tight psoas , hip flexors

hi , i am wondering if tight hip flexors can really be TMS?

 

Welcome Helen,

Yes for sure, I am working with that issue. Although, it is always best to get a medical doctors opinion first to rule out anything more serious. I think people store a lot of emotions in their hips.

One good tip is to talk to your body repeatedly and ask, "What emotion is my hip feeling?", or "What does my hip want me to know?" You may get an answer immediately or in a couple of weeks. There is also journaling, which is helping me to express anger from my past in get in touch with hidden feelings that I have repressed.

I hope this helps!

Livvy ~

 

Hi Livvy,
Thanks for reply. I have seen multiple doctors, chiros, and physical therapists . I went through a bad bout (months of pain , seeming sciatic nerve , bursitus etc..) and after listening to Dr.Sarno's audio book "healing back pain" I have improved though my hips still feel almost frozen. I have read we carry emotions in our hips and though I am ok with expressing anger at times I do know I am carrying fear. It makes sense to me that I can become almost " paralyzed with fear". Thank you for suggestions , appreciated . I will start journaling today and speaking directly to my hips and fear . Please feel free to offer more input.
Be well,
Helen

 

Hi Helen,

I am doing the structured program, you may want to try it. It is located on the "The TMS Wiki" tab bottom left of page. There you can work on each day, read TMS materials, journal with structure, and get support of this posting board. I am doing some non-dominant hand journaling, which is awesome. Writing with your non-dominant hand can allow the brain to speak in a different way, for me this technique reveals more information about my real feelings. Also, who is the author of "We Carry Emotions In Our Hips?" I am also into this breathing CD I downloaded it from the library called Breathing The Master Key to Self-Healing by Andrew Weil. It is very good, I slept better last night after using his breathing exercises. Have a great day!

Livvy ~

 

Hi Livvy,
I don't have a single source for carrying emotions in our hips , multiple. Have you read " The secret language of your body " by Inna Segal ? Also Of course Louise Hay's " You can heal your life ".I have googled and read Liz Koch , who writes about emotions and the psoas muscle and many yoga blogs and articles about yoga poses to open the hips and emotions. This particular issue started for me during an intense phase of stress and I believe unexpressed fear.... I love Dr. Andrew Weill will check out breathing CD and structured program on Wiki . Thanx ! Be well !

 

I agree and can totally relate to this kind of fear.

I also wanted to share this really good google search that I stumbled upon with lots of articles on the role that emotions play in the hips:

https://www.google.com/search?q=we carry emotions in our hips&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a

I Googled "we carry emotions in our hips".

Please share any more info when you get a chance!!

Ps It is funny how the scary emoticon is in the link about carrying fear in our bodies

 

"Don't move your lips,
Just shake you hips!"

- Slim Harpo
"Hip Shake, Baby"

Or a great "secret recording" by the Rolling Stones:

 

Hi Helen,

I have the same issue after a very stressful event. I have read Dr Sarno's books and several posts on this forum. I also read yesterday from runningpain dot com by Monte Hueftle. His essays are linked to this website as well. One of the link is http://tmswiki.wetpaint.com/page/MonteH:+Earnest+Practice and you can find other articles as well via the links on the left side. The approach by Monte is to primarily focus on the present and try to change the chronic type A personality to become more open etc. I have simply read so far and have not taken any steps to follow. Just thought of sharing this information.

 

thank you , the discomfort and quality of life is not fun.

 

"The approach by Monte is to primarily focus on the present and try to change the chronic type A personality to become more open etc."

My Slim Harpo-Rolling Stone post was not just meant to be facetious, but rather underscores the relationship between the Type A (or Steve O's Type T) personality and how that over-achieving, perfectionist personality type is quite Western culture-specific (except for the feelings expressed in African-American blues, R&B and Rap music). The White Man can't dance ('move his hips') for many of the same reasons the White Man gets TMS: he's not 'loose' and has become disconnected from his primal emotions, like Dr. Sarno's rage, anxiety and sorrow. Words like "uptight" (i.e. repressed) come to mind immediately. Seems to be no accident at all that TMS symptoms would manifest as stiffness in the hip flexors, does it?

