CALL-IN TUESDAY, OZANICH CHAPTER 6

This Tuesday, September 24, the call-in discussion group will be discussing Chapter 6 (Opposition to TMS) in Steve Ozanich's book The Great Pain Deception starting at 9 pm Eastern Time. It lasts an hour, sometimes a little longer. Phone lines will open half an hour early so you can talk to hosts and early callers. Here's how to join the discussion (for detailed instructions, visit http://go.tmswiki.org/connect ):

• If you're connecting by phone, dial 1 646 583 7415 and when prompted enter the pin code 21558901.
• If you're connecting via your computer (Fuze Meeting), go to www.fuzemeeting.com/fuze/app/48fb7aa8/18311499 and follow the instructions from there.

Following is a summary of Chapter Six.

Steve writes that his 27 years of painful back ache was completely gone after he accepted Dr. Sarno’s theory that it was caused by TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome) repressed emotions.

“Everything every MD, every chiropractor, and every therapist had ever told me about back pain was absolutely wrong. My back was very strong and healthy despite all the ‘problems’ the high-tech imaging had been revealing. The initial misdiagnosis of the cause of my back pain when I was 14 years old had initiated a cumulative process that propelled me into nearly 30 years of unnecessary pain.”

He said he “found the truth and it set me free,” as it has many others, after learning about TMS and reading Dr. Sarno’s book, Healing Back Pain.

“However,” Steve writes in chapter 6 of The Great Pain Deception, “despite the massive successes, there remains (for some) strong opposition to the reality of TMS.

Steve admits that when he first read Dr. Sarno’s book, he threw it across the family room,
because it wanted him to admit to himself that he had repressed emotions which could cause him pain. But, as Steve writes in Chapter 6 of his book, “In denying the process of TMS, the distraction is still working. The more vociferous the rejection that TMS is the reason behind pain symptoms, the more likely that it is indeed the cause of their symptoms – the over-reaction reveals the shadow’s threatened response.”

The TMS diagnosis can be seen as deeply offensive because it threatens an undeveloped-self that a person has spent a lifetime concealing. Once the person pushes his ego aside, you heal. You will not heal if you think you know it all, or if your ego is threatened by what it doesn’t want to hear. Everything you think you know may very well prevent your healing.

Steve then discusses the body-ego-and mind in greater depth in the chapter. He says ego can fight any attempt at merging mind and body in healing from pain.

Rejection is often a repressed emotion that can cause TMS pain. Rejection can include death of a loved one, fear of one’s own mortality, having been an adopted child, abused at any age whether physically or emotionally, mid-life crisis, marital strife. “The ultimate fear (a person feeling rejected has) is becoming disconnected or experiencing further rejection, and so self-punishment provides a reprieve from unconscious guilt.”

Steve says when he tells people the healing he personally experienced through TMS and has seen happen in hundreds of others, skeptics still sit directly in front of me and tell me that they don’t believe it. “I always answer them in the same manner, “Just because YOU don’t believe it, it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Steve concludes the chapter by saying, “Individuals can choose to stay in pain if that is what they want. However, those who refuse to believe in TMS, either privately or professionally, should adhere to the Chinese proverb: ‘Those who say it can’t be done should get out of the way of the people who are doing it.”

Tough love, yes.

Steve posted the following a few days ago and it is just about the best summary of TMS and how to heal from it:



STEVE OZANICH ON TMS

I think you do know what the conflict (repressed emotion) is that is causing you pain. But if it's too emotionally painful, or taboo, or unthinkable, then you can't allow it to surface, thus the physical symptoms. It wants to be let go, but the TMS stops it in its tracks.

You don't have to know what "the" thing is that is causing your pain, or unpleasant symptoms. Over the past 12 years I've seen people get worse by trying to find the magic healing bullet. But it doesn't usually work. And--if you read the new Foreword that Dr. Sarno wrote in Healing Back Pain, he said it was "fruitless" to try to make the unconscious become conscious.

So, I tell people to look at your current life, and to forget the past for now. Your past is what got you here, it formed your personality, and how you respond to stress in your adult life. But it's gone, temporally. So you have a certain Type T persona, and your current life has you under the gun. As I wrote, I believe it is all about relationship. Check your current relationships, and let go of the past ones. Your TMS is there due to some fragmenting of a relationships, or relationships.

TMS occurs because of a reaction. Your physical body is reacting to something. If your body didn't react, then you wouldn't have any symptoms. But the presence of TMS shows that your body is responding. The response is to over stimulation. Most people can recognize a physical reaction to stress, and tension from stress. But they usually aren't aware of "how much" they are responding due to repression and ego. The ego covertly hides how much things are bothering us. The ego is also the thing that causes the reaction, or response. If we placed no attachment to the criticisms or rejections, in relationship, there would be no TMS. The ego is the thing that causes the over reaction.

