| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| mala |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 04:25:34
I am confused by the different approaches/thoughts/ideas that have evolved as a result of this forum. Pls don’t get me wrong, it has made for some very interesting reading but there is so much conflicting/different advice that it is hard for me to get my head around what to do. There is so much information that I find it hard now to know what will or will not work. It seems that different things have worked for different people or different types of personalities.
When I first started learning about TMS, I thought it was simple. Sarno’s approach was to think psychological, to understand that the pain was caused by the unconscious, do some journaling, talk to the brain & get back into a normal routine as soon as possible. All this was emphasized & repeated in Healing Back Pain, The Mind Body Prescription, on Howard Stern’s interview, John Stossel’s 20/20 interview, Janette Barber’s story on the Rosie O’Donnell show, & Larry King’s interview with Sarno.
Then came the forum & people got into the intricacies of journaling, how to journal, how much to journal what to journal which then led to others saying that it wasn’t necessary to journal too much or over journal.
Next meditation came into the picture, focusing on the pain, allowing it to stay, welcoming it, allowing the pain to float etc.
I have been told by some not to strain, which is good advice, not to do too much when I am hurting.
Then there is SteveO & others who challenged their pain. SteveO challenged his sciatic pain by forcing himself to sit in horrible pain. He also went out onto the golf course & whacked thousands of balls till he could barely stand.
Some members have said that they treated their pain like it was s…t, getting angry at it. Then there are others who say, be kind, welcome it, befriend it.
Like I said earlier most of the posts here are very interesting, the links are informative. We all get some kind of ‘knowledge’ out of it. I seem to ‘know’ a lot but can’t get myself pain free. That kind of knowledge then as interesting as it may be is useless.
I am beginning to think that TMS like medication & surgery is a placebo. There is nothing wrong with that. It would in fact explain a lot of things like why some people get better just by reading a book, why others get better by journaling or psychotherapy or challenging the pain or by befriending the pain. Its what you believe. The ‘aha’ moment which so many talk about is that moment when something clicks. It’s a belief that is accepted within the realm of your belief system or consciousness that allows you to then heal.
Mala
Mala Singh Barber. I'm on facebook. Look me up
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| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| mala |
Posted - 06/30/2013 : 22:00:05
RSR thx for ypur thoughts about me & my TMS journey. I started writing a long response & lost it so here is a shorter one.
quote:
the real key is: you've been working at this a long time doing your own trialling and erroring . I believe it is a dynamic process and one has to be able to use one's self as a reference point ... what has worked for YOU? Has ANYTHING helped? or nothing? Is there any direction which shows some progress / promise to you based on your OWN experience, through the years?
I tried ignoring the pain, resting, journaling, eft. I have gotten angry at the pain, tried to accept it everything but with no real success.
When I try to picture the pain like they tell you in some forms of meditation I can’t picture anything not even a colour. When I try to attach an emotion to it, it’s the same I can’t feel what emotion it is. I find that frustrating. I was once asked to draw my pain & I just sat there blank.
Which makes me think I must focus more on myself, my unique situation & how to heal myself within the realm of who I am , my personality type, my own beliefs, maybe even accepting that I will always be in pain. (It’s hard to make peace with that idea at the moment though).
When I read about others here I find that I don’t share any of the stress factors that many have here. I would consider myself in the top 5 % of the luckiest people in this world except for my pain.
One thing I have noticed is that I too am better when I express how I feel. I used to be a very angry person very often lashing out at people close to me, even in my sleep But I would never hold anything. I would have an outburst & then move on. I think people just accepted it for what it was. Since I got married I stopped that so maybe I need to look into that.
I am pleased that you are feeling better after you saw the doctor & hope you continue to feel better.
And thanks for that line from the divided mind. I’ll take out my copy & re read that bit.
quote:
some folks are mainly auditorial folks and they need affirmations mixed with visualizations to heal
while most people in pain are stuck in the kinesthetic world
and they have to be brought back to the visuals and auditorial systems to connect the three systems back together to receive a healing
Eric that's a very interesting point you have made there. I have never quite thought of it like that but it makes sense.
