at the back of my mind with negative self-talk, and nothing changes. Putting it down on paper clarifies what's really going on in my head, and then I can consciously tell my brain that this is no longer an issue, so Back Off.

I hope this helps!

Jan

 

Thanks guys

 

Jan, I thought my older brother's feelings about our mother were interesting.
He told me, "I love Mom, but I don't like her."

Maybe it was partly because the checks he sent to her when he was in the Pacific aboard
a ship in the Navy during World War 2, she didn't put them in a savings account for him when he returned.
She used the money to pay bills to keep her, my Dad, and sister and me going. He may have found that
hard to forgive.

In any case, you're right that our mothers don't always live up to our expectations. But then, who does?
We're all human. Mothers, too. I love my Mom, but she sure was hard to please, especially when she
was in her 80s and I tried caring for her. I couldn't jump fast or often enough to satisfy her wants and needs.
My sister gave up trying, our older brother never tried at all, and I gave up after two years.

 

But isn't that a past stress? I sometimes don't feel like I don't have any current stress to write about

 

Hi, HP JM. I hope you don't have any current stress to give you pain. Your pain moves around, which is an indication that it is TMS.
You just haven't hit on what the emotional cause is. Give yourself some more time for that. Give yourself more time to relax.
I've been pushing myself writing a new book and need to slow down.
I have to take my own advice. Haha!