doubts

I would say that this is a reason for frustration - but frustration, along with overt anger, are shallow emotions. Rage is a core emotion that is much deeper, and it's typically repressed by our brains, as being dangerous to our ability to stay alert in a dangerous world. (That's our primitive brain's perception of a much more primitive world than we live in today!)

Repressed rage is not only deeper, it's also more simplistic, and it goes back many years, as is suggested by Dr. Sarno, via Freud.

With absolutely no knowledge of you or your issues, treat the following random thoughts as examples:
- A deeper source of rage might have to do with control. Surface manifestations of this might be: what's wrong with the program, why don't I get it, nothing ever works for me.
- Another might be isolation. Surface manifestations might be: I don't belong here, why don't I get it, I can't be a part of this community unless I have success.

Both of these examples relate to one's core sense of self-worth, based on emotional patterns laid down in childhood.

To make progress in this work, you need to access your old patterns, and find the self-love that everyone needs in order to recover. You must love yourself enough to know that you deserve to recover!

 

I hear you, SB. My first reaction was, 40 years! That's a hell of a lot of conditioning, as in brain conditioning. My second reaction is that a 50% reduction in only a few months is awesome, and it shows that you are on the right track.

I believe that there comes a point when we all need to try other things in conjunction with our basic TMS knowledge. You may need to take a crack at the 40 years of pain with a program of mindfulness and reconditioning, in which you learn to hear the subtle messages of your brain, which is trying to keep you thinking negatively, always watching out for danger, and reminding you to stay alert with the pain. It will fight hard against pain reduction, because it thinks you'll be eaten by a sabre-tooth tiger if you let your guard down!

I've written many times about this, and about learning to counteract the negative messages with constructive and positive ones. It can be done, but it's surprisingly harder than it sounds.

By the way, if you haven't already done so, I recommend reading posts on our Success Stories subforum, to convince yourself that even more recovery is possible. Many people discuss their level of belief, which is another form of mindfulness.