Cradle to Grave

I recall reading in Healing Back Pain, my first exposure to Sarno, that TMS was likely a cradle to grave sort of condition. "Hmm," I thought. I thought about how I had stomach pains every day of elementary school and thought, "Well, maybe that fits me."

Today I am reading The Mindbody Prescription, and !!!!. Although it's not poetry, I feel as Emily Dickinson describes--the top of my head has been lifted. I flipped through the book again and wrote a list of all of the TMS manifestations and equivalents I've experienced. I came up with eleven (!!) since 1992. I generally don't swear, but I'd like to here. I had surgery for one of those and had a complete dietary overhaul for another. I stopped running in the cold for another.

Two things about this:
(1) This makes the current TMS diagnosis seem even more reasonable even though I haven't yet solved my pain.
(2) I MUST prioritize dealing with this.

My thought was "[expletive]! I've been sick this whole time!" Then I realized that I should have thought, "[expletive]! I've been NOT sick/injured this whole time!" I've had TMS. Since I was a teenager. Maybe before that.

 

Yes, Dr. Sarno said TMS was part of the HUMAN CONDITION, it's a psychological defense mechanism, the Good Doctor said it was a PROTECTOR, when emotional problems became too overwhelming.

 

So my thought should have been, "I've had a good case of HUMAN all this time!"

I'd like HUMAN to hurt a little less in the future, so I'll keep trying to work on the mind and emotions and do this human thing a little more wisely.

 

Yes! When you feel the pain the TMS work is to shift the thoughts away from the structural and to "think psychological."

 

I used to tell my friends TMS is similar to how our body react to the temperature. Most of us can handle a little cold weather, but when it is negative 10 degree out there we're going to freeze to death without enough clothes on or without heater. We can hold a warm cup of coffee just fine, but if we touch a boiling pot of water we're going to get burn. A little stress here and there is fine, we can handle it. But when too much stress, trauma, or too much events that bring up lots of negative emotion we're going to get tms/mind body symptoms.

The hard part is to remember to do what TT said above. We in the western world always look for a structural/pathological cause when we're ill. We didn't realize our negative emotions can actually cripple us. Most tms newbies when hearing the advice "think psychological" they almost always made the following mistake: they go and look for the one particular event, or emotion that they think caused their symptoms. Many think if they can somehow find which emotion/event that caused it they can somehow feel it, live it, release it, and heal. To all my good friends here at the forum, I have been ill with tms for years, I have find way to cure my tms illness many years ago, I have devoted a big part of my life learning as much as I can about tms/mind body syndromes for almost 2 decades now, and let me tell you, I have rarely if ever know of anyone who cure him/herself of tms by reliving/feeling/experiencing their negative emotion again. Dr. Sarno make it very simple for us to heal, we somehow confuse ourselves by making it so complex. His method is very simple:
- Realize and understand that our symptoms were caused by negative emotions. (THE CAUSE)
- Accept his diagnosis. (100%)
- He said tms symptoms are benign, temporary. (what he mean is: DO NOT FEAR IT. )
- Continue to be as active as one normally be. (again: NO FEAR)
you see, it is very simple, Do not FEAR your symptoms. The symptoms are benign, temporary, reversible... what is there to fear?
The one single most important message that I think doctor Sarno want us to get is: DO NOT FEAR YOUR SYMPTOMS. If you can do that you will be cure.