So you have TMS because you are reacting to life. How you are reacting is how you learned to react as a child. You can change all that through letting go. Letting go is a book in itself, with many ways, and many takes. Healing is a personal thing, in that, no one can show you how to forgive, or to have faith or belief. No one person can tell someone how to have courage and strength. Those things come through personal revelations within the self. This struggle you go through to gain peace inside is life itself. This is what life is all about, the overcoming of fear and darkness through personal struggle. You don't want to jump to the end, you want to live each day turning the pages slowly, growing.

But, there are core concepts that we all can follow. Let go, laugh more, help others, stay physically active, and socially engaged, live with a purpose, stick with a daily transparent act, never think of the body, see light where darkness exists, and BELIEVE you will be ok.

Thanks, Steve. I’m printing this out to keep it handy and urge everyone to do the same.

If you need a jump-start on accepting that TMS repressed emotions are causing your pain, do join Tuesday's call-in and share your thoughts with others.

 

I thought chapter 6 was my best chapter. The MDs felt that chapter 5 on healing was the lynchpin. But it all ties together into a healing story, and a way out of suffering. I'm happy to see that it's working in people in many countries. I can almost pick out which ones will heal faster by the questions they ask up front, and by the statements they make. Healing is a choice.

 

I need to make that choice

 

Hi, mousemom. Make the TMS 100 percent belief choice. It works!

 

Thanks Walt! I feel like I can't make the choice 100% since this morning I scheduled a steroid injection for next Thursday. I am just exhausted from the pain. I believe it's TMS but I just need some relief, if only for a little while to help me refocus. I kind of feel like I caved I keep praying that the pain will subside & I can cancel the injection. Any advice?? Thank you!

 

Maybe whether you accept pain relief or not is not so important, as long as you keep focusing on the psychological. Your pain is real, even though caused by TMS. Treat yourself gently and kindly, you deserve it.

 

If I could beg you not to get the injection mousemom, I would. But you have to do what you feel is right in your heart. It's your life, you own the responsibility for your health. I've never seen an injection work beyond the temporary placebo. That means, you may feel a sense of relief that the injection is actually over, and also your mind's eye will be temporarily diverted by the injection--easing intensity.

In the end, you will prolong your suffering with the injection, if you have TMS. I assume people have TMS if I give TMS advice. If you have TMS you're setting yourself back by caving into the therapeutic modality. The fact that you're focusing on your physical body shows that your anxiety is so high that you need to do that. Your life is not where you want it to be right now. You need to make a tough decision somewhere.

If you need to talk let me know.

Steve

 

I would love to talk to you Steve. I am struggling with this decision. How do we get in touch? Thank you so much.

 

Just a reminder that the discussion group is tonight! Like always the lines will open up 30 minutes or so beforehand, but remember, the official discussion will begin at 9pm (ET), so please, hold your comments about the book until then so those who cannot attend the discussion live can have access to the entire discussion later via the recording. Feel free to log into the text chatroom at www.tmswiki.org/chat as well.

 

Contact me through my website mouselady, or send me a skype add contact request to "steve.ozanich"

Guess how long it took me to come up with that skype name? 4 years and 3 months, with a team of PR people working around the clock. The dot in the middle was my idea though.

 

i think i'll be joining tonight and skipping hot yoga!

 

Mousemom, I hope you can talk to Steve about not getting the steroid injection.
He really knows what to advise you.

 

Hi folks,
Here's the audio from the discussion group Tuesday! As always, you can listen to it using the audio player below, or you can download it as an mp3 by right-clicking on this link (or the link below the player) and choosing to save it to your computer as an mp3. Enjoy

Click here to download the mp3 audio​

 

Mousemom, please see this John Hopkin's study of steroid injections posted recently in this Forum by Dr Peter Zafirides:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/need_steroids_maybe_not_for_lower_back_pain

If a sterile water injection gets the same pain relieving effects as a steroid injection, what the heck is going on here? Is someone whispering, Placebo?

 

Bruce, thanks for reminding us about this study.

 

Walt, those steroid injections and the cult surrounding them have always seemed like mambo-jumbo to me. Saw too many back pain patients during my early days working like a helot in Physical Therapy putting off a steroid injection until the "last minute" and having them repeatedly over a long period of time with no real improvement. Obviously, the procedure itself had some kind of deep psychological meaning for them. They seem like back surgery: The injections work but then they don't work really. Big improvement the first time, less with each subsequent injection. Patients always returning to try and rediscover the old magic . . . all to no avail! If irrigating the spinal canal with sterile water gets the same results, what does that say about the efficacy of the steroid medication?

 

I stay clear of any medication or injections or surgery.
If God meant me to be a pin cushion, he would have made me one.

I've put in a long day of work on the computer.
Tonight I'll find something funny or uplifting to watch from my dvd collection.
I doubt I'll find anything like that on television.

 

Thanks Bruce. I have read the article and it does bring up a lot of thoughts. I am still debating the injection. I will have an MRI on Monday morning than an appt. with the neuro surgeon on Wednesday morning. Shot is scheduled for Thursday morning. It will be an interesting week. I am praying to make the right decision. Thank you all for your wonderful support and words of advice. I will keep you posted.