The TMS work "spectrum"

We have a wide variation here of the techniques that people feel work best. On one side you have a conventional Sarno-ist, I would say Baseball falls here, and he believes in going all in, continuing all activity despite pain, focus on the rage and don't pay attention to anything physical. I don't know if we have any others here like that, or at least any that post. I know there's some "lighter" Sarno as well, only do the physical when pain is mostly gone, but still rage focused.

On the other extreme you have more of a Gordon-ist, no psychological focus, pain reprocessing therapy, somatic tracking, etc.

And all the gooey middle.

Where do you fall? And no, this isn't meant to cause an argument on techniques. I'm genuinely interested what kind of variation we have in what people feel is truly helpful, the balance. There are a lot of individual stories but I thought one centralized place might be cool to have opinions.

 

Now unless in severe pain I force myself to do things, whether that exercise in light of elbow, knee, or neck pain or forcing myself to talk when dealing with a TMj flare. I might just not do as much if I had no symptoms. The first few months of being TMS aware I would take short breaks (few days to weeks) from triggering activities. I try to focus on the emotional/rage side of things more these days, don’t do much prt or somatic tracking, though I found the latter super helpful during the post vasectomy pain nightmare, so perhaps worth revisiting. I do try and stick to meditation once a day but would definitely like to expand on it. I struggle a lot with racing thoughts.

 

I fall into the category of Sarno/Nicole Sachs. Journaling has really worked for me and I do it pretty much every day. Lately, I have been listening to Dan Bruglio who doesn't even talk about emotions. But he is a calming presence and I like listening to his ideas. I really like how we need to live our life (Sarno), express our emotions (Sarno/Sachs), and try to calm the racing thoughts (Bruglio).

 

I’m in the middle. I believe that you have to get a Sarno base. If you don’t explore your subconscious issues, your personality and habits, you’ll never get out of this. And that exploration needs to continue for your lifetime. No more repressing emotions. After that: (also Sarno), you have to resume normal activities. This is harder than it sounds, and really takes a strong will to fight for your life. Then, to ice the cake, I really like the tools Gordon offers. Somatic tracking helps me when I’m trying to resume my activities, by helping me detach from my pain. Basically, somatic tracking helps me ignore my pain and make it more insignificant. In addition, I’ve learned here, that baby steps in reclaiming activity keeps your TMS brain from turning up the heat. And in essence, you can win the race like the tortoise in the old tortoise and the hare story. Lastly, I believe it’s essential to soothe your nervous system. So yeah… I guess I’m in on all of it. I don’t see why any solution has to be excluded. If it helps: do it.

 

I haven't been watching his videos daily like I used to but I like Dan. He and Helmut had some kind of parting of the ways after some negative interaction, I guess, at least that's what Helmut told me when we chatted in a TMS group; but I like him.

 

Was this recently? I watched one of the Helmuts live streams maybe 2 months ago and he was advertising Dan’s channel on it, at least in a window on the screen as other recommended channels. Hopefully they patched things up. Dan was so helpful to me in those early days, and I think Helmut’s a good well intentioned person but I think he kinda gives off a my way or the highway vibe.

 

I'd say I'm more of a Jungian type, trying to communicate with my shadow and so on.

I'm also very curious about mindbody research so I take a lot from Moseley, Schubiner, Hanscom etc. So I tend to believe better in the approaches that take the brain evolution as a big part. I mean, how sometimes pain just happens for pure neuroplasticity, and not because something bad happened in your day.

 

I definitely lean more towards Baseball65's extreme generally, but with some nuances. For example, while I agree that we should "resume all physical activity" as Sarno says, I modulate that some. For example, if running causes me pain, I might take a break from running but go full bore on walking even if there is pain. It's a moderation I know, and does not agree with "resume ALL physical activity, but hey it works for me.

I do know I have a strong aversion to alot of the current TMS gurus like Nicole Sachs and Dan Bruglio - this is a personal preference, I think they are helping people, just not for me. I think if Steve Ozanich were still active, I would gravitate more to his message.

 

Yes, it was fairly recent. I don't want to misquote him but he didn't have very nice things to say about Dan. It was right after what's her name that I can't think of now (her and Helmut just parted ways) did a video bashing Dispenza. They posted a link to it in the FB TMS group and the comments veered to who they don't agree with.

 

I actually emailed Steve recently. He (or whoever works for him) did respond but it was pretty generic. I really liked The Great Pain Deception. I know he says now he probably wouldn't have gone the route of balls to the wall like he did then, but I still think of that book a lot of the time.

I think I just like Dan for his manner. His method of just ignore the why doesn't really work for me, but he's pleasant and I think he genuinely cares about helping people.

I was turned off of Nicole by an incident in her paid FB group, I left the group and it soured me a bit on her methods. I'm sure I will get frowned upon, but I feel like she is moving more and more to just making more money.

 

@Rusty Red While I do like Nicole's message I totally agree with you regarding that she charges for everything. I get she needs to make a living, but it really annoyed me you had to pay to be in fb group. And it wasn't much, but I did not join. That's why I am so thankful for this group! No one is trying to make any money off this forum.

 

I get why Nichole charges for fb… it’s to keep out the trolls and the wallowers, those who will continuously be medicalized and angrily anxious and will not do the work.
All of her podcasts are free and they are full of nuggets. I don’t think you truly need more from her but she does need to earn a living and pay her staff. People run the fb group and monitor her social feeds and that costs!

 

I like Nicole—she’s a good cheerleader. She’s more polished in her offerings. Definitely a business woman. Dan is comforting. Helmut’s a wild man, but I really like his success story and the path he took. He gives me hope.

 

That's fair. I think my bad experience with one of the mods just spoiled it for me a bit. I did enjoy her podcast.