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I hope the previous post makes sense! If not, please ask questions so I can clarify.

Also, before I write anything else, I'm still assuming those of you reading this have been thoroughly checked out by a medical professional, and have ruled out other causes of pain.

So now I hope it's clear that TMS is an off-shoot of a body in constant, subacute survival mode, which is really just a state of chronic anxiety. I'll used the terms interchangeably. I personally don't believe the brain is doing anything to punish us, distract us, or show us anything. It's just stuck in fight or flight as a result of our brains and environment evolving over time, resulting in an overstimulated sympathetic nervous system.

The body is stuck in a sympathetic-dominant state, and many types of dysfunction stem from that, TMS being just one. Pain is due to overstimulated muscle tone, and oxygen-deprivation is the result.

This is also why most TMS sufferers usually have other chronic problems besides just pain. As I mentioned before, blood and resources are diverted away from digestion and reproductive areas, so problems in those areas are common for TMS sufferers. A body in survival mode can often have sleep problems as well, because it can't go into deeper rest states. The brain obviously wouldn't want you to fall asleep if your life were being threatened! There are for more potential problems that can occur, but that goes beyond this post.

So now it should be more clear why TMS occurs. And when we add the idea of stress hormones being potentially addictive, the changes in our thinking when in survival, and our modern brains' ability to cause physical changes by thought alone, is it any wonder chronic pain is such a massive issue now?

As a quick aside, Dr. Sarno was also correct as to why modern medicine is so bad at treating it: because of imaging technology, docs almost invariably blame the problem on structural issues, because that's what they can see. Very, very unfortunate, but it is extremely difficult to talk patients out of a structural diagnosis once they've seen their scans and had a doc tell them that's why they are in pain!

The fundamental way to cure TMS is to stop the chronic survival mode. As @miffybunny said, it's actually quite simple, in theory. Some people can just accept that and move right through it (those are the 'book cure' people), but for someone like @BloodMoon, who seems to be quite intellectual and headstrong, it can be harder, because they will tend to analyze ever little aspect (which can easily cause more stress). And/or if you've dealt with stress from a young age, the survival mode will be more hardwired in, and will require more effort to break.

But this is why Miffy's advice of 'just go live your life' is so simple, yet profound. Acceptance of suffering will end it eventually, because that alone will break the loop. When you stop reacting to the pain with despair, stress, anger, etc, you will shut off the mechanism that is keeping it going.

YOUR BODY WANTS TO HEAL. Period. And it has fantastic mechanism to do so, but we are inadvertently getting in the way of that recovery.

Let's frame this another way, to anyone reading this who is still suffering: If you really truly accept and understand TMS for what it is (painful but quite harmless) why are you still here??

I realize you still have pain, but you are here because you keep focusing on it, ruminating about it, hoping, searching......remember what I wrote in the last post about the brain in survival mode constantly focusing on the threat, looking for a way out, and trying to predict the worst-case scenario? Yup, you're doing it right now. And you keep doing it, probably throughout the day, more than you realize.

You really have to live, think, and feel in a way as if it's a complete non-issue, and just keep doing that for as long as it takes. I asked the question before as to why some people can be cured by reading, and my opinion is that it's because they lose their fear of TMS by understanding it for what it is. It's not 'calling the brain's bluff/distraction' as Dr. Sarno thought, but rather learning it was harmless/curable caused hope to suddenly appear, and that completely breaks the stress cycle.

Pain, stress, depression, anxiety and the hormones and neurotransmitters that accompany them cannot co-exist in a body with the same substances that produce gratitude, joy, relief, etc.

The ones you feed are the ones that will win.

And with the 'win' comes the state of the body. Stressed or not, pain-free or not..and so forth.

HOW you feed the good ones is up to you. For myself, success stories, reading many of the things I've listed before, and meditation in which I just imagined how it would feel to by symptom-free were key. But other people do it differently. Ultimately you are trading one state of being for another by putting as little attention of the old one, and all the attention on the one you want to be in. There are many techniques for this, but the simplest on is stop giving a shit. Really. It's very difficult to do sometimes, but water will penetrate rock sooner or later. Just be consistent.

Forget about the pain, and observe how often you are focused on any stressor throughout the day. Again, the brain doesn't differentiate between stressors, so if they are the constant focus, how can you expect a different result in the body.

The average adult has 60k-70k thoughts a day, and 80-90% of them are the same as the day before. The same thoughts produce the same words, actions, and chemical releases in the body. We get stuck on the hamster wheel, and it becomes groundhog day, every day, and that includes physical symptoms.

The problem is we wait to feel better to change how we think, feel, and act. But we have that backwards. If we acquire true knowledge of what TMS is, really lose our fear/concern about it, live, think, and speak differently, and as a result shift our body chemistry permanently, the pain will disappear.