Want to heal? Stop trying to heal!

Ellen · Apr 9, 2018

plum said: ↑

@karinabrown, healing really is about recognising how your personality and your reactions to people and events is the core of the problem. Sometimes it is a lifelong way of being, sometimes it is more culmulative and based around stressful events, and sometimes a combination of both. Either way TMS is the result of veering into certain emotional and physiological states repeatedly because we have not yet learned how to self-care and self-soothe.

It really is that simple. Healing is a creative commitment to living in the moment, moment-by-moment and responding to what is happening mindfully, compassionately and authentically.

This is why changing your situation leads to temporary relief and not recovery. Jon Kabat-Zinn, who introduced mindfulness to the West, wrote books with great titles. One is 'Wherever You Go, There You Are' which clearly explains how running away from situations is pointless. Another one is called 'Full Catastrophe Living' which teaches us that Life will happen but it is how we deal with it that counts.

I used to think that if our elderly parents miraculously became well and my partner miraculously recovered, that my stressful tms-inducing life would fade away and I would achieve the 100% cure I wanted. This is just another twist of perfectionism. In the perfect world no one ages, no one ails, no one dies.

No one has that life because life is not like that. It has its stages and seasons. Most of the people here are at the time of life where we are assuming the role of Elder. Where the care of our elderly rests upon our shoulders. I know of people who like to pretend this kind of stuff isn't happening. I know of people who have left their partners because their partner become devastatingly ill or disabled, and I know people who assiduously avoid spending time with elderly parents because they cannot handle the decline. These people are immature and their signature avoidance affords them little protection in the long run. Ultimately they have to face themselves and their fears, the exact same fears and TMS issues we are facing now.

So if we cannot control life and we cannot control the stressful events life brings our way, what can we do?

Become emotionally strong. TMS recovery is not the absence of stress, worry, anxiety, pain and fear but rather the ability and the skills to not be demolished by them every time life ebbs and flows. We learn to move with it. We learn to sleep and rest rather than ruminate. We learn to move our bodies and calm our minds. We learn to open our hearts again and again and again. And we see the fruitlessness of trying to keep life on the straight and narrow. Life is Nature and there are no straight lines in Nature. Nature is not perfect. Life is not perfect. Healing is not perfection.

So yes, the TMS veterans here will tell you that Life still roughs them up sometimes but you learn to stop taking it so personally because this makes your mind rampantly negative, and you learn to treat every single thing with care and with kindness, and in so doing you cease veering between extremes, you soften and stress diminishes. Life becomes more peaceful. Then, when tragedy or trauma strike you are better able to cope. You are resilient. You become someone strong enough to hold the fort but also strong enough to ask for help.

As @Caulfield says you stop trying to heal because there is nothing wrong with you. Instead you begin to allow your emotions their integrity and their full expression. That really is all it is.

Plum x
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Pure Truth, beautifully written. Love you, dear Plum.

Jules · Apr 9, 2018

plum said: ↑

Mary, Lainey, Katrina and nancy, thank you all for your kind words. I'm so glad that I have been able to distill some wisdom from the past decade that is helpful to others. This forum has been a life-saver for me and I remember well the years I combed posts here (and tmshelp) for insights and answers. These days I do what I can to help provoke epiphanies and to connect healing dots for others.

Jules, I love Sarno to bits but I really think the repressed emotion paradigm is too narrow. Undeniably emotions are key but in terms of healing I find that whole field very unhelpful. That's why I got so stuck for so long.

When I left the forum for two years I gave myself tacit permission to expand my healing repertoire to include more body-oriented methods. At first I experienced the voice of internalised reproach but after a while it softened and fell silent.

I needed to include my body in my healing. I needed to break the orthodox TMS protocol conditioning that denied any and all physical intervention. I had created a nest of obsessive healing prohibitions and beliefs around the pain. I had to be away from well-intentioned people confusing the hell out of me. All of this was pre-Alan Gordon days so the healing ethos was very much the pure psychological Sarno.

