Day 2 Hi everyone - starting the programme

Hi Folks,

This is my first post on the forum - and I'm very grateful that this TMS community exists. The forum and TMS Wiki have so much content - it's amazing.

It's actually Day 2 now for me - and I should have made one yesterday - sorry, gotta improve my journaling

Anyway, a few words about me:

I am now in 4th year of recurring wrist/elbow pain (which now also affects the low back and a few other regions). As so many of you, I've had my share of doctors, physicial therapists etc with no clear diagnosis. Some of them stated, that this condition must be psychosomatic as their therapies were generally non-effective. I did get the most relief from deep tissue massage (Stecco method of something like that) - but in the end I really feel that I was working only on the symptoms and not on the root cause. I heard about Dr Sarno a year ago and read one of his books (getting the feeling "oh sh%t - this is all about me" or "I had this symptom too!"). But I could not get myself fully convinced that there is nothing wrong structurally. Though I was not overly critical of the TMS theory. A year later, the symptoms are still there, I am after another set of different physical therapies, and I think I am ready to face my condition with the TMS approach. I don't have many doubts about the theory now - but I can't hide the fact that I am a little frightened that this is another dead end for me. That it will not help me. But there is nothing to lose and I owe myself to try.

Cheers, and good luck to everyone!

 

Hi, ZaneO and welcome to this community of TMS healing. Nothing structural has been found to cause your pains and some doctors have said they could be psychosomatic. My guess is they are right. Our emotions can cause physical pain, as more people are coming to realize. Doctors, too. I am confident you will benefit greatly from the SEProgram. I found journaling to be maybe the best exercise leading to being free of pain; in my case, severe back pain. Journaling led to me discovering I had been repressing anger since my parents divorced when I was seven. Look into your past and you will very likely find emotions you have been repressing. I suggest you read Dr. Sarno's 12 Daily Reminders about TMS. I especially like these extended versions...

Herbie Douglas's Extended Version of Sarno's 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1) The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but its caused by subconscious tensions and triggers, stressors and traits to your reactions and fears and also when at boiling point your conscious tension can and does cause real pain too.
2) The main reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation. This means that when you are in pain then the the blood is restricted from going to your lower back for instance. The blood being restricted causes oxygen deprivation which causes the pain - remember, where theirs no oxygen then there is pain in the body. Also, The pain stays because of fear and focus to physical organic symptoms and repressions.

3) TMS is a harmless condition caused by my REPRESSED EMOTIONS so even though you think you can harm yourself from the years of pain you have felt and how you feel in general -- so far no reports have been heard from tms healing knowledge causing damage to anyone, it only helps.

4) The principle emotion is your repressed ANGER -- this means under your consciousness lies something that happens automatically to everyone. Tmsers have repressions that are stored because of our personality traits,traumas, stressors, fears, strain, etc... When these stored repressions build and build then eventually they cause the brain to send pain into your body to keep you from having an emotional crises. The mind-body thinks its helping you.

5) TMS exists to DISTRACT your attentions from the emotions, stressors, tensions and strains of your personality traits because if you can get distraction then you wont have to be in emotional turmoil. When you don't face and feel your emotions and they get repressed cause you didn't want to deal with something -- they are just adding up in this beaker, ready to pour over and create real pain and anxiety in your body.

6) Since my body is perfectly normal, there is nothing to fear. So in reality when I fear the pain or anxiety I just cause myself undo strain and tension adding to the beaker of pain. If I fear then I feed the pain, If I fear Its impossible to recondition. Fear keeps the pain and anxiety alive in the body through focus.

7) Therefore, physical activity is harmless. If I want to work against the pain I can but its better to lose some of the pain through losing your focus on the body and not fearing the pain. I can start my life over, I don't have to be in pain trying to heal cause I can face the repressions through awareness and journaling.

8) I am resuming all normal physical activity. I don't fear moving anymore. I believe in my bodies ability to heal now. I can move how I want and my patience in flow will be my power. I will not fear moving anymore. I will also practice going out and acting normal again, not in fear of what pain might do to me.

9) The pain is unimportant and powerless. Its only power is how its hidden -- it's illusion, It's fear.

10) I will keep my attention on the emotional issues. I will think about my emotions and feel my emotions throughout the day. I will not judge, criticize or fear my emotions. I will not run from my emotional issues but face everyone of them. I will feel my emotions fully and cry if I need to. Then I will release the emotion and get my mind and thoughts back to my life and living in the present, in flow.

11) I am in control of all of this. This is how I recover.

I will be thinking PSYCHOLOGICALLY AT ALL TIMES. This means I will keep my thoughts on psychological issues like happiness, fear and anger -- traits and triggers, conditioning and journaling. The science behind mind-body/tms healing, etc.... This way I will not feed my thoughts to the body -- that is a trick of TMS.

12) TMS will always try to get me to focus on the body caused by the pain until I break its show and flair. When I get my attention off physical symptoms and on emotional issues and psychological issues then I will not feed the fear of the physical issues anymore thus making the TMS of no effect. This will in return, give us the cure.

 

Dear Walt,
Thanks for the encouragement I am looking forward to getting results from this program - in fact I already see a slight improvement of my symptoms. I took a detailed approach to journaling now - I hope to uncover the emotions, which cause my symptoms. Though at this point I am mostly seeing the "current stressors" as the ones, causing anger/rage/sadness in me.

I already copied these reminders for easy reference "on the go"

Thanks!