Sorry for any confusion, I am merely trying to communicate my confusion because it seems some teachers say you need to look into/feel your rage and others seem to say no thats not useful. Atleast thats my interpretation
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SteveO: 'Concious' repressed rage ?
- Thread starter Freedom
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Sorry for any confusion, I am merely trying to communicate my confusion because it seems some teachers say you need to look into/feel your rage and others seem to say no thats not useful. Atleast thats my interpretation
Im in a completely different career path but I have the same train of thought a lot of times, especially when a bad attack happens then I get a phobia of having bad attacks. But also because im worried it could lead to me not being able to learn or get work done.
Ines
Well known member
Conscious anger of course. But, I think unconsciously there was a lot of guilt too. He's mentioned guilt in TMS posts here.
FredAmir
Well known member
Initially I do not recommend looking into/feeling your rage because it only increases the pain and creates more fear.
Once you have increased positive emotional energy and have made physically challenging achievements, such as sitting or walking longer, and built your confidence, then if needed, it may help to go deeper and look into the rage. But in most cases I have not found that to be necessary for recovery.
Tennis Tom
Beloved Grand Eagle
Fred gave a great answer to to a question that often comes up here. Challenge your overly protective sub-c by performing the physical acts that you feared doing--baby steps.
I am confused by this as I thought the entire thesis of TMS is that we are not dealing with our anger/emotions and so the body retaliates. In fact, the quote I posted above from your book says that it is "all in the attempt to keep you from tending to your emotions." as well as "that this is the very purpose of their pain, to let them know they have repressed what they so much want to express— but can’t."
On the opposing end, the other post that was quoted near the top of this thread says "If it’s to reduce pain, then I wouldn’t worry about it. Unconscious rage as the cause of TMS pain, as popularized by Sarno, is not exactly how we think about TMS pain anymore."
- This confuses matters further
Ok, this clarifies part of my question, thank you! The issue with the doctors was not repressed and did not contribute to your pain.
What about things that you are aware of but not expressing?
- e.g. If you are mad at someone, you KNOW you are mad at them, but you think it's better for your life situation to not express your anger to them (as you might lose something in the process)?
I would think there has to be more to get rid of pain than just simply thinking pain comes from something structural or not. When I started having the pain, I didn't believe all of the areas were structural. In fact I didn't learn about how the body works until AFTER I had the pain. I understand how TMS could find somewhere in your body you are afraid of and give you pain there, but when it starts you may not know about "tendonitis" or "degenerated discs" or "herniated discs" or "nerve pain" etc.
I agree that believing in the TMS diagnosis helps to reduce pain(although for me did not get rid of it fully). In my case, I reduced my suffering by about 50% or more once I started buying in. However recently a lot of my symptoms from 4 months ago have flooded back. I found TMS last summer and I'm tired of it at this point, and would like to get to 100% recovery. I still feel like my life is on hold to some degree.
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
The kind of anger you are describing is what I refer to as a shallow emotion, and shallow emotions, as Steve and others have said, are distractions in themselves, and just another way for your brain to continue repressing what is really going on in your core.
Being mad "at someone" means that your core self/identity is being threatened on some deep level - and that's where the true inner rage is - that's the real emotion that your brain doesn't want you to dwell on. If you take the time to dwell on your personal sense of identity, you might miss the sabre-tooth tiger that's waiting around the next rock. Engaging your reactive shallow emotions outside of yourself helps your body stay in fight-or-flight mode so that you're more likely to survive the next threat. I have said this before: this technique worked fine in the primitive world when we didn't live all that long, and most of our distractions involved mere survival. As a modern survival technique, it totally sucks.
Depending on what's going on for any one person at any given time, the deep, unseen rage takes different forms, although in the end there aren't that many, and I have taken these from the concepts of Existential Psychotherapy: the rage can come from our personal sense of helplessness or isolation, a threat to our freedom, a sense of meaninglessness, or the most basic rage, which is the rage about our own mortality.
Tennis Tom
Beloved Grand Eagle
That's termed "suppressing" anger, biting your tongue, versus suppressing which is happening sub-c. It's contributing to your reservoir of rage.
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
And as many have said here - don't overthink it. There's a big picture out there for each of us, but we each have to find our own way to see it. Every book, every video, every author is different, and will resonate differently for different people.
Tennis Tom
Beloved Grand Eagle
No, that's it--100% belief, acceptance of the Good Doctor's little theory that the pain is psychosomatic and benign--and then do what you've feared doing physically because you were taught you were doing further damage, increasing your confidence in the theory--success breeds success--deconditioning.
Ellen
Beloved Grand Eagle
This debate has been going on in the Forum throughout the 4 years I've been participating. I think it's a healthy debate, as it points out the fact that recovery from TMS is an individual process, and will look different for each person. The mindbody of each of us is extremely complex and each person so unique, that unraveling it has to be a highly personal, individualized process. We all benefit when each TMSer who has recovered shares what worked for them, or each TMS practitioner shares what they feel works for their clients. But it can be confusing when you are trying to figure out what to do to alleviate your symptoms.
If you subscribe to Sarno's distraction theory, then demonstrating to your unconscious that you have uncovered its process is an important step. That's where the "book cure" comes in, and apparently it is all that is required for some people to recover. I experienced this in the early stages of my recovery, but it didn't last very long. I believe this is because many of us must also address the underlying need for the unconscious to use this defense mechanism, which is to protect the conscious brain from confronting painful emotions. To me this is addressed by demonstrating a willingness to look at and feel difficult emotions that may be what are being repressed. Many of us find that journaling/expressive writing is a good technique for doing this, but it isn't always necessary. I journaled at first, but now when I get a relapse or a new TMS symptom, I can just think about what painful emotions I may be trying to repress, and that seems to be sufficient.
But I also believe we have to address our thinking/emotional/behavioral patterns (i.e. personality traits) that cause ongoing stress and tension. For example, if I don't try to become less of a perfectionist, the stress and tension that this pattern creates in my life will continue to contribute to TMS.
So my advice is to pick a program, strategy or technique to work on and give it sufficient time to see if it works for you. Keep reading books and success stories. Just don't become obsessive about it. Spend around an hour a day thinking about TMS, and then forget about it and go about living your life. Then, when you recover write a success story and share what you believe worked for you. We are all building on each others' knowledge and success.
If you subscribe to Sarno's distraction theory, then demonstrating to your unconscious that you have uncovered its process is an important step. That's where the "book cure" comes in, and apparently it is all that is required for some people to recover. I experienced this in the early stages of my recovery, but it didn't last very long. I believe this is because many of us must also address the underlying need for the unconscious to use this defense mechanism, which is to protect the conscious brain from confronting painful emotions. To me this is addressed by demonstrating a willingness to look at and feel difficult emotions that may be what are being repressed. Many of us find that journaling/expressive writing is a good technique for doing this, but it isn't always necessary. I journaled at first, but now when I get a relapse or a new TMS symptom, I can just think about what painful emotions I may be trying to repress, and that seems to be sufficient.
But I also believe we have to address our thinking/emotional/behavioral patterns (i.e. personality traits) that cause ongoing stress and tension. For example, if I don't try to become less of a perfectionist, the stress and tension that this pattern creates in my life will continue to contribute to TMS.
So my advice is to pick a program, strategy or technique to work on and give it sufficient time to see if it works for you. Keep reading books and success stories. Just don't become obsessive about it. Spend around an hour a day thinking about TMS, and then forget about it and go about living your life. Then, when you recover write a success story and share what you believe worked for you. We are all building on each others' knowledge and success.
Sorry I didn't get back to you. Just read this post today. I will think on that certainly, but don't really get it just reading it a minute ago. Thanks