Day 1 Cautiously Optimistic

My response to my feelings about the 20/20 video:
- I feel eager to get started on this, I want to feel pain free as quickly as possible!! I want to feel good, healthy, vibrant, care-free!
- I feel validated hearing the stories of others who have tried ALL the traditional treatments to no avail.
- I feel jealous that it worked for them but suspicious that maybe it won't work for me. I've sought different therapies to address emotions after all. I did the 21 day program and didn't have any crazy breakthroughs.
- Yet I feel excited that this may be the miracle and just what I needed. I believe in signs from the universe and multiple things are leading me to Sarno's work and reassuring me that this is valid. Following that quickly however are doubts and reminders of times when very promising treatments let me down.
- I feel thankful that this program is free because I am at a point in my life where I am trying to save all my money and not spend my life savings on back treatments.

Where I am right now in my treatment:
- I am relatively new to the concept of TMS. I just finished Alan Gordon's 21 day program and am kind of miffed I didn't get any AMAZING results.
- I have experienced consistent, low-grade right-sided discomfort that occurs on my hip, rib, shoulder area, and sometimes sacral area. It expresses as a tightness and a feeling of misalignment and I always want to stretch or pop my side. Over the past 8 or 9 years I have had complete symptom relief only a handful of times (lasting from 5 minutes to half a day).
- I am not officially diagnosed with TMS but I have seen many physicians that cannot find a structural problem other than a slight curvature that "is not equivalent to the symptoms I'm feeling."
- Unfortunately at this point I only partially accept the idea that I have TMS. Doubt-thoughts include: Maybe it's fascia related and maybe I need to spend a month getting MFR massages to get to the spots I can't reach. Maybe it's not psycho-somatic; it doesn't completely make sense that it is a stress or emotional response because I have been through high stress times and low stress times and the discomfort remained fairly stable. It did not seem to be directly correlated with my levels of stress. Maybe it's something in my diet. Maybe there's some deep dark rare, abnormal problem I just don't know about. Maybe there's something in me that just does not respond to treatment. What that would be I don't know.
- Maybe this could work though. At the least it's free and it's somewhat interesting to do a little self-exploration.
- On the positive side I do think this has worked for other people, I believe in a mind-body connection,
I am also at a point where I am not letting the discomfort prevent me from doing the things that I want to do. I have begun rock-climbing, spending more time in nature, and have gotten into a solid exercise routine (for what feels like the first time in my life). I feel like I am coming into myself more and more.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Hears to dissolving suffering, discomfort, pain, and new beginnings.

 

A life without TMS or consistent discomfort would mean the ability to enjoy my life fully and also the return of confidence that I do know how to take care of my body.