I agree that a multi dimensional approach is important in order to heal. We have to try everything. And thank you for the self hypnosis script. I will use it.
quote:
one can say with 100% certainty why one person recovers and another person does not even though they both seem to have correctly followed all the advice in Dr. Sarno's book
Shawn yes u r right, that’s why we have to find our own way to heal. This forum is very good in that it gives people different ideas .
Mala Singh Barber. I'm on facebook. Look me up
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| eric watson |
Posted - 06/30/2013 : 19:05:49
mala ive found while healing myself and being successful
then while on the journey helping others that the different personalities approach is a sum total of the healing process
in other words folks are different and different approachs do work
the situation that seems to be hard when helping others
is to get them to see different paths to healing
getting those that have already tried everything to try more things and not give up is hard.
I learned to say we will start here, and if this doesn't work then we will go here.
its not to hard to see why some read the works of sarno and don't heal
they tend to think if sarnos exact route don't work then there must not be a route.
when in all respect to the individual there is a route they just haven't found it yet, that's why sarno referred his patients to psychologist to help them through the hump
some ive helped have had very good success with the Basic Sarno approach
others have had great experiences with Sarno, and eft and others have to go further and use nlp and hypnosis
just a few days ago I left a hypnosis healing script here at tms.help
and that script alone has had good results for some friends of mine that has developed tms.
I put the script here so folks can see hypnosis in the right hands is safe and not of the devil
I know others that their superstitions have limited their healing cause they thought anything outside of consciousness must be of the dark world.
some folks are mainly auditorial folks and they need affirmations mixed with visualizations to heal
while most people in pain are stuck in the kinesthetic world
and they have to be brought back to the visuals and auditorial systems to connect the three systems back together to receive a healing
some folks can have hands laid on them while in prayer and they will recover
while others have to have all the psychological thoughts explained in depth before they even want to begin a new thought style to begin healing
and still others after just learning how to work a few systems back away and cut themselves short cause they think if you cant show them how to heal in a few sessions then they will go elsewhere
the conclusion is sometimes it takes time to just know your preferred system in order to start a path to healing
I know their are lots of styles to healing from sarnos work to psychology work
psychologist can take years to get a breakthrough and sometimes they don't
the mind is a very broad spectrum and ive used all these styles to get where im at today
id say use every style available till you hit the right one
sometimes this takes going right back to what you started with
to finally get results and other times its like looking for a needle in a haystack
conclusion again is to always believe, keep looking and never give up
if that means trying fresh new ideas, then why not, what do you have to loose
if we keep doing the same things expecting different results , well...
the good word says to test the spirits, well I have tested many systems and a combination of them all is whats helped me maintain my healing
from sarno to weekes, eft to nlp, psychology to hypnosis and faith to name a few
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| RageSootheRatio |
Posted - 06/30/2013 : 10:31:53
(thanks, plum!  )
mala, I found a little sentence today in The Divided Mind which jumped out at me and made me think of you (p 175):
"This was a beginning; she knew there was more work to do, but the release of tension and temporary reduction in pain told us we were on the right track."
RSR |
| tennis tom |
Posted - 06/30/2013 : 09:28:12
quote:
Originally posted by shawnsmith
...some people, like the TMS radical hardcore fundamentalist moderator of this message board who literally bows down at the grand pubah called Sarno, regularly chimes in and advises people to ignore their symptoms, it is very easy to say when one is not in severe discomfort themselves.
Shawn, although I generally like you, that's a rather ungracious thing to say about the person whose "house" you are using to convey your thoughts on a regular basis. If you fundamentally disagree with Sarno, start your own forum informing the world with what works better. This is the TMS Forum and it's obvious purpose is to discuss his theory. I've observed here, that the advice Dr. Sarno gives, works amazingly well for those who heed it, and don't nit-pick their's or someone else's, recondite sounding flaws with it.
TMS theory works for me everyday, just as it's written in the good books, aiding me to overcome untold niggling aches and pains. These fleeting TMS symptom flashes, could easily have morphed into chronic pain complexes that would have been treated by practitioners of alopathic defensive medicine with invasive procedures that could do me more harm then doing nothing.
