Day 1 Deep Breathing, Oxygenating

I have been listening to Katelyn Michael's podcasts since Friday, reading here on TMS Wiki this weekend, watching some Dr. Sarno videos on YouTube as well. Getting the books this week and am so excited to begin to read his actual work! In place of reading his books on Day 1, I have been going over the recommended reading as part of Week 0 and Day 1 in the Structured Educational Program. I am thinking about each question and taking time to complete each exercise so that I am able to feel what I am feeling in a potent way. I am also practicing deep breathing exercises, which I used to do, but for some reason lost the habit. My favorite way is to make the exhales longer than the inhales, so that the inhales are a more powerful intake of oxygen. The exhales then give my body time for the oxygen to make it into my bloodstream.

I feel like I'm sort of at an advantage in the "accepting diagnosis" department. For years and years, I have had chronic fatigue, chronic pain, anxiety, depressive states, headaches, and most recently full-on migraines. I have been to doctors multiple times and have had I don't know how many exams, x-rays, MRIs, blood panels, you name it, done to figure out what is going on. I've had NOTHING physical show up. EVER. The only time I had a problem with anything on a "physical" level was becoming slightly anemic when I was pregnant, and that is most definitely structural. I didn't mind taking iron supplements because my baby was using up so much iron from my own blood! The really funny thing with that, though, is that I had absolutely no symptoms of being anemic, it just showed up on a blood panel. Surprisingly, I didn't have any symptoms of being anemic, and we wouldn't have known otherwise. Since all the times I thought there was something physically wrong with my body, there wasn't, and the one time there was something "wrong" I had no symptoms at all, I'm just relieved and glad to have a diagnosis that makes 100% sense to me.

I'm seeing myself in all of the case studies I'm reading. I'm hearing myself in all of the Sarno videos I've watched where he describes the types of people who most readily present with TMS. I feel like I've found my tribe and my people that are going through the same thing or have gone through this. And I'm delighted that I can stop spending so much money on a futile quest to make myself better! I'm already at peace that I've "wasted" my money, as I now have a consistent medical history showing that indeed there's absolutely nothing structurally wrong with me. I am a healthy person and will continue to be healthy. I am excited to learn more and grow and continue to heal, and I'm looking forward to interacting with everyone here in the forum!