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K2toK9
29 Posts |
 Posted - 06/26/2007 : 18:36:10
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JohnO,
Let me know what you think of your appointment with Dr. Martinez. I aw him about two years ago and he sent me to see a Therapist who deals with pain issues....and I believe, he co-authored a book with him. I am, however, still dealing with my foot pain.
K2toK9 |
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floorten
United Kingdom
120 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2007 : 05:16:00
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JohnO,
It seems to me that you have the belief that you don't control your beliefs!
Everyone controls their beliefs 100%, unless they abdicate responsibility for this by believing that they can't and that their beliefs somehow must be corroborated by external people and/or evidence. The way in which you are looking for a TMS authority like Dave or a Doctor to "re-install" the correct beliefs in you seems to suggest to me that this is the case for you.
Here's my advice:
Decide that you are the sole controller of your beliefs. No one else can get inside your brain to do that work. Next decide that appearances are often deceptive and that you will give no weight to the word of non-TMS doctors and any evidence that appears to run contrary to TMS theory. If they want to play the "structural defect" game then let them, but don't let them into your life.
Then start looking for evidence to back up TMS theory in your case - ie. small progresses you have made in the past. Next vow to not give alternative theories the time of day. You need to be disregarding them offhand in the same way a religious zealot refuses to listen to anyone else's religious beliefs!
Next take a similar tough line with your TMS. See it as an imposter who feeds off your doubt and distraction. Like the vanishing Star Trek bullets, TMS needs your belief to continue working. It also needs to keep distracting you from examining it head on, because when you do it dissolves the TMS slowly but surely.
Try simply sitting there with the pain and feeling it. Keep out thoughts that play in your mind like a broken record. Cut them off if they start. You will notice a tingling come to the pain area and a slight change in the quality of the pain, though not necessarily the intensity. This tingling is the sign that healing is slowly occurring, and quite possibly the effect of a minute increase in oxygen to the nerves and muscles involved. Just keep doing this several times daily and gradually, day by day, your symptoms should improve.
Hope this helps,
Greg.
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"What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves."
Robert Anton Wilson |
Edited by - floorten on 06/27/2007 05:36:46 |
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h2oskier25
USA
395 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2007 : 07:33:44
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnO
Dave --- where are you? They're talking about Star Trek for some inexplicable reason (?) Way off my original question I know you can answer...........
I can't believe you thought this was off topic. What a great analogy with not believing the bullets are real.
It's easier said than done, but this really speaks to the heart of not taking the pain seriously. Yes, you have pain, we all have. No, it's not serious, OR YOU WOULD BE GETTING WORSE.
Look at your syndrome over the life of your pain, however many years that is. Have you gotten worse?
Beth |
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JohnO
USA
63 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2007 : 14:05:54
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| K2toK9 -- Dr. Martinez is beyond awesome. He is a Sarno disciple but is flexible and not 100% by the book in that respect. He also referred me to Dr. Siegel. Can you tell me how that went for you? Dr. Martinez thinks that my GI miseries are from stress which makes sense since I have a stressful job and my wife watches little kids (day care). Need I say more? But Dr. Martinez is terrific. He turned me on to TMS theory in 2001 when I had bad neck pain problems and I was quickly better. |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2007 : 14:41:33
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnO
I have a stressful job and my wife watches little kids (day care). Need I say more?
Actually, yes, in your journal. You must delve much deeper into these aspects of your life to reveal the sources of rage. |
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JohnO
USA
63 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2007 : 14:49:43
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| Dr. Martinez actually thinks I should pitch the journaling as it is not working and focus on stress reduction. He's not really a "purist", I guess, although he does believe in psychogenic causing physical pain. |
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2007 : 15:27:59
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I see people get all tied up in knots with this stuff. 100 percent this, journaling that, must feel this, must not feel that. It's all good, all part of the process, but there comes a time when it's too much. Counter-productive.
The human mind is not built to be free from blemish when it comes to beliefs and belief systems. We are, by nature, creatures of doubt and uncertainty. There's nothing wrong with this.