You also make an assumption that Dave the mod here is in NO pain--how do you know that for a fact?
If I had to advise anyone here to read only one persons posts for the fast track to getting it, I would easily tell them to read only Dave's.
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| shawnsmith |
Posted - 06/30/2013 : 08:33:07
Tor Eckman (Holistic Healer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH5IMv2jeuk |
| plum |
Posted - 06/30/2013 : 04:22:33
Eileen,
A lot of what goes on here is psychological novocaine and placebo. The Sarno cheerleading is very sweet and it matters but you are quite wrong to keep calling 'distraction'. I'll say again something first said earlier this week in answer to a similar issue.
" icelikeaninja, not really law of attraction so much as a deeper understanding of how the mind-shapes-the-brain-shapes-the-mind. The joys of advancement in neuroscience means there are, now and increasingly, powerful explanations for what Sarno called the black box. He acknowledged, at the time of writing, that it was "difficult to explain at the fundamental level", but recent years are seeing the demystification of what happens between "unconscious emotional states requiring physical symtoms", the "black box", and "hypothalamus activation". So you see, changes at this forum reflect a greater neurophysiological insight. Sarno didn't just defer to Freud. He thoroughly embraced Candace Pert's work too. If anything we are in the midst of a vindication and essential elaboration of his work. Exciting times my dear."
It is within this embrace that more people are healing.
Of course no one should ever ignore physical symptoms initially. They must be checked out, and only then should you choose your healing path. Interestingly Candace Pert recommends integrative healing where you select the best-for-you elements of conventional, psychological, complementary and spiritual healing. This is sage. Healing is always and ever going to be different for each of us. We have to tune into our authentic selves and learn to follow our voice again. You cannot become enlightened by reading a book, likewise you cannot truly heal by reading one. Being human is more complex than that.
Mala, RSR's response is a gift. Choose your path, commit to it and run like the wind.
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| mala |
Posted - 06/30/2013 : 03:54:56
quote:
Although these quick cures take place, they are rare and not always lasting. I don't like to hear of them as they have a negative impact on those who suffer over a long period of time as they get further discouraged. Your husband, if he is still symptom free, is actually an exception to the rule and thus cannot be taken as a typical example of recovery. For some unknown reason - that not even he would be able to explain unless he has a PhD in bull****ology - he got lucky. I hope he does not forget to thank God for that, because many people struggle for years with little or no success and it is not always clear why this is so
Quick cures can & do take place. Healing back pain & The MBP have stories of that happening and if you look at the Thank you Dr Sarno stories on the THSwiki, you will find some there too . If u don't like to hear about them Shawn then don't read them but pls don't take it out on Eileen's husband just because he was lucky enough to have a quick recovery. Its important to hear how anyone recovers irrespective of the time it takes.
I imagine that Eileen's husband is just one of those lucky people who 'got it' immediately , maybe its something to do with his personality, maybe something he read resonated with which he made a connection. Maybe he doesn't carry as much emotional baggage or bu.....t as others here do. Or maybe he just was able to let go of the fear factor & move on.
If I remember Howard Stern made a quick recovery too.
And whether anyone should thank their God or not is really none of your business.
Mala
Mala Singh Barber. I'm on facebook. Look me up
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| shawnsmith |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 21:16:47
EileenTM,
Although these quick cures take place, they are rare and not always lasting. I don't like to hear of them as they have a negative impact on those who suffer over a long period of time as they get further discouraged. Your husband, if he is still symptom free, is actually an exception to the rule and thus cannot be taken as a typical example of recovery. For some unknown reason - that not even he would be able to explain unless he has a PhD in bull****ology - he got lucky. I hope he does not forget to thank God for that, because many people struggle for years with little or no success and it is not always clear why this is so. Of course some people, like the TMS radical hardcore fundamentalist moderator of this message board who literally bows down at the grand pubah called Sarno, regularly chimes in and advises people to ignore their symptoms, it is very easy to say when one is not in severe discomfort themselves. Let me twist your arm until it almost pops out of its socket and then see how the advise to ignore the symptoms sounds like to you. The role of the symptoms is to get us to pay attention, that there is something not quite right. Advising one to ignore that message from the body is just bad advise, period. |
| EileenTM |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 16:12:10
I think that alot of what has been going on on this forum that last several months is just more distraction. All the over thinking and analysis is just more distraction away from what might be the psychological causes. It is much harder to sit with the symptoms and ask what might be going on psychologically than to log on and see what's up. I know that I am guilty of that.
