JOHN SARNO HAD A 90% SUCCESS RATE- USE HIS METHODS!!!!!

John Sarno had a 90% success rate in healing his patients after screening out the ones who weren't likely to accept his theories (which TMS Wiki may naturally do as folks not open to mindbody will probably just leave this site)

At a point in Sarno's career he had to stop including physical therapies as part of his program. He described this as a sad situation as the folks doing the physical therapy were good people.

Sarno recommends to THINK PSYCHOLOGICAL, NOT PHYSICAL, and this is why he talks about therapies like massage and excercise to be used only because you enjoy it and it doesn't do harm (as in, it doesn't distract you from understanding that your buried rage is causing your symptoms). He strongly recommends that you keep your mind foccussed on mind work- as in talking to your brain about all of your buried rage.

Taking a week long hot yoga class when you are a young mother with an endlessly needy baby (who you adore), a farm, and a partner, could easily be seen as an incredibly welcome break from incessant motherhood and responsible adulthood.

This also sounds like it happened at a time when the many years that can accrue major mountains of buried rage spent in responsible adulthood were yet to come.

20 years ago I also had a successful encounter with alternative healing. Working at a health food store in the city, I started experiencing a bizarre painful hip symptom. I was recommended to an 'Orthobionomist'. I paid 50 bucks, walked up and down the hall while the practioner observed, had some mild body manipulations, and was sent home with a stretching program. I had good success. In hindsight- it was quite exciting to hire an alternative healer for the first time in my life (I had only ever been to conventional doctors and dentists for mundane ordinary reasons). I also changed my lifestyle and location (off to organic farming) which was a huge relief from city life, and so of course I healed up with minimal problems for many years.

A short trip in the U.S (I'm Canadian) while I was practicing a (short-lived) vegan diet left me rolling over in pain in my guts. At the end of this trip I took a 3 day cooking/healing class with a food and nutrition writer that I was a big fan of. She was grandmotherly and cooked good food and told me to stop eating a vegan diet (and also set me up believing that I had wheat & cow milk allergies for many years- nocebos) and so of course that stopped the stomach pain- a good dose of love and nurture.

Yoga and stretching and massage and qi gong and special diets and walking in the woods and gardening are all, totally personal, healing modalities that are totally individual.

I am going to mention a brand new therapy called 'White Stripes Therapy' that I just made up today. Before learning Sarno's life changing therapies, I was in the throws of intense regular migraines amongst other pains. During my migraines I had to avoid bright lights and sounds and such...... However, I would find that when I would crank up noisy White Stripes and Jack White albums on the stereo full blast, my migraines would lessen! How crazy is that.

I have actually met another person who I talked to this about who claimed that Jack White's music also helped him through some rough times.

Now I'm sure that there are enough White Stripes fans in the world that would probably accept and be benefited by White Stripes Therapy, and probably already are.

One of the best things about this type of therapy is that when you crank up the noisiest of the White Stripes, it can drown out conversations in your household that you don't want to hear in the other room, from people who might actually be contributing to your reservoir of rage (this is probably why it is so therapeutic).

Really though, White Stripes Therapy has absolutely no place whatsoever being talked about on a John Sarno page.

Although Yoga, meditations, walks in the park, screaming into pillows, throwing rocks, hot baths, board games, good food, funny TV shows, inspirational books, and on and on, can, on a personal level (and shared level) be therapeutic tools, they are totally distracting from John Sarno's methods.

Why might all of these different modalities be effective pain and symptom relievers? Perhaps, if because when we really like doing them and can identify positively with them, then they are welcome breaks to rage burying. If we really love to do something and find healing from it so much that we will change our schedules, turn off our phones, close the door with a DO NOT DISTURB sign, or drive away to a welcome appointment, then we are really feeding our ID, our Child Self, in a big good important way. We are setting a form of boundary, even if that means turning up a stereo so loud without consideration for other people- we are setting a boundary and doing something truly for ourselves.

