DO WE GET SYMPTOMS BY READING AND WRITING ABOUT THEM- THIS HAS TO CHANGE

I have been writing a bunch of posts the past few days.

The weather here at our farm has been totally dismally snowy and frozen. I have found myself freed up and holed up inside for the longest stretch since the winter of '21-'22, after our farm was half destroyed by a flood in the Nicola Valley, BC and we were evacuated from our farm completely for 5 months, and then for a further three months we could only access our ruined farm by hiking in or helicoptering in....

That evacuated winter while I was in something of a stupor after our family had undergone end of the world type chaos (you can read about it all more extensively on my other post about my crazy healing adventure with John Sarno, and also check out my family's excellent facebook page: michaelbrandiecouttsmacarthur or monkeyinthegarden) I pretty much wasted more time than in twenty years playing video games and making tiny circuits around our friend's home that was opened up to us refugees in a frozen canadian winter....

Now, two winters later, I'm stuck in the house after non-stop rebuilding of our farm since we first started helicoptering and hiking in. My makita power tools are on hold for a short stint, the gardens are truly wrapped up, the animals are all safe and sound, and here I find myself writing a bunch of posts on TMS Wiki- a truly exciting website.

Truly exciting because of all of us folks who have had incredible healing awakenings by using John Sarno's techniques.....

Anyways, the past few days I have found myself hogging this laptop and posting and checking posts and it has been great to share some thoughts and ideas that have been bouncing around my brain since I first experienced incredible healing after reading Sarno's books in 2020.

I have to admit, though, that despite all of my huge successes overcoming mountains of symptoms like debilitating migraines, knee pain, neck pain, elbow pain, food intolerances, and more- that I am finding my head hurting and it is coinciding with spending so much time on this TMS website.

It is really tough to tell whether it has to do with revisiting all of the pain symptoms that I have experienced, or seeing titles of posts that mention symptoms, or if it totally has to do with the fact that our farm is locked into frozen nasty winter and water pipes and animals water buckets are freezing, the farm keeps needing snow shoveling, there's no sun and its freezing ass cold, our animals are acting persnickity because of the crappy weather, and many roosters appear to have gotten frostbite- a sad state of affairs.... There is plenty of extra rage generating situations going on in my life right now, as well as fresh exposure to descriptions of symptoms.

I imagine that this is an ugly old issue that haunts the world of John Sarno. I haven't really dug too deep into the archives of this website to see if this issue has been addressed, and maybe it has?

Does reading about and writing about psychosomatic symptoms potentially condition us to experience symptoms?

Do we actually condition ourselves to experience pain symptoms when rereading John Sarno's books and reading and writing about symptoms?

Bear with me while I try to assemble all of my thoughts on this subject. I am trying not to muddle it all up, and am also trying to not stay up too late in the night getting these thoughts down.

When I first read Healing Back Pain and totally started overcoming all of my pain really rapidly, I continued to read his books end to end and over and over (including Marc Sopher's book and 2 of Howard Schubiners). My pain healing was dizzying, and I was suddenly feeling like superman. Farm work became so easy (especially after it had become so difficult). I could again lift huge rounds of firewood for splitting with my back bent and toss it out of trucks. I could again lift huge heavy rocks and move them around, and hoist quarters of beef no problem.

I really love exerting myself to this day by lifting absurdly heavy things and really running with all of my farm work with great gusto- it just feels so good to feel so good.

Still, life goes on and more extremely stressful (or rage generating) situations keep popping up- least of all being stuck in insane catastrophic natural disasters. Eventually at points I have needed to pick up John Sarno's books again when some nagging symptom just wasn't going away through my daily brain talking.

I would find, when rereading his books, that I would experience mild versions of many of the symptoms mentioned that would pop up in his books! Finally, when the reread of his books would be completed, my nagging symptom and all the others would be gone, and hooray- life could go on pain free with minimal annoying symptoms that just need continued brain talking about issues that keep popping up.

