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Monte
USA
125 Posts |
 Posted - 06/19/2013 : 15:25:34
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TMS Update - June 2013 - A Lesson in TMS = Balance
We have many ideas about TMS that are simply not true. One encompasses the logic around 'curing' TMS. I can assure you that there is not a 'cure' for TMS and there never will be. Healing from TMS involves a lifestyle approach and as long as you have a mind and a body you are living a life that will always produce mind-body effects/symptoms and will always have the potential to generate chronic mind-body effects/symptoms that can be classified as TMS. A person that desires to heal TMS symptoms will be best served by accepting and adopting this truth.
Have you heard the adage: "Learn the lessons that life comes to teach rather than resenting the teacher". TMS is a teacher, it is not a punishment! TMS is essentially a learning experience/situation/challenge that has a lesson for us to learn. The big picture lesson of TMS is that something is out of Balance in your life. We are quite fortunate that our mind-body system has an inborn mechanism that seeks balance. Our job is to make some adjustments (minor or major) in how we are Being. What are our big, huge tension generators? Perfecting, Pleasing, Striving, Holding in feelings, Controlling, Being Competitive or Overly self-conscious, Habitual worry? When we are heavy duty in some or all of these patterns we are (1) Generating Inner Tension and we are (2) Repressing or Avoiding our Emotions. Eventually we get the effects of this unbalanced way of being.
TMS, as a teacher, is giving you the opportunity to assess the quality of choices you are making and the consequences (symptoms) that these choices create in your life!
Most people that come to me for coaching or guidance for reversing TMS are looking for a quick fix. I usually represent their final stop. They have been a patient of Dr. Sarno, they have been with a TMS psychologist, went through Dr. Schecther's workbook and/or Dr. Schubiners program. Having experienced cures, successes and lapses, they are now confronted with a new TMS symptom or recurrence of an old one and are hoping for the final bit of information that can ultimately end their TMS struggles.
There is a quick fix! Sometimes very quick and other times not as quick as people would like. Healing from the chronic TMS cycle begins when you can accept that there is not a cure. Healing from TMS continues when you accept, adopt and begin practicing the lifestyle approach.
Healing one's body or one's life challenges requires daily practice and attention
from Caroline Myss
TMS Roadblocks:
1) TMS Support Groups and TMS Help/Message Boards - Dr. Sarno stated that 'information is the penicillin' for TMS. Dr. Sarno had weekly and monthly lectures to help people understand and have CONFIDENCE in TMS. This was prior to the internet age. These lectures worked because they were weekly and monthly. There was time in between for people to reflect and do genuine inner work. I'm sure he never envisioned someone would be online everyday searching, investigating and analyzing TMS. As well-intentioned as these groups and online sites are, they are keeping people Stuck in TMS. They are helping you Avoid and Deny your emotions, they confuse you, create doubt and they keep you searching/analyzing and investigating. They are your distraction.
Sidebar: I have read one book on TMS, Healing Back Pain, back in 1999. The only TMS book I have ever read. I did not even know that TMS help sites/support groups existed. I literally can tell a person everything they need to know about TMS in 10 minutes. I'm not boasting, I want you to understand that the concept of TMS is quite simple. It is Mind-Body and/or Cause/Effect. Spend your time and energy in making adjustments and bringing balance into your life. Your work in healing your body and life's challenges requires daily practice and present-moment attention to the real cause of TMS. I have successfully used this approach to remain free of the TMS chronic pain/symptom cycle for 12+ years. Don't let the searching, analyzing, investigating, intellectualizing and socializing of the internet Distract you away from your inner work that only you can do. It will keep you stuck!
