Setback internal conflict

I've been improving rapidly for the past week and a half since starting TMS self-treatment, but I've had a pretty major setback and it has gotten me in a rather aggressive internal conflict For the record I should be completely transparent: I believe that there is a fundamental connection between your emotions, your personality, central nervous system wiring, and how it all affects symptoms that we all experience, so I have been following much of the generally lauded advice regarding TMS, psychosomatic illnesses and the such, but I do not believe that the way TMS is described is entirely accurate. I believe there's much more research needed to precisely pinpoint the mechanism by which this occurs. Regardless I have this stupid thought in the back of my mind that for the past week and a half I have been slowly rewiring my brain to make my symptoms improve but because of its default proclivities it will take over any progress I have made, override them, and regress me back again to my previous state, making further progress impossible. I know this is silly because other people have improved and maintained their improvements but I can't shake the thought and it's completely dragging me down.

 

Hi Joshua Weingart'

It seems like you have a natural fear to me, that you may not succeed. It may help just to make room for this doubt, and not catastrophize it ---catastrophizing perhaps because you're afraid the thought itself will sabotage your progress? It is a simple fear, based probably on the sense of tenuousness about your progress. Natural.

Remember too that Dr. Sarno described fear as a better "distraction" than the symptoms. So you can look at the fear as another form of TMS, if this helps. In this way, you might inquire into "if I was not feeling this fear, what might I be feeling?" Or in other words, what lies beneath the fear which has my attention?

I suggest you make some space for the fear, find ways to reassure yourself, and stay with the practices. If you loose some ground, you can get it back.

I will also say, not knowing whether this is effecting your fears, that thinking of neural pathways as a physical thing which needs to be fixed is probably not helpful. I suggest we reframe this to say "my habits of mind."

About the actual mechanics of TMS. Despite various theories, and let's be clear they are theories, the good thing is that the sort of shotgun approach which you can invoke and practice at this Wiki and Forum ----tends to work. So the treatments, as broad as they are, work.

Andy

 

Thank you for your input, it’s greatly appreciated. I’ve come to two key realizations that I think are at the core of many of my fears as a result of thinking about this further: 1. I am intimately afraid that even if at one point I were to be completely healed, I would encounter a passive thought that would derail some progress I’ve made and 2. Because my symptoms fall within the psychological/cognitive end of the spectrum and I place such an extreme premium on being the absolute best version of myself at all times, the thought that I might only be able to heal myself 99% instead of 100% absolutely destroys me. It drives me absolutely insane. I don’t know where it comes from, maybe I just have an insane ego. If you would be willing to take the time I’d be interested in your thoughts about my situation.

 

It is important to isolate this fear and observe it. Meditation, mindfulness, pleasurable distractions ===learning to bring your attention to what is less distressing than a repetitive fear ----this is important here and can be life-changing. If you have an obsessive type personality, longer term mind training is very helpful, I think.

This is a practice killer because really, for most folks, if we have 95% reduction in symptoms we could live a wonderful life. But the perfectionist is always looking for the "safest" ground. Why? Why is it that important, your goal? This is worthy of contemplation. No doubt there are self-images, superego activity, fear, etc tied up here. It is your job to observe all this killer thinking, and disidentify from it. This is a process. Knowing how you're caught, right now, is the beginning of being less caught in time.