 

I enjoy your " hip" view point and humor. Oddly I am not sure I fit the type A demographic . I am pretty vocal and aware of emotions and love to dance, especially to relieve stress . I can trace these issues to starting late last year , feeling frightened, angry and and disappointed .. Is it that I truly didn't allow myself to feel and express these latent emotions due to a wacked perspective that it wasn't spiritual ? I am not religious though have studied with and attend a spiritual center ....Anyway I am wondering if I didn't allow myself to feel afraid / angry etc.. out of some mis guided notion....

 

Well, Helen, I think when we think of "repressed emotions" we always put a Freudian repressed sexuality spin on them. However, I think you can repress sorrow and other unpleasant emotions as well as rage and anxiety. You speak of "feeling frightened, angry and disappointed" beginning late last year: that certainly indicates something going on beneath the surface, probably deep in the unconscious. You don't need to feel those emotions directly so much as to be aware of them and that they are there in your unconscious. I think that's what Dr. Sarno means by knowledge being the cure. Just being aware that those emotions are there beneath the surface lets you intervene and short-circuit the dynamic that causes TMS pain. Sort of knowledge as gnosis (if that isn't too mystical a concept!) Getting a synthetic overview of how the process of repression operates lets you get a rational handle on it and thereby stop it in its tracks.

 

Thank you for response. Ok I do accept i have these emotions and still and am inis pain and actually manifested tight hip flexors , meaning i cant raise my leg over a bicycle seat , sit cross legged , much less resume my normal activities of jogging etc... is this part of recovery ? Will i regain range of movement ? I am so sick of living like this . When nerve pain acts up i am able to remind myself that its in my head and pain recedes though this hip stuff is kinda like the last part i am still holding on too,,,So i dont need to release the anger to heal completely? suggestions please and thank you !

 

Thank you for response. So again ,I am aware of emotions and yet still in pain and I believe it is TMS because my pain does move around and is aggravated by stress and or emotions. Of course having pain and limited movement doesn't make for a happy person (anger and frustration at having TMS) so I feel like I am stuck in a catch 22 . How do I get unstuck ? Thank you !

 

PS- I have listened to "Healing back pain" as an audio book , Do you suggest reading other books by Dr.Sarno ?

 

"and actually manifested tight hip flexors , meaning i cant raise my leg over a bicycle seat , sit cross legged , much less resume my normal activities of jogging etc..."

This actually describes me to a T 6 months ago. I definitely couldn't raise my leg over a bicycle seat. Only now after going through the Structured Program and Dr. Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain work book, I can raise my leg over the bike seat. At first my left leg was so weak it would wobble when I rotated the pedals and most of the work was being done by my right leg. Way out of balance! Now both legs are working together and I'm rotating the pedals from my hips, which are working together in unison better and better, faster and faster, and with more strength. One thing I did do while working the Structured Program was STOP going to physical therapy and doing back stretches. Dr. Sarno is dead right about that: Each time I went to Pilates I was reinforcing my belief that there was something structurally wrong with my back. Of course, abandoning physical therapy also coincided with my beginning to really think psychologically.

One thing structural (or bio-mechanical if you will) that I did do was change the setting on my bicycle seat so it was more normal. I think that riding with the old low "hurt" settings also reinforced the idea of something being structurally wrong with my back and hips. Hard to say exactly what happened, but almost from the minute that I raised my seat to a more normal position, my left (TMS affected) leg and hip seemed to return to a normal pedal stroke. But I also think that changing things around also tends to break up the TMS programming. Hence if you always ride in the afternoons, change to the mornings.

Since I broke into biking, now I've been progressing with walking and hiking. My uphill gate is much stronger and I don't feel nearly as much pain hiking uphill. I guess the next stage of my recovery will involve running. My advice is to find one thing that allows you to break the programmed pain patterns you've been experiencing. Seems to me like one break through has led to another. Personally, I think my road biking functions as a kind of "power therapy" where I'm forced to pay attention to the process of riding and the dynamics and interchange with the road environment that it distracts me from the TMS pain enough that I begin to "forget" about it. I notice that as I get better I have more and more pain-free openings when I've forgotten about TMS because I'm focused on something I'm doing right now or going to enjoy in the future.

I like Dr. Sarno's Divided Mind because it contains essays by other pain experts in different field that confirm Sarno's fundamental TMS thesis.

 

How do I go about doing the structured program ? Is it available on this website ? thank you for all your suggestions and input.
be well !