Day 18 - Most prevalent emotion? Lonely

I have been seeing over and over again that in almost every painful emotional situation or memory, I have felt lonely.

It has been very helpful to learn about emotional wounding at the various stages of child development in Harville Hendrix's book, "Keeping The Love You Find". It has helped me realize why I end up feeling lonely so often, because some of my coping mechanisms included becoming the Avoider, Isolator, and Loner.

In the book, Hendrix also gives recommended action steps to learn how to become more balanced, and I've been practicing those. It includes a lot of what TMS Wiki teaches: initiating emotional connection with myself and closeness with others, sharing my feelings to myself and others, developing more same-sex friends, sharing my thoughts with the man I'm dating.

I'm not gonna lie, it makes me feel very vulnerable, so I'm making sure the sharing is only with people I know are supportive and kind listeners. I realize this was a protective mechanism, so letting others see me without that protection needs to be done when and with whom I feel safe, until I get stronger and more confident about it.

Which is REALLY interesting, because I had a long career as a very thick-skinned bank Vice President, including working in the loan collection department for 7 years after the recession hit in 2008. I was one of very few women in a male dominant field. Not surprisingly to me now, it was in 2010 when Bell's Palsy struck and made the right side of my face into a frozen look of despair. (Issues on the right side of the body have to do with men.)

I was able to get my face 90% back to normal with months of acupuncture, then the improvements stopped.

These first few weeks of the TMS program have been making incremental improvements to the remaining 10% distortion (that makes me look pained / sad). I have been peeling back the layers of the pain and sadness of that vulnerable core slowly and gently... even while writing this post, I can feel more blood flow to my face... so surreal...!

I definitely don't feel lonely on this TMS journey, because of all the support provided here. I am so grateful for this Program and the resources in this Wiki!

 

Just re-read Mindbody prescription where Sarno speculates about Bell's Palsy.

My face was killing me a couple of weeks ago... right side. REALLY angry at my son (but not saying/acting it out). Ex-GF pops up out of nowhere to haunt me and it immediately goes to the Left (LOL). As soon as I was honest w/her about how angry I was, the pain ceased

I have always been of the Franz Alexander persuasion that specific dilemma's cause specific symptoms... a lot like Louise Hay. I have had too many Symptom changes like that to ignore their consistency. I have also seen too much consistency among my friends who don't know about TMS (Finance=low back, guilt=midback, Neck= emotional crap,etc)

Sarno disagreed, but I think it was the scientist in him because it is a generalization, not a lead pipe stone cold lock.

I don't think Loneliness is banished by anything other than God. I have felt lonely married in a family and I have felt connected living alone in a one room apartment. When we are spiritually OK we are open to our fellows and we join the only real family there is...

 

That is wild about your face pain switching sides so quickly! WOW! Talk about proof! Yes, I agree so much with Louise Hay - I find in my Reiki clients that certain areas of the body consistently reveal certain issues. I guess I have a different perspective than loneliness being banished by God, since I am more of a believer in an energetic "Source" than a God... I think we are a tribal species, that needs to feel like we "belong". Perhaps your spiritual connectedness to your God gives that sense of belonging. I'm such a physical touch person that I need connectedness with other people physically involved...lol...

 

Loneliness, fear of isolation and the effect it will have on me long term. Loneliness can and does have physical repercussions. Me moving from a place I knew to a place of unknown 100 miles away, the end of a long marriage in which I gave up so much to hold on to a false sense of security, the pain still fresh three years after being cast aside. I am feeling the emotional pain. My feet and calves have lost full sensation.

 

I am so very sorry for your losses! :-( My Reiki clients experience foot and lower leg issues when they are not ready to "step into" something yet... My hope is that you will find one thing you are passionate about, to start taking baby steps into it, which may bring the flow of life back into your feet and calves. Sending much love!

 

I had a lot of really Odd symptoms as I went through my divorce about ten-twelve years ago. Yes, I felt very alone and isolated... BUT I also had to work through each thing and learn the lesson from it before I could move on. The TMS was instructive in that regard... Knee, shoulder and odd ones like reproductive organ pain.

One of the most obvious things I didn't get was that I was in Love with the idea of being married, not the person I was married to. Having No Family growing up , being a part of one meant the world to me. When my wife demanded a divorce I thought I had failed. I did everything I could to fix the relationship but she wasn't having it.

Obviously I am now having the clarity of hindsight, BUT we are both happier now.

