Sarno's Theory Is Wrong

Yep, your lizard brain wants you to be like a meerkat on sentry duty. With me my lizard brain wanted me to hide from perceived dangers in my bed under my duvet. To make me bed ridden it gave me severe pain all over my body and a piercing pain in my right thigh that made it impossible to move at all without excruciating pain that made me yell out in absolute bloody agony... This went on for months on end, adding up to my being totally bedridden for around 18 months. I also couldn't sit without pain, which ranged from a searing pain in my anus to pudendal neuralgia-like pain to tailbone pain and sacroiliac and hip pain, and more.

The mechanism is a primitive one that doesn't take into account the long term dangers of its actions to one's health. In my case, my lizard brain wasn't concerned that in being bedridden I was at risk of blood clots and muscle wasting through lack of movement. And, although I was lying in bed it wasn't at all comfortable and so I had precious little sleep and what sleep I did get was fitful and filled with bad dreams due to all the intense pain, so it wasn't concerned about my insomnia either.

I did mind/body work and I'm no longer bed ridden or sleep deprived or in horrendous pain. Follow suit and you'll lose your symptoms, you'll no longer be meerkat on sentry duty.

 

Thank you for sharing that, it means a lot to me. I’m also sorry you went through all of that. Would you say you have a relatively good quality of life now?

 

You're welcome! Yes, my quality of life is relatively good. I continue to do mind/body work though because I still have some symptoms to lose.

 

Diana + BloodMoon + Cactus: You guys are literally amazing. I'm sending you kisses. You mentioned The Secret Language of the Body; I didn't take notice but when it was re-iterated I took notice! I watched a YT video of the author Jennifer Mann and everything just clicked and made so much sense. I now understand what got me here and why I'm here today. My mind is actually structurally okay, it's just that my nervous system (=brain) didn't have the proper inputs from my "caregivers" and non threatening stuff like emotions could be perceived as danger by the brain. It's not that the mind is faulty (it's okay), it's just the data in the mind that's faulty. Anyways, Jennifer mentions the Lightning Process by Phil Mann which significantly helped her on her recovery. I'm gonna order her book but was wondering if any of you have tried and/or recommend the Lightning Process?

 

There were no success stories on the Success Stories Forum crediting their recovery to doing the lightning process when I researched it a while back. There are a few postings where people say that they tried it and it didn't help, with one saying that they felt it made them worse and a couple of postings where they said it helped them to believe in mind/body, but they needed to do other mind/body work. I found two postings elsewhere on the forums (not on the success stories forum) that said it worked for them but they didn't give much detail at all. I remember I contacted one of them with a question but they didn't respond. I understand it's an NLP based programme (I did NLP years ago to help me cope with issues regarding my then work - I'm retired now - and unfortunately it didn't help me at all with that, but I know of couple of people who said it helped them with work-related difficulties).

I would suggest that the best bet is to do the work from Jennifer Mann's book because if the lightning process helped her a lot then it figures that she will have presumably incorporated some of its more helpful techniques, probably tweaking them where necessary, plus added other stuff too.

 

This might help:

“You feel stuck because there is a language your body speaks that you have yet to learn, the language of the nervous system. Your nervous system has one job: to keep you alive. Its efficiency in keeping you alive depends on evolutionary algorithms which are outdated and only as good as the programming it has from your past, so instead of keeping you alive and helping you thrive, it keeps you alive and stuck in survival mode. Living in survival mode and in unresolved trauma patterns creates chronic stress and anxiety – creating the perfect storm for a dysregulated nervous system and illness. Trauma’s impact on your nervous system can be reprogrammed. What you previously thought was happening in your mind is actually happening in your body. The way out is through the way in: a dysregulated nervous system is how illness is done, but a regulated nervous system is how illness is undone. … and the best person to help you heal is you.”—From The Secret Language of the Body

Mike,
The book is chock full of explanations, tools and little techniques to do to put your nervous system back to normal. It also addresses how to heal the chronic emotions from childhood under the surface that drive the disregulation. I just finished my first overall read. Now I’m going back to reread and make the techniques a real part of my life. I’ve been doing some already, and they’re working!

 

I purchased the audio book as it’s easier for me to listen while walking. I’m an hour and a half into the book (it’s an eight hour audio). I must say, from what I’ve listened to, it’s probably the best book on mind body work. The bit that you copied and pasted is from the first chapters and it’s spot on! I believe this is where I went wrong. I was focussed to much on the “why” and not on the “what”. I need to remove stop judging, analysing and thinking. I need to start listening internally via BASE-M. Thank you for this recommendation. You guys have done more to help me than all the professionals I’ve seen to date who are useless at guiding me out of nervous system dysregulation.

 

That’s great I’m glad you’ve got it! I feel the exact same way about this book. It’s the best I’ve read out of all of them.

 

I started reading that book as well. I read the first part and I'm just processing for a few days before getting back to it.

 

It's not protecting you. It THINKS it's protecting you.

Ages ago something happened to the homo sapiens so it prevailed over other human species, like homo erectus and neanderthals. We already know the homo sapiens were more social than their cousins. Meaning the "run from the tiger" mechanism was somewhat adapted to the "gotta be accepted" one. It brought us here and emotional pain was one of the prices.

 

Bingo! You hit the nail on the head. I’m lucky in a way because I have good support around me. I feel I have an uncontrollable child that’s scared and frightened who is controlling my autonomic systems. I hear people say that TMS is just a mind thing. It isn’t! The mind is so connected to the body that they are one! Let me tell you something, as a man, I have a reasonable amount of body hair. Now, since TMS went wild I have lost about 50% of my body hair. I’m not entirely sure why, could be lack of nutrients/oxygenation/blood flow or increased stress hormones. The decisions made by the mind are causing actual physiological changes in the body that are visual to the naked eye. That’s just one example … I feel the mind is slowly suffocating the body. That makes me so angry because it’s my body. I am the operator. The subconscious should be there to manage autonomic systems, this is an overarch of governance in my opinion!!!!!