Try Reading SARNO and stop the warm and fuzzies

I really want people to get better. I wouldn't hang out on this forum after all of these years If I didn't, but virtually every time I read a question on here the first 'answer' I think is "Go and read the F--ng Book"

"But I read the book"
Yeah...like a Novel. Go and make it YOUR story. And all of those 'suggestions' that Sarno makes? If you're pain is that bad, make them absolute commands like YHWH is passing the 10 words to you...live it, do it, do it more...until it's invisible and automatic and your first thought. When I do get the occasional tickle, I don't think "Oh no! What have I done?"...my very first pavlovian conditioned thought is 'Oh crap...what's going on that I am not seeing... I better get out a pen and GO READ THE BOOK. Not 10 books. This is not a buffet. Go and Read SARNO.

Go and read it again...over and over until virtually every conditioned response is de-conditioned and you have an inside track on the fundamental rage makers that trigger your TMS...I have been doing this 25 years and I haven't changed on the inside one iota. I am just not that dynamic. When I read someones life story (who is still in pain) I see someone who thinks that 'talking about it' will make it better.. it won't. 'Journaling' about your 'feelings' is not going to stop your pain UNLESS it's aim and focus is on finding and exposing Unconscious RAGE.
This is between you and you and God. That's it. You might ask a simple question, but If you're writing a book about your very special , detailed symptoms, you never got it...you had the 'beginners luck' that a lot of TMS sufferers have with their first experience...just knowing there is nothing really wrong is powerful enough to make a lot of people's symptoms TEMPORARILY go away

I am amazed at all of the feel-good hippy crap that has showed up on here that has NOTHING to do with what Sarno taught.

"But his idea's would have evolved and all of this is so much nicer... he was mean. He was like my Dad. I don't like crabby old Italian Catholic men...I want an App to do this for me.....Oh..I read it back in 2010 but this is different because.....I am doing 'somatic tracking' and I am OK being in low grade pain all of the time..but THIS is really bad....I have been meditating and going to therapy... Namaste

I have always been eternally grateful to the emergency room doctor who stuck his face in mine and said 'There is nothing wrong with you...I deal with Bullet injuries and broken bones...your 'Pain Doctor' is probably really sympathetic and says lots of warm and fuzzy feelgood things, writes you a scrip and punts...Guys go into chronic pain so they can make their 3PM tee time... I am a REAL doctor.'

That A-hole was actually the first person to tell me the truth. All of the Warm and Fuzzy hippy crap that got me 'in touch' with my feelings left me in AGONY. Focusing on the pain and becoming 'OK' with it, left me in AGONY... I want an outcome...I came here to GET OUT OF PAIN.

If you're new and wonder how to get better, GO AND READ THE BOOK. If you're relapsing and in pain GO AND READ THE BOOK. If you have a question or just need to vent? PM one of us recovered people. But remember...the A-hole who tells you the truth is way more useful than the nice person who tells you the warm and fuzzies.

namaste.....whatever that means

 

"Shaking the coconut tree" in french
Thank you.
Do you think it should be the same for anxiety, burn out and all that things the brain creates to hide the rage?

 

Great post. I hope I am not one of the feel-good offenders. I do come at it from an upbeat angle -- because I find it so remarkably wonderful that we can stop our pain (and a host of other things) simply by finding that rage. And frankly, I fucking love my rage writing. Where else can you scream at a friend or family member and call them an f'n a-hole over and over like a Tourette's patient and then have your pain magically lifted? I also love having conversations (on paper) with myself. I've had conversations with my autonomic system where it told me to stop checking on myself because that is ITS job!

I also second the part about doctors. I so appreciate those doctors that are willing (despite the risk of litigation) to say, there's nothing wrong with you.
My best one said, "I think you FEEL, worse than you ARE." Many people might get upset about that as if he was dismissing me but I wanted to hug him. There was nothing wrong with me, I felt like crap but there was no need to feel like crap because nothing was wrong with me. That's all I needed to hear. Started getting from there.

So my warm fuzzies are for the warm fuzzies that you get when you get onto the Sarno train. In the scheme of things, it's not that complicated!

 

Exactly right. Doing actual work, rewiring your way of life is very hard and unpleasant. I had this really nice guy sending me literally the same question about half a dozen times over the course of 4 months, asking me how to start believing that his TMS is in fact TMS. I finally lost it, yelled at him and told him to stop wasting my time if he doesn't really do the work. I am a polite person, was worried that the guy would be upset with me. Turns out, this what actually made him do the heavy lifting, and he finally started improving.

 

I honestly have no idea. I have all of those things occasionally. Not all anxiety is bad. I have been having anxiety about money lately...So I get rid of that anxiety by working more hours at work and not keeping my weekends 'untouchable' and other stuff. I only really know about getting out of pain. When I got out of pain and learned about anxiety ATTACKS, I stopped having them...like ever.

Living in modern Techno-wunderkind times tends to provoke a lot of anxiety so I have largely not participated in many of the 'prayer wheel spinners' like Cellphone culture etc. Garbage in, Garbage out. Most BS things are sales pitches... If you meet a Dr and he diagnoses a condition that only he can treat, you are being bullshitted.

Generally my rule of thumb is, if something is complicated and requires a lot of inverted thinking, it is modern BS. I read the preface to "Healing Back Pain" and called my workman's comp supervisor and told her I'd be back at work in a few weeks, and I was...because it was simple and made sense. There was still a lot of learning ....well mostly UNlearning all of the other crap, but the fundamental idea was simple. I could explain it to a five year old..only modern college educated self-contortionists WON'T understand it...it is outside their religion...both of my siblings are way too smart to understand Sarno. I believe they are on their 5th-10th surgery? I have lost track.

