Laughalot
Peer Supporter
Hey everyone,
I first began recovering from TMS 6 years ago, while living in Japan. I was suffering from severe sciatica that I was sure meant I should stop exercising. Before the pain started, I had been jogging, rock climbing, and working out daily, but I wasn't enjoying my job. So I went to see a chiropractor for this back and butt pain. He took X-rays and said I had a herniated disc. He recommended I see a masseuse, who told me not to workout so much. I was a little suspicious of this herniated disc business, because along with the sciatica pain, I was experiencing an old pain in my groin that I had had surgery for a year prior. I hadn't had pain there for a year, and it seemed really strange that the return of that pain would coincide with the sciatica.
I went online determined to find a solution that I could have control over, and was lucky enough to find Sarno's book. I knew immediately he was talking about someone just like me, which made it easier to accept and apply the techniques. Within a couple of weeks, I was able to process my frustration with my job, fear of falling in climbing, and my loneliness living outside of my home country. And the pain was gone, along with the tightness in my muscles. The chiropractor couldn't believe it, and told me to be careful. Instead, I began riding my bicycle up to 30 miles every day, in addition to all my running, rock climbing and lifting.
I'm definitely a TMS success story, but that doesn't mean that the pain is totally gone. I continue to experience pain and tightness all over my head, back, chest, neck, and legs. The pain is usually beneath my awareness, but when I slow down or smoke a little weed, I'm very present to how much pain I'm in. It's for this reason and because I want to get to know the TMS community better that I decided to participate in the Structured Educational Program.
I've been thinking a lot about complements to the SEP method. While we usually associate recovery from the direction of confronting underlying emotions through journaling, we could also consider a therapy through motion. Dr. Schubiner, Schechter, and other TMS doctors are quick to advise their patients to get moving! That's partly because moving makes us stronger and healthier, but it also has a neurological impact on us. As we move muscles that our neurons are mistakenly associating with pain experiences, we show our neurology that this isn't the case. We also have an opportunity to potentially trigger a firing of the neurons associated with that particular muscle-pain neural pathway. Since our pain is connected to emotions and talking about our emotions can release us from the pain, the opposite might also be true.
I recently decided to train as a yoga instructor as part of my total recovery from TMS. TMS is all about learned neural pathways that trigger negative feedback loops in the body, and that's connected with emotional reactions to "traumatic events." And people with a lot of yogi training often say that as they deepened their practice, a lot of traumatic events came rushing into their memory. Yogis sometimes breakdown crying as those memories return. An instructor told me today that Yoga is not a muscle-building exercise, but functions on a neural level. We are teaching our neurons what our actual range of motion and capabilities are! Consider that an anesthetized patient has full range of motion - their muscles are totally relaxed!
I look forward to reading about all of your journeys. Let's go out and show the world what we can be!
I first began recovering from TMS 6 years ago, while living in Japan. I was suffering from severe sciatica that I was sure meant I should stop exercising. Before the pain started, I had been jogging, rock climbing, and working out daily, but I wasn't enjoying my job. So I went to see a chiropractor for this back and butt pain. He took X-rays and said I had a herniated disc. He recommended I see a masseuse, who told me not to workout so much. I was a little suspicious of this herniated disc business, because along with the sciatica pain, I was experiencing an old pain in my groin that I had had surgery for a year prior. I hadn't had pain there for a year, and it seemed really strange that the return of that pain would coincide with the sciatica.
I went online determined to find a solution that I could have control over, and was lucky enough to find Sarno's book. I knew immediately he was talking about someone just like me, which made it easier to accept and apply the techniques. Within a couple of weeks, I was able to process my frustration with my job, fear of falling in climbing, and my loneliness living outside of my home country. And the pain was gone, along with the tightness in my muscles. The chiropractor couldn't believe it, and told me to be careful. Instead, I began riding my bicycle up to 30 miles every day, in addition to all my running, rock climbing and lifting.
I'm definitely a TMS success story, but that doesn't mean that the pain is totally gone. I continue to experience pain and tightness all over my head, back, chest, neck, and legs. The pain is usually beneath my awareness, but when I slow down or smoke a little weed, I'm very present to how much pain I'm in. It's for this reason and because I want to get to know the TMS community better that I decided to participate in the Structured Educational Program.
I've been thinking a lot about complements to the SEP method. While we usually associate recovery from the direction of confronting underlying emotions through journaling, we could also consider a therapy through motion. Dr. Schubiner, Schechter, and other TMS doctors are quick to advise their patients to get moving! That's partly because moving makes us stronger and healthier, but it also has a neurological impact on us. As we move muscles that our neurons are mistakenly associating with pain experiences, we show our neurology that this isn't the case. We also have an opportunity to potentially trigger a firing of the neurons associated with that particular muscle-pain neural pathway. Since our pain is connected to emotions and talking about our emotions can release us from the pain, the opposite might also be true.
I recently decided to train as a yoga instructor as part of my total recovery from TMS. TMS is all about learned neural pathways that trigger negative feedback loops in the body, and that's connected with emotional reactions to "traumatic events." And people with a lot of yogi training often say that as they deepened their practice, a lot of traumatic events came rushing into their memory. Yogis sometimes breakdown crying as those memories return. An instructor told me today that Yoga is not a muscle-building exercise, but functions on a neural level. We are teaching our neurons what our actual range of motion and capabilities are! Consider that an anesthetized patient has full range of motion - their muscles are totally relaxed!
I look forward to reading about all of your journeys. Let's go out and show the world what we can be!
