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Sylvia
199 Posts |
 Posted - 02/26/2013 : 06:05:51
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AND NOW FOR BALTO...
I got better but I wanted more. I want a 100% better. And that's when my best friend let me borrowed "Hope and Help for your Nerves" by dr. Claire Weekes. I also got an audio copy of the book. Her calming voice and just the caring way she used her word has helped me a lot. I keep listen to the tape for days and days, then one day it just clicked for me. One day I just realized that all my symptoms were started by my emotion, by the intense stress, but my symptoms stay with me because I fear it. It being keep alive by my fear. I feared the symptoms, I feared what the symptoms mean to my body, I worry about the future of my health. And if I can some how stop that fear I would be cure, and that's is exactly what I did. I just refuse to fear anymore. I am sick of being sick and I'm not going to take it anymore. No more fear for me. Yes Sir, no more fear. Whatever happen happen, I'm not going to fear anymore.
Boom, I was cured. After a few more weeks of what I called "exposure therapy" and deconditioning myself to many situation that trigger a automatic respond from my body, I'm completely cured. That was about ten years ago. I now happily married. I love my job, my family, my life. I am content and confidence. I faced the same work stress and life stress now just like before, but it doesn't bother me anymore. I am at peace.
Here is my conclusion:
life stress, life trauma, negative emotions... start the symptoms. Fear is what keep the symptoms alive.
You want to stop new symptoms from appearing, change your perception about life. think positive, slow down, be compassionate, get involve, be with people, do charity work,...
You want to stop existing symptoms, just stop fearing it. stop focusing on your symptoms, stop focusing on the body, move one and live your life as if everything is fine. There are many techniques out there to help with overcome your fear like : positive affirmation, meditation, praying, live in the present. But the most important is to accept that your ill is caused by your emotions. If you can accept that you're half way there. The fear just start to melt away. The rest is just conditioning that we have to deal with.
think about the past created symptoms. Think about the future keep your symptoms alive. The past created anger, the future produce fear. Stop both of them, live in the present and you will have peace.
I hope this helped inpire you to heal yourself. I was there, I can heal so can you. I'm not a very smart guy, I'm a college dropped out and I have fail at many thing in life, if I can do it, you can do it.
I pick 'Balto" as my screen name because of that Disney cartoon of the same name. I just want to be that dog that bring medicine to help the villagers. The medicine is right inside you. Be strong, think healthy, don't be affraid, and you will heal. We are much more powerful than we think we are. We just have to take control of our thinking.
You are what you think.
I got over them by just prepare myself before I face them. I will tell my brain that I am OK, fine, I will drink coffe, it may trigger this and that, but it is just an illusion, just conditioning, I will be fine and I will keep drink. No need to fear anything. Then I just drink everyday and have a good talk to myself everytime. I did the same for all the other conditionings and slowly over time I was free of them.
When Pavlo keep ringing that bell but don't give his dogs any food, eventually they stop salivating at the sound of his bell. They keep "expose" to the condition and when what they expect don't happen, eventually the conditioning effect lost it's power.
here is a prescription I got long time ago for hypochondria from an online friend.
- Stop searching the net. Stay away from google, yahoo, webmd... for 1 months. Don't visit any health forum. Better yet, do not use the internet for anything but work. spend free time with real people, positive people, (or dogs)
- don't watch TV, don't read the news, stay away from negative people.
- Stop focusing on yourself. Spend time thinking about how you can make someone happy today, tomorrow, or nextday. Volunteers, join the gym, call up some old friends and chat. (don't mention your illness). One of the main cause of hypochondria is loneliness and selfish, we think to much about ourselve and not other.
- alway find positive things to do like go on a vacation with some positive friends, go for a walk, go to a museum,... go with someone you trust and enjoy talking to and promise yourself you will not talk about 'you' in this day. Talk about anything but yourself.
- find a good therapist who practice CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) and stick with his/her program. Some people don't like this but this was provened to work in relieving hypochondria
- Every morning when you wake up tell yourself you will not focus on any health issue just for today. You are sick for years and you have not die yet, just for one day you will forget all about your illness and your body. Just one day... then one more day.... No whining, no negative talking for just one day.
He promised me I will be well in about 2 weeks if I follow this prescription with all my heart. Guess what, It did work.
All tms patients are hypochondriac to some degree. We're to wrapped up in our search for anwser to our disease and with the help of Google and webMD and many other useless, negative health forums we have a case of information overload. Negative informations, wrong informations.
