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Hi GR, I am not at all surprised that you had a relapse of symptoms right before your wedding. However, it might be helpful if you could try to touch on these feelings and physical sensations in order to make friends with them, because that is what they are. You are being offered a whole new and refreshing way to experience yourself. Try to just notice them without fear, analysis or judgment and believe that the next moment could be totally different. Although we generally think of weddings as joyful events, they are also right up there on the list of stressors and anxiety provokers. You probably have a lot of conflicting emotions and thoughts at this time and that is perfectly normal. You should make a special effort to very kind to yourself at this time. My first husband also passed away at 32. Five years later I remarried and I probably even had repressed feelings of guilt for marrying another man. As much as I love my current husband, I think I never really got over the death of my first husband.

To answer your question, the strategy I have developed involves getting in touch with my emotional feelings while staying firmly anchored in the present moment. Let's say for example, if I was facing what you are about to face like getting married, I would first of all identify my "feeling state". Let's say that my mind has labeled it as "anxiety". Remember that all feeling emotions are basically unconscious (and possibly repressed) physical sensations. Our minds sense this jumble of physical sensations that we call feelings and place a thought or label on them, such as "I am experiencing anxiety". I believe that we do not need to analyze why, for what reason, we are experiencing these at this moment. That is often obvious if you are about to be married. These feeling sensations only want expression in consciousness so I give them that by focusing totally, in a quiet place, on what is happening internally in my body while I am experiencing this anxiety. I do this because I know that by allowing their full expression, they will cease to bother me, if I recoil from them, they will bother me more. For example, in my case, I can sense and feel the actions of my CNS. I can usually feel that there is a tightening or knot, even a slight panicky feeling in my gut. From here, I begin to be aware that my heart is pumping a little faster and this extra volume of blood is coursing through my veins. I am aware of some fullness in my chest as well as some readiness and flexing of my muscles as if getting ready for fight, flight or freeze. It is hard to explain, but I trace these feeling states to uncomfortable and often alien to my conscious mind, physical sensations generated unconsciously by my CNS. At first, this is very hard to do because we are so accustomed to being completely unaware of them. However, my firm anchor in the present prevents these physical sensations from overwhelming me or causing me to act on these sensations like running around the room. While doing these exercises, I do not focus on the pain or TMS symptoms if I am having them. I only notice them and that is it. Sometimes I become aware of another emotion, such as fear or anger that needs addressing. Again, I go through the exercise of touching and directing focused awareness at these uncomfortable physical sensations until I have achieved some comfort level with them. In my case, usually the TMS symptoms will disappear almost without notice.

I have often been able to relieve my chronic insomnia using these exercises of discovery of where in my body uncomfortable sensations are coming from and to quiet them using soothing music or meditations. This usually involves discovering the sensation through focused awareness, bringing it into consciousness, and then doing whatever it seems to be asking for relief, all the while staying planted firmly in the present moment.
I believe that, in this way, these unconscious sensations do not build up and cause chronic pain. So far this strategy has worked quite successfully for me.

I read several books during my TMS recovery journey. The 2 that helped me the most were Dr. James Alexander's book "The Hidden Psychology of Pain", and Dr. Peter Levine's book, "In an Unspoken Voice, How the Body Releases trauma and Restores Goodness". Of course, I also read all of Dr. Sarno's books in the beginning. These were instrumental in developing my firm belief that I had TMS. I modeled my exercises after the ones suggested by Dr. Levine.