Day 6 Doubts

Wow, Gail - FIVE different diagnoses? All I can think of is the well-known book by Dr. David Clarke, MD, titled "They Can't Find Anything Wrong!".

I'm a CPA, not a medical professional by any means, but I gotta say - five different diagnoses seems like a message from the universe that no one really knows what it is, so they are guessing. Which means that the most likely answer is, it's one of the innumerable neuro symptoms that your brain can come up with to distract you from your dangerous buried emotions.

I've had all kinds of neuro symptoms - dizziness, foggy head, shaky legs, twitchy eyes, numb cheeks, burning pain in my foot - those are only the ones I can remember. That's in addition to back pain, arm pain, neck and shoulder spasms, 5-ibuprofen headaches, anxiety attacks, and years of digestive issues

The 95% statistic is easy to Google - it seems to be a well-known one. Think about it - your brain is in charge of every single thing that you experience, and it's certainly in charge of every single physiological function in your body - including the pain response. So apart from the obviously unconscious physio functions, if you really examine what we do all day long, I think you'll end up being amazed at how much of what we experience is, really, quite unconscious. Think of how much information your eyes take in, vs. how much you actually pay attention to, vs. how little you actually retain for later use. Most of the processing is unconscious! And have you ever driven your normal commute, lost in some kind of daydream, and realized you just drove half a mile, in traffic, without actually paying attention? How much of that activity was what anyone could truly call "conscious"? Even the daydream wasn't a conscious act - that was your brain taking over, putting you into a waking dream state.

There are other unconscious activities going on in the brains of people with TMS, and these are the critical, if not outright negative, internal dialogues that we're constantly having between the inner child and the inner parent (aka the id and the ego, if I'm getting Freud right). I'm pretty convinced, after a year and a half of working on my own TMS, that stopping that unconscious inner dialogue, by consciously replacing it with positive dialogue, is a KEY component to real healing.

That being said, one thing that might help you is to find appropriate positive affirmations and meditations to counteract your doubts about the diagnosis. I didn't used to believe that positive self-talk works, but I've become a believer - it's not easy if you're naturally negative (guilty) but I swear, it does work!

Keep the faith, and keep posting,

Jan

 

Gail, you really brought up a key question, and a key stumbling block for so many of us. I am 100% guilty of running negative scripts in my head - all the time - and of beating myself up. I have a really hard time forgiving myself, and loving myself, and I think it's what's holding me back from reaching 100% healing. We talk a lot about this all over the forum (I think it's Lori who says, "Don't should on yourself!").

Anyway, I'm going to recommend the video that was recommended to me by our good friend MatthewNJ, which changed my mind about the power of positive thinking - it's the movie version of You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay. I checked out the DVD from my library, and have since checked out a number of her books and meditations in downloadable audio from the library. And of course she has a web site.

Not everyone loves Louise Hay, but her advice is incredibly simple: take a positive thought, and say it, preferably out loud, while you visualize it being true. I think that the reason it works is because it cuts off the unconscious inner negative dialogue. You don't even have to initially believe the positive statement, although it helps to find something that holds some truth for you. To me, the key is to stop the negative dialogue, and replace it with something positive. Period.

One reason I really liked the movie was the interviews with medical professionals and neuroscientists who add scientific credence to the concept that our thoughts can change our bodies and our lives, because our brains and our thoughts are one and the same. I am stating that very simplistically, but this seems to be the direction that some neuroscientists are going.

For an approach that is very different from Louise Hay, check out Monty Hueftle, who is another advocate of thinking psychologically - one of his catch phrases is "thinking clean". We've got a large archive of his articles on the wiki: http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Archive_of_Monte_Hueftle%27s_Runningpain.com_updates .

There are about a gazillion resources out there for engaging in some kind of practice that essentially changes your thought patterns by eliminating negative thoughts. I believe that The Presence Process is another example. And, going back to basics, and to very ancient practices, this is what meditation does. And prayer. You get the picture.

For a scientific and very clinical look at this subject, last summer I read The Anatomy of Hope, by Dr. Jerome Groopman, MD. It's a record of his personal study, over many years as an oncologist, of the power that our thoughts have over our bodies, even in the face of horrifying odds. This was not an easy book for me to read, due to the detailed descriptions of his cancer patients - I actually skipped over some of his case histories - but the last third of the book is an overview of the research that has been and is being done to try to study and even measure things like positive thinking, the placebo effect, and, in general, the power of our thoughts. A short part of the book is devoted to describing his own recovery from back pain that was made worse by unnecessary surgery, and he does reference Dr. Sarno in his appendix.

Well, once again, I'm on a roll. Don't get me started! LOL.

Let me know what you think and how it goes,

Jan

 

Matthew also turned me on to TED talks - there's some amazing neuroscience information in them.

 

Everyone, I'm halfway through "When The Body Says No" (2003) by Dr. Gabor Mate, MD and it is kinda blowing me away. This is a book about the medical profession really looking at the mind-body connection, written by a medical doctor who is clearly very compassionate and very insightful. The emotional case histories of his patients are fascinating. I highly recommend it. This book was discussed on the Saturday chat several weeks ago, but I had to wait to get a copy from my library because there are so many holds on it. It really energized me, made me feel more hopeful and more empowered.

I also found a really well-written set of articles (from 2009/10) on this blog: The Body Says What the Mind Cannot.

 

Here's a quote from Dianne J Moore (whose blog I mention above) which I think is really really important:

And on the same page she quotes Dr. Sarno on the same subject: