| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 01:03:03
Hi everybody,
it's again me with some questions/thoughts about the very important theme of negative self talk/negative thinking. I wished I could explain that in German to make it more clear but I really hope it will be comprehensible!
In this thread I asked a question about weather it is neccessary to belief in what you affirm:
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7898
This thread really helped me to get started my work with affirmations. I seeked the help of a coach and with her we identified my most destructive core beliefs with lots of negative selftalk around it. I was a bit shocked how negative my core beliefs were, like "I have no very right of existence because it's my guilt that my mother committed suicide". Well, it was very insightfull and we created many new and positive beliefs/affirmations. We also connected some of the most important affirmations with visualisations to intensify it.
BUT (and there always seems to be a big BUT), what's always in my mind like a big question mark:
As I understood it there're two different ways to handle negative thinking.
A few years ago I did some mindfulness-based meditation classes and I also bought a book about act (acceptance commitment therapy).
Well, in these approaches there's a clear suggestion how to handle negative thinking:
Accept it (what ever, if it's a thought or an emotion or pain) and then let it go.
Let's give an example:
"I will never get better!"
The act-approach recommends: "ah, there's again this thought. Ok." Then the approach offers a few techniques to help to distance yourself from this thought. You have to know that you are not your thoughts, that's just your ego producing thoughts.
The more cbt (cognitive behavioral therrapy) based approaches would recommend: "ah, there's again these thought". But now I'd like to replace this negative thought by "I feel healthy and strong" or "every day I feel a bit better" or what else you choose to reframe it.
In the act-book there's some very metaphoric and also drastic explanation of both approaches to clarify the difference between cbt and act:
In their opinion dwelling on thoughts is like buildig your own prison.
Dwelling on negative thoughts is like building a very narrow and ugly and uncomfortable prison.
Dwelling on positive thoughts respectivley replacing negative by positive thoughts is like building a much more comfortable and wider prison, but still a prison. Because the level of thoughts is the level of the "Ego" and not the level of our "true nature" or what ever you would call it. I think this approach is according to what e. Tolle says about the Ego. Replacing a negative thought by a positive is just like cutting off the head of the Hydra: where you cut it two new heads will grow.
The act-approach also mentions that the method to learn how you can distance yourself from your thoughts through acceptance and letting go is much more practicable when it comes to life-events which you can not influence/change. A loved one is fading away or you lost your job.
You can handle your negative thoughts by changing them into positive thoughts. But you can't chance the fact/event that someone you love died. You can, in the best way, try to accept it and then to let it go what in the end will bring peace to your mind.
Ok, see the "conflict" I struggle with?
I like using my new beliefs, it's really fun (at least most of the time, sometimes it's really annoying). But I also find the act-approach to be very plausible and perhaps to be a bit more "all-embracing", especially when it comes to events transcending the field of negative thinking. It's more the Buddhistic-like approach.
Any suggestions? How do you handle this? Did somebody find a way to connect these two approaches? As I mentioned in former threads: I always tend to struggel with "seemingly contradictorys" and I always feel the need to find the missing piece/the link between different approaches. Perhaps, sometimes there is no link and I have to learn to accept that there will always be different meanings and approaches and I have to make a decicion because everything ist better than making no decicion.
My conclusion:
I think I think too much  !
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| 19 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| plum |
Posted - 01/30/2013 : 15:40:16
Ubung macht den Meister.
Gesundheit. xxxx |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 01/29/2013 : 15:19:22
Hi,
thanx again for all the replies!
quote:
For some reason, your unconscious thinks that it is better that you be in physical pain rather than emotional pain- find out this reason, and work with that.
Yes, I agree to 1000%! I experienced both sorts of pain: psychological pain and physical pain. And the sort of psychological pain I was dealing with seemed almost unbearable for me. It was so extreme that in situations in which I was overwhelmed by these kinds of feelings, I often wished I was dead and I numbed myself with all sorts of tranquilizers for 10 years. And I also said that, if I could made a choice between physical and psychological pain, I would choose the physical pain (and there you are, I only say: be careful with your wishes ) But this was many years ago and I feel much stronger now and even built up some ressources. I now try to feel, step by step, the emotions which are stored in my body. It's true: since I have pain all over my body I feel much more comfortable emotionally. But this is a high price to pay and now I feel ready to go through all this suffering again without pushing away or numbing the emotional pain (although I have to admit that I feel a bit weak at the knees when I think back of all the emotional suffering...was a bit like "fading away", falling into a never ending black hole, like to break into fragments and loosing everything).
BUT I have a loving husband, I have my humor, I have my therapist and my friends and the support of this forum, so it will be doable. We all have our crosses to bear and more often I am able to see this as a challenge and not as "adverse fortune"!
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| Dr James Alexander |
Posted - 01/29/2013 : 14:43:59
hi Birdie,
sounds to me like you are doing all the right stuff. In regards to therapy choices, my view is that if the best therapy in the world isnt accompanied by the kinds of insights which the TMS approach offers, it may not be helpful in eradicating pain. With the psychoanalytic therapy, you are certainly delving into your unconscious material. And what you have written makes it clear that you are not trying to hide from what is going on at a deep level- you arent running away from the negative aspects of your life. I am sure you are combining this with the TMS insights. Being into psychosomatic medicine, it sounds like your therapist should be familiar with the notion that chronic pain is generated in order to protect us from painful emotions at an unconscious level. Use the therapy to try and get at what is your underlying emotional truth which the pain is protecting you from. What you've written indicates that you are already onto that- so keep exploring that direction. For some reason, your unconscious thinks that it is better that you be in physical pain rather than emotional pain- find out this reason, and work with that.
In regards to being positive with TMS pain, i think talking sense to yourself about what the pain is (and isnt) is not so much 'positive thinking' as much as realistic thinking. If you have been medically cleared of serious conditions which could be causing your pain, then it isnt 'positive thinking' to keep reminding yourself that you are suffering from TMS, a painful but otherwise benign condition which can resolve. Yes, this is positive, but not in the sense that the term 'positive thinking' usually implies.
Sounds like you are carrying significant trauma. You will read in my book a chapter on trauma, and a chapter on EMDR as a trauma therapy. I could recommend this approach to you as a means of dealing with the trauma. Good luck.
James |
| alix |
Posted - 01/29/2013 : 09:24:49
Birdie,
A very interesting technique to release trauma of unknown origin is the David Berceli technique (TRE). His book, "Trauma Releasing Exercises" explains how it works. It is very much based on Levine's ideas from "Waking the Tiger" and is being used on African children that lived in war zones.
It is a body to mind technique that consists of getting your body to shake to release the pent up tension from trauma. |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 01/29/2013 : 04:22:57
Hi,
plum, that's funny: I purchased the Kindle-Version of the book you're recommending two days ago (there was a German version awailable so it will be much more easier for me to read!)
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| plum |
Posted - 01/29/2013 : 03:42:26
Birdie,
Have you read anything by Dr. Peter Levine?
He specialises in the release of trauma. He has written a few books including 'In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness.'
There's loads of uploads on youtube as well.
Sending you love. |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 01/29/2013 : 03:01:47
Thanx Dr. James Alexander for your opinion and advice!
I absolved one depths psychology based psychotherapy since 2005 and since then I am still in psychoanalytic treatment. The doctor is not a TMS-doctor because TMS is unknown here in Germay. But he's a specialist for psychosomatic medicine and chronic pain. Psychoanalisis will end this year.
I spent many times analyzing my dreams, digging in the deepeest and uglyest layers of my psyche...but to tell the truth: perhaps I must have made something wrong or I wasn't digging deep enough because it did really absolutely nothing for my pain. Perhaps "the problem" is also my doctor because in former times, before he became a psychotherapist, he was a doctor for internal medicine and he sometimes says things like "this is a somatic based pain and this is psychic".
Now, after about 400 hours or more of psychotherapy, I am a bit at a loss. My diagnoses concludes "persistent somatoforme pain disorder", "dysthymia", PTBS and a few others like generalized anxietey.
My Problem is that he always wants to speek about everything. But there are things I have no words for, only some bodily feelings. Probably due to the fact that most of my trauma happened into the first 1,5 years of my life. I find the trauma that happened later to me more easy to deal with because I have words for it and I can remember them.
Ok, I purchased your book but I am not such a fast reader because it's all in English  . But I saw in the table of contents that you are giving lots of information about trauma, so I will see if there's something in I can use additionally to my psychoanalytic therapy.
And concerning my question of "positive thinking": I didn't understand it as a method of supressing negative thoughts and feelings or pushing them only away. I know that these feelings have an deeper reason. In the meantime I totally try to experience all kinds of my feelings and emotions. When I feel strong or even subtle emotions I often - when I am on my own - lie down and try to dive into this emotion. I don't try to push it away anymore!
But with my extremly negative thoughts I really feel the strong need to do something with them. About a few hundred times or more a day I catch my mind thinking destructive thoughts like "I can't walk", "I will never recover", "my arm is irreversible damaged". As I handled this the last weeks was:
"my arm is completely stiff since 7 months there must be irreversible damage"
--> oh, there's this thought again for the hundreths time today. Then I choose to believe something that sounds more hopeful to me like "every day I bend my ellbow a little more, even if it hurts. There's everything ok structurally". It's not that I notice I am feeling sad and I tell my "I feel great and happy".
I am even working with some visualisations to build up some inner safety. My main problem is the repeated experience of early abandonment which culminated in a kind of hospitalism, rejecting physical contact and ingestion. What I learnt was "It doens't matter if you cry or not, there's nobody who will care for you, you#re lost and the wordl is a place of fear".
So everytime when it comes to the situation where I want to go out into the world or I feel abandonned (leaving my childhood home, exercice a professiona and standing on my own feet, a dear one is leaving me) it comes to severe and persisting symptoms. My explanation therefore is: every child needs a minimum of inner safety to explore the world without being overwhelmed by fear. The main massage from my unconsious, as I understand (there're also some very ugly things, too), is: "don't move, it's not safe! And if you don't want to hear what I want to tell you I send you some more pain because you have to belief me: it's not safe!" I often had dreams of small naked chicks lying blind and without feathers in their nest and didn't try to take a look over the nest. I also often dreamd of frozen infants, without any signs of life.
Ok, that was a lot of stuff again.
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| Dr James Alexander |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 14:40:08
hi Birdie78. You've raised some really important points- here's my take on it.
Chronic pain is being generated by our unconscious for a purpose. It is there to deflect our attention away from some 'emotional truth' (which is invariably negative and painful). We learnt this emotional truth (often/usually not factually true) in a painful context, e.g when we were being traumatised by an accident, or abuse as a child, etc. For example, a child may learn in this context, 'I am not good enough', or 'the world and all the people in it are dangerous'. There is usually an adaptive reasoning to the emotional truth which was learnt in a bad situation, e.g the kid who 'learnt' that they arent good enough has managed to restore some sense of control ('the bad things happen because of my actions, therefore if i just try harder, things will get better'- while not accurate and still painful, it at least restores a sense of control and is less frightening than the realisation that s/he is at the mercy of a psychopathic adult). The person who learnt that the world is a dangerous place is actively taking actions to ensure their safety. As such, the emotional truth (rather than being a 'pathology') is in fact a solution to that particular context. Because we learnt the lesson well, the same learning then gets unconsciously applied to a whole bunch of situations which it may or may not be appropriate. This can cause problems in our lives.
The chronic pain results when we fail to acknowledge the painful emotional truth on a conscious level. In stead of doing this, we tend to take up an 'anti-symptom' stance, wherein we do all we can to get rid of the pain. The way to overcome the pain is to acknowledge its role in protecting us from the painful emotional truth. What is our emotional truth? The only way to answer this question is to delve into the negative. This will involve our negative thoughts, beliefs and experiences. If we try to ignore these, via maintaining a positive stance, then this simply plays into the purpose of the chronic pain- there is no reason to think that this is likely to get rid of the pain. And people will just keep on trying harder and harder to strengthen their anti-symptoms position.