Alan Gordon's new program helped me break the last of the conditioning. (I know you have done that to death too so I'm not about to suggest any re-explorations. I am saying that no efforts are ever wasted and at some point in the future don't be surprised to find pieces falling into place by themselves.)

All the psychological stuff didn't help me at all with my pain initially, those boons would come later. The post I wrote above is a devotion to those insights. However I had reached the point where 'trying to heal' had generated so much additional tension I needed more to break the deadlock. I am also someone who is very kinaesthetic and benefits greatly from the physical relief.

Hand on heart, my pain-reduction was most dramatically affected by sleep, the combination of swimming and prolonged use of the massage jets in the jacuzzi, and by Yin Yoga. These elements used in conjunction with the emotional healing (the self-soothing and self-care) were the combination I needed.

Life is physical and is subject to wear and tear. My car has had need of a couple of repairs lately and that is not due to emotional issues! Our bodies have physical needs too and we need to honour them. We need to respect the experiences that shape us.

You speak of your body's battle scars...my hubby had a bad fall as a kid which resulted in a traumatic brain injury (TBI), in exactly the place where Parkinson's would later manifest. So while I am very optimistic that he can heal symptomatically, I acknowledge that something very real and very physical exists. These wounds are part of our story and I prefer to embrace them than try to ameliorate them out of existence. Some things we have to live with and the emotional healing rests in making peace with that.

Mind~Body healing has been practised for thousands of years in every culture of the world. Everything from song, story and dance through to diet, herbs and massage with all manner of beautiful rituals inbetween. It seems absurd to me that we get stuck on one way of healing and one way of living. Carving up the mind from the body from the soul is a very modern practice which really makes no sense at all. They are indivisible. This perspective gifts us with a cornucopia of choices, that we may be creative with. Doing nothing is sometimes an excellent choice, which brings us full circle to the point of your post. It's perfectly ok to down tools and take a breather and somewhere in that space your intuition will pipe up with the next right move.

Plum x
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Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Thank you so much Plum for your insights and your incredible ability to understand and to gift people your knowledge about the subject. I wish you all the best as well as everyone else on this forum. I’m sure I will check in once in a while just to see how things are, but for now I’m just gonna - live.

Lainey · Apr 9, 2018

Jules said: ↑

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Thank you so much Plum for your insights and your incredible ability to understand and to gift people your knowledge about the subject. I wish you all the best as well as everyone else on this forum. I’m sure I will check in once in a while just to see how things are, but for now I’m just gonna - live.
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The best to you Jules in all you do and for all you hope for.
Lainey

Lizzie 1234 · Jan 27, 2019

Dorado said: ↑

I’ll give you both a personal example. I have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos, a congenital disorder. The majority of my pain and other symptoms stem from autonomic dysfunction (often said to be the mechanism behind TMS). You know what hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos is notorious for?

Causing severe autonomic dysfunction, including postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), orthostatic intolerance, Raynaud’s, etc. Some Ehlers-Danlos patients are completely bedridden and disabled.

I could just as easily blame my sympathetic overactivity on my Ehlers-Danlos. And lots of other symptoms I’ve dealt with since childhood. The symptoms are absolutely endless: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pinterest.com/amp/pin/561331541026445694/?source=images (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome)

In fact, some doctors and fellow patients have told me just as much. I know how it feels to stand up and have my heart rate increase so much, I start blacking out. I’m all too familiar with adrenaline surges that wake me up throughout the night. I could go on and on and on, literally.

But saying Ehlers-Danlos is 100% responsible wouldn’t explain why my pain went from me not being able to type on a computer or pet my cat without excruciating pain (I’m the one who was applying for assisted suicide because I was so miserable), to me rarely having any pain at all. Or why my heart rate has significantly gone down, whether I’m resting or walking. Or why my autonomic nervous system and mast cells went from not being able to tolerate alcohol and marijuana at all, to me (responsibly!) enjoying both again. The truth is that stress is behind the severity and majority of my symptoms. To hell with Ehlers-Danlos. Sure, my jaw loves to pop out when I chew or sneeze or yawn, and I’m as bendy as Gumby (my nickname). But I am back in charge.

