I learn something new about what it means to feel subtle feelings every day - I'm still waist deep in all of this TMS learning and journaling, etc. Some days are better than others, but I'm encouraged by the general trajectory. Thank you for your kind words!
This program is really helping me:
http://www.fammed.wisc.edu/files/webfm-uploads/documents/outreach/im/handout_mbs_workbook.pdf
It's a guided writing exercise that is meant to take just a few weeks, I think, but I only get a half hour or so each day to work on it, so it's taking me a lot longer. Which might be OK. Working in small chunks is allowing me to take time to chew on what I wrote instead of trying to drive myself for hours of solid writing until I hit some sort of revelation. Some days the writing doesn't feel particularly ground-breaking, and then other days I surprise myself with something I can't believe I didn't know about myself or let myself feel. I was really amazed to see how hard the fast-writing section was for me. You are supposed to write so fast that you can't really censor your feelings and you just let the raw emotions pour out, almost before you have a chance to realize what you're writing. Either I write really slowly or I am a master at self-censoring at the slightest whiff of an uncomfortable thought/feeling, but my first couple entries had almost no emotions in them. It was all train of thought stuff. And then after I sat there and let what I wrote hang in the air, all of a sudden I was like, "Wait! I think I might have a feeling about that!" and I had to start the writing over, THIS time reaching my emotions. After doing it a few times I'm getting better at it. Sometimes at first it felt like I was making up feelings that weren't really there. But now I think they're flowing more organically.
I don't know how this program (which is based on Dr. Schubiner's books, which I am going to have to buy because this process is fitting so well for me) compares to the Structured Education Program on this site. I had found this program before I found the TMSwiki, and I didn't want to start another journaling program on top of what I was already doing. But I definitely love the one I've linked to. Also I hate it some days. Like today! I had to write an "unsent letter" to someone I'd rather never think about. I closed my notebook a couple times, trying to come up with excuses not to write. But I made myself do it, and lo and behold, it was really helpful. Sad and painful to feel, with some lessons I didn't want to learn about myself and the world, but helpful.
I can't remember if you said you've done Alan's Pain Recovery Program on this site. It has been a really good complement to the expressive writing stuff for me. Alan's program deals more with fear/dread of the pain, desperation to make it stop, obsession with it, etc. Essentially, where the expressive writing stuff helps you feel your emotions without judgment and let them be, Alan's program helps you feel your *pain* without judgment and let it be. The two together are great.
I hope those resources are helpful! I know what you mean about struggling to find feelings. Sometimes if I can't find one, I'll write, "Why am I NOT mad/sad/upset about this?" and that will be just the prompt I need to explore what's happening inside me. Sometimes I'm just not mad/sad/upset. And that's OK! Other times I'm hiding feelings from myself. The fast writing really helps with that, especially if you follow the "rules" they give.
Also, I'm discovering that there isn't always some mega-trauma from the past that generates our TMS or emotional patterns. Small things that seem trivial can do it. You have to make a list of possible stressors from your past at the beginning of the program, and while I had a couple big ones, a lot of them seemed like silly things. But they are memories I've carried for decades that continue to make me a little uncomfortable, so I know they must mean something to me. So I wrote them down. And sometimes it's not something from the past at all, or even something happening in the present, but just a consequence of how our personality type deals with daily life (which the program also works through a bit). So there isn't always something ground-breaking. It can be little or stupid. What's important is that it's there.
I just typed a lot! I hope there was something in there that helps. (And while I know not everyone on here agrees about PT, if you haven't done internal pelvic floor PT yet, what was important about it for me was not that it healed my pain - that was only temporary - but that the internal work hurt. Not terribly, but it definitely didn't feel good. The process of internal PT is basically learning how to relax into the pain, which was huge for me. It's what taught me that my damage wasn't structural, that the pain didn't have to be scary, and that I had a degree of control over how bad it got. Doing that with a PT who knew just how far to challenge me without causing unnecessary pain, whom I trusted and who was not afraid of the process, was very helpful. I wish I had known about TMS while I was doing PT, because the internal work and the emotional work would have been an effective one-two punch. Oh well - I'm taking care of the emotional part now. Just drew out the process a bit. I hope you find your answer soon, too. Better late than never!