Ironically, the way forward is to consciously acknowledge the negative that is going on for us at an unconscious level. Do we need to indulge in the negative, making us feel even worse? No- we just need to acknowledge it. Do we need to do battle with the negative (as per CBT and RET)? No- this has the effect of just adding to the strength of the negative thoughts, giving them more power. In regards to what do beyond finding and acknowledging our negative thoughts, i think what helps in order to reduce chronic pain is what ACT suggests- see them in much the same way as we see clouds floating across the sky. Yes, they are there- we can see them; but we dont have to demand that the clouds not hold the shape that they do, trying to change them.
However, i would add that for most people, i dont see ACT as being a sufficent method to overcome chronic pain- research on its outcomes with chronic pain has not demonstrated this result. I think ACT is instructive in terms of how to respond to negative thoughts, but in order to get over chronic pain, we need to devle into the negative emotions which our pain symptom is trying to protect us from- that is, stop denying it and try to become consciously aware of it. Many of the journaling suggestions and basic TMS tips can help us discover what our emotional truths are. If this is too difficult on your own (we can meet with defense mechanisms which are there to prevent us from becoming aware of the emotional truths), then getting some therapy such as brief psychoanalytic therapy, EMDR, or Coherence Therapy can greatly help.
James |
| Sylvia |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 09:40:39
Sylvia, I am glad to read that you found my "insights" to be helpful, too! I really had this "aha-moment" when I wrote this and I am a bit relieved now! I am very curious about the new thread you started!
I started this thread
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8080 |
| shawnsmith |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 09:09:44
I think we are also a guilty lot. We are filled with a lot of self-blame and tend to put ourselves down. Even when we make progress in anything in our lives we tend to either downplay it or dismiss it altogether. Or, perhaps, I am speaking of myself only.
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| Ace1 |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 08:57:58
Sorry balto apon looking at my previous post I was missing a couple of words I inserted them in capital letters, but what your saying is right |
| balto |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 08:49:01
quote:
Originally posted by Ace1
Dear balto. I think for some severe cases it takes much more time than a month. I do agree however they really have to be consistent and patient though. I also think overcoming symptoms is 50% of the battle for severe cases. I think for a lot of the book cures that is all that is needed, but in severe cases it is that intense behavior, thinking and rushing type behavior that needs to change to really fix the person. This is hard and why the severe cases take a long time to be cured even after knowing that there is nothing wrong with them.
Hi Ace, I should have add: 28 days to make positive thinking a habit, there is no time table for when we're going to heal but we should be able to see some positive changes.
You are absolutely right, we all heal differently, some will heal in a week, other will heal in months or years, depend on how severe their case are and how much they accept the tms theory.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 08:21:03
Hi!
Sylvia, I am glad to read that you found my "insights" to be helpful, too! I really had this "aha-moment" when I wrote this and I am a bit relieved now! I am very curious about the new thread you started!
Ace1, I agree that probably it takes more time than about a month in the case of severe TMS. But that doesn't bother me. Because I am in pain nearly 24/7 for soooo many years now. It all started with very intense footpain what made and still makes it unable to walk more than half a mile. Then a few years ago RSI and buttock/piriformis pain. In the meantime I have a strange and diffuse "all over body ache" + single hot spots of joint- and tendon pain + food intolerances (they got better) + fatique (no matter how long I slept, feeling always tired). I am in pain when I want to move (tendons) and I am in permanent pain when I do not move (all over body aches, except headaches. Hooray there's one place in my body which is painfree ). So perhaps I would say it's a severe form of TMS, diagnosed aka "generalized myofascial pain syndrome" and "fibromyalgia"
I totally agree with my husband: it can only get better, no matter which kind of "thought controlling" I choose.
He's always kidding me concerning my catastrophic thinking. When we get into to car: "oh my God, it's raining, we will have a deadly car accident"
I guess that all won't happen over night for me but with consequence and will some day I hopefully will heal. That's the plan
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| Ace1 |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 07:58:16
Dear balto. I think for some severe cases it takes much more time than a month. I do agree however they really have to be consistent and patient though. I also think overcoming FEAR OF symptoms is 50% of the battle for severe cases. I think for a lot of the book cures that is all that is needed, but in severe cases it is that intense behavior, thinking and rushing type behavior that needs to change to really fix the person. This is hard and why the severe cases take a long time to be cured even after knowing that there is nothing wrong with them. |
| Sylvia |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 07:15:57
Birdie you have helped me enormously!
