2 ten dollar bills will SAVE you. Truth. Paul David

Thank you for the kind words, @Forest, they mean a lot.

Working at becoming better at handling the present moment is crucial, to decrease the tension in the here-and-now, that's why I think facing your fears, being mindful throughout the day + meditating is so important. It allows you to feel whatever you're feeling, to sit with it, accept it and learn from it. It sounds so simple, but it's been really difficult for me.

It's been about three months since I read Claire Weekes + that thread and decided to make some major changes in my life. Although it's been incredibly hard I feel that I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel now. Without finding this place I would not be where I am now, so you can imagine how grateful I am! It has changed my life.

 

I love your posts too Forest, and post from many many others in this forums. Like Walt, Mike, Tennis tom, Eric Herbie, Stev O, Alan Gordon... I have learn more and more from each of you each time I come here.
We think because I came from the East, I exposed to Eastern culture and way of thinking and also because I have not master the English language that is why we think different and we don't understand each other fully. I do not want people to think that meditation, tapping, journaling is not good. I hope to be able to explain my thinking better this time. If you read many of my posts here and at tmshelp forum, I was a big proponent of meditation. I'm a student of the zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and Doctor Herbert Benson, the author of the book "the Relaxation Respond". I have read much about the health benefit of meditation. Doctor Ornish used it in his program to help patient of heart disease get better. I practice meditation myself as a life long student of the Buddha. The same with Journaling and tapping. I have read much about them and know lots of people who benefit from them. Despite all that I still think when it come to dealing with tms they are distraction. Now don't get me wrong yet. The different between you, Mike, and I are probably just language or meaning of the word distraction. In the West, when it come to fighting mind body illness, the words distraction and Placebo have a negative value. People think it mean temporary, it is not a solution, not permanent, not helpful, not REAL. Doctors and healers in the East often harvest the power of distraction and placebo effect to treat their patients. They know their patient's ill are brought on by toxic, negative thoughts. Those thoughts are "stuck" and come on automatically somehow. So save them healers have to find ways to "distract" them somehow. And they often prescribed meditations, praying sessions, focus relaxation, spend time on a farm or in a temple ... They use placebo like giving "magic" herbs potions, acupuncture, detox praying ritual... and many more that I don't know how to call it in English.
So to me, distraction and placebo is not negative if we know how to use it, know how to harvest its power. The only one in the West I know of that promoting Placebo effect is doctor Lissa Rankin (google her) I love her book.
The reason I think Meditation, journaling, and tapping are distraction is because I don't think it will cure tms. It will help but it will not cure. My Eastern way of thinking is tms/anxiety exist because we have wrong belief. We think our body is defect. We think our symptoms are incurable. Those method help calm our mind and distract our mind, but they don't help us see the truth. And the truth is there is nothing wrong with our body. We have tms because our body function exactly the way it was designed to function. We put trash in, we get trash out. We put toxic, negative thoughts in our mind we get tms. We just couldn't see the truth. we couldn't see that our body is very normal. I work the way evolution (or the creator) design our body to work. So to over come tms, mind body illness we have to be able to see the truth, to recognize that we are healthy and normal.
Those method mention above don't help us see the truth. Using them we will calm down, we will be less tense, we will benefit, but it will be very difficult to be truly cure. In few case it, people using those method got lucky. Their symptoms lesson, their stress reduce, and it click for them: "hey, I was able to get better using these methods. Then my body probably is not defect. Because if it was structural or pathological then the pain shouldn't reduce even if I meditate or tapping." When they realize that they loose their fear and were able to change their belief. They now believe that there is nothing wrong with their body and go on living their life and cured.
I'm sorry for the long talk and broken English. I normally try to write better but I don't have much time today to review and edit my post. The point I am trying to make is when I said those method are just distraction I don't mean it in a negative way. They are helpful (if you do it correctly and devote enough time to it). It is just my own humble opinion that they won't cure tms until you can able to realize that there is nothing wrong with your body. It is just your belief that need to fix.
Thanks guys. This is a very interesting discussion. I am very thankful you are all very nice and professional in your discussion. We can agree to disagree without hating each others.

 

Thanks for the thoughtful reply Balto! Just a quick mention on Lissa Rankin, M.D. I had the pleasure to hear her at a lecture/book-signing in Mill Valley and asked her if she was familiar with Dr. Sarno and she was. Haven't had a chance to crack her book yet, it's in the stack. I'd say she's complementary and parallel to Dr. Sarno.

Cheers,
tt

 

I'm curious. Do you have severe breathtaking pain at the present time? For me, the pain has been so bad that just to take a few steps was incredibly hard. However, I just kept trying to move even a little. Pushing through the pain was almost impossible. So I appreciated what Dr. Sarno has said about it may take some time. Listening to his lectures is very helpful. He has a certain palpable energy which I think enters a person if they are open. Sort of like a master giving you an infusion of his own energy.

 

The teaching of Dr. Sarno is that there is nothing wrong with your body. The symptoms are real but not due to a physical abnormality. Isn't that what you're saying when you say there is no defect in the body? There are thousands of people who have applied Dr. Sarno's teaching in there lives and have had no pain since. Are you saying these people are still not healed even though the pain hasn't reappeared?

 

@balto I have to say, I value you and respect you immensely. I'm ever greatful for the help that you've provided me and the THOUSANDS of others who use this forum. I can truly, see how genuine and good natured you are. I'm also, eternally greatful that you continue to help others long after you've recovered.