I heard Bart Ehrman lecturing the other day. Somebody asked him "If I want to be a New Testament Scholar, what should I do?"...and I knew the answer before he gave it. "Read the F-ing Bible!"..."A Lot"..

well maybe he didn't drop the F bomb, but you get the idea.

It made me think of this forum and the long complicated 'other' stuff I keep reading.

 

I've struggled over my 10 years on this site with the best way to help others. I used to be much nicer and gentler with my advice. But sometimes I feel like I'm too harsh and direct in my responses now. I don't want to alienate people or scare them away. It's hard to find the right balance.

 

I think it is helpful, yelling I mean. At a certain point even psychotherapy doesn't help anymore. Why would I want to talk about my shit forever and forever? I'm not a masochist. And it's not that these traumatized people are resistant to recovery. Not all are. I will never give up. The unlearning part or method -@baseball talked about it above - is for me, and I know that it can be done, God knows I'm doing my best here. I made progress and there is more to be done.

I appreciate @baseball's comments, to be honest I find them crazy good, simple and clear, no embellishment. I follow his comments like a lunatic because they speak to me. I don't have the patience to read many things, deep and long and elaborate comments. It gives me mental indigestion, honestly. And I can't read books after books about all this, I got a few but could never finish them. I just can't do it, I get bored out of my mind with all the theories and specific language/terms and mental gymnastics, give me a break. I donated all of them so I would not see them anymore here. Ever.

 

The other thing that this current generation has is the Internet. Pre-Internet, I'm sure we wouldn't have the hundreds of people who are sure they have Lyme disease and are experts in every scientific matter. I only had my mother's very old "medical dictionary" and that scared the crap out of me. Prognosis (for everything): Death!

It's fascinating watching the lengths some of the people over at the CFS/ME forum go to in order to try and cure themselves. I'm still wondering how the woman is doing that was trying to find someone to sell her baby poop for her to eat to cure her digestive issues.

 

I only watched the Sarno 20/20 video and listened to a few of his interviews. The general concept resonated with me as it has some similarities with the principles of Rational Recovery. My husband went from not being able to not drink alcohol every day to not drinking ever again simply by watching one (the original) power point. He describes it as "a lightbulb" moment. He realized if he wanted to stop drinking he could just.....stop. He controls the arm and hand that has to pick up the drink, not the lizard part of his brain that tries to talk him into it. He watched the PowerPoint, and then he stopped drinking. Done!

 

As someone new, I have benefited from the direct responses given by the seasoned veterans.

 

This seems to be true, @JanAtheCPA

 

I like how @JanAtheCPA knows when to give "tough love."
I can't seem to do that. My helping style is sharing what works for me and hoping it resonates.

 

@Booble @JanAtheCPA @Baseball65 @Sita @Ellen @Cactusflower @BloodMoon @TG957 and others…
I’m so thankful to all of you!

 

You are so very welcome!

 

We need to put lyrics "Read the book, read the book, read the book book book, read the book read the book read the book book book" to Rossini's William Tell Overture for some people lol. I'm always amazed at the lengths some will go , to do everything under the sun BUT read "The Mind Body Prescription"!! They go around it in a sense in all sorts of detours which are just more distractions. It's such an easy, quick read that it's practically laughable but the fears of some imo is that they will be confronted by the truth and have to give up the defense of TMS, which they want to continue to cling to. I had been texting back and forth with a youngish gentleman in Italy (home of the "mammone"...google it lol) who had time to text me for hours on end, travel, make music videos, visit a million quacks and even religious psychics but could not bestir himself to take an hour out of his life read the book. When a person sincerely wants to get better, they are only too happy to read Sarno. I finally had to tell him that although he may be used to being coddled and having his corners padded, I refused to converse with him until he reads the book. He literally had a copy of the Italian translation in his hands!!! There is an unconscious resistance to taking responsibility for getting better imo. Sarno never tip toed around the truth and we have to ruffle feathers in order to change a paradigm. I'm at the point now where I'm ok with disapproval or reproach. The question one has to ask themselves is: "Do I wan't sympathy or do I want to get better?" True compassion is being honest with yourself and others, even if that means risking rejection or backlash.

 

I think we do have to keep in mind that some people aren't readers.
Especially these days.
There are some good old Sarno interviews that might be good to recommend as well. They might have the feel of a podcast to a new generation.

 

Here's Dr. Sarno's book, read by him. About 3 hours and 1/2 long.

 

LOL....We have numerous names for that which I will refrain from enumerating, but yeah. One of the only men I could NOT help from this forum used to come down with every diagnosis in the DSM, but when I turned the topic to his living with his Parents and being 1000% reliant on them for his very expensive lifestyle, silence or digression.
He never read the book. Period.

Sarno called it out too... He said many people have situations that are so painful they can't or won't 'do this'. He gave the example of the woman who LIVED WITH her Brother....when she got angry, her symptoms went away, but she "Couldn't maintain her strong posture" and her pain returned . What he probably left out was that she HAD to live with her brother...either financial dependence or emotional Terrorism.

That is also a clue for all of us...who am I Not allowed to be angry at? Sometimes it's a really 'nice' person, or an old or weak person... But 'Mommone' is a great place to get started looking!

 

Great find!!!