Difference between worry and "thinking psychologically"?

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping that you could share your insight on something that I've having a hard time with. Dr. Sarno encourages us to "think psychologically" whenever we are tempted to focus in on our physical symptoms. The idea is to divert our attention to our emotional problems and turmoil in order to rewire our brain and train ourselves to focus on what may be troubling us unconsciously rather than on our symptoms.

However, I can't help but feel like "thinking psychologically" is very similar to worrying, or can lead to worry. How do you think about your problems and emotions without succumbing to worry? For me, naturally when I think about my emotions and issues, I cannot escape worrying about them. For example, if I think about how my current relationships or work or future is causing me emotional stress/unconscious rage, I naturally tend to worry about these problems and thereby cause more stress and more rage.

How do you distinguish between "thinking psychologically" and worrying, especially when thinking about your emotions and problems is naturally tied closely with worry?

I hope this makes sense. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

 

There are a couple things possibly cross-crissed, which are good point-makers, or make-pointers. The painful, threatening, shameful, guiltful, dangerous emotions, are buried inside the void of worry--not the physical pain. The physical pain is the biological expression of the conflict (body is a projection of mind). We are what we think we are. You don't obsess on your body symptoms, you obsess on the worry of the symptom that you fear may overtake you. So it's a matter of fear, confidence, and timing: "pre" vs. "iam"

And of course, the worrying about whether you've understood 'thinking psychologically' perfectly is a part of TMSing, which is currently (note the tense) keeping you TMSing, by distracting you from your base. That means, by trying to dissect the Truth you create ripples of truth, bypassing wholeness, adding plurality and confusion, adding to the conflict. (which is what your brain needs if it's not on course)

Thinking resists acceptance--Over-thinking is TMSing

The worry of worry plays directly into the brain's strategy which is to alleviate anxiety, as in OCD. Cleaning your bathroom floor every 5 minutes and trying to dissect Dr. Sarno's words (any truths) into perfect understanding are the exact same process, which is the alleviation of anxiety. You try to break down proven-truth in order to avoid what already is (pain). This is one reason science has done so much damage to health. Science attempts to quantify what already is, it doesn't consider meaning, and meaning is the only thing that matters. Know what I mean?

I see it virtually every day. People trying to find ways to heal, Presence Process, Power Of Now, Reiki, EFT, EMDR, etc. These things can be enlightening anxiety relievers, but also forms of resistance through diversion, although they may be needed for psychological safety (placebos are only pleasing to the self). There's nothing wrong with your body, nothing wrong with you psychologically, except for the blocking of "healing." Don't search for cures in healing, look for obstacles to wholeness. There's nothing to cure except worry.

Your brain uses worry to hide behind. Worrying about focusing on worry is feed to the fodder (not your mudder on your brudder's side). Thinking psychologically is an intellectual process, not an emotional one. It doesn't mean to sit and uproot anger (which is very difficult, and described by Dr. Sarno as "utterly fruitless"). Thinking psychologically means to peruse the thoughts that give rise to those emotions, but also, and equally important, it means to stop obsessing on your physical body.

I would suggest to not try to dissect the TMS-process, but rather step into it, and accept it. I stumbled along early on trying to reconcile every aspect of TMS too, as any good TMSer-perfectionist would. Then I finally decided to heal, and to let go of intellect/solving. Remember, from Jung, "nothing inhibits feeling like thinking." So by thinking about whether you're doing the thinking correctly, you're avoiding feeling, and the vicious bypass-cycle continues. As you can see it's ultimately all irreconcilable. Thinking vs. feeling, this vs that, body vs. mind, comedy vs. tragedy, she vs. he. It's much too complex----so stop trying to solve it and start to live it.

Flowing vs analyzing is healing vs. suffering, is the same as letting go vs. controlling. Yin and yang...this becomes that because it's already that.

If you are worrying, and who doesn't?... then you need to try to understand why you need to worry, and where your worry comes from, it's up to you to discover why, within yourself. We are born both of light and fear, and from fear the potential for great expansion is born because fear drives all motivation to overcome itself, (if light is chosen). And until the discovery of why fear is what it is, it controls us (the Truth sets us free). Fear can be the most productive antagonist of life, or the greatest destroyer of light. Use fear or it uses you.

The day that you change the perception of yourself from "Introverted" to "I am" is the day you find your life. "Truth" (capital T) never changes, only you do. So, the question arises, do you adjust to truth, or does the truth adjust to you? It's a matter of perception, based on personal belief from prior experience. You must change or growth can't occur. Nothing can grow if it stays the same. Giving in doesn't mean giving up. Giving in means transcending ego and accepting what is already True within you, beyond your current knowledge...of you.

“It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.” Nisargadatta Maharaj

Steve

 

Thx Steve,

after all the things I read on this site and on the sep, this is the only thing that has made sense thx so much.

Marco

 

If today I think back on what I worried about yesterday, it is usually still there, but I survived. It wasn't fatal.