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Cough and thoracic spine pain and soooo scared
I learned the breathing from my PT who suggests you breath into your back, not with force, but with a light thought and attention, right at the bra strap. I have "tools" I use at times when I find that it is difficult to slow the breath down too - one is a straw, it just helps with a long exhale, the other is blowing bubbles! The idea is to make this totally fun, and get your brain to see it as nothing but fun and goofiness. You need to take all intention away from doing it "perfectly" or it correcting anything physical ... it's simply cuing your nervous system to slow down. My PT has now asked me to use the same method in Qi Gong (which would, at first months ago make me breath fast in anxiety of the movements), and it's working really well. So meditative. This method would also work great with fun yoga poses like trying to do Warrior with a straw in your mouth breathing out a long exhale...what a fun silly challenge!

Watch your reactions to things like "GRRRRR" - that is you being hard on yourself by not being able to control your body. This isn't about your body at all, it's about changing the tone of your nervous system by changing your thought patterns from reactions and essentially wanting to push away all these physical sensations of anxiety to responding which is a gentle and kind inner sense of acceptance of the situation. This is how we stimulate what some people call the "relaxation response" however it's really just regulating the nervous system, which is supposed to kind of swing like a pendulum between states instead of getting stuck. I know when my mind is stuck, my nervous system is gonna get stuck too.
I've had to learn the hard way that pushing and striving and forcing myself is going to put increased stress on my mind and nervous system. It sounds like you are already super successful with this practice during QiGong, running and sleeping, so please remind yourself and your body you are ALREADY SUCCESSFUL - now you just want to teach your brain and your thought patterns to generalize this kind response to yourself. For awhile it will seem like you are doubling down - working on your nervous system response and working on the OCD like thought patterns with your fear of cancer.

I was thinking today about how we have been discussing (amongst us older TMS-ers) about the age of rage and how society has tried to scare us into thinking aging is a horrifically scary event full of serious illness, medication, physical decline and god forbid, a decline in our appearance. It all stems from an existential fear of death, what we can't control, fear of the unknown, etc. Do you think your constant thinking about cancer fits into this pattern? Not necessarily age for you, but the same extistenial fears - and the absolutely inner rage it must create deep down there that we think we can't control our own destiny? The funny thing is, TMS work actually does end up giving us control over our own destiny in many ways. These things might be excellent journaling fodder for you.