I understand that medical students commonly experience many of the terrible symptoms that they learn about when going though medical school. A nurse friend agreed that this is so.

I can only imagine how actual practitioners of psychosomatic medicine, who are regularly interacting with patients with psychosomatic disorders, could potentially be at higher risk of experiencing symptoms? Is this so? That totally sucks if it is true.

Reading in the histories of psychosomatic medicine, I understand that after Charcot's death, the sanitorium that he had been managing instigated new rules: THE PATIENTS AND DOCTORS DIDN'T TALK ABOUT THE SYMPTOMS

As the story went, this was good news, and the patients fared much better when they weren't telling each other what they were suffering from!

This presents major problems.

I read that John Sarno himself suffered so much because there are so many people who don't accept his ideas and continue suffering horrible pain symptoms when the cure is right within their grasp. How ironic.

When I spend time with friends and family who cannot accept Sarno's theories and keep on suffering, I am truly saddened, and I should probably talk to my brain more to prevent any extra distracting symptoms.

The most enraging thing is that every human on earth doesn't already know how to use their minds to undo all pain and disease, and that this isn't commonly accepted so that kids and adults alike just know what to do. What a relief for all practitioners and sufferers if everybody accepted that our brains are probably implicated in every ailment under the sun (through buried rage and traumas). We could all move along and get along with life and keep enjoying it.

This is too simplistic and ignoring bigger issues in the world- and I really don't mean to offend anybody who is suffering any pain or symptoms or disease to blithely state that the solutions all reside somewhere in our brains.... I do believe it to be true, though. That's just how it is- with all of the incredible healing that I have experienced.

Before I keep rambling on and on, I need to say this:

WE NEED TO STOP CONDITIONING OURSELVES IN BELIEVING THAT READING ABOUT OR WRITING ABOUT SYMPTOMS GIVES US SYMPTOMS

I doubt that I'm alone here- but maybe I am.

After overcoming all of my terrible symptoms that totally ruled my life, I started telephoning a different person every night for many months. I would phone people up who I hadn't talked to in decades, or barely knew at all in our local community, and tell them of my incredible healing from John Sarno's books.

My dad's cousin Cathy said 'Are you sure you didn't just have some virus that just went away?'

I thought 'right, a virus that was causing crippling migraines that would come in low level form several times weekly, with big blasters that would have me barfing monthly- pain all through my body and foods I couldn't eat for years and alcohol intolerance and more- all going away coinciding with Sarno's books though maybe just a virus? Talk about far fetched (the virus I mean).

Still, despite my overcoming all of my symptoms- there are times when they spring back. I can push all of the limits of whatever I couldn't do pre-Sarno with no problems whatsoever, and then there are situations, and people, that can still have me pushing my brain talking to the limit. I pretty much always win these mental battles and they are very few and far between.....

Still, I sure don't like reading about or writing about symptoms- no matter how therapeutic it can be. I realize that I really need to do some serious brain talking about all of this.

Plus, all of this great time writing out my thoughts that have been bouncing around my brain while busy farming for years is a blast. It is a new distraction, however. It is taking time from other important things in life- like playing outside in the snow with my wife and daughter today and instead writing on this forum. The honest truth is that I actually hate the snow and I'll just keep talking to my brain and stop conditioning myself to think that exposure to symptom literature is dangerous! Ha- this sounds like crazy talk!

Happy Healing

 

I'm pretty certain that any symptoms I have experienced in the past few days has been totally related to this sudden dump of winter into our laps the past week.
Definitely waking up to snow doesn't fill me joy and awe. Especially when each fresh round of snow makes all of your paths disappear once again, and all of your nice building supplies disappear under more snow. Snow is definitely over-rated, and creates all sorts of new rage to talk to your brain about.

It is important to talk to your brain pre-emptively of course. Talk about the rage against snowy paths before they actually happen.

It does appear that I am not alone in not wanting to read about psychosomatic symptoms (anymore- during my main healing process I found it great to read about all of the symptoms that could be vanquished with your mind!).

