Not talking with loved ones from childhood

Hi again its me again
hope ı wont be kicked out from this forum for posting too many questions...
I promise this is my last quesiton-well for today

5 years ago we had a financial crisis and bankruptcy in our familiy.
THis caused a big chaos and now there is no connection between me and my cousins and my aount with whom ı grew up with. this makes me really sad but ı realized that ı really have a big broken heart on this issue. and ı cant forgive either me or them..sometimes ı see them in my dreams and that makes me sad too..

might this be a reason to cause pain-tms-as well?
thank you all and have a great sunday

 

Hi Emre,
This is my take on your question: Forum members could answer your question above and say "yes", "no", "maybe". But this will not be beneficial for your TMS healing. I think we need to make the connections between our experiences and our TMS symptoms ourselves for it to aid our healing. It is the process of "connecting the dots" that is healing, as in doing so we are laying down new neural pathways in our brain. Then we strengthen those new neural pathways until they become our "go to" pathways and replace our old, dysfunctional ones.

That's why I think journaling is such an effective tool, because it forces us to slow down our thinking and really examine it where we can begin to question it given our new knowledge about TMS. My journaling started out fairly superficial as I wrote about this or that situation in my life causing me stress and unhappiness. But then I began to dig deeper and asked myself why it was that others had similar situations or worse, yet they weren't disabled by pain and fatigue. Then I looked at how these current events may be triggering old emotional pain from childhood. Then I had to get really honest with myself and look at how my personality, my way of 'being' in the world contributed to my TMS. Through this process of connecting these factors to my TMS, my entire 'worldview' started to change. This is the process of thinking psychologically and not physically--and I would add, not thinking externally--not looking for the cause of our pain as outside ourselves. But it takes practice. And I think using a program to help us practice these new ways of thinking is necessary for most of us (e.g. the SEP) or otherwise we will just revert to our old, established ways of thinking while journaling.

And the way we strengthen these new neural pathways so they become our "go to" pathways is by taking in information that reinforces our new ways of thinking. Exploring and using this tmswiki is a great way to do this. We can access information about TMS theory or others' experiences with TMS healing by reading, listening, watching, and then test our understanding by actually trying to explain it to someone else. It's an amazing multimedia learning tool! And then we begin to notice that our behavior, thoughts, and feelings change in subtle ways. [There is a beautiful post by North Star ("Old Cow Paths") that illustrates this wonderfully.] And then these subtle changes multiply until we notice that we are truly different, and in the process our pain has decreased or left us entirely.

So my suggestion, Emre, is to grab a pen and paper and begin to work on the question you have posed above. And then, if you feel so inclined, share what you've figured out with us. It is within the process of doing this that you will find healing.

 

Hi. Emry. Don't be shy about asking questions in the forums. We all welcome them.

Ellen gives you good advice about journaling to help you deal with the problem of not communicating
with your family. We had a case of that in our family when a relative died and his small estate was
divided up among his surviving brothers and sisters, but one was left out. She had been adopted into the
family as a child but grew up feeling she was part of the family, but was left out of a few hundred dollar
inheritance. It remained a bone of contention in the family until she died.

It was different with my older brother and me. We were total opposites and butted heads a few times.
One time he refused to answer my phone calls or letters. He put my letters into envelopes and sent
them back to me unread. This went on for about four years. My mother kept telling me to make up
with him, but she didn't take her own advice about being on more friendly terms with her two sisters.

I finally decided on my own to call my brother after four years and he answered the phone.
I simply said, "Can't we just put all this behind us and go on from there?" He said okay, and we
went back to being friends. Not great friends, but two-way communication returned.

You do have to work on forgiving the relatives and yourself. Ellen is right that journaling can be
big help. Write down the reasons for the alienation and see if you can work them out.

The big thing is to forgive. Your relatives may not be willing to forgive you, whether you did anything
to offend them or not. The main thing is for you to forgive them and yourself. Then you will find peace
and your anger and pain will go away.

 

Emre- Ask away! We are all learning here. One thing I've told my kids over and over is I'd rather hear them give me a good question any day over a pre-programmed answer. (My kids were mostly homeschooled.)

I just want to amen what Ellen said. Journaling is such a powerful tool. Another thing I'm trying to tap into is "programmed dreams". I started a thread on that just the other day and have a link to where you can learn how to program your dreams to answer questions just like your asked.

I think all too often our tendency is to chase after answers…look for gurus…read another book…attend a seminar. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But I think sometimes we can be so distracted with seeking that we forget that often the answers are already with us. We just need to be mindful and become aware of our inner wisdom.

A short answer to your question though…I think any emotional conflict can feed TMS. Especially those of the "broken heart" variety.

I am absolutely confident you'll get his sorted out. Be encouraged!