I could write a list that would be dizzying with all of the fine, enjoyable and thought provoking books that I have read in my lifetime.

The reality, though, is that they don't belong on this website.

The only books that, in my strong opinion, are worth mentioning on a John Sarno healing website are John Sarno's books, as well as Marc Sopher's, and Ozanovich's (although I haven't read his books, because they weren't in our library system, I know that John Sarno himself recommended these books), and any other books that truly and completely focus on John Sarno's healing program: acknowledging and accepting, through the education of reading the literature and practicing the work, that our pain and symptoms are completely and utterly due to the buried rage that we have accumulated (and continue to accumulate) throughout our lives. And telling our brains that THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE- STOP THE PAIN, BRAIN!!!

I feel like it is totally acceptable to appear to be overly zealous on this subject because this is a website full of folks who have truly healed, or are trying to heal, from their pain using John Sarno's methods. This is a JOHN SARNO website- correct?

Although I was the sort of high school student who literally fell asleep snoring with his head on the table in class, or, if a subject bored me, would make an excuse and wouldn't come back, I feel like at this point I need to blow a whistle and shout PAY ATTENTION!!!

Recess and lunch are a great time in school for kids to talk about their favourite TV shows, books, comics, games, sports, adventures music and so on and so forth. This website is likewise an easy opportunity to talk about our enjoyable extra curricular healing activities that make us feel good. Some people could easily add smoking a joint or drinking a beer or vegging out in front of the tv all day for a highly recommended escape from pain- especially if if we enjoy these activities in an ID feeding sort of way....

I can only talk from experience when I say that reading John Sarno's books back to back (with other genuinely Sarno centric books included) over and over (20 times) has been the most highly effective pain and symptom healing program that I never ever fathomed existed.

Even if White Stripes Therapy takes off and heals many people on some sort of temporary level, like placebo pills, it really doesn't belong on TMS WIKI. My only hopes about mentioning it here is that the word can get out to Jack White about John Sarno's methods, so that he can use them to vanquish his pain and continue making great music (in my opinion) for many many years. I wrote him a letter about John Sarno before our farm got destroyed by a massive flood in 2021- though I have never sent it. We have only had the internet here for a year, and so I actually had no clue as to how famous he actually was until nature blasted us out into the big world, and my low self esteem has prevented me from mailing him a letter about Sarno (his albums first showed up on our local bookmobile).

Anyways, especially for folks who are new to Sarno's methods, I recommend this: If anybody is recommending any other books or healing techniques then put them on your backburner and ignore them until Sarno's methods have really sunk in deep into your subconscious (this is the program).

Reading other non-Sarno books may only distract you- maybe even our brains do try to distract us from Sarno's work by sending our attention elsewhere, to other enjoyable physical therapies and thoughtful meditations on life.

I have loaned out over 40 John Sarno books from our Healing Pain Library at our farm. I mostly never met any of these people, and few have returned these books. For the few people that I have been personally loaning his books to and keeping in conversation with, I have noticed that some people will read a Sarno book once, then read a whole bunch of other interesting mind-body books, and will return a while later kind of confused about Sarno's methods and I will need to explain them again.... I wonder why they don't just bite the bullet and keep reading Sarno's books again and again thereby really getting the message down. It is kind of like studying for what for many people could be the biggest test of their lives. BUCKLE DOWN AND STUDY SARNO'S BOOKS!!! Howard Stern recommends this too!

I am trying hard not to offend anybody on this website. I really don't want to get banned from here. I do see that some issues need to be raised, especially when they direct our attention away from Sarno's teachings.

Even though it is fine to recommend other healing modalities and literature, it is especially important with people who are new to Sarno's theories, that we all work hard to keep them on track.

Three Cheers For the GREAT HEALER JOHN SARNO- HOORAY!!!!