She had always resented my ok-in-any-cardboard-box mentality and I had always resented her materialist viewpoints BUT the emotional baggage of being in the form of 'family' was what tethered us to each other so long. Now that we no longer have to play charades we actually get along quite well! Our sons benefited from the lack of rancor and hostility and like all extraordinarily painful things, it forced me through the 'growth' ringer like dry toothpaste out of the roll.

The TMS was beneficial because every new tickle brought me back to having to look at everything, review all of the stuff Sarno implicates in the syndrome (narcissism, self esteem, Fear, childhood trauma, repression,etc) and come out of the other side. Unlike expensive therapy you KNOW when you're 'done' because the symptoms stop. The list of questions you have to answer to get over TMS and equivalents is not only going to end the pain but bring you to ontological nirvana to sit in the lap of God.

...and as an aside, I am not lonely. No person can make true loneliness and alienation vanish. That is probably why there is so much friction in personal relationships. We are always wanting that other person to remove that feeling of alienation and they can't and won't. Like TMS the answer is inside Here, not outside There.

 

Wonderfully stated truth!

 

I am familiar with the concept of existential loneliness having listened to Dr. Peter Zafiridis’ podcast on the subject so know it is futile to hope this feeling will cease.

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/the-role-of-existential-anxiety-in-tms-pain.228/ (Dr. Zafirides - The Role of Existential Anxiety in TMS Pain)

I can’t envision a time where I will be friendly with my Ex. I held it all together for the sake of the financial settlement to avoid going to court. Now there is little if any contact. Maybe an odd text with me asking how the dog is (he’s elderly with complex health problems). When we broke the news to my adult daughters that we were divorcing, one asked if we would still remain friends. His reply was “well, not very good friends.” Tell me if I am expecting too much but in my mind I would rather have a person be no friend as opposed to a not very good one. This experience has made me realise I have had to let go of a couple of other relationships that have been draining of me, one sided relationships with me being the listener, the empathiser and them never giving me the space to talk and be heard.

Lately I have been having thoughts and dreams of me having it out with the Ex. I know from my reading and experience that our primitive brains (and thus our bodies) can’t distinguish between thought/dream and reality. It’s all real. I woke up today, upset, verbalising stuff out loud, with backache and headache. Those have faded and I am left with the numbness in my lower limbs.

I have had to take major ‘steps’ to get where I am today. People praise me saying I am so brave. I don’t feel brave, just did what I had to do. I was a suicidal mess three years ago, writing myself letters saying I wish I could die of cancer, searching on suicide websites. I have been on anti-depressants for 2.5 years, something I had always resisted. For the sake of my children, few friends, few close family members (much estrangement going on there), I have forced myself to step forward, while so much of me is stuck in this hell from the past.

I have recently started with a new therapist. Prior to this I had avoided the elephant in the room - my marriage - when having Skype sessions with a TMS therapist. This new in-person therapist, though not specifically a TMS therapist, is very clued up on the mind body link. She uses the Internal Family Systems (Richard Schwartz, Jay Early). I have already identified a part of me that craves for the Ex to come back. That particular child/exile, I believe, is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. She doesn’t know any better or any different and is dependent on that toxic relationship, one where he had all the powers and she remained passive and complied.

All very deep for a Friday morning.

 

This is beautiful. For all the madness and mayhem that surrounds my time tussling with TMS, I realised a while ago that the main “wound” was that I had let my faith and sacred practices fall away. As I gently restore them, life regains it’s grace and ease.

It would be a easy to criticise this tendency of relinquishing spiritual disciplines at the times when they are most needed but I resist. This is so very human, and seems to be the way I return to them more deeply, more intimately.

There is a strong spiritual element to TMS for me. I’m not sure where Sarno himself stood on this but I defer to your thoughts on him being a scientist with all that entails. Let’s face it, he had enough problems been taken seriously, but I do sometimes wonder how the writings of Jung or other depth psychoanalysts could have influenced his work.

I miss Peter’s contributions here. He had a depth and breadth of thought that I treasured.

I am sorry you’re still going through hell my love. I pray life starts to treat you more kindly and that your time in the emotional tumbler ends soon and well.

I send you love and an assurance that the spiritual madness does end. Stress and travails seem to be constant companions in my life but I am more grounded and compassionate for them. Do I wish things were different? Yes. But I’m not sure I’d be who I am, where I am without it all and that I wouldn’t trade. May you find a measure of this peace my darling ❤️

Plum x

 

OK... Not to hijack the thread but.....