2) Searching for repressed emotions and believing that finding them is the Cure - Once people accept TMS and begin practicing 'think psychological', this is the place they get stuck. Yes, repressed emotional energy is the main ingredient in TMS. If you have unfinished business in the past then by all means address the past. However, most of the repressed emotional energy in TMS is the day-to-day stuff. We repress/avoid/deny our emotions everyday when we are in our chronic patterns of: Worry, Striving, Perfecting, Pleasing, Controlling, Competing, Being Self-Conscious. This chronic repression that has been going on in your life for the past 10, 20, 30 years or more is the big, huge repression in TMS. This is the Unbalance that TMS has come to help you with. We can easily learn to make small and big adjustments in some areas of our life (thoughts/behavior patterns) that will change everything. It’s hard work but easy to understand if you can get out of the ‘cure me’ mode and into the ‘I get it, I need to make some adjustments/lifestyle mode’.
Sidebar: Sitting with Emotions Practice - page 54 of The Master Practice - This is the most effective and efficient way to spontaneously reverse TMS. Dr. Sarno told us to 'Think Psychological'. Thinking psychological will break the strategy of TMS. You no longer focus on the body/symptoms and instead you go psychological. Sitting with Emotions is how you go psychological for emotional work, however the less you think the better. When you sit with your emotions and shut-off the mind you allow yourself to experience repressed emotional energy. This practice will dissipate the repressed tension energy and it dissipates the compulsion to go back into one of your chronic thinking patterns! This practice is how you EXPERIENCE emotions and it is how you STOP or interrupt your repression pattern. If you will make this practice a genuine part of your life and not a Fix or Treatment for TMS you will begin to understand how the lifestyle approach works!
3) Fear, doubt and rational/intellectual thinking. These are the typical qualities of the person who has not accepted TMS 100%. Again, Dr. Sarno's genius was making us aware of the intelligent Pain/Distraction Strategy associated with TMS. People keep the strategy 'alive' with fear, doubt and rational/intellectual thinking. Fear consumes and keeps you focused on the body and who can fix you. Doubt keeps you searching for a different cause or treatment. Rational/intellectual thinking is the sophisticated way to stay stuck. You can rationalize almost every TMS symptom into a physical cause or dysfunction if you try. The more you rationalize and intellectualize your symptoms the more irrational TMS will respond to you. It's all distraction. Distraction is your enemy and the TMS Strategy's best friend. Belief, Confidence, Conviction and Acceptance are your invisible allies that reverse and defeat the TMS strategy. These are also the qualities that allow you to genuinely live the lifestyle approach to reversing TMS.
Sidebar: Remember that you must address both components of TMS if you want to live without the constant struggle. 1) Communicate to the strategy with confidence and conviction that you accept the TMS, psychological cause. Don’t get sidetracked and distracted by anything outside of you.
2) Address both components of the Cause: A) Repressed emotional energy. B) Your patterns that are doing the repressing.
Remember that TMS is a teacher. Bringing balance into your life is the solution. Make sure you make it a genuine lifestyle solution of change and not a treatment or quick fix!
Stay the course,
Monte Hueftle
TMS Mind Body Coach
www.runningpain.com |
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tmsjptc
USA
124 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2013 : 11:16:24
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| Monte, great post. Thank you. |
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1koolkat
USA
24 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2013 : 16:43:00
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| Yeah, nuf said. Thank you so much, Monte! |
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eric watson
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 06/22/2013 : 05:16:49
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This is a great message Monte
you forgot to mention that the other half
of the folks that fair and get well like me
do have board memberships on tms sites and love it
if it weren't from these boards where would I be
I see a lot of shouting down the messengers
your message is good and well taken
if we just stick to the good stuff and ask when needed
stopping short of obsessing we will be fine.
its the questions like ( I had a dream about a red hornet on a blue balloon? what does that mean?)
Those not so legit questions and many angry questions I agree can get you to hurting.
been there done that, probably fall into it again one day.
to make a long story short, the boards offer up support that really generally works .
The problem as I see is when someone wants the cure today
or healed today.
I really believe its important to have folks you can ask legit questions from and get a variety of answers. make some friends and enjoy the show
other than the agreeing to disagree part
the Tms update
A lesson in TMS= balance
one of your best lessons indeed
thanks Monte
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TMS Update - Message from 