Perhaps we all need mental mindbody suits of armor, or mindbody deflector shields to protect us from conditioning ourselves negatively.

And we do also need to condition ourselves NOT TO EXPECT TO EXPERIENCE SYMPTOMS WHEN WE READ ABOUT THEM

We really can't shield ourselves completely from the world and all of its many dangers. Even if we think that we can protect ourselves by setting all of the boundaries possible in our lives, life will continue to throw us more challenges.

After such great success with reading Sarno's books, I spent a good deal of time voraciously reading all sorts of books in the mindbody realm. Definitely books that Sarno himself recommended personally in his bibliography were especially valuable (The Rage Within and Edward Shorter's psychosomatic history book).

One book that I read I found to be absolutely terrifying. Although this author has done incredible work through his career through treating all sorts of patients, and has created an enormous amount of fantastic contributing evidence of the deleterious effects of trauma in our lives, I would never recommend this book to anyone unless they were absolutely successful in using John Sarno's methods, and still the potential for negative conditioning from this book is probably very high. Reading this book definitely has one needing the biggest mental mindshield to protect oneself from dangerous conditioning. This book is 'When the Body Says No' by Gabor Mate

This book really is fantastic and very important. Gabor Mate presents case evidence where he has traced back, through collecting his patients' personal histories, obvious links from childhood abuses that eventually had their patients suffering specific horrible diseases- cancers and MS and so on. The patients who shared the same forms of cancers, also shared similar childhood traumas.

Amazing heavy stuff. Unfortunately, by the end of the book, I didn't feel like there was any good suggestions about what to do with all of this crazy info. If a person were to read this book, read about a patient getting some horrible disease who also shared similar childhood traumas, how could they avoid obsessing about this particular ailment? Definite trouble!

I found Gabor Mate's other book 'Life in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts' to be also an exceptional book that offers great insight into addiction. I didn't find this book to be a troublesome read- probably because it isn't about cancers and other diseases.

I remember reading about Gabor Mate and wondering if he knew of John Sarno's methods, and even contacted him to ask him. I later read that he is in the film 'All the Rage' and so obviously I felt like an idiot reaching out to him. Still during this perusing about Gabor Mate I came across an article that called him something like 'the most dangerous doctor alive' or some crazy thing like that. Obviously that is nonsense as this extraordinary human has dedicated his life to treating and understanding patients and their troubles. I imagine that the article (which I never did read) was likely telling the world that Mate's linking of diseases to traumas is so contrary to modern medical thinking and people might choose to avoid surgeries and medications and so on... I do realize that his book 'When the Body Says No' is a very dangerous book- especially if you don't have your mindbody magic deflector suit powered up!

I like to use the hilarious author Tom Robbins' recommendations for good health (and a good working vehicle). He says that he just envisions healing white light glowing from his mouth down to his ass. He says the same thing about his vehicle- under the hood its all glowing white healing light making sure the vehicle is in tip top shape (plus this famous author likely has mechanics making sure his cars are in tip top shape.) I don't know how well this has worked for Tom Robbins (He's still alive at 91) and I have no idea if he has (likely) suffered from symptoms and possible diseases- he is human after all.

Still, it is definitely a better idea to envision healing glowing white light from your mouth down to your ass then planting ideas of disease into your subconscious.

And talking to your brain about all of the rage in your life is truly great medicine.

 

Whenever I have time, I try to check in with this forum. I remember how desperate I was for a solution and when I got better via Sarno I told myself I would help other people whenever I could for the rest of my life, because at 32 it felt like my life was over. (58 now)...and YES, I have been on here more than normal because I have been home all day...playing a lot of guitar, writing songs, dogs and TMS forum.

Then!

Yesterday I woke up with the most painful 'tickle' I have had in a long time. Neck totally frozen,Agony, spasming and could hardly move..need to turn my whole body to look at someone. Neck was my first big TMS symptom way back when I was 6. THAT time, my Mom was leaving on a vacation, leaving me with a sitter right after my Father and Nanny had both died. pretty obvious in retrospect. In fact, all TMS is usually 'duh' obvious in retrospect.