What I am about to say has NOTHING to do with getting rid of symptoms and everything to do with being free. This is definitely 'off topic'

Dreams are important. The same guy who gave Sarno all of his structure (Freud) also thought so as well. I have found they are the canvas of the unresolved in our psyche. The fact that yours are so vividly tied into your TMS source is significant.
Divorce is abandonment. It resonates really deep. It means THAT person thought you were 'beyond the pale' so to speak and it is the ultimate rejection. I've been there, I know.

BUT... there is freedom on the other side of it. It's through forgiveness.

I am not one of those happy-smiley-just-think-positive guys. I hate those smarmy head-in-the-sand types. BUT there was this first century rabbi who was pretty clear that we were on the hook until we could forgive those who had harmed us...what a conundrum?

That's why it is important to know what it is you are angry about. TMS work is great for this. So are the fourth and tenth steps in AA. It was by acting OK when we were secretly angry that caused our symptoms... so

After we have identified the culprits and the 'crime' , we are left with anger...regret...remorse. Not fun

But when we have the courage to look into OUR part of the interaction even if our part was just a foolish or fallacious belief,
It then becomes clear to me that I have been participating in all of the events that brought on my pain, anger and alienation. In fact it goes right back to the beginning of my own consciousness. When I realize that I was completely asleep and had no real choice in a lot of the bad decisions I made it also occurs to me that other people suffer from the same lack of awareness. We tend to blame other for our experience. It takes a HIGH level of consciousness to truly make a decision..... one that most people seldom reach.

So we realize that the people who enrage us had no choice. Wired like a lab rat. So we forgive them.

That first century rabbi uttered a profound truth that most of us grumble through once a day or once a week . it has a line that says 'and forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us.'

The correct translation is ' forgive us our trespasses IN THE SAME WAY we forgive those who trespass against us'

He was messing with us. If we don't forgive, we aren't forgiven. People who don't feel forgiven have TMS and self esteem issues and whole lot of other stuff...and they feel blocked from God and Lonely No matter how many facebook friends they have.

I am only 'sharing' this because it has raised the quality of my life through the roof. I am so happy at 53 I didn't even know it was possible. However, if you told me what I just posted when I was 33 I would have laughed you off the face of the earth.

Forgiveness is the most powerful force I have ever encountered, bar none

 

yb44 - You have been taking courageous steps in the right direction, even when you haven't felt like it was courageous. You have much to contribute and a future to enjoy. We are here with you - keep sharing what you are going through so we can provide supportive and encouragement!

Baseeball65 - Your contributions are profoundly helpful. Keep 'em comin'! It doesn't feel like you are hijacking... lol! I may ask for your permission to use your quote above for a training class: I am learning a forgiveness practice called Ho'oponopono that is so in alignment with what you said about others being unconscious about their choices, like we have been and in ways continue to be. It does make it so much easier to forgive.

plum - beautiful insights. It is very human. I am in a Reiki Facebook group, and even those of us that are practitioners need reminders to reconnect with Source. It is always obvious when we aren't.

Deeply moving for a Friday!

 

You ought go off-piste more often because this post is stunning.

In the early part of this year I embraced a huge amount of inner healing, lots of letting go and without truly realising it, forgiveness. I felt the lightest, the most serene, the most beautiful I have felt in decades.

But then a lot of stressful things happened over which I had/have no control and incrementally the peace so carefully cultivated fell away. As the dust settles I’ve had chance to reflect upon how recent events stirred unresolved emotions and highlighted those memories and people that I keep in a dungeon in my mind.

Forgiveness, Surrender and letting go were the core elements of the spiritual wisdom I practiced at the start of the year albeit unintentionally. Your words are sage. Forgiveness is an integral part of love, healing and freedom.

God Bless You.

 

I found your post on point, Baseball, hardly a highjack. Everyone’s views are relevant and pertinent. We put ourselves out there. We have to expect all manner coming back to us. Bring it on.

Forgiveness has always been a sticking point for me but I know unless I engage in this process, the anger will remain and so will all the pain, spiritual, emotional and physical.

Plum, I have just downloaded the Insight Timer app you mentioned on another thread. I know from the past how effective meditation can be yet I have let my practice lapse for far too long. Thank you. I am also sorry to read you are dealing with your own troubles.

Abandonment, yes. I abandoned myself, believing all the negative talk that was said to me was true, fact.