I think the principles of this school of healing isn't set in stone, but it's pretty much trial and error. I look up to the likes of yourself, Forest, Herbie, SteveO, Walt and the countless others, who have, against all odds healed and posted inspirational stories. You all have quite different stories, yet share some common themes in healing. It would be very ignorant for me to dismiss your insight, but more sensible to understand your thinking and try to incorporate it into my own path of healing.

I love your entire post, but this really stood out:

"Those method mention above don't help us see the truth. Using them we will calm down, we will be less tense, we will benefit, but it willbe very difficult to be truly cure."

I certainly think for my journey, it may be beneficial to calm down the stress component (amygdala), before addressing the fear component and moving towards thinking clean, outcome independence and getting back to a more fruitful and emotionally rich life.

Thanks again for such a wonderful post, my friend.

 

Yes I had severe breathtaking pain, it was more than 10 years ago. I have not have any relapse, except for when my wife cut my allowance.

If you believe what doctor Sarno said. If you trust him and believe that there is nothing wrong with your body. Then what happen is there is nothing to fear about the symptoms, right. And what do you do when you have no fear of your symptoms? you're go on living your life... the rest is history.
Easier said than done. Thousand have healed listen to him. Thousand have not. Often fear, doubt, indecision, looking for short cut, impatient,... prevent them from taking that leap of faith.

 

You are so lucky TT to have met her. I really think she is one very smart person. I love her Ted talk.

 

It's sad to think thousands of people were not healed.

 

Danny it is sad but some people just don't believe in the tms theory. They read the book and think this isn't true and that's it. I wonder why my whole family don't believe after they saw me heal from 25 years of pain and I wrote a book about it which none of them have even read.
They say yea Herbie you had tms but my pain, my anxiety, my fear, my everything is real unlike yours and I smile at them with love and just say your probably right.
See if they believe it's real, it'll never change for them anyway, you have to believe 100 percent to heal.

 

Hi Herbie, yup! One of the Good Doctor's contributions to psychosomatic medicine is the theory that TMS pain is a PROTECTOR, a psychological defense mechanism. My thinking is, if someone wholeheartedly is not interested in the possibility that their chronic pain could be emanating from their unconscious, why should I try to rob them of the protection they must need? They are not emotionally ready to explore that part of their brain yet and maybe they never will be.

Cheers,
tt

 

Balto, thank you for the inspiration. I came to realize that I lived most of my life driven by fears. Fear of not doing 100%, fear of missing out on something, fear of not being able to get somewhere - you name it fear. Once I started journaling, I became worried that I got stuck on Day 12 for three days - and my fear rose right away: what if I won;'t get better if I don't do journaling for a day. You are right: stop the fear is the key!

 

Balto--you were one of the people who helped me the most on my TMS journey when I began in 2013. I found your posts on the tmshelp.com forum and saved many of them to my iPhone, I would read and re-read them whenever I needed a pep talk. So much gratitude for you, Alan Gordon, Forest, of course, Dr. Sarno, and all of the many wonderful members of this forum. I feel honoured to be part of such a reflective, forward-thinking, open, authentic community. Thank you all so very much.

 

Hi Branson.

I realkythink I can make great progress with Paul David's new book. The only thing I'm struggling with is that all the success story's that he uses, are from people who haven't had anxiety from childhood like me.

I really think if I could find something in his books, blog or app where someone had used his method to combat anxiety they learned from parents at a young age, I could throw myself into it and believe.

I know this is probably my anxiety speaking, but I keep thinking I'm an exception to the rule as iv had this since a kid (I'm 35 now). I also keep treating perfectionism and anxiety separately and wondering if being a perfectionist makes me different too, and whether I need to work on this before I can use this method.

Your thoughts would be appreciated

 

Great thread and first time I've come across Hillbilly's postings.

I can relate to what he is saying and will put his, balto's and Alan's words into practise.

 

Why don't you just try it. What do you have to loose?
Thomas Edition probably is the world best know perfectionist. He spend years and FAILED thousand of times before he found the way to make the world's first light bulb. Perfectionist don't afraid to fail. They will try and try until they find the way.

Also, Doctor Sarno never said perfectionist is the cause of tms. They are just more prone to get tms. Because many of them just got angry when they failed or couldn't get thing done their way. There are lots of perfectly happy and tms free perfectionists in the world.

 

\These are brilliant insights Herbie, I always remembered your posts here on this thread, the simple wisdom that you cannot do anything about "it", but as you have an attitude shift to take it all into life with you, THIS is where the healing starts and ends, not being afraid of whatever it is you've been fixating on. If you want to sit and stew at home and try to dig into it and fix it and blah blah blah , you can do that but just know that there's not going to be real progress in that. My back pain healing began as I read 20 pages into Dr. SArnos healing back pain, I stepped off the treadmill, thinking that was all I could do was walk on there, and I went outside to run instead, I came back completely energized and no pain or if there was it didn't bother me at all. A "shift" had occurred, I KNEW on a deep level that the pain was not dangerous or real per se nor nothing to worry about. My lock on healing began and from then onwards I started doing everything I "thought" I could not do. Get back to living!!! CHEERS!

 

Loved this thread! Thank you!

 

I have been a regular reader of this tmswiki.org website since well before this thread was started in 2016. Strangely, I have no recollection of ever having seen it. Reading it now, I am reminded of something that famed industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, reputedly said years ago in a completely different context: Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. Similarly, whether you think employing technique X will end your TMS symptom(s) or you think it won’t, you’re right.