Day 8 Welcoming any advice on continuing to progress in healing

Hello everyone,
Since last week I've been amazed by the incredible support members of this group provide each other. For 2 years I felt like I was an enigma. No one I knew or ever knew suddenly had crippling pain in their knees with no clear structural problems. Doctors, osteopaths, and 4 PTs couldn't help me. Feeling that my body was somehow failing me at the age of 44 (at the time) was a struggle. I had always believed in my body. I believed in the healing capacities of my body. And yet, I was not getting any better. I began wondering if I would have to come to some sort of acceptance that this was how it was, and learn to appreciate the ever-smaller world that I was living in.

After reading Dr. Sarno's book and connecting with this amazing community, the majority of my pain has disappeared. Yet, I continue to feel this sense of numbness in both knees. I've been regularly checking in with my emotions, letting myself feel anxiety, stress, sadness and anger-- all emotions that I realize I've bypassed in my 25 plus year meditation practice. When I meditate, I do what some have called a "spiritual bypass" and go directly into the ground of being-- a great way to avoid the painful emotions (which don't tend to show up during my meditation practices). I'm trying to be compassionate and gentle with myself.

Throughout this week I've had many aha moments, moments where I put two and two together and realize that throughout my life directly after extreme times of stress, I have had major physical issues. This has been an eye opening experience!

I welcome any advice or insights on how to continue to progress in my healing.
Thank you!
Janine

 

Hi, Janine. You have gotten those very important "aha" moments and experienced relief when believing your symptoms are from your emotions, the TMS MindBod connection. So you are doing the essentials. I got severe back pain two years ago and discovered it was not structural but from my emotions and learned through the ESProgram what they were and healed within a few weeks. I would have healed even faster but I kept believing about 10 percent that the pain was because I was 82. Age had nothing to do with it, so you are 44, almost half my age, and I believe strongly that you are going to be free of your pain soon. It takes more time for some than others, and that has to do with discovering the harmful emotions and believing 100 percent in TMS. Dr. Sarno says we don't even have to solve the emotional problems. It is enough to discover them.

Physical pain and emotional pain usually both come because of times of extreme emotional stress. I handle those by deep breathing, faith in TMS, and drinking a cup of hot milk (it relaxes me even better than tea).

Keep working the SEProgram and let us know how it's going.

 

Dear Walt,
Thank you so much for replying to my request for advice! It's wonderful advice and so helpful. I realize that a small part of me still believes that my knee and other physical problems are related to things like slight scoliosis and a life time of poor posture. I can see that going "all in" with the TMS diagnosis is absolutely crucial. It is also very helpful to understand that simply discovering my emotional challenges is enough. I love hearing about the ways that you relax. And I so love my hot tea and hot baths!

If you have a chance, I wonder what your take is on an increase in lower back pain the more and more that I walk. My mind tells me that the pain is related to how limited I've been with my walking (everything feels so stiff and like I need to stretch out all of these unused muscles), but I wonder if my focus on the physical pain is once again a way of not facing stress. Maybe it's both? Stiffness and emotional blocking?

Finally, I'm so happy to hear that you are doing so well. Your insights into TMS and recognition that aging is unrelated are invaluable to me, and I'm sure to many others.
Thanks Walt!
Janine

 

Understandable, but check out this recovery story if you haven't already: http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/members/pandamonium.66/ (Pandamonium)

Just my opinion but the thoughts that you have that you are stiff and muscles unused may be a conditioned response that actually lead to the symptoms. Try practicing positive affirmations, the more you say them the more your mind will start believing them. Remember too that it doesn't matter how you feel during or afterwards, be proud of yourself that you faced the fear regardless of the outcome (outcome independence). TMS CAN'T hurt you (as odd as that sounds).

I quickly read your story the other day and wanted to say how happy I am to hear that your son is doing better. Congrats on your improvements as well!

 

Thank you so much giantsfan! I read Pandamonium's story and find myself resonating on so many levels with her experiences. I can also see how incredibly focused on outcome dependence I am. I go into a state of misery and depression when pain arises (this happened quite a bit today) and I can see how this feeds the pain cycle. It's very challenging to switch the focus, but you've offered me many useful tools and I can see how the positive affirmations and the switch in the measure of progress can help me shift my psychology around pain. Thank you for taking the time to offer this guidance.
Janine

 

Hi Janine,

Reading your entries, seeing your sincerity, I have to say that you are doing really well, and what you've opened into in your Sarno work is huge. The statement above is a huge insight.

The urgency to do better, and feel better is natural. This urgency can be exposed as manifestations of our pressurizing personality traits. As much as you can, use your meditation practice to witness the inner activities, and observe the affects in you, with forgiveness. Observe your inner life and link it Dr. Sarno's work: How does your Inner Child feel about ________? as the main pillar. We tend to engage this work with a view to improving or changing or fixing ourselves. This attitude is to be seen, but not completely indulged in!

I really hope you are gentle with yourself. And it takes most of us some time to really anchor ourselves in this work, so be patient with yourself, and simply observe the numbness or whatever arises.

Andy B

 

Hi, Janine/ Thanks for your very kind and friendly reply to me. Others offer suggestions that for me are on the technical side. I healed from severe back pain through knowledge of TMS and doing the SEProgram, especially journaling. I look at TMS healing more in a psychological way... believing 100 per cent that the pain is as Dr. Sarno says, psychological and not structural. I admit I sometimes have back pain, but being kind to myself and not worrying about so many things relieves the pain and it goes away. I think just about everyone has pains because our lives are so stressed and busy. I think all this computer and Internet technology is making us up-tight. I have two jobs on the computer and believe me, it wears out my head and nerves. I think my dog is so relaxed because she isn't on the computer or Internet or watch television or movies. The day I adopted her from an animal shelter and brought her home, I looked in on her a few hours later and she was on the floor stretched out with two books she had taken off the bottom shelf of my book case. Guess what she had open and was "reading?" Jack London's dog story, "The Call of the Wild" and my favorite author F. Scott Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise." Smart dog, huh?