You said this,
So it was good to ask this question here because I now see that I still produce this straining kind of thinking what feeds and fuels my TMS!
Straining kind of thinking
straining kind of thinking
By george that is my problem! In fact, I just deleted a thread I had started because I could see the whole thing was about strained thinking and my complete addiction to it.
Thank you so much. I am going to start a thread on this very thing. |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 06:56:00
Hi!
Thanx a lot for your responses (plum, das war richtig !).
I guess you're right. The problem is not a existing conflict, the problem is that I see these kind of conflicts everywhere and that I tend to react in the same manner repeatedly: it makes me feel "incapable of action" (by the way, I looked this word "handlungsunfähig" up in the online dictionary and there was the verb "to hamstring"...always thought those were the muscles on the back of the thighs??? My hamstrings often tend to be tight, probably because I feel hamstrung? As a Germann that sounds funny to me).
As I wrote I already begun with my affirmation/visualisation-praxis and I will try to continue without gettin lost in self-constructed problems...(by the way...it just dawns on me...that was exact the kind of straining thinking that made me sick a few years ago...I was writing on my doctoral thesis and there seemed to be soooo many contradictory terms that it made me hamstrung - to use this new vocabulary - and I had to give up this project because of severe TMS (I am still struggling with). I was so in fear not to be perfect and to make the wrong decicions that this led to further TMS-symptoms. Before that I "only" had severe footpain für 12 years. But then I got RSI and severe buttock-pain and asthma, was unable to sit and to write (both things that would have been needed to to this job: sitting on my desk and typing).
So it was good to ask this question here because I now see that I still produce this straining kind of thinking what feeds and fuels my TMS!
Thanx again!
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| Sylvia |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 05:29:49
Birdie, you communicate very well, no worries.
How I'm handleing it is NOT to challenge negative thoughts. The affirmations are a Fill Meditation. A period of time of giving full attention to saying/singing/thinking the affirmations. Not in direct "undoing" of a negative thought in the present.
ACT is accept commitment train? I forget now. I follow Claire Weekes easy to remember Utta Utta Acceptance.
I'm no expert, I am putting together my mind training program as we speak where I will go off forum and start the work.
I'm also going to keep a Japa mantra going, I believe in crowding out bullsh*t instead of undoing. I haven't chosen one yet though either
I have great energy (I've CFS)
Or
I am at ease
Or
Utta Utta Acceptance
Hope this is helpful. It is my plans on how I wish to proceed. There is SO much stuff a person can do or not do.
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| balto |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 05:22:34
quote:
Originally posted by Birdie78
My conclusion:
I think I think too much !
In my opinion, that's exactly what happened. You think too much. You over analyze things. You make it seem too complicated, too difficult to overcome negative thinking.
- Negative thinking is a habit, it is an addiction. With tmser's it is worst because we also very sensitive and "bewilder". We over analyze and always expect the worse, always think about the worst case scenario.
- our brain can only hold one thought at a time. No matter how hard you tried, you can only have one thought at a time.
- many studies have concluded that it take us human on average 28 days of doing something continuously, persistently for that something to become a habit ( or addiction)
- Our goal is to replace our irrational negative thoughts with realistic or positive thinking.
- Doesn't matter what method you're using as long as it help replace our negative thinking with positive or neutral thinking, it will help.
- and if you keep at it, doing it consistently, doing it persistently, it will become a habit, it will become natural for you to think "normal" again.
- Yoga, meditation, affirmation, praying, positive selftalk, getting busy all the time, doing charity work and loose yourself in your work, be with people build meaningful relationship .... they all work if you do it CONSISTENTLY for at least a month.
The only reason I see people failed is because they don't do it often enough or not long enough.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
| plum |
Posted - 01/28/2013 : 03:32:49
Great post Birdie.
Thanks for the link too. There was such a lot in there that I needed to hear.
Ich freuer mich auf die antworten.
(Hope that's right!) |
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