When you have controlled your pain but stress brings it back..

M

Madder

Peer Supporter
Has anyone got any tips for a newby on here. I've only known about TMS for 6 weeks. I'm intrigued and I see it everywhere now.
I've been having good results controlling my right sided burning pains. I understand that they are TMS, I know that they tend to get more severe if clear stress enters my day and I have learned that taking a short time to meditate, and/or visualise the area with my minds eye, and to see blood and oxygen rushing to the area, in my mind, typically helps to ease the pain a great deal.
Today, I went through Dr Schubiner's week 2 meditation and by the time I had finished it, I was pain free. However, about 2 hours later, I had a call from my mother. She has an infection in her lung. She seems fine, but she is on antibiotics and doing well. She also told me that she is to have blood tests next week. This triggered my pain again, and I found it very difficult to shake it off this time. It took hours to subside.
If I understand that my pain is TMS, and if I know that the stress I absorbed from worrying about my mothers health, was the trigger for the pain to come back, why wasn't that enough for me to not experience the pain? Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks everyone.
 
In my experience, it's not stress that triggers TMS. If it was stress, then everyone would have TMS whenever they are under stress, and that is not the case. Rather it is the way we interpret and internalize the events we consider stressful. When Sarno says to think psychologically, this is what he means. I suggest looking at your emotions and relationship with your mother as the possible triggering event, rather than the fact that she is ill.

While meditation is a wonderful thing in many ways, if we use it to "cure" our TMS, it becomes similar to treating our symptoms physically, not psychologically. It can become a way to avoid the underlying emotional content, and reinforce the concept that TMS is something that is happening TO us, rather than BY us.

You are off to a good start and congratulations on seeing some pain relief early on in your recovery. My advice is to build on that success and dig deeper psychologically.
 
I agree with Ellen, and I also want add something.

The fact you've had relief, and that you're seeing and understanding direct correlations between events and stress and symptoms is wonderful and huge in itself. You have deep evidence through your TMS work and your observations that this is not a physical condition. This deep learning takes time to "root."

Madder said:
It took hours to subside.
Click to expand...
This is no small learning. This is huge. You're so "onto" this already, so knowledgeable, probably more than you're conscious of.

The familiar way you fuel stress, as Ellen suggests, goes beyond the apparent response, and is deeper, probably a repeated, internal pattern. Gently inquire: How do I react to news about my mother? How do I pressure myself? Try to control? Fear? What self-images as a child come up? How is it for this child to experience this?

I suggest you relax about it, and let your understanding gently unfold. Self-compassion and mindfulness go a long way. Learning to not fuel your own reactivity is a life's work, and important.

Andy
 
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