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T O P I C R E V I E W
Monte
Posted - 02/22/2011 : 07:33:02 Hi Everyone,
This is the first runningpain.com TMS update of several to come this year in which the theme is exploring the experience of learning to live with TMS. My experience in living with TMS, which is now quite extensive, has convinced me that most people (TMS patients) are unclear about this "journey" and for several good reasons. Because these reasons are so valid (keeping you stuck) we are going to explore them (and call BS when needed) to help get you unstuck and on the healing path that allows you to live with TMS but without the pain and other TMS symptoms affecting your life in a negative way.
Is there a cure for TMS that will allow me to get rid of symptoms forever? No, this is a mind body syndrome with a "strategy" and as long as you have a mind and a body you have the potential to experience TMS mind body symptoms. You will find that the more you can completely accept this truth, the more efficient and effective you will rid yourself of symptoms and continue to live without them.
Is it possible to reverse the TMS pain strategy and live pain free and symptom free? Yes, this is a mind body syndrome with a "strategy" and you can learn how to communicate to this strategy in a way that keeps it rendered useless and you can learn how to generate the quality of energy that promotes balance/flexibility/alignment in your mind which is then automatically distributed and experienced (not always immediately) in the body.
Why do I have TMS? Why doesn't everyone have TMS? Remember that TMS is a mind body syndrome with a "strategy" attached to it. Everyone in the universe who has a mind and a body experiences mind body effects or symptoms. We all have experienced a tummy ache or a tension headache or a stress filled stiff neck. We experience it for an hour or two, a day or two and it is gone. Even the mass medical community will acknowledge these truths (experiences) as symptoms caused by inner stress/tension/anxiety. However, not everyone gets mind body symptoms that are chronic and are being affected and directed by an intelligent, creative and powerful strategy! A strategy that is designed to keep you distracted away from the psychological (how you are being/your emotions/experiencing your feelings) and instead keep you focused on the pain, the treatments, what is wrong with me, who will fix me, etc! Back to the question - Why do I have this? We don't know. We know it is psychological, we know it is a matter of our unique behavior and thought patterns, the way we repress emotions and deal with our feelings, but no one is going to give you the perfect answer that your rational mind is craving. And the really good news is, it doesn't matter! You do not need to have this question answered to reverse TMS and the symptoms. And the more you search for it or believe you must know it, the more you keep "feeding" the TMS strategy or sabotaging your healing journey.
I know that my back pain is TMS but I'm not sure about my foot/knee/sciatica/piriformis/hip/IBS/migraines/numbness/shoulder/elbow/wrist/chronic fatigue/Fibromyalgia/Etc/Etc/Etc? The very simple and truthful answer is, if you are a TMS person then 99.999999% of all these other aches/pains/strains and other mind body symptoms are TMS. It is perfectly normal to experience a variety of: constant pain, sporadic spasms, chronic pain, burning/shooting sensations, numbness, sharp, dull, pain only after activity, pain only when relaxing, pain when sleeping, pain that gradually gets better throughout the day, severe intense days, followed by less intense days. It's all common and normal in TMS. Don't get stuck on the symptoms, in this syndrome they are intended to keep you distracted. Remember, they are simply a signal to remind you not to be distracted and to think psychological.
Why do some people read Sarno and get rid of their pain in days or weeks and other people continue to struggle? The simple answer is a person's total belief or a complete acceptance of the TMS diagnosis followed by genuinely communicating this acceptance to the TMS strategy through their thought and practice of the basic principles of thinking psychological. When total acceptance is in place and this is communicated to the strategy with confidence and genuine conviction the strategy can immediately be rendered useless. --Pain or symptom is a Signal to Think Psychological - knowing/believing that this is not a physical caused dysfunction or injury but that the cause is psychological (inner stress/tension/anxiety/pressure) --This belief allows us to Stop treatments and any type of searching for a treatment fix and allows us to --Resume as best we can normal activities while not focusing on or being distracted by the symptoms or fear.
This total belief/complete acceptance is something that cannot be measured. Only you know if it is 100% genuine in you. Whether you are a TMS newbie or a 20 year Sarno veteran, you must respect the Strategy and realize that you are communicating to it at all times.