If you can do all this you will be cure.
Hope these would help or inspire you during your recovery:
= "There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear." Ben Jonson.
- "If you want to conquer fear, don't sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy." Andrew Carnegie.
= "In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it." George Bernard Shaw.
= "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear." Edmund Burke.
= "Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair." Edmund Burke.
= It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius.
= "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing." C.S. Lewis.
- "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." Ambrose Redmoon.
- "Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out".
Karl Augustus Menninger.
- "Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real." Unknown.
- "Fear is only as deep as the mind allows." Japanese Proverb.
- "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold." Helen Keller.
- "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." Marcus Aurelius.
- "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." Eleanor Roosevelt.
- "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy." Dale Carnegie.
- "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood." Marie Curie.
- "Fear cannot take what you do not give it." Christopher Coan.
- "Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself." Samuel Butler. (maybe he had tinnitus?)
- "Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is." German Proverb.
- "If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all thinking, damages his personality and makes him a landlord to a ghost." Lloyd Douglas.
- "He who fears something gives it power over him." Moorish Proverb.
- "He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear." French Proverb.
- “You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.” Dale Carnegie.
- “Better the man that conquer a thousand thousand men is the one who conquer one, himself.” the Buddha.
I think affirmation work or can be very helpful to your health and mentality if you also act and live just as you're telling yourself. If you tell yourself "I'm happy" then you have to also act happy, smile, and do things to celerate life. If you tell yourself "I'm strong" then you have to show it, work out, do chords, fix things around the house, exercise, run,...
Hi HMG, I suggest you read the book "Hope and Help for your Nerve" by doctor Claire Weekes. Many people who could not be help by Dr. Sarno's teaching, cured themselve with Claire Weekes' book. I am one of those.
I'm not a fan of the unconscious but let try to use what Dr Sarno taught to see if it can help you, since you've already read his book. In any of his book, Dr Sarno never suggest to anyone to try to "purge his/her repressed emotions" like you said you wanted to in your post. It is "unconscious", you don't know which emotion or feeling that caused your pain. It could be some of the anger you had a month, a year, or 30 years ago. You don't need to know what emotion started the symptoms for you. All you need are:
1 - You Believe in the tms diagnosis and believe that you symptoms have an emotional cause.
2 - The symptoms are there to distract you from feeling that negative emotion. In order for the symptoms to successfully distracting you, it has to be able to hold your attention. How does it do that?..... by creating fear and health worry.
3 - Without fear, without health worry, the symptom doesn't do the job it suppose to do, then it will cease to exist.
4 - So if you want to get well you have to stop your fear of the symptoms and stop worrying about your health.
The concept is extremely simple, but how to achieve a fearless and worry free mentality is not easy, But if you can make yourself not to fear the symptoms, not to worry about your health, then you will be cure.
The one who suffered for years and years are the one who could not accept the tms diagnosis, they keep looking for an organic or physical cause. And they could not overcome their fear of the symptoms.
Some tools people have use to help them are: Mind power, positive self talk, meditation, praying and give your problem to your God, get so busy and have no time to think about the pain, surround yourself with fun and happiness. Count your blessing. Elliminate negative thoughts... The goal is to stop your fear and to have more positive than negative emotion.
Goodluck HMG.
If the sum of your positive thoughts is greater than the sum of your negative thoughts, your mental health will be in the positive territory.
Yes, you have to get rid of those negative thinking. Our brain treat every negative thought as a sign of danger. Negative thoughts produced negative emotions. And when the intensity of those emotions get to a certain level, your "fight or flight" respond kicks in. It will make your muscles tense up and restrict blood flow. Stress hormones will flood your blood stream and create all kind of tms/anxiety symptoms.
I think the best book to help us elliminate negative thought is "Mind Power into the 21st Century: Techniques to Harness the Astounding Powers of Thought - John Kehoe."
This book will change your life! Read it and practice the techniques it describes! It is not a tms book but using the techniques taught in it, you will be able to overcome your tms/anxiety. You can check out Kehoe's informative site: www.kehoe-mindpower.com. As long as you practice his techniques regularly and keep focus on your goals, you will see results in your life. It was also highly recommended by one of our forum's member, Ace1.
I did have hot flash, usually on the top of my head and on my back. It went away after awhile. I do think it is tms. Fear it and it's there. Stop your fear and it gone.
I think there are lots different "methods" to cure our tms/anxiety illness. Several I can think of are:
- Meditation.
