Is pain a good thing?

What often confuses me is that my pain isn't bad (or at least noticeable) while I'm highly stressed. But hours after an 'event' or even next day it intensifies. The same after exploring and processing past events through journaling or EFT.

This reminded me about what I read about metamedicine and its take on pain. So, whether one experiences emotional or physical trauma, from the nervous system's point of view is the same: trauma, whose energy gets stored in the body, and over certain threshold it manifests as pain or other illness. So pain is a signal for the individual to slow down and be kind to oneself while the mind-body heals itself. However, when we experience more stress (whether from the outside or internal anxieties), it interferes with healing and can lead to chronic symptoms. The mind-body gets stuck in a low-grade perpetual fight-flight-freeze response, as it's bracing itself for the next traumatic event.

For example: http://www.metamedicineuk.com/meta-...-medicine-uncovers-the-cause-of-back-pain.htm

I wonder what people think about the above, but if true it's all the more reason to stop worrying about our symptoms.

 

This makes total sense to me, and it is intuitively what I feel to be true about my own pain. Getting out of that fight-flight-freeze response loop is the tricky part.

 

I healed after I stopped spending so much time thinking about the pain in my back
and "catastrophizing" that it was going to put me in a wheelchair.
It helped to think happier thoughts. They drove away the fear.
Pain can be a good thing, to get us to work on TMS healing,
but as Dr. Sarno says, don't spend a lot of time feeling the pain and
worrying about it. Let it go and it will let you go.

 

I had the second phase of pain after I got healed
The reason I say healed is because I knew what to do to endure it.
It took a long time to get to a point that outside stressors weren't causing physical symptoms.
and still a full year later I have to stay on top of my protocol
or I will still have some type of symptom- I do have the bull by the horns though
and yes there is a second phase as Jan stated from Steves Ozanichs story
I have been through it and if I was to turn and go back to the old me
Id go through it again and again- its like we have a whole new thought life
Was pain a good thing?Pain was a Good thing in a few ways to me.
Without the pain how would I have ever known who to help and how.(counting myself)
Ill always have a knowledge now that I can accomplish my biggest Dreams.
I've over come this pain with the power of my mind. Nothing is impossible to those that believe.
It taught me which direction in my life to go and to stop going in the wrong direction.
I never ever thought id say that but now at 41 years old I can say, if a pain appears-
ill have a way to find the solution. I know the solution.
I didn't like it at the time but now that I've learned to heal-I wouldn't change a thing.

 

Hi Walt. May I ask how many years after ... you healed? Once I learnt about TMS I was relieved and also stopped catastrophizing about wheelchairs and immediately stopped physical treatments and resumed normal activities. But years after that, and doing "the work" at my own pace, I'm still in the same amount of pain. Sure it goes up and down depending on my emotional state. Sometimes when I stumble upon some promising healing idea it may even go away for a couple of days, but then it's back on, all the same. I know my issues, work through them, I'm more and more aware of my thoughts and feelings, repressing less and less. But none of this made any difference in the long run as yet. I know I can distract myself with things enough to numb the pain in my mind so that I don't feel it temporarily, but then it comes back, so I wonder - what's the point? Nothing works for me. Whenever I think of my journey or focus on healing I get depressed, frustrated and feel like a total failure. That's enough to increase the pain.
And I still don't have evidence that a particular stressful issue is behind my symptoms - it gets bad whenever I feel stressed for whatever reason. As does any physical pain. So I'm back to square 1. Keep taking amitryptiline, exercise for the endorphin kick and have relaxing massages. Forget even trying to fix it because I can't take any more disappointments. Will have to live with it for the rest of my life.

Sorry about ranting.

 

I am to stop the fear and attention of my pain (brake the pain cycle). Fear perpetuates the symptoms. Pain is only an alarm of my repressed emotions.

 

Stock Trader you have a great way of putting the right wisdom
in at the right time- Truly if you reminded me of that everyday
It still wouldn't be enough. That's the answer Stock Trader
That's the answer.

 

Hi, Ollin. You asked how many years it took for me to not be in pain. It was not years but about two months. I had severe back pain after (go ahead and laugh) lifting a case of 36 cans of beer at the supermarket, putting the case into my shopping cart. I managed to drive home but the pain persisted for a few weeks so I emailed a nurse friend in Hawaii for advice and she said I should read Dr. Sarno's book, Healing Back Pain. I got it and believed
his theory that our pain is caused by TMS, repressed emotions. I followed his 12 Daily Reminders every day for several weeks and the more I accepted that theory and told my subconscious mind my pain was from what I learned from journaling (anger stemming from boyhood poverty and parents who fought and drank because of money worries) and forgiving them and myself for not being able to care for my mother when she was elderly after I tried for two years, I let go of that guilt. That all got rid of most of the pain, but I still had about 5 or 10 per cent left, and thought that was because I was 82 and had a bad back. It took a few more months until I finally convinced myself and my subconscious that the remaining back pain was also TMS caused and it finally went away. I still feel a little back pain now and then, but it goes away from "living in the moment" and not worrying about tomorrow or beyond. I live more in the moment by pushing bad or painful thoughts away through deep breathing and meditation (just sitting quietly with my eyes closed, listening to soothing music or sounds, and visualizing myself in a tranquil setting (I've been on wilderness canoe trips in the Minnesota-Ontario Boundary Waters. If I recall those sunfilled days canoeing on rivers or lakes, I forget about pain. I'll see if I can upload one of my color slides of one of those trips. Maybe it will help you as it does me. Here goes, for that photo. Nope, couldn't do it. I'll ask for help on this.

 

I did it... here are three photos of me on canoe trips.

 

Sorry that the photos came up in pairs. I'll work on this.