I can only tell you what's worked for me, which again is to act as if I believe 100 percent, while accepting as right and natural my all too human worries, fears, and doubts. Trying to control your own mind to such a degree in my opinion will only cause increased stress. |
Edited by - art on 06/27/2007 15:31:19 |
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weatherman
USA
184 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2007 : 21:05:05
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One approach that's worked for me before regarding pain is to say "OK, it hurts, but so what - I'm still going to do what I want to do. I don't CARE if it hurts." Often, that outlook has greatly reduced my pain level to way below what I had anticipated on some pretty strenuous hikes and ski trips.
If even a conventional doc has told you that your GI stuff is basically a nuisance (if I've read things correctly) but no cause for serious concern - then not assigning IMPORTANCE to it is the key.
Weatherman
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. |
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Scottydog
United Kingdom
330 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2007 : 07:44:54
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quote:
It seems to me that you have the belief that you don't control your beliefs!
Everyone controls their beliefs 100%, unless they abdicate responsibility for this by believing that they can't and that their beliefs somehow must be corroborated by external people and/or evidence.
Thanks for this post, Floorten, I know the above is true but let things lapse when under stress - a very useful and timely reminder for me.
Anne |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2007 : 09:01:33
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quote:
You’re right, Paul. I was better for a while until it ramped up again in the last few weeks. When I went on vacation to Arizona I was fine. No stress. Then when my a-hole boss quit I was better for a while. Then it ratchets up again. I am sure relaxation and stress have a lot to do with it.
You can see your pattern is classic TMS and you know that serious physical issues have been ruled out. When you are worrying, remember these things.
As far as 100%, here is my take on that. We all have little niggling doubts that come up from time to time. I still have them. I had some mild shooting pain in my arms recently and I thought "Oh no, what if it's RSI come back again?"
The key is what you do with it. When you get those thoughts, have a thought you can grab that counteracts them. The Sarno mantra is a good one:
This pain/misery is real but harmless, it's because of my emotions.
So have a doubt thought, and then you have a thought you grab, and you work on putting belief into the thought you grab. Then you dismiss the importance of the symptoms and move on: think of something else, start a new activity. If you feel the need, do some journaling or emotional introspection, then or later on. (But if you don't, whatever. There's not one way of dealing with TMS that works for everyone; don't feel you "have to" do this and that. Remember, lots of Sarno's patients get better just from the knowledge!)
After a while it literally becomes a conditioned response, so now pretty much whenever I have signs of my normal kind of pain, I either first think Sarno or if the physical does come up, my mind automatically goes to the Sarno thought.
It's not really 100% belief but 100% commitment.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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JohnO
USA
63 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2007 : 10:22:34
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Thanks for the replies from all. I appreciate it more than you know.
One last question -- how does stress play into TMS? It must be a repressed emotion, I am guessing. |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2007 : 12:46:28
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| Conscious stress and anxiety is a symptom. It serves the equivalent purpose as the pain: to distract you from the repressed emotions that you cannot feel. |
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h2oskier25
USA
395 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2007 : 13:18:50
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quote:
Originally posted by armchairlinguist
It's not really 100% belief but 100% commitment.
Hear! Hear! Well Put. |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2007 : 21:09:19
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"We get too much to do at work and we feel "stressed" but really deep down we are angry to be put upon."
"Sometimes, oddly, the emotion of fear is also covered up by anxiety. I get anxious about getting work done but the actual fear is of not measuring up."
These are really good points. The stress and anxiety just cover up the real emotions that we are so reluctant to acknowledge. Nice comment, ACL. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2007 : 08:52:59
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Ack! Where did my second post go, about anxiety? I can see Littlebird's quotes, but not my original post. Did I say something inappropriate?
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2007 : 15:00:49
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave
Conscious stress and anxiety is a symptom. It serves the equivalent purpose as the pain: to distract you from the repressed emotions that you cannot feel.
I've always had a problem with this. As much as I admire Dr. Sarno and his theory, he goes too far in my opinion. Anxiety and feeling "stressed-out" are fundamental human emotions. Hell, my dogs feel plenty of anxiety. Are they trying to distract themselves from repressed emotion?
