Day 8 Recognizing the emotions connected to my pain

Well, I am not having any success at recognizing the emotions connected to my pain. I have no idea what is preventing me from doing this. Somewhere I read that the emotions that are causing TMS are the ones that you are not aware of, the ones that are created by your subconscious mind. If that’s the case how one can recognize them?

Looks like somehow Journaling is the tool used but I just cannot write anymore than a few sentences at best every time I try.

 

Are you angered at the pain? Feel that emotion, don't react to the anger with anger, just notice it's there and feel the emotion till it dissipates.
Are you feeling down cause of the pain? Then do the same as mentioned above for the anger.
You just think how am I feeling right now. Am I feeling lost, mad, depressed, etc...
This is just a short list of hundreds of emotions you could be feeling.
I personally don't label the emotions any more, I just notice that they are there. Then I do not react to them, I feel them, I let the emotion float over me without getting angered at the anger if anger is the emotion, you see.
Just feel your emotions, notice it's there, don't react to it, just be calm, patient, and giving time it will disipitate.
This is how you learn to feel and let go of emotions consciously without suppressing them.
Don't worry with the repressed emotions, when you feel the emotions that are at the surface of your awareness then after time and practice a repressed thought will come to you now and then through your journaling or your awareness.
Bless you

 

Thank you very much Eric,
Wow, I just couldn't believe the amount of material/information available when I clicked the tags below your post.
Looks like Tuesday night TMS call-in discussion group is not happening anymore or is it?
The reason I asking is that it looks like it might be beneficial if I can talk to somebody, may be trying to resolve my issue alone is not going to work out for me.

 

Working on resolving your issues will workout too. That's a doubt thought perfectly timed by your TMS.
Don't give up, you are just starting your journey. Remember your patience will be your power in overcoming your pain or anxiety.
If you need to ask questions, ask. We have a lot of great people here willing to give awesome advice, and it's the best advice there is.
'Knowledge is the cure" so always remember that famous quote from the good Dr.
If you want to talk privately, just send me a message in my message box above.
Have a great day, bless you.

 

Hi, Arnie. Herbie gave you great advice.
I would like you to read the following article about getting in touch with your feelings. Read it anytime.
I don't want to overload you on stuff to help with TGMS healing, but feeling the emotion is a big part of healing.

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“Why,” you ask, “should I be in touch with my feelings?”

The phrase about being in touch with our feelings has been around as long as psychotherapy. But what does it mean exactly? Aren’t we having feelings all the time? Yes, but sometimes the feelings we think we’re having aren’t the feelings we’re really having.



Maybe you find yourself angry at another person. Almost everything he does or says pisses you off. “He’s so full of himself,” you are thinking. “I wish he’d just go jump in a lake!” He happens to be a very good looking and popular man who has a great sense of style, qualities you lack. The feeling you’re not in touch with, the one you wouldn’t want to touch with a 10-foot laser, is the jealousy that lurks underneath your anger. Being out of touch with the jealousy may cause you to be inappropriately angry. Being in touch, on the other hand, might preclude the anger or at least prevent it from getting out of control.

Being in touch allows you to have healthy relationships with yourself and others. When you are in touch, you are grounded; you know yourself in the classical sense. You’re aware of how your feelings impact your thoughts and actions. Knowing that, you can better ascertain how you and your feelings will interact with other people and their feelings. Hence you’ll relate to people with a minimum of conflict.

Freud referred to neurotic defense mechanisms as ways we try to avoid being in touch with feelings. When an alcoholic uses denial, one of the defense mechanisms, to avoid taking responsibility for his drinking problem, the problem gets worse. He is not only denying that he has a drinking problem, he is refusing to get in touch with the feelings that underlie the addiction, feelings such as anger, sadness, or shame; these feelings need to be resolved but can’t be resolved as long as he stays out of touch with them.

Most often it is anger that people are not in touch with. I have had many clients who bring in dreams full of anger, but are clueless about the extent of the anger inside them. For example, a client might have dreams about people who betray him, about sharks that surround him in the water and threaten to eat him, about friends who do not listen to him. A client might be furious at his bosses and see them as rigid and unable to see any point of view but their own. He may also see his wife or girlfriend that way. And he may eventually see his therapist that way.

A client will begin to be critical of the psychotherapist’s method. The client finds his method too rigid, too impersonal. Or it is too loose and without boundaries. Or it is hypocritical. This critical attitude stems from his general anger at authority figures. He is convinced of the distrust of authorities and looks for reasons to be angry. But eventually this free-floating anger may come out inappropriately and jeopardize his job.



The client will usually reveal at some point the source of his anger. It may be that his parents were intolerably rigid or fundamentally religious and could not empathize with their children A client may have been sexually abused. A client may have been beaten. The client will talk of these things in passing but not want to dwell on them or work through the feelings. He doesn’t want to blame his parents. However, if the client does not work through the source of his anger—that is, if he doesn’t get in touch with his feelings—he will act them out in his life.