After what I have learned I don't even for a moment thing 'OMG what did I do?'...My first thought is "WTF gave me TMS out of nowhere NOW?" Nothing as Obvious as when I was 6 is in my life.

So, waking in 'kill me now' spasms, I immediately get out Sarno and start reading. And Like always , I can start to 'see' what I wasn't seeing.
It's never about getting right answers, it's about the right questions

I was supposed to start a new job on Thursday (morning of spasm). That one is old; have had mild TMS on lots of first days on jobs...this was way gnarlier. The intensity shocked me.

Now, 36 hours later..after much writing and reflecting around the circumstance, it is getting more 'duh' obvious.

FAMILY. Sarno said "when TMS seems to come out of nowhere always look really close...like Family"

I was about to start a Job for My SON on Thursday. We do jobs together all of the time...what's different?
OH... I actually asked him for the work! He normally solicits me (SHAME, HUMILIATION, GUILT)...It's been slow because of the snow (FEAR, EXISTENTIAL TERROR, CLAUSTROPHOBIA) and he does indoor high end cabinet making where I am normally an 'everything' Carpenter/Painter/Plasterer with no gigs right now. (I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING , CANT SUPPORT MYSELF)
And, I wasn't just doing any job with him... He has a gig at the most exclusive, expensive facility in Nashville, and he is the foreman....(PRESSURE, must outwork and outshine everybody at his company because I got offered higher pay then anybody there just to fill in)
I have this self image I am always propping up of being the ultimate dude who can stand on his own merits and needs no help from anybody because my work speaks for itself (NARCISSISM, VANITY PRIDE FEAR, SARNO's "TOUGH GUY") and I hate Cronyism and Nepotism more than I could ever tell you and have never relied on it...and now I am asking my son for a job. And got it. And got more $ then they pay anybody. (SHAME.) and got TMS

Now, on top of that, I was reading a very dark and disturbing Novel late into the night Wednesday. I never have Nightmares, but i had one...first time in years? When I woke up from the nightmare, the spasm hadn't happened yet. I know because I went right back to sleep and said a prayer to God to thank him for it not being real.

TMS pain is a defense. It probably sensed the direction I was going in and went "Wait, we can't let him get to that dark and dirty place...lets help him away from it!"

I went to work anyways. If I have learned anything doing this crap, the only thing that is worse than the spasms and pain is sitting around...MOVE. Do the opposite of whatever the pain is saying. So, when I got up, after reading and writing, I dropped and did a bunch of pushups, I took a bat outside and while my dog was running around, I hit whiffle balls... the pain got so bad for a minute I actually thought I might puke. But I immediately told my Brain "Not buying that today Bro"

To the OG topic you brought up... I have been on the forum a lot reading and commenting. Nobody mentioned neck problems though, so If there was any 'Nocebo' going on, it was my unconscious remembering that strategy to protect me. I often get a little headache just staring at the interweb for too long. I still buy real paper books because I could never do a kindle. I would rank the forum like 20th...after how angry I am cause I can't afford a new guitar.(I have about 10?)

I have read a lot of your posts. You're snowed in with your Family, correct? Ram Dass once said "If you think you've become enlightened, go spend a week with your family". I think he meant your 'Family of Origin' BUT even my two sons , with who I am very close can get on each others nerves... we are waaaaay too alike. I think one of the reasons I am almost clear of an attack that strong was that I live alone and can totally immerse myself in the Insanity that is TMS recovery therapy. I can make a rage list and leave it out in the open.... I can cuss and scream and kick... I have No one to present a civilized face to until I get to work.And I often work alone. About 90% of the time.
I some times get angry about being such a loner, which makes no sense because it was a choice...but TMS isn't sensible

In fact, that loneliness is my recovery 'thought' . I always use the Sarno tool of "Recurring source of irritation"...so whenever I have caught myself paying attention to my neck over the last day and a half, I immediately turn my mind to my ex GF who I am still upset with because she wouldn't watch my dog after we broke up. I had ball games to play , so I couldn't play in as many games (angry at HER, The DOG, GOD, Baseball and the world)....but Sarno said to pick something easy to remember so I am using her. It doesn't have to make sense...just be irritating enough to recondition my mind.

