Day 8

Day 8 asked me to post my journey so far so here I am. Doing ok with the pain, the anxiety/panic continues hoping it gets better. I am seeing the connection between stressors and pain/anxiety though. The part that I am hoping to get a better handle on is how do I write about the emotions/symptoms. When I start journaling I usually go down the path of describing what happened and details. I struggle with how my body feels/felt then. I can certainly say I had anxiety/panic symptoms of catastrophizing the worst but I have still not had luck in describing more. Hopefully will get there soon as experiencing the pain/emotions seems to be the first step in letting go..

 

CMA
I struggle with the descriptions of the actual feelings myself. I'm using the questions Dr. Brady suggests in the in-depth journaling chapter of Pain Free For Life and it seems to be helping me make progress. One of the most difficult things for me to overcome so far is actually "feeling" the feelings. My journal entries tend to read more like news reports than journeys into the mind. Be patient with yourself. I've been working at this since the end of December and last night, for the very first time, I actually physically "felt" the feeling while I was journaling. Much to my amazement, the actual sensations in my body from what I was writing were almost identical to the sensations I notice now with my TMS pain when it is at a not-so acute level. The same muscles tensed, the breath got shallower, the heart was pounding in my ears...only thing I remembered that I didn't actually "feel" last night was a knot in the pit of my stomach. It's possible that means I have some more digging to do on that subject, but I got to my deepest level so far just last night. Remember, we're professional "repressors", stands to reason un-repressing is going to be the hardest task we've ever been assigned - it's the anti-us and therefore also the anti-dote!

Keep asking yourself why until you actually get an answer. I know for me, my standard response is always - very honestly - I don't know. Of course I don't know, I've been hiding the answers to those questions from myself for years. The trick is not to be satisfied with the "I don't know", to realize that you NEED to know and keep asking until you get the real answer. If that is as difficult for you as it is for me, put it out here in the forum - there are some extremely insightful folks here that have been very skilled at steering me right to the answers I couldn't find - I'm confident they will do the same for you!
Leslie

 

CMA,
This worked for me, I started watching my thoughts very carefully. I realized I had a lot of self-defeating
thoughts about the pain. Once I started to be more mindful of my thoughts that really was a turning point.

I use positive affirmations telling myself I am symptom free and I move my body with ease. I am safe and
secure and a bunch of other ones. This counteracts the thoughts of my subconscious I am not aware of.

I also say my life has so much purpose and I do not need you pain.
I working on all this. Hope that helps.

You are going to do GREAT!!!!!
G.R.