Day 8 Recognising Emotions Connected to My Pain

[Kiara]

Are you having success at recognizing the emotions connected to your pain? If you have, how do these emotions make you feel? If not, what do you think is preventing you from doing this?

Yes, I am having some success in recognising the emotions connected to my pain. I actually had an episode of back/shoulder soreness today, which I knew was TMS. There was something on my mind that had been bothering me, and I knew I needed to tell someone and get it off my chest. I wrote a long message and confided in one of my closest friends, and afterwards the pain eased off. The pain did come back a bit later on in the evening, but I know it's just TMS and I'm not stressing over it. It just comes and goes.

I find that the main emotions that seem to be connected to my TMS pain are anxiety, anger, stress and feelings of guilt. Sometimes they are all mixed in together, but other times it is easy to pinpoint exactly what the emotion is and why I'm feeling tense or experiencing pain. It seems to me that anxiety is the primary cause of my Fibromyalgia/CFS symptoms, although I'm aware that I also have unconscious rage from my childhood which may also be affecting me and contributing.

The main things that prevent me from recognising the source of the emotions are repression, denial and/or numbing behaviours. I find I do tend to numb painful emotions for a while, but I'm learning to deal with them and actually talk to someone about it rather than try to apply an "anaesthetic" which only helps temporarily.

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Hi, Laudisco. I hope you're not spending a lot of time thinking about or feeling your emotions. I think that can bring on anxiety, etc.
It's good to think about and do things that relax and give you pleasure.

I wonder why you have feelings of guilt. Most of time, those feelings are not deserved. Maybe do some journaling about what makes you guilty.
Usually, it's not our fault. If we did something to feel guilty about, remember that God forgives us. If he can forgive us, why can't we forgive ourselves, and those who trespassed against us that might have caused us to feel guilty.

 

[Kiara]

Thanks for sharing that, Walt! I have been doing some journalling about my feelings of guilt, although sometimes it's hard to pinpoint exactly what's causing it. Often it's more of a vague feeling of not doing enough or being enough, of falling short in some way. But reading about God's grace and learning about the Father Heart of God really helps… I'm learning that God loves me for who I am, not just what I do!