The notion that anxiety, fear, and worry are merely distracting "symptoms" is profoundly radical and not supportable in my opinion. Same thing goes for depression. If anxiety is not "real" and "depression" is not real, then a goodly portion of the known spectrum of human emotions is out the window.
The assertion that it's all about "rage" is as radical and unsupportable as Freud's original contention that it's all about sex, an idea that today strikes most people as quaint at best. |
Edited by - art on 06/29/2007 15:03:43 |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2007 : 15:44:58
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quote:
Originally posted by art
I've always had a problem with this. As much as I admire Dr. Sarno and his theory, he goes too far in my opinion. Anxiety and feeling "stressed-out" are fundamental human emotions. Hell, my dogs feel plenty of anxiety. Are they trying to distract themselves from repressed emotion?
I believe dogs can have TMS. But that's another topic 
Of course, Sarno is not saying that all emotions are TMS equivalents. We have anxiety for many different reasons. If you're about to give a public speech and you get butterflies and sweat, then clearly that anxiety has a conscious source. Similarly, if you stub your toe, then the ensuing pain is not TMS.
But if you suffer from chronic anxiety or depression then I believe it is a TMS equivalent. Modern medicine would have you believe it is a chemical imbalance, but it is the chicken and egg scenario. The chemical imbalance is a symptom, not a cause. |
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floorten
United Kingdom
120 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2007 : 06:27:11
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quote:
Originally posted by art
[
I've always had a problem with this. As much as I admire Dr. Sarno and his theory, he goes too far in my opinion. Anxiety and feeling "stressed-out" are fundamental human emotions.
The notion that anxiety, fear, and worry are merely distracting "symptoms" is profoundly radical and not supportable in my opinion. Same thing goes for depression. If anxiety is not "real" and "depression" is not real, then a goodly portion of the known spectrum of human emotions is out the window.
Who says that anxiety, fear and worry are "fundamental"? They certainly are prevalent, but I don't see there's any reason to conclude that they *have* to be a part of your life, any more than back pain has to be part of it. Like any negative emotion, they serve a useful purpose in pointing out when you're losing the plot, so to speak.
I can personally testify that I've experienced anxiety as a TMS symptom. It came on after a stressful trigger, fed off past negative experience and memory and subsided after I told it to leave me alone, and that I knew it was just TMS bogey-man pretending to be my own thoughts. Classic TMS behaviour. I don't even think it has to be chronic or acute anxiety either. I notice TMS anxiety trying to creep into my mind in subtle ways. The pattern is always the same though - if I believe what it says, it worsens. If I don't buy into the anxiety and/or identify with it, it subsides.
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"What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves."
Robert Anton Wilson |
Edited by - floorten on 06/30/2007 06:28:17 |
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2007 : 10:58:44
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quote:
Who says that anxiety, fear and worry are "fundamental"?
Nature does. Human beings, indeed all animals, are wired to be fearful. It's our genetic legacy, and utterly necessary from a survival point of view. Because fearless organisms do not tend to survive, the quality of fearlessness cannot be passed on.
On the other hand, since fearful, cautious animals do tend to survive, these qualities are "selected for," persisting down through the generations.
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Edited by - art on 06/30/2007 11:03:55 |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2007 : 08:57:53
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Primitive fear that is shared by all animals is not the same as "manufactured" fear (for lack of a better term).
If you're taking a nice stroll in the woods and confronted by a huge black bear, no doubt you will feel primitive fear and all of its accompanying symptoms.
But there is another kind of fear, such as fear that your TMS symptoms will get worse, fear that you will die of a heart attack, fear that your parents will disapprove of your decisions, etc. These are more irrational and manufactured by a different part of our brain, for a different purpose.
Any symptom can be "real" or "manufactured". We can feel pain from a legitimate injury, and then 6 months later after it has fully healed, the brain can manufacture the exact same type of pain as a TMS symptom. |
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Dave or anyone -- The 100% Thing