The Nocebo is a real thing. When people start telling me about their physical maladies I make that 'Charlie Brown cartoon 'adult' noise in my head to delete it' (wah, waah, whaah, whaaah blah waaah) This forum is the only place I actually read and absorb because the people here are trying to get better and are all reeeeeally close to getting it. I don't mind hearing them because....they are me!

I was an old fashioned boring back pain sufferer. Having been pain free since '99 I have prolly been having an 'issue' maybe 5-10 days a year? And rarely as dramatic as yesterday morning. That's like a .997 fielding percentage...Brooks Robinson. "Finest in the field"
I'll take it.

Peace

 

I am a fan of Gabor Mate's books.

When I read 'When the Body Says No' I had by then read Sarno's books many times over and over and was experiencing incredible relief from my terrible pain.

Reading Mate's book was very enlightening and provides plenty of evidence for mindbody syndromes. While I was reading his book, I definitely felt like I understood enough about what to do with all of the repressed rage for any terrible situations that I had encountered in my life- talk to my brain about it and how I did not (and do not) need any symptoms to distract me from my buried rage.

I didn't read of my particular childhood histories that matched the patients that he described in this book, fortunately.

I have read his book and come out unscathed, and probably better off for having read it. I doubt that this is the case for everybody reading his book.

What I found truly terrifying about this book is that it is accessible to anybody anywhere. I found it terrifying that there might be folks reading this book who could be creating a nocebo affect (negative conditioning that results in a bad symptom- like telling your brain that if you eat a certain food you'll get a stomache ache, and you go ahead and eat that food, and get a stomacheache).

In all innocence, somebody who has no practice in treating their mindbody symptoms could read about an unbelievably shitty childhood scenario that matched their own unbelievable shitty childhood and might just plant the idea that they are condemned to this disease. Even if, as Mate found in matching case studies that this was indeed the case and was inevitable anyways, for that unsuspecting person reading about their likely doom could fill them with dread and despair on some level for the rest of their days..... Even if they might want to ignore what they may have read in this book, it might just creep up as some niggling thoughts on the periphery of their consciousness....

Also, I find it unfortunate that I have never seen John E. Sarno's name in any of Gabor Mate's indexes.

I have to be honest that I can be pretty judgmental and I absolutely judge all sorts of mindbody books when I don't find any mention of Sarno.

I imagine that I'm not alone here.

If folks feel like they've got their symtoms under control, then sure, 'When the Body Says No' has plenty to offer. 'In the realm of hungry ghosts' is a great book of his- and I think is a much safer read.

 

I'm so glad, Baseball guy that you have such little pain in your life. It makes me want to weep with joy.

I'm sorry you're suffering at the moment- but so little compared to all of the suffering that you can remember from your past.

So many suffering folks that we know and love and don't know and feel for. Especially when you look at life through the Sarno lens- analyze your life like a detective.

To think, that once upon a time, some crazy ass symptom that was totally terrifying agonizing and crippling could leap upon you out of nowhere and you might have absolutely no clue whatsoever where it came from, what to do about it, and where to turn. Goodbye joy of life.


When you said back when that you often think of hightailing it out of the city and heading for the country. When I read that, I thought that you were from Texas (not tennessee). My mind went to wandering to thoughts about if I weren't living with my wonderful family at our amazing (though frozen) organic farm, and I wanted to pull up stakes- what would I do?

One great sounding and supposedly successful farming scenario is this: Rent some small few acres (even 1 acre) from some big rancher or cash crop farmer for super cheap or trade (labour or goods) (there would need to be water.) Pull up a camper and a pickup with electric fence and purchased hay and a couple or a few feeder calves. Raise them up to bigger cows- and sell them for profit for more calves and hay and so on. The people who pulled this stunt eventually owned some massive farm and ford dealership with this scenario.....

