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Logan
USA
203 Posts |
 Posted - 01/19/2005 : 09:52:54
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Hey all,
Just thought I'd share a little triumph. Those of you who've read my previous posts know that I've been pain free for about a year and a half now. While that is true, staying that way is something that requires me to be vigilantly conscious of my emotions, conditioning etc. (I think this is the real reason DiskPain/MR and others like him panic and hightail it to the surgeon's office...but that's another post). Anyways, I had the opportunity to practice this consciousness last weekend on a ski trip and was rewarded with one of those instantaneous healings Sarno mentions in his books which was a pretty neat thing to witness firsthand.
Friday morning, on my second day of skiing, I fell getting on the lift. To be more accurate, I did a sort of stunt-woman fall off the lift because I realized I wasn't fully ON it and if I was going to fall, it was better to fall on purpose while I was relatively close to the ground rather than fall on accident when I was 20 feet up. I slammed down pretty hard on my left side on the icy snow. I did this in front of about 15 people and my husband who managed to stay on the lift and was now cruising up the mountain with an excellent view of me sprawled out like a turtle on its back.
I can not emphasize how much I HATE, HATE, HATE looking like an idiot in front of people. I hate not being good at stuff and I especially hate being not-good at stuff in public. I've spent the past two years getting to be a pretty good intermediate skier and I have NEVER fallen off a lift before even though I used to terrify myself with the fear of doing it. So, needless to say, this thing could have been the match that lit a powder keg of TMS pain - and it nearly was.
Back to me on my back...so, I staggered back up on my skis and skiied around to the back of the lift line, got on successfully this time, and started up the mountain behind my husband. As I was riding up, I started thinking about how I wanted to handle this when I met up with him at the top and he offered his sympathy for my klutzy plight. (I also HATE being the object of other's sympathy!)
My usual M.O. would be to get defensive and pissy and to throw a little tantrum about how it was the lift operator's fault for not warning me the chair was coming up fast, or his fault for rushing me - to pump up some rage at everyone in the vicinity and to project that anger OUT and away from me.
Well, I thought about that for a few moments and I decided that, no, I didn't want to do that. I thought about all the skiiers I know - including my husband - and how they've all done what I just did. It didn't mean I was a bad skiier or an idiot or anything like that; I didn't have to take it personally.
I saw that I had the option to be angry for a moment and then just laugh it off and let it go. But, I also have been doing Stan Lee's anger release exercises long enough to know that the anger I had inside my body had to get out somehow or it was going to be sticking around and ruining the rest of my gorgeous Colorado day, so I punched the lift railing for a minute or so...carefully holding on with my other hand so I didn't plummet to my death, of course.
When I got off the lift, I told my husband, "you know I really wasn't ready to load, I'd have been better off waiting for the next chair. I fell sort-of-on-purpose though and I'm fine. My ego and my ass are bruised but I didn't break anything and the chair didn't hit me on the back of the head and there werent' that many people who saw me bite it, so all in all, it was a good fall." I made a joke about my "chilled ham" and that was it; I skiied off smiling.
A couple of hours later, riding another lift, I noticed that my neck on the right side was really tender, the muscles felt hard to my touch and I was having trouble turning to look over my shoulder. It felt exactly like my neck used to feel if I slept on "too fluffy" of a pillow and because we'd been sleeping in a hotel, on a strange bed, on fluffy pillows, I was tempted for a moment to panic, really tempted. I was thinking, "oh no, my pain is back"! Then I calmed down and thought, "no, I probably 'strained' it when I fell." Then I thought, "more likely, it's because I'm pissed that I fell. It's TMS, I'm not going to worry about it and it'll go away." And it did; from that moment on, it began fading quickly away until the next day, I felt totally FINE!
I think it helped also that my husband did actually DO something that evening that I had a reasonable right to be angry with him about and I expressed that to him immediately, without first trying to rationalize my anger away. We talked things out and he apologized and I accepted his apology without apologizing for being angry, which is another success of a different kind.
So, that's it. I just wanted to gloat about being pain free in case there were more people out there who think we're all always whining about being in pain and we aren't really healed. :) I am a buff, strong, pain-free skiing machine my friends! And still a little klutzy, but that's okay!
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Tunza
New Zealand
198 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2005 : 12:46:48
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Thanks Logan,
Your post is so articulate and encouraging as usual. Maybe one day you could put your experiences down in a book? After all most of the books on TMS seem to be written by men. Nothing wrong with this of course but it'd be good to have a female perspective also.
Kat |
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Stryder
686 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2005 : 21:24:57
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Hi Logan,
Your post makes a lot of sense. Within the last 6 months or so I've been starting to recognize a "TMS fit" coming on during various life situations, and I've been more successful in thwarting the pain before it starts, or just as it starts (just like you did).
Its very liberating to finally see the - - cause - - effect - - of Dr. Sarno's work in action, now that we can recognize what is going on.
-Stryder |
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pault
USA
169 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2005 : 17:59:30
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| Good for you! The human body is very durable,you proved it.Paul. |
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success!
