Day 3 Finally able to practice martial arts again

Since I got back to thinking about TMS a few days ago it has made a huge difference in my ability to practice martial arts. I touched on this in my day one post, but my TMS was manifesting as knee pain that came up whenever I practiced the martial art bagauzhang. Doing this martial art is one of my favorite activities and it was extremely frustrating to never be able to practice more than a few minutes at a time without being terrified I was going to tear something in my knee. I was in constant fear of blowing out my knee and needing surgery. I was worried that my knee was totally shot and that I would be gimping around for the rest of my life.

Then a few days ago I realized that my knee was hurting even though I hadn't practiced in over a week. It occurred to me the pain was emotionally based and almost instantly the tightness in my knee and the pain went away. The past few days I've been practicing for long stretches with minimal pain. Occasionally I feel a twinge, but I just remind myself it is TMS and keep practicing and it goes away.

It's fascinating how the unconscious mind can create these areas of reduced blood flow, I experience them as tender myofascial knots, that cause pain all over the body. The knots and tension are real, and the pain is real, but when I realize there is no real problem with my body it goes away.

Figuring this out gives me a great deal of hope for the other psychosomatic symptoms I've suffered from. I am very motivated to continue to educate myself on TMS so that it really gets ingrained and I don't get fooled again. The last time I sort of forgot about TMS after a few weeks and later on when the pain showed up again I got fooled into believing it was a real injury.