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Fox
USA
496 Posts |
 Posted - 09/28/2004 : 09:28:38
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| I know that Sarno has called anxiety and depression TMS equivalents....I wasn't sure that I really bought into that until this weekend....I have a propensity towards obsessive worrying about a variety of areas in life, such as feeling guilt if I haven't done exactly the right/perfect thing in connection with raising my two kids...Once I get started with worrying and ruminating, it can occupy me for hours and sometimes even days (although I continue my normal daily activities)...I found out over the weekend that I can completely short circuit such bouts of intense worry (that border on panic) by focusing on mental images of traumatic incidents from childhood - the same sort of thing that I do to stop my sciatica....It only takes 1 to 2 minutes to stop the bout of anxiety. I may have to do the same anti-TMS work again later in the day, but the bottom line is that I can finally stop these obsessive bouts of worry - without really much effort or time involved - and I can thank Sarno for this. |
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iyusaf
USA
57 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 10:18:00
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| Interesting post, Fox. When you say you stop your sciatica by focusing on mental images of traumatic incidents from childhood, do you drop into feeling or do you simply replay and watch the movie in your 'head' (or some combination)? |
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Fox
USA
496 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 11:43:25
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| Using your terminology, I replay the movies in my head and watch them. I try to put as much detail and color into the movies as possible....Sometimes, when trying to short circuit the chain of rumination, I do search for the feelings associated with the events pictured, but not always. Usually the feeling is intense anger at those involved with the event. It appears to work just as well without the feeling component, however, to get rid of the obessional, guilty thoughts....Of course, I have only been doing this with the rumination problem for three days, but it sure has worked so far, and I see no reason that it will not continue to be effective....To relieve the periodic and rather severe sciatica that I experience, I do have to "work" for longer periods of time than I do for the rumination problem. I have been doing this effectively for over a year with the sciatica and find myself about 80% improved......It's not just the mental imagery with the sciatica that is helpful. I also do the other standard Sarno stuff for this problem -- disputing in my brain that the increase in pain has been caused by a physical activity, disputing any structural basis for the pain, trying not to restrict my activities (the hardest part for I still have many activities that I dreadfully fear will trigger the pain), "shouting" at my brain for its involvement in the charade, searching for the cause of my current anger, and trying to let the current and old anger out by aggressive activities like screaming in the car and beating on the steering wheel. |
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moose1
162 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 19:30:21
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Fox,
I'm curious to know if when you started visualizing traumatic experiences from the past, wasn't it extremely painful or very disturbing to relive these experiences? I'm wondering if by doing this that maybe it would be very painful initially, but that facing that pain up front, in vivid detail, and acknowledging it that you actually reduces its power and negative effect, thus making the unconsious stragegy of applying pain unneccessary. That would make a lot of sense to me. Is this in the ballpark?
Thanks in advance.
Moose |
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Fox
USA
496 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2004 : 07:38:43
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| Moose - you are exactly right. At first visualizing these past traumatic experiences was anxiety-producing, and in some cases, felt downright creepy. And I had to really force my brain to sustain some of the images for longer than a flash. It seemed that my brain was reluctant to pull up some of the more emotion-laden images. But after a while these images seemed to lose their emotional impact to a great degree. Now, I feel a pleasant sense of mastery over the images of these events (and the events themselves) which once elicited great fear.....By the way, the more I think about it, I realize that I do throw in some events that were beyond childhood, but the ones that gave me the most fear were those from childhood, and I always start off with these. |
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Defeating obsessive worry
