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Originally posted by Webdan65

When you feel like you know what is going on, yet the pain persists - it can be pretty frustrating. Especially when you read about these "book cures". There are plenty of people who read the book and the pain simply goes away. Fast.

"Why not me?" we ask ourselves.

I've read Sarno's, Brady's, Sophers and Amir's books so much I can practically recite them to friends and family. I've watched the videos. I've done the journaling work so much that my focus on what I was repressing started to depress me.

Overal Sarno's work has helped a lot, but I never could quite get to 100%.

I've recently turned a corner and I want to share what I've discovered.

For me, it's all been about expectations and fear. The more I fear the pain and the more I expect it - the more it's there. Without fail.

On the other hand, the more I tell myself I'm Ok and that I'm not going to hurt, the better I feel. Amazing.

The challenge is figuring out how to actually stop being afraid of the pain. As someone who's been stuck on the floor for 14 hours straight, not being able to get up... it's really easy to be afraid.

So, as a result of reading a book on mental programming, I decided to try something new for my own pain.

The book is "What to say when you talk to yourself" by Chad Helmstetter. The concept is "Self Talk" which Sarno tells us to do. Sarno says to "Talk to your Brain".

In this book, Dr. Helmstetter explains that everything we do and experience in life is as a result of the programming in our subconscious. If you have learned as a child that the rich are evil, you'll have a tough time becoming financially rich. If you believe you are a procrastinator, you will always struggle to get important things done.

And translated to back pain: If you believe you have a "bad back" and that you will experience pain anytime you do anything physical, you WILL.

Here's my take on how chronic pain happens.

Most of us started having pain in one of two ways.

1. Trauma - a real injury that we have convinced ourselves "has never quite healed."
2. Gradual onset - pain that somehow just starts and progressively gets worse.

In this quick fix society - we hurt, we go to a doctor. We want someone to "fix us".

So, we start going to mainstream doctors, chiropractors, surgeons, phisical therapists. We start reading mainstream medical literature and websites. All of this input causes us over time to become programmed to believe that we are broken, frail and destined to a life of pain. MRI, XRay and Cat Scan Imaging studies just magnify the fear and programming.

Without even being aware of it, a mild episode that may have gone away on it's own in 15-30 days now becomes a crippling event.

My sister-in-law went from a mild episode to being "diagnosed" with fibromyalgia in 6 months all due to being programmed that she was "broken".

I struggle with this feeling of being "broken" myself. So, I decided to test this Self Talk theory and consciously change my "program".

My test: I literally created a recording of myself speaking affirmations of my well being, my healthy and pain free back, etc. I did it with uplifting music in the background and saved it in a format that I can load to my iPod. I put it into a playlist and basically listen to it in Loop mode as I go to sleep each night. Basically it keeps playing over and over until I shut it off.

I play it in the background during the day as well.

I took the time to write it out - focusing on framing my affirmations in positive statements of being able to do things comfortably, easily and pain free. Then I simply mustered up all the confidence in my voice and read it with emotion into a microphone onto my computer.

Proactively, I am now "reformatting the hard drive" of my subconscious brain and my thoughts.

My results so far? I'm a lot better now than before I began testing out this process. What is cool is that within DAYS of starting this mental reprogramming, I started to feel way better. I'm still not completely done, but the quick results were a powerful confirmation of the concept of how our "programs" run our lives.

Call it affirmations, talking to your brain, autosuggestion or whatever. In the end, if your program is filled with "pain messages" that's what you'll experience despite logically understanding Sarno's theories.

You need to do the work to convince your subconscious that you're fine. Unfortunately that takes repetition and some time. And if you are trying to convince yourself that you are fine throughout the day as you fight your fear and actually feel pain - it is difficult for the logical to prevail over the fear and the pain.

In the end, the stronger "program" will ALWAYS win. If the fear and expectation of pain is stronger than your affirmation that you are fine, the pain will always win.

So, for me, the quickest way of handling the repetition and allow the "I'm fine" program to grow stronger than the fear was to "automate" it. Again, the recording of my own voice saying over and over how healthy and pain free and unafraid I am was the trick for me.

I have actually gotten better results with this approach than I did with the focus on the negative emotions and journaling.

Has anyone else tried this? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Dan

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Originally posted by Webdan65

I agree completely about Noah's book. When you ask empowering questions - you are working with your brain and the BS meter doesn't go off.

For those who don't know what we're talking about:

The Secret Code of Success - by Noah St. John.

It's on Amazon.

A worthy read for anyone looking to reprogram your mind.

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Originally posted by crk

I use a combination of 1) those statements from the Helmstetter book (esp. pgs 180-200 in my copy) which suited my needs and 2) statements I wrote to address specific negative thoughts, based on the work in my Sarno journals.

EG - For a defeatist attitude and thinking that my experiences in the coming day(s) would turn out badly because they had in the past day(s)... "My past does not equal my future. I open myself to expect success and happy outcomes. I am comfortable with the unknown aspects of my future." (ie I don't *know* what the day will be like and that's ok.)

EG - For the feeling I get that I must always hurry, won't have time to do *anything* (paralyzing), and do not have the right to take my time (This was a HUGE discovery that tms journaling gave me; I was constantly being pushed along and hurried by my older siblings and parents and had (have?) a lot of rage about it.) .... "I have plenty of time to do the things I set out to do. I never feel rushed."

I look forward to typing all my bits and scraps of paper up into one good list sometime soon. I will start a new thread I think, link it to this one, and invite others to share their favorite affirmations. Maybe someone can link it to the Wiki too. What do you think?

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Maybe someone can link it to the Wiki too.

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Originally posted by Hillbilly


A guy named Gupta has a similar program for "reprogramming the amygdala" for dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome. Aren't we finally seeing that the answer is not as simple as screaming in the car, beating pillows, journaling, etc., but that changing the way we think, on a conscious level, minute by minute, ultimately keeps us free of these nervous ailments? For many, the pain goes away only to return because of social influences, our inability to adapt our emotional expectations and accept those changes/stressors, and/or reliance upon our insufficient experience to accept our realities.

I know this sounds like a proposal for a doctoral dissertation, but the common theme I see in all these "treatments" is that they are aimed at changing thought paradigms such as "pain means disability" and welcoming emotion, even overwhelming emotion, and getting us to accept ourselves. What say you?

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