A client has a passive-aggressive or avoidance disorder that is greatly curtailing his functioning. As a passive aggressive he cannot express anger directly (perhaps because his parents were intolerant of direct expressions of anger) so it leaks out sideways and messes up his relationships. If he has an avoidance disorder, he avoids anything that smacks of rejection in order to control (and not get in touch with) his feelings.

A client may have a paranoid disorder in which she always thinks people are watching and talking about her. She complains about going to work each day and hearing people chattering and laughing at her. What she is not in touch with is the deeper sadness and anger about her overbearing father or mother that she has repressed. She uses the defense mechanism of splitting in order to protect her ideal image of her parents. Because she’s not in touch, she feels self-conscious about always being watched and is painfully shy, which makes matters worse.
These are just some of the many ways people are not in touch with feelings. In all cases, when we aren’t in touch with feelings, we act them out, over and over again.in an endless cycle. A father comes home and displaces his anger with his boss on his children and rationalizes (another defense mechanism) that he is doing it because they need discipline.

The key to change lies in getting in touch with our anger and how it is causing us to misinterpret our world and react inappropriately. To get in touch with the anger, we must understand where it originally came from—that is, the situations in our life that originally bred it. Often getting in touch with the most essential source of anger is the greatest resistance to the treatment. It is not always anger that one hides from; sometimes it is irrational fear or persistent jealousy or a deep sense of inadequacy or shame. Whatever the feelings are, they need to be uncovered.

 

I can't say that I have found an exact cause of my TMS symptoms. In other words, I can't say "I am feeling angry today which is causing my tinnitus to be very loud". Some days I feel pissed and don't have tinnitus and other days I feel peaceful and then for whatever reason my tinnitus starts getting loud. (although loud tinnitus tends to always put me in a bad mood... depressed, anxious, and angry). Lately though, I have noticed that when I feel guilty, I tend to get migraines or louder tinnitus. I have always had a bit of a guilty conscience, so maybe this is something I need to work through. I very often put myself in no win situations, for example, I am either too hard on my kids or not hard enough on them, either way, I never seem to be just the right amount... which in turn makes me feel guilty. I feel guilty a lot, which could be part of what causes my TMS struggles.

 

Hi Hopefuldan,

I can relate to feeling quilty. Plenty of times I find myself quilty and/or regretful of my actions. But I am not sure if that is a factor in my case. Once you start the SEP, you start digging into your personality and start discovering so many things about yourself but never sure which once are affecting your situation?!? Such as I like things being orderly around me but never chase it to the degree that it becomes a compulsion, does that make me perfectionist and contribute to TMS?

Arnie

 

Hi Arnie,

What's the reason you can't write long enough? Does it hurt? Is your body freaking out, too much anxiety? Or is your mind interfering the process? What happens exactly?!

If you're willing to unravel what's going on inside (when you sit down to look deeper into an issue) why not closing your eyes and just talk out loud to yourself about the event (or in a memorecorder), instead of writing? As long as your goal is to FEEL what's happening or has happened (which is the first step to find/free the hidden emotion) the way you take doesn't matter so much.

Remember, feeling happens in your body, not in your thoughts... So, stay connected with sensations, breath and energy-flows in your body, while pondering about an issue. You could also try meditation, because it helps you to become more sensitive to all the signals of your body, without reacting to it, labeling it, or making any story out of it. Very important to just watch what happens...

Keep going and trying, until you'll find your way!

 

No it doesn't hurt, I am right handed and problem is with my left hand. It is just that I can not find many things to write. At best I can manage a few sentences and then I run out of the things to write about the subject. Two moths ago I lost my job and the way I lost it or the way I was treated makes me very upset so I included this event in my list that you create on day 2. But can't seem to write no more than a few sentences about it, forget about writing 20 - 30 minutes. I think I also carry a lot of scars from my childhood but again can't seem to write much about them either.
I used to do Transcendental Meditation on & off in the past but now have been doing meditation twice a day for 45 minutes following a Buddhist society's guided meditation broadcasts for about a month so hoping that might help.

 

Thanks Arnie, for your honesty about this writing-issue. Seems as if the 'forgetting' is kind of a mind-trick, to distract you from coming too close. Do you know what happens right before the 'forgetting' starts and takes over the whole process?

I know more people who have this 'writing-issue'. They all seem to have a lot of judgements running around in their mind; fear of failure, not being good-enough, fear of being blown away from emotions, fear of surrendering to what happens, lack of trust in the process, or somekind of huge stress that takes over completely. I'm sure it can be a beautiful process and bring you more self-understanding, when you have the desire and courage to unravel what exactly takes place, in your most 'scary' inner places...

Yes, may be meditating can help you, to gather courage to stay in the 'arena', and not let your mind take over the whole process. It's you who has to do the job, grounded in this moment, in your body, brave, curious and filled up with kindness (-:

 

Thank you very much Lydia.