- Yoga.
- Sarno said: recognize that you problem is mental, not physical usually is enough.
- therapy.
- desensitize, exposure, keep doing the thing we affraid to do...
- pray,
- acceptance.
.....
Whatever method you can think of, they were all designed to help you to forget your problems. They all tell us: don't think about it, don't give it any value, accept it, not fear it.
If you can clear you mind of thoughts about your pain, your symptoms, they will leave on their own.
If your focus is not on yourself anymore, the pain will vanished.
And remember, whatever method you use, it will take time.
For me, I took the leap of faith and just refused to fear my symptoms any more. The symptoms left me within 3,4 weeks.
I think Sarno and many other authors are being nice in their writing. They mostly said tms/anxiety usually happened to goodist, perfectionist,... I think they should have add "selfish, self-center" to the list. If we can quit thinking about ourself and live totally for others then we will never have any of those mental diseases anymore.
Martin Luther King, mother Terresa, Joan of Arc, Gandhi, ... I don't think none of them have tms.
Hi Eric, If you use what Ace1 said above you will heal.
I just want to add that we also need to do more to prevent tms/anxiety from happening instead of just treating it when it happened. We washed hand, we take vaccines, we stay away from germy places... so we don't get flu and cold every year. We can do the same with tms/anxiety.
We need to de-stress our life. Get our life in order. Simplify it, stop prograstinate, be more compassionate, relax and enjoy and appreciate the simpler things in life, share more, laugh more, and above all, accept more.
Acceptance is one of the most powerful tools we have to deal with all those negative emotion. It is not what happened to us, it is how we react to it that caused emotional turbulences and pain. We can look at all those poor and desperate people all over the world, all they got is acceptance, without acceptance they wouldn't survice.
deal with your stress. Try to minimize it if you can. Try to find another way to deal with stress instead of just being it's victim. If all else failed, try to accept it. Stress, situations that produced stress is part of life, we are all going through it. It will build character, it will help us be stronger, it will not last, it will be a great learning experience... so accept it and move on. Don't dwell on it.
Think of it like the weather. When it is too hot outside, if we don't stay in the shade, if we don't drink enough fluid, if we don't minimize physical activities, we may get heat stroke. When it is too cold, if we don't dress warm enough, if we expose our body to the cold environment too long, we may get frostbite and may die from it. We all have stress in life, but if we expose ourself to stress for too long it will hurt. It will become tms, anxiety, panic, ptsd, OCD, CFS,...
- So try to limit stress in your life as much as you can. Adopt a "I don't give a Sh.." mentality.
- Try to add more laughter, more fun, more compassion, more love, more sharing, more positive into your life. They help cancel out the negative in your life.
- Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance. Bad things will happen. We all will suffer from lost, from grief, from this and that and nothing we can do about it. Just being more acceptance and move on.
quote:Originally posted by balaenoptera
I have problems with the floating. I can imagine how to float in anxiety, fear or other feelings. Claire Weekes also said: “look right through the panic, the cure lies on the other side”. I have no clue how to transfer that to a constant pain, to a muscle or joint. Any suggestions?
Bala, we all don't like pain, but you have to realize the different between tms pain and normal physical injury pain. Broken leg, nasty cut, hit your head falling down the stair, dob bite, tooth cavity... real physical pain hurt but they all different from tms pain is that they don't produce FEAR. They hurt, they bother us, the pain may be too intense to sleep, too painful to move... yet we don't fear them, because we know exactly what they are, what caused them, and they WILL heal.
TMS pain caused fear. We don't exactly know what caused them, we have lots of doubt, we affraid the pain is a sign of something is very wrong, we affraid it will turn into something worst, something permanent, something incurable... that fear of what is going to happen is what keep them alive.
Understand that you have fear, understand that the pain symptom is creating this fear. Understand that if you can somehow stay calm and like Peregrinus said, be an observer, the fear, to panic feeling will subside. Make up your mind that you will not fear it, then just "float". Float is like acknowledge that you, the pain, is there but I'm not paying you any attention. I know you are harmless if I don't fear you. then go on doing something else with your life.
When fear thought come, just dismiss it. Just gently let go of it, don't fight it, just let go, let go... then keep your mind focus on something else. Find something for your mind to focus on intensely, something that can keep your mind's attention and displace those fear thoughts. Do it in a gentle, peaceful, and calm way.
