My example of how to stop TMS pain

I have several separate pains in my body. Full medical shows nothing structural, and while I am still battling for a resolution for some of my pain (deep gluteal/piriformis pain and burning feet), I feel obliged to write about a success that I had this morning while fresh in my mind that may encourage other users to do/feel similar.

Like most I have read/studied everything and wondered after a year why am I not getting better because I believed I was doing everything right, meditation, reducing stressors, self loving, etc.

One thing I thought I was doing well was recognising and being present with the pain and accepting it (then why? why is it not reducing?).

Well here’s why. When I feel it, which is pretty much constant 24/7, I did start off accepting it, feeling it, etc, but very quickly, unconsciously, I started fretting, how long will it last? when will it go? why me? etc! And even in my mind when I thought I was accepting it I have realised after an event this morning that I soon went back to fearing it sub or unconsciously very quickly.

So to this morning. For the past three days I have had searing pain in my thigh like a dead leg that would not go away, no onset at all. You know that dead leg feeling in sport that happens, lasts for 5 mins, really sore, then disappears. Well mine didn’t.

Of course I recognised it as TMS and was doing what I thought was the right things and it was just getting worse. As usual and like my other symptoms it was stopping me from living my life, doing what I had to or wanted to do. I was gutted.

So I woke up this morning in real dull achy pain. Nothing abs nothing was stopping it. Like the deadest of dead legs. So I was at my wits end. I tried ignoring it, couldn’t. The pain was intense like an 8/10. Tried moving around positions, nothing. I thought okay accept it feel the emotion remind yourself it’s brain induced etc and it didn’t work, as usual and eventually I probably subconsciously began fearing it trying to avoid it but it was not going away. So I thought f this!

I decided if this is my life then so be it. If I’m going to have it all day all week month so be it. I’m not dying or dead. I know there is nothing wrong with me. I have the full capacity that it is TMS and exactly what that is. So now no matter what happens next I’m am not going to get fearful. I’m simply going to dive right slap bang into the pain.

No avoiding it, not even accepting it etc, just dive right into the pain. Let it get worse. In Fact, let it get as bad as it can possibly get. I can still hear myself now saying come on you b’...d can you get any worse than that get to a ten!

I lost it. I just lost my fear, acceptance, self loving, running away from it etc. I just wanted it to hurt, and badly. And it did! It did get worse. It actually did, but do you know what, I felt it getting worse.

Immediately after saying do your worst, it did. Was I scared, probably, but I had really had it. If this was it I was going to stop fretting getting from a 8 to a 3 pain and was saying screw you I’m going to live with an 8 in fact do your worst then I can really stop worrying.

Well after about 5 mins of swimming in this pain (which I had for three days solid) guess what? Just as I felt it ramping up like a freeking light switch it went off. Nothing, zilch, zero.

Now I have no idea how to label this and I realise I have been typing an experience now that’s prob went to long. But like many others I used to ask, “Yeah, I’ve read the books got the knowledge of TMS but HOW in the name of Jesus does it go away or you get rid of it?”.

So whilst I have still got other symptoms and don’t qualify as a proper success story if you, like me, were looking for a “How to do it success story” then here’s my how from this morning while it’s still fresh in my memory.

I felt completely invigorated and totally excited after that this morning. I am going to spend time now doing exactly the same with other parts of my TMS pain.

Will it work the same? Who knows but I am a real TMS sufferer as described in all the books, and this is a genuine incidence that happened this morning.

I hope this helps others in the way it worked for me.

Thank you to all the posters who have encouraged me so far and for the people who maintain the site. I’ll hopefully acknowledge everyone in my final post if I manage to complete my TMS journey.


Jimmy.

 

@jimmylaw9

What a shining example of Outcome Independence or a variant of F*** this for a game of soldiers.

Congratulations on kicking TMS into touch and on savouring the moment.

 

Thanks plum I knew there would be a label for it I just couldn’t remember it. In fact that’s actually a good point.

It was reading all the great literature about TMS and not fully understanding what the terms meant or the how to of the terms that I didn’t sometimes grasp. So if that helps others to have a better understanding of outcome independence smashing, cause a lightbulb had just went off in my head when you connected the two and another example of how the posts help me. Cheers

 

Your epiphany is exactly the reason I encourage people to post and not lurk. The transmutation of knowledge into wisdom hinges upon firsthand experience and people can get lost in the weeds of ‘book-learning’ (and aching for the desired book cure), to the extent that they forget you have to fully engage with the process.

I’m a slow learner and it took me an absolute age to get what TMS was and how it showed up in my body and life. I have great compassion for the struggle that coming to this understanding engenders but this too is part of the healing.

It’s a great post and I hope it gifts others with insight.

 

Maybe this is an Extinction Burst..?

 

I had a very similar situation as you on Thursday. I have similar symptoms as you (gluteal pain and foot) with no identifiable structural cause. I’m conditioned to have pain while I sit. I was on a 5 hour flight on Thursday and I decided to say F it, let the pain do what it wants. I didn’t fight it but I really felt into it and experienced every part of it. It hurt bad for a while and then it suddenly disappeared, it came back a bit towards the end of the flight but it was tolerable. I sat the entire 5 hours. This was proof to me that there is no structural problem (which I think on some level I still can’t believe). If I had a structural problem caused by sitting it would have progressively gotten worse through the flight. This was the longest I sat in almost 5 years!

 

Thanks. I am new here.

 

As soon as we accept "what is" without judgement or emotion around it, everything mind-created just disappears. I recall coming to the conclusion that I could live with my TMS pain the rest of my life as is, while still pushing through to accomplish what I wanted in life. It wasn't much longer that the pain went away.

The more we can apply that to our lives the better IME so far.

 

Dearest jimmylaw9:
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us! It is extremely helpful to me because I am new here and have so little confidence in being able to manifest recovery. I am overwhelmed with over 30 years of chronic debilitating fatigue and depression and just finding this wiki and Dr. Sarno I mostly think it’s too late for me to have any quality of life improvement but your post has given me some hope today, if I could just get through that ‘not caring that the symptoms are there’, but I don’t know how to do that.
Thanks again for sharing your experience with us so more of us know it actually happens for people.

 

Beautiful report Jimmy,

This is your lived experience of Alan Gordon's encouragement to sense the pain (or better yet, the "sensation you call pain") directly without needing it to increase, decrease, get better etc.

Once a person has even one experience like yours, a great deal of the fear of pain goes away, even if unconsciously. There is a deep learning.

I would encourage you to continue this --very fresh each time, not needing to ever have the same relief again, but mustering the "I don't care" attitude which you had going into this experience. It is that "care less" entry to the sensation exploration that is key, I believe. I guess you know this, but I want you to not be attached to the "results" any time you try this. You're building something more important than pain relief.

 

plum, knowledge seems to surely be the largest part of TMS relief and healing.

jimmylaw9, beyond knowledge, whatever you find that works for you can become a tool for the next time. Heal well.