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Bella the Worrier, your first step in healing is to see yourself being free of conflict, by changing your current perception. You become what you deeply believe, and part of that is in how you see yourself. So when you change your screen name from Bella the Worrier to Bella the Warrior you've begun to heal. Most people fear their symptoms because they feel as hapless victims of their body. But they don't realize that they themselves are creating the problems in order to help them cope, by the very thoughts they use.

You send signals to your body to react a certain way, and the problems emanate from your personal shadow. CG Jung stated that one of the most obvious markers of the shadow was in its "reactivity." Reactivity is doing the same thing over and over. This is also referred to as "habit" but it's also been defined as insanity when it's expected to yield a different result. The idea is to relate to reactivity, and not from it, just like the idea in meditating is to meditate toward pain and not away from it.

Pain is a habit. Worry is a habit. If you keep feeling the same way every day then you've allowed your shadow to be in charge. At that point your reactions become a dramatization of your shadow. That means that you have a disproportionate response to worry. The over-worry, and over-dramatization is the shadow's presence and control over you.

Reactivity has certain elements:
1) over- reacting (histrionics, disproportionate responses to the sensation of pain, worry, and criticisms, etc)
2) repeating yourself (using the same words to describe things)
3) feedback (from those around you describing you in the same way, and then you reacting or pushing back on them with an over-reaction)
4) shutting off your feelings from the person that just hurt you. (cutting them off from your emotions toward them)
5) zero tolerance for the person who has criticized us (disconnecting)
6) attached to being correct, not listening to others' views (this is seen often in TMS-deniers. They are soooo sure TMS is wrong, and that they are right)

Here's the point. Didn't think I would get to it did ya? Everyone responds in reactivity, Dr. Sarno referred to reactivity in the physical sense as "conditioning." I'm referring to the psychological realm because of your screen name and in how you said you were obsessed with your symptoms. We all loop our thinking, but the point is to recognize it. If you aren't aware that you are being controlled by your shadow then your shadow will continue to control you, and the reactivity continues. When reactivity rules you, you have no sense of identity, the true you. You feel lost at that point. You aren't moving toward the situation but away from it.

When you see yourself reacting in any of the above ways to worry, or pain, STOP! Notice that it's happening to you, and admit it. Name the step that I just outlined, such as, "oh, that's #3, or #6."

Why did I just talk about reactivity? Because your physical symptoms are reactions to your personal relationships. Your body is reporting back to you on the strengths of your relationships to those around you, and more importantly to the relationship with yourself since there's no difference between the two.

Steve