With practice, with enough time, it will become a habit. You will become a professional ANTS killer. (ANTS stand for automatic negative thoughts).
Goodluck Bala.
You wrote beautifully, I could never write like that. Thanks.
Hi Aussie, there are many many reasons people don't get better despite having all these knowledges about different methods of tms treatment. I have the privilege of working with quite a few people in my own community and I have kind of putting together a list of those reasons that I have seen. I hope it would be of some help for you:
- your life is still stressful. Something in your everyday life is still bothering you mentally and continue to create negative emotions that produce negative symptoms. the sume of your emotion is more negative than positive.
- You're not fully believe in whatever methods you're using. Whatever you've learn from books, forum, doctors... is not convincing enough for you. Deep down inside you still doubt that it would "cure" you.
- Even when you're believing that a particular method would help, you somehow fail to NOT focus on your symptoms. You somehow can stop your brain from producing negative reaction to your symptoms. The symptoms is the focus of your thinking.
- You can't stop from having health worry thoughts (fear). You keep worry about what these symptoms will lead to. (get worse, permanent nerve damage, paralyse, cancer...)
- You don't give it enough time, you're not patient, you don't give the "treatment" enough time to work.
You have to simplify your thinking about tms/anxiety. Don't think of it as something so complex, so fearsome. You don't have to pay thousand of dollars for some programs to help you.
Tms is nothing but symptoms created by negative emotion and everyone is capable to get rid of it.
Elliminate as much of your current life stress as you can. Accept what you can not change or change your perception about it. Focus more on the positive side of life. Never ever worry about your symptoms, and most importantly, believe that you will completely heal.
It's all about BELIEF.
our brain get input from our 5 senses and our thought and convert them into emotions. And when emotion is strongly negative, it produce tms/anxiety symptoms.
Beside that, our brain also instruct our body to act like a mirror of our belief. It reflect exactly what our belief about our state of health is. When we have sickly belief, we will feel sick. When we have confidence, strong, and healthy belief, we will be healthy and strong.
All mindbody books taught the same thing. All tms/anxiety teacher taught the same thing. They all have the same message, just different ways of saying it:
Stop worry about your health - stop focus on your symptoms - believe the symptoms is benign - move on with life as normal as possible - destress and live life more positive... don't forget to give it time... symptoms will cease.
How you achieve these step is for you to figure out. We all get there, some taking different routes, but we'll all get there.
It is very very simple. Negative emotion cause symptoms. So just stop all negative thoughts then you will be fine. How? you figure it out.
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Edited by - Sylvia on 03/30/2013 08:02:44 |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 06:19:23
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Don't watch TV, don't read the news, stay away from negative people is the best advice on this whole posting. I have no idea what is taking place in the world and I don't give a **** either.
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"The urge to just be done with what we are doing and to go on to the next task is the number one cause of tms and everything is compounded on top of this. It is so ingrained that most will not see it even when they are told that it is there. It took me a long time to see this and figure this out through deductive reasoning. It also explains why our society has a lot of back pain but it is non-existent in the tribal community." --- Ace |
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pan
United Kingdom
173 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 06:25:41
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnsmith
Don't watch TV, don't read the news, stay away from negative people is the best advice on this whole posting. I have no idea what is taking place in the world and I don't give a **** either.
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"The urge to just be done with what we are doing and to go on to the next task is the number one cause of tms and everything is compounded on top of this. It is so ingrained that most will not see it even when they are told that it is there. It took me a long time to see this and figure this out through deductive reasoning. It also explains why our society has a lot of back pain but it is non-existent in the tribal community." --- Ace
I would also add avoid mindless Internet usage as well.. I'm not just talking about medical stuff, symptoms and TMS etc but just allowing ourselves to be bombarded by images, information and opinions. I caught myself doing this the other day and a harmless search for information led me to some horrible videos from Nigeria that had been posted under the guise of 'news'....the negativity is still sitting with me now.
Wake me up with your amphetamine blast
Take me by the collar and throw me out into the world
Rock me gently & send me dreaming of something tender
I was brought here to pay homage to the beat surrender
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Sylvia
199 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 06:46:57
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Here is my conclusion:
life stress, life trauma, negative emotions... start the symptoms. Fear is what keep the symptoms alive. (written by Balto)
I like this very much
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 06:49:25
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Yes, wise advice Pan.