 

If hot yoga or any other type of body work or excercise or nature walk or rock climb or stretch program or dance program or whatever makes you feel good, then great- stick with it as long as it works for you.

I do believe it is very important to think about why these things actually do make you feel good, as in that you have less pain or other symptoms.

I think that it is likewise a good idea to reflect upon past healing situations that also coincided with a diet change, new 'healing' practice, or whatever.

For my own self, I think it is a good idea to see how this can fit with Sarno's teachings. Could something that I really enjoy also coincide with breaks from the life stressors- work, family, expectations?

Do your other feel good activities also coincide with the day's end, when there's no more expectations upon you- your work is done. Likewise for weekend and holiday, or important activities where you have booked time off from work or family- where you have put your foot down at last, fought for the right to practice your feel good activity, and wouldn't change it come hell or high water.

Do all of these other feel good activities, seemingly separate from Sarno's teachings (dietary choices, yoga, massage, white stripes therapy), also make good food for our ID, or child self?

At last- no more goodism and responsibilty (this is probably why TV, bags of chips, joints, beers, etc... could also provide extra pain relieving symptoms for some people)- this is some self care that works!

I also don't believe that we are entering into the world of over-intellectualizing here.

When I first experienced great healing with Sarno's methods, I was literally phoning a new person every night for many months- old friends or acquaintances, distant family, and people I barely knew. This was after total phone fear where I would barely touch the phone more than a small handful of times every year.

One lady I phoned up was taken aback. She told me that she had just remembered that she had used Sarno's methods decades prior to overcome some shoulder pain or something.

She had forgotten all about his methods! I was shocked- HOW THE HECK COULD YOU FORGET ABOUT JOHN SARNO'S AMAZING DISCOVERIES AFTER THEY HAVE ACTUALLY WORKED FOR YOU?

What I can imagine, is that she continued along with life after Sarno. It was probably easier to forget about the mind work and Sarno's boring old books (not to me!). Other more attractive 'healing' modes probably came along that worked for a while and may not have continued their work and on along with more symptoms.

Suddenly Sarno's incredible methods probably just ended up on the long list of 'alternative' therapies, to pick and choose from at will.

This lady was quite thankful to be reminded of Sarno, and was eager to seek out his books, as she realized that her symptoms she was currently suffering from was probably TMS.

We can't forget that our SNEAKY BRAINS try to distract and draw our attention from the psychological, towards the physical, as some form of wacky misunderstood haywire 'self preservation' system as in 'WE REPRESS RAGE BECAUSE WE LEARNED TO DO IT AS CHILDREN AS A PROTECTIVE MECHANISM. IF YOU SCREAM, YELL, FIGHT OR SWEAR, YOU WILL GET SMACKED, YELLED AT OR WORSE. OUR BRAINS LEARNED THAT IF WE KEEP THAT RAGE BURIED THEN WE ARE SAFE- LESS BEATINGS! OUR BRAINS WILL POTENTIALLY CONTINUE TO DRAW OUR ATTENTION AWAY FROM OUR UGLY OLD BURIED RAGE BY GIVING US PAIN AND SYMPTOMS, AND MAY EVEN TRICK US INTO THINKING THAT OTHER, NON-PSYCHOLOGICAL 'HEALING' METHODS WILL HELP US.

And they probably do- all of these great other therapies. But again, why do they?

Why is it important to think about the why's in whatever makes us feel good?

Because what if we are no longer feeling good using these methods? What if we get some bona fide severe injury that prevents us from doing our favourite healing therapies? Life changes. What if the yoga studio burns down or the small town yoga teacher dies? What if doctors tell us to give up our habits that actually make us feel good? There is enough hype about marijuana being a super medicinal, it could dangerously even infiltrate the minds of mindbody people, where a placebo affect clouds their judgement. What if you decide to stop smoking pot, and you have attached other therapeutic properties to it beyond just the buzz?

THINK PSYCHOLOGICAL, NOT PHYSICAL