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Sarah Jacoba
USA
81 Posts |
 Posted - 01/11/2005 : 23:46:16
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Hi! the following occurred to me this week
Several people (including myself) have mentioned Taming Your Gremlin on this site in the past. Likewise, a number of people, including myself, have posted their struggles with the strong Freudian bent of Sarno's works with regard to repressed emotion.
So here's how the Gremlin concept can provide a helpful (I think) alternative/complement to the emotional psychology of TMS:
I had a really rough day last Tuesday -- very rare, since most of the last year has been pretty good for me. So I immediately began to think of what I might be frustrated or angry about that might be at the root of the flare. (And I'm not saying that's a bad way to think). However it suddenly occurred to me on Wednesday that perhaps the flare is the perverse Gremlin aspect of the personality reacting against my happiness. I.e. I started my new year w/ a focus on trying some new and positive things and had gotten right into them on Monday and Tuesday this week, right before the flare. But there is definitely a part of us that is scared by any change, even the positive and joyful, and resists joy. (whether you call it the gremlin or whatever). So this explanation was like a breath of fresh air to me, because I have found in the past that thinking I must be repressing something negative when otherwise I've just had a great couple days is depressing in of itself and tends to compound the TMS. So this Gremlin explanation just liberated me from that! And I felt alot better!
The biggest question mark for me about the Gremlin idea is the very theory itself: i.e. why do we have, as Carson argues and never worries about explaining, this omnipresent gremlin that seems, basically, to have the job of persistently wishing us ill and misery? it doesnt seem to make alot of psychological sense. When I was younger and first struggling with pain I wanted proof of such assertions. But I think I've grown out of that. The idea is just so helpful that I dont worry about the why. I bet Carson sidesteps the whole question in his book anyway as too dangerously close to wrangling with one's Gremlin!
I guess I'll say one more thing, which I may have said before: that the other breath of fresh air about the gremlin theory is that everyone's got one, and everyone always will have one, which liberates me again from feeling like a freak for having TMS, and from feeling like a failure when it is persistent. My gremlin just happens to use TMS as his weapon, someone else's uses other things. But he's there, this is his job (misery) and the best we can do is tame him (as the book says); he's not going to go away no matter how happy or straightened out we get, and in fact, as this post suggests, he may flare up specifically when we are happy!
--Sarah
"When dream and day unite" |
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374 Posts |
Posted - 01/12/2005 : 02:44:59
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Very interesting post, Sarah. Like you, I've been helped tremendously by Rick Carson's book. He put a name to a negative 'something' in my personality that led in the end to severe TMS.
It's taken a long time and a great deal of work to put that negative something where it belongs - at the back of my mind - a little voice that makes a sound of warning when something I might do or say is really not a good idea. I think that that's the proper job for a gremlin. In some of us it gets promoted way beyond its natural role and it takes a great deal of work and understanding to demote it again. Carson has worked out a really good, optimistic and amusing way to help, in my opinion. I can see why it wouldn't appeal to everyone, but I love it.
Like you - it's a breath of fresh air and yes I definitely relate to your insight about the gremlin aspect of your personality reacting against your happiness.
I think you had a bit of a 'eureka' moment then, Sarah.
Best wishes
Anne |
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key distinction about emotions