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"The urge to just be done with what we are doing and to go on to the next task is the number one cause of tms and everything is compounded on top of this. It is so ingrained that most will not see it even when they are told that it is there. It took me a long time to see this and figure this out through deductive reasoning. It also explains why our society has a lot of back pain but it is non-existent in the tribal community." --- Ace |
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bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 09:54:35
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Cheers Sylvia!
I know Balto won't like the attention but his posts deserve to be collected and preserved for later use. Like the Hillbilly thread, I hope this can be a great intro for the newbies to this forum gem. Thanks for taking the time to do this. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 10:18:12
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnsmith
Don't watch TV, don't read the news, stay away from negative people is the best advice on this whole posting. I have no idea what is taking place in the world and I don't give a **** either.
Yes, I only watch Tennis and the Speed Channel, 24/7. Haven't read a paper in years--only if I'm in it. If anything big happens I'll hear about it in the hot-tub--yesterday's talk/noise was exclusively about knee and shoulder surgeries. I put my headphones on to music and read some Nicole.
Cheers,
tt/lsmft |
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pan
United Kingdom
173 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 10:27:58
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I dunno but I'm thinking that maybe the media actually sets out to foster this underlying sense of fear, tension and unease in us all.
...imagine that hey. ;)
Wake me up with your amphetamine blast
Take me by the collar and throw me out into the world
Rock me gently & send me dreaming of something tender
I was brought here to pay homage to the beat surrender
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 10:31:57
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| Pan I would consider changing you signature. It is very sensitizing and a form of negative mind power. Remember you dont have to believe in what you say for its effects to take hold. |
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pan
United Kingdom
173 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 10:37:31
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Hmmm, funny thing ace in that I find the words very uplifting and inspiring.
It's all about being wary of falling into apathy and letting others dictate the course of your life. It is also a reminder that we are part of a bigger process and ultimately we need to surrender to this to find comfort.
....it'll do for me! :)
Wake me up with your amphetamine blast
Take me by the collar and throw me out into the world
Rock me gently & send me dreaming of something tender
I was brought here to pay homage to the beat surrender
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balto
839 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 10:51:21
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I'm glad you find these posts helpful Sylvia. I just want to add that I am no expert at all. Just want to share what has worked for me and for the people in my community that I was working with. And hope that it would work for others here.
Hey, reading back on my old posts I see that my English has improve. I'm going to copy this and send it to my old english teacher. He failed me 3 times in English 101.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
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Sylvia
199 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2013 : 11:59:16
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quote:
Originally posted by balto
I'm glad you find these posts helpful Sylvia. I just want to add that I am no expert at all. Just want to share what has worked for me and for the people in my community that I was working with. And hope that it would work for others here.
Hey, reading back on my old posts I see that my English has improve. I'm going to copy this and send it to my old english teacher. He failed me 3 times in English 101.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience.
Balto your posts are an invaluable addition to the Teeumass world. Your English cuts through and is very clear. I'm glad you are not asking me to do away with your posts.
You are so right about us Teeumasser's being selfish and self-centered. When outer directed where is the fear and obssession over symptoms or my fearful future.
I think and feel that you are a treasure Balto |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2013 : 16:51:52
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| Great posts by balto! We all really appreciate him on this forum. |
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eric watson
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2013 : 17:10:08
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sylvia-nice post
ol humble balto
keep em rollin-
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bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2013 : 21:01:56
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Your English is beyond sufficient, Balto. Your message is what matters.
Keep up the good work, sir!
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2013 : 16:54:03
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| I feel there is a lot of things in this post of Balto's which needs to be discussed here. Let's do so in the coming days ahead, especially the role of fear in perpetuating symptoms. I feel with this observation Balto has targeted the number one problem why symptoms persist. |
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gailnyc
USA
80 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2013 : 17:27:27
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| I absolutely agree that fear is what keeps symptoms alive. Once I started feeling less fear my symptoms started diminishing. The trick is figuring out how to feel less fear. |
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bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2013 : 10:23:40
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Didn't see you added that Sylvia. Great job. Love
This thread. |
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bryan3000
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2013 : 10:31:39
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Hi Sylvia,
Yes I do get your messages and enjoy them. However, your mail always rejects email so I gave up responding. Lol |
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Sylvia
199 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2013 : 10:33:16
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| bryan, join tmswiki, then we could talk. I'm Sylvia over there. |
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stocktrader
30 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2014 : 14:32:18
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Moving up. Good informative post.
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"Your thoughts create your reality" |
Edited by - stocktrader on 10/24/2014 14:50:31 |
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Wise posts of Balto