I dont mean to sound callous, but I watched my husband heal in about a week from 2 years of very severe sciatica. He did not journal. He just thought about what might be causing it.
He watched the pain recede and then slowly returned to running. Since then he has run 4 half marathons. He does not check this forum. And while he is mostly still pain free he does have flare ups from time to time. I came to this forum, because I had very different, odd symptoms.
The success stories have reassured me they are "normal" tms.
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| RageSootheRatio |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 13:57:42
Hi Mala,
quote:
It seems that different things have worked for different people or different types of personalities.
I think this is very true. And I believe it is because we are all individuals, and there is no such thing as "one-size-fits-all" in anything in the world, let alone mind-body conditions.
quote:
There is so much information that I find it hard now to know what will or will not work.
... what will or will not work ... for WHO? I am assuming you mean, ".. will or will not work for YOU."
Aye... and there's the rub! I do believe there is a lot of trial and error involved. If Sarno's book(s) alone works for someone, they have "trialled" an approach, found it to work, and don't have to look any farther. If it doesn't work, then one would tend to look for other things to try ... as you say, more intricacies on journalling, meditation, not-straining, visualizations, depth therapies, challenging, not-challenging, getting angry at pain, loving pain, floating through pain, etc etc ...
But the real key is: you've been working at this a long time doing your own trialling and erroring .. I believe it is a dynamic process and one has to be able to use one's self as a reference point ... what has worked for YOU? Has ANYTHING helped? or nothing? Is there any direction which shows some progress / promise to you based on your OWN experience, through the years?
At the end of the day, I think you're right that all the advice is worthless (may be interesting and/or entertaining), but worthless in terms of pain relief, if it doesn't help.
quote:
I seem to ‘know’ a lot but can’t get myself pain free.
I think there are two areas of knowledge ... what we know about different approaches, and what we know about our SELF. (This is something I've had great difficulty with.)
I'm curious:
Did any type of journalling ever really help YOU? ("EBT" type journalling has been helpful to me.)
Did welcoming the pain or focusing on the pain help YOU more *or less* than ignoring the pain? (When I really ignore my pain, it has had bad outcomes!)
Did getting angry at YOUR pain help YOU more? Or did "loving" YOUR pain help YOU more?
(I've had success with both at various times)
One important thing that I noticed about myself is that trying to relax (ie through meditation, self-talk, breathing methods,) often works less well for me than expressing my feelings in some way (but it does seem to depend on how stressed I am, in the moment what works.)
BTW, pan recently started a thread on "belief":
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8636
As an aside, I've had more symptoms lately and despite Ace1 telling me months ago to get them checked out, I just couldn't do it. I basically told myself it was stress and got on with my situationally stressful life. Anyway, this past week, the symptoms really ramped up and I got scared. Went to the doctor. He was reassuring, took good notice of my self-reported stress and told me the symptoms could be a "distraction" ! He actually used that word! (I asked him if he was familiar with Dr Sarno's work, but he had never heard of him; just said that this is something he had noticed in his own years of clinical practice!) Anyway, he ordered some tests, but after I left his office being mightily reassured, my symptoms improved about 95% !! (back today, although not too bad.)
sorry I'm kind of rambly today but I appreciate your posting on this topic!
