Day 9 - Journaling

I started on the SEP more than a month ago, did a couple of days, had houseguests for a week, got distracted, felt pretty good, thought maybe I didn't need to do the SEP after all. Then Wham! Major setback pain-wise. Okay, so maybe I should do the SEP after all.

Today I am on Day 9. I'm liking the journaling. I'm a writer, so the idea of journaling isn't anything new to me, although when I've journaled in the past, I've kept it pretty light. There were places I just wouldn't go. Lots of them. Places I am now visiting frequently. And I feel like I am churning up a lot of emotions and remembrances of pain and shame and grief.

My pain has actually gotten worse. The only difference between now and before I started this TMS healing journey is that before I would have been in bed, feeling awfully sorry for myself, and dreading to but wondering if I should see another doctor. Or maybe I should try yet another alternative healing modality. Now I realize the pain is TMS and that it is caused by my subconscious that is trying to distract me from dealing with all this emotional crud.

The journaling is really amazing, actually. It takes me places I didn't think of going when I started at the top of a blank page. It makes connections between things that happened when I was 5 (awfully mean 1st grade teacher) and when I went off to college at 17 and rebelled against all I had been raised to be. Journaling shows me how, when I respond today, as an adult of mature years, with hurt at having someone cancel a get-together that I am really responding as the 5 year old who was left out of a class art activity because the teacher was punishing me for something that is now lost to my memory.

It's flipping astonishing what journaling will do for you.

I'm in pain now, but it is abating and I know the TMS path I am on is going to get me through this safely.

Peace.

Cricket.

 

I feel like the pain has to get worse before it gets better. Like it wont let you go without a fight. It feels so unfair - like "hey I've finally figured this out WHY is it still hurting!
Mine moves around - so its so clearly TMS its almost textbook - yet my first impulse is to be like - oh i must have pulled something while running - nope it's just the same old situation in a new place.
I need to daily remind myself that this isn't suposed to be easy.
It's ok. It will never be perfect, but at least its BETTER and I'm not living in denial and avoidance.
There is something noble about facing this junk head on and owning it!
Peace to you and everyone here!!!

 

I find that I go to the physical cause ("what did I do to cause this new pain?") almost never any more; always thinking psychologically, not physically.

But it's a process. It seems so hard and long when you're going through it, but when things improve it kind of fades into the background.

 

When beginning to process my pain I found that the TMS journaling was essential for me. It kept me focused on the string of thoughts that seemed to arise randomly, allowing them then take me to wherever my mind ventured to go. It kept some order in my mind as I thought of whatever was needing to come out on paper. I had lots of anguish from past woundings brought out in my writings. It seemed to take me to deeper aspects of my remembrances as I wrote. After about two or three months of this deeply evocative and intense writing I found that I had explored so many and such deep canyons of my psyche that I did not need to do the journaling daily. I was done, more or less. The process of journaling eliminated after about two months, over one night, the terrible sciatica I had been suffering from for several months prior to beginning the journaling. It has not returned, but I still have the other hip, back, pain in different degrees, depending upon the day/hour. As I journaled I did not go to the physical cause, my mind took me to the emotional traumas of my past. The writing helped me dissect the deeper aspects of my hurts. It also led me to forgiveness of the oftentimes ignorance of others in how their actions were hurting me. Sometimes it was their non-actions the hurt. The lack of protection, lack of demonstrative love, avoidance, etc. The writings led me to think about individuals in my past in a different way. It led me to realizations, anger, hurt, and forgiveness in a different way that I had not before considered.
I may not have been able to do this some years ago, but as a senior, I found it freeing. TMS is not physical. It is created by me/you as a protection against our anguish; that we are not perfect enough, not ENOUGH. But, we are.
Journaling may not be for you, but for me, also a writer, it was essential. It is long and it is hard. Not all TMS sufferers journal. I found it rewarding in the first few months. However, I kept NONE of my journals, destroyed them, even destroyed some older journals that were filled with complaints. It felt good to trash them.
Lainey

 

Lainey, Thanks for your insights. Journaling really worked for you, and I think it will be very helpful to me, too.

I was thinking way ahead and I think I will destroy my journals at some point. Once they've served their purpose, we can part ways.

 

Journaling was the release valve that opened the flood gates of emotions, releasing what was trapped inside my body..

 

Oh, yeah, I'm finding it more and more. I've always heard of it, and done it, as a writing exercise/warmup "Freewriting" but as I said in my original post, I would skirt the deep emotional stuff then.

It's really a powerful tool if you dare to go where you've never (consciously) gone before.