If I believe the TMS diagnosis and I am still in pain, does this mean I have deeply repressed emotions that are causing my chronic symptoms? Absolutely not! This is one of the biggest un-truths of the TMS diagnosis and treatment programs being distributed by the TMS community. And one that I will continue to rage against until the TMS community (Dr./counselor/psychologist) wakes up and begins to address the real cause. The continued emphasis on deeply repressed emotions by the TMS community demonstrates both ignorance and a lack of credibility in actual experience of living with TMS or in working with people who are experienced in living with TMS. Why is this important for you to undertand? Because continually searching for and trying to heal a deeply repressed emotion (that may or may not be there) keeps you in the strategy. You are consumed with it and it has you. This also sabotages your ability to change the the real cause (how you are generating inner tension & repressing emotions every day). Many believe that once they find this big, huge repressed emotion and are aware of it and make peace with it, then they will be pain free and can forget about TMS and go back to living their life. This is not the way TMS works. People, this is not theory, this is both personal experience and my experience is working with TMS patients. Many who personally saw Sarno and a TMS psychologist 20 years ago. Some reversed TMS by reading a book, some needed therapy and then reversed TMS. Now they are back in pain and it is TMS and reading the old TMS book is not helping. So they go searching for repressed emotions and that isn't working either. Now what? You keep searching which "feeds" the pain strategy and/or you go into doubt/fear that maybe this isn't TMS which "feeds" the pain strategy and now you are really stuck. Do I have TMS or not. Is it deeply repressed emotions that we didn't uncover 20 years ago or what....And the TMS symptom cycle continues and the TMS strategy is at work and has absolutely no reason to stop.
Are repressed emotions part of the TMS syndrome? Yes, of course, repressed emotional energy is one of the main ingredients causing inner tension in TMS! However, there are two big, huge factors that must be understood. 1. It is our day-to-day patterns of behavior and thought that are generating Inner Tension and 2. It is our day-to-day patterns of behavior and thought that are repressing our emotions (emotional energy).
This is day-to-day, moment-to-moment repression of day-to-day, moment-to-moment feelings/emotions and not this big huge and in many cases fictitious deeply repressed emotions from your childhood. What makes this day-to-day repression such a big, huge contributor of the inner tension in TMS is that it is Chronic. A TMS person has been chronically generating inner tension and chronically repressing emotional energy for 10-20-30-40 years. When you start changing or affecting how you are generating inner tension and repressing emotions right now, in the present, you can begin to reverse this cause/effect - mind/body syndrome right now, in the present.
TMS is a day-to-day, moment-to-moment chronic mind body syndrome with a strategy attached to it. The key to reversing TMS and living with TMS is understanding that the most important element is becoming aware of and affecting change in "how am I being right now". --How you are being right now means you are either being distracted and "feeding" the strategy or you or genuinely thinking psychological. --How you are being right now means you are generating a quality of energy that is communicating tons of tension/stress/pressure or you are generating a quality o energy that is being more open/flexible/balanced/aligned/allowing a little more often. --How your are being right now means you are repressing emotional energy or you are being more open/allowing and experiencing your emotional energy more often. --How you are being right now means you are in the future or past (unaware of the quality of energy you are generating and unaware that you are repressing emotional energy) or you are becoming more present-moment based where you are able to deliberately affect the quality of energy that you generate and you can intentionally choose to allow yourself to experience emotions instead of deny or avoid them. This is why the statement - Your healing practices are more effective and greatly enhanced in present time is Truth!
Wow, that's a lot of hard work! Wouldn't it just be easier to read about this, visit the TMS help sites and go have some therapy to fix me? Reading about TMS, visiting message boards about TMS and having someone fix you through therapy can help you and they can sabotage your healing journey. You need to figure out where you are at in healing and learning to live with TMS. Ultimately this is a personal journey where you must discover and open up to your own truths about yourself. But that is what personal transformation is all about isn't it! You are transformed by truth and eventually that transformation leads to an empowering and healing change in how you are being right now. And that changes everything!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Jiddu Krishnamurti
Back2-It
Posted - 02/22/2011 : 11:22:33
quote:The continued emphasis on deeply repressed emotions by the TMS community demonstrates both ignorance and a lack of credibility in actual experience of living with TMS or in working with people who are experienced in living with TMS. Why is this important for you to undertand? Because continually searching for and trying to heal a deeply repressed emotion (that may or may not be there) keeps you in the strategy. You are consumed with it and it has you.
I have noticed in reading through the "successes" and those good enough to come back and post, that they seem to have beaten TMS by dealing with current stressors mainly.
Maybe the current stressors are the result of repressed emotions? I know that some of my current stressors are the culmination of a life of wrong thinking. Will changing the behavior free the subconscious? A sort of CBT? It seems some of the "successes" have dealt with wrong things in their life while using the "F-it" method of dealing with their pain --"F-it" and keep on going,despite the pain, and correcting things that can and need to be corrected, resuming life's activities as they were prior to TMS.