Day 26 Quick question about identifying repressed emotions

[If 6 was 9]

If I'm feeling the TMS pain and I reflect on what might the emotions be that are causing the pain, and the pain continues, does that mean the emotions that I've identified are not correct and that it's some other emotion or reason that I've missed that is the cause of the pain?

 

[Ellen]

I think this post from Steve Ozanich is the best answer to your question:

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/seeking-the-grail.529/#post-3927 (Steven Ozanich - Seeking the Grail)

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Hi, if 6 was 9. Ellen was right-on in passing Steve's thread on to you.

I think that so far you have identified some of your repressed emotions but may not yet have discovered them all, or the most important one. Keep journaling for that.

Also, it may not be a repressed emotion causing your pain. Pain also can be caused by being a perfectionist or "goodist" person.

A lady told me today that she is glued to TV's coverage of the Supreme Court hearings. Bad idea. She may not know how stressful that can be.

 

[If 6 was 9]

Hi Thanks Ellen, that was a great read. As it happens I'd just ordered his book so am looking forward to devouring his ideas.

Also Walt I take your point, while I'm keeping my mind open to the fact that I may have repressed emotions in the past, I'm also wondering whether the TMS is generated more by unrealistic and unattainable expectations I've set for myself rather than accepting myself with the good and the bad. Wrapped up with this particular form of perfectionism is a strong sense of shame. I've just listened to an audio version of Tara Brach's Radical Self Acceptance which has a few meditative exercises in it. She looks at it from a Buddhist's perspective - I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to work through shame as an emotion.

 

[Tennis Tom]

Have you looked at the events that may cause TMS symptoms?

THE HOLMES-RAHE STRESS SCALE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale (Holmes and Rahe stress scale - Wikipedia)

 

[If 6 was 9]

Hi Tennis Tom, yes thanks I had seen that from earlier in the SEP. Some of the criteria I found a bit ambiguous, but having said that I seemed to score a bit over 150 which they say is moderate chance of illness. I believe that, but my TMS pain I've had for about 25 years, so something that looks only at the past year doesn't really provide me with much insight, unless I'm missing something about how I'm meant to interpret it?
Thanks for pointing me to it.