RSR |
| pspa123 |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 12:31:36
Ironically, on a thread about the conflicting advice we see here, we see conflicting advice. So it goes. I think Shawn may be right, it isn't possible to squeeze the universe into a single ball. |
| shawnsmith |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 12:06:22
Mala,
There is no one universal recovery story that applies to everyone as evidenced by the numerous recovery stories that contradict one another. That is why when someone recovers they can only say what worked for them. They cannot say that what worked for them will work for everyone else. This becomes confusing for the person who continues to suffer despite long and numerous efforts to rid themselves of their symptoms. People who advise sufferers to ignore their symptoms as if they did not exist are not helpful in their comments because there is no way one can ignore pain that is so powerful and intense that at times it is difficult to function or think straight. The very purpose of the pain in the first place, at least as argued by Dr Sarno, is to distract you. So the more you seek to ignore it, the more intense it will become.
No one can say with 100% certainty why one person recovers and another person does not even though they both seem to have correctly followed all the advice in Dr. Sarno's books. |
| gigalos |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 09:57:40
My two cents based on everything I think I learned the last couple of months,
Placebo is simply the capability of your body to heal from or adjust itself to a structural change. I personally think that any structural strain or stress is counterproductive to this mechanism. For example, constant fear of symptoms, worrying about symptoms, getting angry at symptoms or any way of constant focussing on the symptoms.
I think that the people who challenge the pain don't necessarily get strained from it, because it is their way to overcome fear, worry and it is outing the anger rather than surpressing it and become structurally angry.
I think it is a personal choice what road to take. The important thing is that it doesn't strain you so you allow yourself to heal. |
| plum |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 08:50:48
I agree with you Mala.
The term placebo is incredibly misunderstood.
Jared posted a couple of links on this which are worth reading. Here's the forum link to both: http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8598
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| Back2-It |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 08:44:33
quote:
Originally posted by balto
quote:
Originally posted by mala
I am beginning to think that TMS like medication & surgery is a placebo....
... It’s a belief that is accepted within the realm of your belief system or consciousness that allows you to then heal.
That's all there is to it Mala. for thousand of years Buddha and countless other wise men/women taught exactly that. "you are what you think you are".
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience.
Now there is scientific proof that the Buddha was right: our bodies are what we think.
People try to attach something "magical" about Dr. Sarno and his methods, but, in my opinion, if you read HBP and MBP carefully, he is advocating nothing more than changing your thinking. People get lost in his theories of the "why" of it all. Does not matter, even to him, if you read carefully. Understand what you have (in Sarno's case, he took on the great anxiety plaguer, the "bad back"), understand that it is your fear and your fear of the fear that is causing the symptoms and there you have it.
It is when everything is over thought, is when the trouble begins. Those who accept the explanation, the book cures and others, they return to normal quicker, but those with more anxious personalities, who need more knowledge (and often do not find it), have trouble. This is why I believe the one weak leg on the stool in the MindBody "prescription", if you will, happens shortly after a person understands that the pain or symptoms are psychogenic, but no medical practitioner --"TMS" or otherwise-- can tell them why they hurt where they hurt. Dr. Sarno could do this in a personal visit. He had a lot of clinical experience, especially in muscular and skeletal, where so much of the pain happens, and many in the "TMS" world, including docs, do not, so the niggling fear continues and often amplifies when the expected "thinking psychologically" does not immediately reduce or eliminate the pain.
Changing thinking is the answer, armed with knowledge, but it is not easy, especially after a long time of sensitization, but it is done everyday by those who willingly accept their symptoms and set themselves on a steady, progressive course towards living their lives and turning outward again and losing the fear of the fear of the condition. They start to play with the rubber snakes, instead of fearing them, right Mr. Balto?
"Bridges Freeze Before Roads" |
| tennis tom |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 08:40:07
quote:
Originally posted by Dave
The key is to recondition yourself to accept them rather than fear them, and to go on with your life as if they did not exist.
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| balto |
Posted - 06/29/2013 : 05:51:49
quote:
Originally posted by mala
I am beginning to think that TMS like medication & surgery is a placebo....
... It’s a belief that is accepted within the realm of your belief system or consciousness that allows you to then heal.
That's all there is to it Mala. for thousand of years Buddha and countless other wise men/women taught exactly that. "you are what you think you are".
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
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