What Else to Journal About?

[subtlecollision2]

I feel like I've done a lot of journaling and am not sure what else to journal about. I've done past experiences and current experiences. I've considered my personality traits of major goodism and perfectionism. I am pretty sure whatever caused my remaining TMS issues is deeply repressed. I just started making up traumatic experiences and journaling about them hoping maybe one of those happened to me. LOL may not be the best idea? What should I do? I tried scouring my childhood journal for clues but I'm not sure what caused my TMS. My best guesses are: 1. my father was always very critical growing up/very intimidating/snapped at me a lot or 2. I was born a premie, so maybe that was traumatic or 3. I believe Freud's theory was that potty training children too early causes an "anal-retentive" personality. I know my mom told me she tried way too early to potty train me and my sister who both have TMS whereas my younger sister was allowed to be trained at a normal time and doesn't have TMS or 4. my dad would always make fun of me growing up for being feminine (i.e. I wouldn't pain my nails or wear dresses or wear my hair down likely because of his comments) so it caused me to be scared of my femininity.

I wonder if maybe my job is subconsciously contributing to my TMS. I am a very creative person, and my job requires almost no creativity. I always thought growing up that I would just be stuck in an office job and pursue my creative passions on the side... but I wonder if I have some repressed anger from that. I've been trying to journal about it. I find my job to be pretty boring... I just don't care about it that much, in all honesty.

I wonder if I have a fear of death that is repressed... I'm sure a lot of people do to some extent. We all have to live our lives knowing it could happen at any time. Gaining greater assurance in my salvation has helped me (I'm a Christian) but I find myself unfortunately still having some fear of death/the concept of death.

I also wonder if TMS can be caused by low self-esteem in general. I struggle a lot with my body image due to low female hormones (feeling unfeminine due to PCOS) and a stomach that bloats/distends larger as the day progresses.

I know in TMS theory you're not supposed to need to find your repressed memory, but I feel like it might be beneficial for me to do so as I've healed quite a bit from some of my TMS issues but am very stuck with certain other issues.

Any help would be appreciated. Is there anything else to think about?

 

[Andy Bayliss]

Hi subtlecollision2,

Here are some suggestions:

Here is a link about journaling you might get something from.
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/summary-of-nichole-sachs-journaling-process.24936/ (Summary of Nichole Sach's journaling process)

Everyone has feelings about what is going on inside, every day. To me, these, whether they bring up the past, or if they are about what happened today ----are where the fuel for potent journaling comes from. Were you cut off in traffic? Were you disrespected at work? How does it feel writing that you reject your body in some ways? I agree that you don't need to dig for the perfect traumatic event. To me it is more important to feel (whatever is there), and to feel more fluidly, with more ease.

I love Dr. Sarno's basic que: Use your imagination and ask yourself what your Inner Child is might be feeling about __________ event/personality pressure, etc.) ?

It may also be very helpful to journal about nice things. Gratitude journaling for instance. Any positive memories, positive emotional experiences you can bring to yourself with journaling are helpful, because in my opinion this reduces fear, and increases the sense of safety, that we're being taken care of in this world. Doing a deep dive in "positivity" may also bring up "negativity" which is great too, something more to feel.

Sense into your body as you journal. Make space for whatever feelings arise. Do it First Person present tense: I am ____.

Hope some of these might be of use for you.


Andy

 

[BloodMoon]

I wonder if I have a fear of death that is repressed... I'm sure a lot of people do to some extent. We all have to live our lives knowing it could happen at any time. Gaining greater assurance in my salvation has helped me (I'm a Christian) but I find myself unfortunately still having some fear of death/the concept of death.

I was thinking that this podcast Q&A interview with Todd Pressman, the author of 'Deconstructing Anxiety: The Journey from Fear to Fulfilment', might be of interest to you https://eggshelltherapy.com/podcast-blog/2020/09/21/toddpressman/ (Deconstructing Anxiety: What is Your Core Fear That Underlies Everything?). In his book (and as he discusses in the interview -- see under the heading 'The Five Core Fears') he boils down our main core fear (which directs our approach to life) to being one of 5 core fears, one of which is fear of death. He suggests how to work out which of the 5 is our own main core fear (see under the heading 'The 'Digging For Gold' Exercise") and how to recognise the defences that we use against that fear and how to deal with those defences. (We might think our main fear is of death, but it could actually turn out to be something else, one of the other 4.) Much of this exploration work lends itself to writing things down.