If I did it I would raise up the couple of cows and also a fine garden with produce definitely for me, and a big chile pepper crop. Feed the cows and hay and garden culls. When they're big enough transform them into heaps of delicious spicy jerky which you can sell at a premium, or just eat and enjoy yourself. Of course you would love these cows and treat them super well and life would be good for them and you could win in the end.

Again, I thought that you were from Texas- where beef raising is so famous. I reckon that Tennessee is great beef country too!

If you pursue this and it fails completely, don't blame me.

Good luck with the cabinetry!

 

Going back to your First topic about whether or not we Nocebo ourselves, I agree 1000%. I hear people all of the time tell me "Oh...I can't do _________ because if I do this, then _________ happens"

I have heard it with Food, Activities and peculiar things. A Lady once asked me if I was using Oil based Primer in her office. I was GOING to use it so I said "Yes"....she immediately told me she KNEW because she already had a headache...Funny part?
I hadn't opened the can yet! it was still in a box in the next room, factory sealed.

When I was healing from back pain one of my biggest Aha! Moments was when I was at costco one day. I have a mild allergy to stuff with a lot of vinegar, acid.. I eat it, I just eat it in private because it is embarrassing...whole face get's red and sweaty, eyes tearing.
Any how, I was waiting for my wife, and I was next to a whole pallet of Ketchup/Mustard/Relish packs... in an air conditioned slightly cool store,I began to sweat profusely.... My wife came up and I wouldn't move. She asked me what I was doing.I told her I was 'meditating' on Vinegar and acid.

"LOOK....I can make myself sweat without even eating the crap....AHA!"

I know that sounds weird, but that was one of the 'click' things that made sense. Mental stimulus creating a physical document-able reaction.

Now, what you say about Gabor Mate? I am curious, but as you said, I also would be afraid because I know how sensitive I am to stimulus.. I might get a dumb idea in my head and run off with it.

There was that Woman Louise Hay.? I only read her book because of my profound experience with Sarno... The 'old' me would have disparaged her work . She worked with and cataloged people with a bunch of different health issues and although her work is anecdotal, I have used her 'Encyclopaedia of Symptoms' many times to get a clue when I have had a little 'tickle' (relapse) and even for stuff that doesn't seem psychosomatic at all...like having accidents, colds, etc.
She has like a .900 batting average in my life, meaning the condition of life/mental spiritual situations match where I was when I got my 'thing'matches closely with her 'cause'. Coming from a Math and Engineering family, I have changed drastically ever since Sarno changed my life. Anecdotal evidence IS evidence. The medical world doesn't like it because they have nothing to sell you.

Thank You. It's almost over... I slept all night last night and as I have been writing and reading it is going away like it always does.
I have been in 12 step groups most of my life as I have another 'issue' that necessitates that. FUNNY... I always do and have even recommended on this forum to use the 4th and 10th step, the 'Inventory' sections when trying to hunt down causes of Anger that aren't obvious ......BUT about 3 months ago, I decided I was gonna take a break and NOT do that for awhile.

That was exactly where I was at when I first had back pain in '97. Every time i have neglected to 'look back there' I have had a symptom of some sorts arise in a matter of months. ...and

Louise Hay on 'Neck'
"Represents flexibility. The ability to see what’s back there. Refusing to see other sides of a question. Stubbornness, inflexibility. Unbending stubbornness."

I laughed really loud when I read that!

That's been me. I guess my vacation from doing Inventory is over. In spite of my 'colorful' Youth, I am really grateful for the solutions I have found here and when I pray I tend to only pray about gratitude... I guess I might need to look at some other stuff a little more regularly. But like Sarno says, I am always afraid of being a Dick or Bitter because Nobody likes those guys.... I didn't like myself when I was like that

perfect formula for TMS, huh?