During the night following the Ex’s pronouncement that he would be better off without me, I couldn’t sleep for obvious reasons. I turned the TV on for a distraction. I freaked out when I tuned in to a programme about Harry Harlow’s wire monkey experiment. I had an attachment to someone who did not reciprocate and I had known this on some level for a very long time, but I kept on repressing. Likewise, I had an attachment to a mother who did not reciprocate. She was my very first wire monkey. In fact an EFT practitioner had asked me years ago if I were to write my biography, what would it be called? Wire Monkey, was my response. Thus the reason for my freak out which compounded my already fragile state.

It’s a long, hard road.

 

YB! Long long time no hear, and I'm so sad that you are having such a hard time since the divorce. I can see that you haven't lost touch with the premise and the need for this work after all these years, but I know that you've had a lot to deal with, and it is HARD. Never mind the effect that world affairs are having, I think, on everyone. Three years ago seems like a very different time.

Dr. Zafirides seems to be engaged in private practice and teaching, according to his bio at this small clinic: http://www.mycobm.com/clinicians/ (Psychiatrists – Mycobm)
I was really disappointed when his website disappeared, because the concepts of Existential Psychotherapy make a lot of sense to me, and have been incredibly valuable during my own crises - I know I've talked about this before. Isolation and Abandonment, as @LaineyVeganseed originally posted about, are HUGE. Our brains seem to be wired to repress the emotions that accompany isolation/abandonment, at the same time that they create an enormous fear of becoming isolated or being abandoned. It's a double whammy.

This week I'm recommending two podcasts for everyone who is stuck:
The Mind & Fitness Podcast episode #85 (Aug 28) with Dr. Schubiner, and The Cure For Chronic Pain with Nicole Sachs, LCSW, episode #45 (today) with Dan Buglio.

I'm thinking of you, YB - keep us posted, okay?

Love,

Jan

 

@yb44 as @JanAtheCPA says, keep us in the loop. I hope you find some healing and hope-giving meditations on Insight Timer. As mentioned above I’ve noticed that during stressful times I tend to either abandon or execute by rote any nurturing practices. This in itself has become a source of self-enquiry. Why at the times when we most need our own love, care and compassion do we desert ourselves and our most basic human needs?

It is the most intimate wound and therefore the very place most in need of our patient care and attention, of our loving kindness.

Plum ❤️

 

Wow beautifully put Baseball65!

 

Why at the times when we most need our own love, care and compassion do we desert ourselves and our most basic human needs?

As I said above, I have accepted all the negative talk as fact. I have conceded to the inner bully. I have fed the wrong wolf. How could I possibly feel worthy of love, care and compassion with all that going on?

 

yb44 - When you think or speak the words "I'm not worthy of love, care or compassion because of all that is going on", I am certain that your body caves in - shoulders hunch forward, head tilts down, feels like someone is pressing on your heart / chest, etc. This is because it is not true and your inner wisdom (soul/chakras/whatever you believe) knows it is not true. Try thinking and say the words "I'm worthy of love, care and compassion no matter what is and has gone on" and see how your shoulders rise and open backwards, and your head tilts up, and your heart / chest feels open? That is because the cells in your body expand when you think or say what is really true. I've taught many people this since learning it in my first Reiki class 8 years ago, and it is never wrong. Every cell in your body is designed for growth and expansion. When we think or say a false statement, we cut off the natural flow. Same thing our brain does in TMS to reduce oxygen to parts of our body. Does that resonate with you?

 

Funny, the first part sounds eerily familiar because it describes my posture to a tee. I have also been experiencing pressure around the area of my heart lately which is a new development. I don’t worry about it but I do observe it with interest. I think it will take awhile for the part of me that doesn’t feel worthy to straighten up and feel more open. As I type this, the pressure on my heart area has resumed. Gotta laugh at the predictability of this stuff.

BTW I was attuned in Reiki 1 many years ago but that practice fell by the wayside. At the time my intention was to rid myself of migraines. This was before I had ever heard of TMS.

 

It is fascinating to feel pain move around the body as we talk about or think about emotions!

So exciting that you did Reiki I!!! I hope you will consider getting back into it some day! I took Reiki I & II in a classroom setting, then a few years ago found Lisa Power's I, II and Master / Teacher online course in Udemy. It was a great refresh of I & II, and I just finished the coursework for Master / Teacher. Her private online group for people who buy the course is really great - they host weekly distance Reiki shares every Wednesday night, which supplements the in-person Reiki shares I go to locally 1-2x a month.

I hope you were able to eliminate your migraines Namaste!