Your attitude is everything. We just had a discussion about Parkinson’s patients being able to increase their dopamine with a placebo or stop hand tremors through meditation.

If we can do it, so can you. And again, all of these posts are TMSing.
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Mickg0408 · Apr 27, 2026

Dorado said: ↑

I’ll give you both a personal example. I have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos, a structural disorder I've had since birth. The majority of my pain and other symptoms stem from autonomic dysfunction (often said to be the mechanism behind TMS). You know what hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos is notorious for?

Causing severe autonomic dysfunction, including postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), orthostatic intolerance, Raynaud’s, etc. Some Ehlers-Danlos patients are completely bedridden and disabled.

I could just as easily blame my sympathetic overactivity on my Ehlers-Danlos. And lots of other symptoms I’ve dealt with since childhood. The symptoms are absolutely endless: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pinterest.com/amp/pin/561331541026445694/?source=images (Redirect Notice) (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome)

In fact, some doctors and fellow patients have told me just as much. I know how it feels to stand up and have my heart rate increase so much, I start blacking out. I’m all too familiar with adrenaline surges that wake me up throughout the night. I could go on and on and on, literally.

But saying Ehlers-Danlos is 100% responsible wouldn’t explain why my pain went from me not being able to type on a computer or pet my cat without excruciating pain (I’m the one who was applying for assisted suicide because I was so miserable), to me rarely having any pain at all. Or why my heart rate has significantly gone down, whether I’m resting or walking. Or why my autonomic nervous system went from not being able to tolerate certain chemicals at all, to me (responsibly!) enjoying both again. The truth is that stress is behind the severity and majority of my symptoms. To hell with Ehlers-Danlos. Sure, my jaw loves to pop out when I chew or sneeze or yawn. But I am back in charge.

Your attitude is everything. We just had a discussion about Parkinson’s patients being able to increase their dopamine with a placebo or stop hand tremors through meditation.

If we can do it, so can you. And again, all of these posts are TMSing.
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Hi dorado! How did you go back to just living life with your pots symptoms and your heart alway constantly shooting up easily? How did you not fear it? I’ve never fainted but it’s so hard to believe its Tms when I get those adrenaline surges out of sleep where your heart can shoot up to 160/170 to 180 at times how does tms cause those symptoms? Were yours that severe, how long did those go on for you and what helped you go back to living life w them!

JanAtheCPA · Apr 27, 2026

Hello @Mickg0408. You'll get the most from this forum if you go to our Success Stories subforum and start reading the original posts there, rather than trying to get a response on a seven-year-old thread. I happen to know that Dorado is out living her life, after having provided a TON of support to forum members in the past. If you only want her recommendations, you can do a search on the Success subforum to limit your hits to posts by her. Or go to her profile page, click on the Postings tab, and at the bottom, limit the list to "threads started by...". But I don't recommend limiting yourself. The TMS brain mechanism applies to any and all physical manifestations of emotional stress and distress. Start with our main educational wiki at tmswiki.org.

Mickg0408 · Apr 27, 2026

JanAtheCPA said: ↑

Hello @Mickg0408. You'll get the most from this forum if you go to our Success Stories subforum and start reading the original posts there, rather than trying to get a response on a seven-year-old thread. I happen to know that Dorado is out living her life, after having provided a TON of support to forum members in the past. If you only want her recommendations, you can do a search on the Success subforum to limit your hits to posts by her. Or go to her profile page, click on the Postings tab, and at the bottom, limit the list to "threads started by...". But I don't recommend limiting yourself. The TMS brain mechanism applies to any and all physical manifestations of emotional stress and distress. Start with our main educational wiki at tmswiki.org.
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Thank you!! I will so she doesn’t come back on here anymore? Lol

caleb888 · Apr 29, 2026 at 6:26 AM

This is actually the hardest part of the process. I spent months obsessing over every twitch and it just kept the cycle going. Letting go and just living your life is usually when the real shifts happen anyway. Good luck with the break.

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