low back excruciating pain brought me to tears

Hey all,

Low back pain is my longest running TMS symptom. MRI confirmed that I have two herniated discs in the lower back. I know its TMS but not *enough* I guess, because I found myself second guessing myself after a yoga class recently, even though I've been totally into Sarno and Ozanich for years.

I do yoga pretty regularly and I can do all the crazy back bends, bending over to touch my toes, headstands, EVERYTHING! with virtually no pain. Then, I get to the end of class where we are supposed to lay on our backs and meditate. This is where the pain starts to get really bad, and I can really feel all the tension in my body fighting against the pain to try to soften it. Then the teacher asks us to sit up indian style, and I started crying it hurt so bad!!!! It's like the compression of sitting up at that point is just too much. On a pain scale of 1-10, it's a 9.5. Childbirth being a 10. This happens every single class.

I know we're supposed to ignore the pain and just "do it anyway" but even taking deep breaths made it so hard to stand the pain, I couldn't sit like that for more than 5 seconds.

It's causing me to second guess the TMS diagnosis even though intellectually I know that it's TMS. Sigh. I need some encouragement today.

Thank you,
S

 

What's going on in your life?

 

The insomnia started the night before I was going back to work after the holiday break. I have a pretty brutal commute (1 1/2 hours each way on public transportation), and while I love my job, the commute has been wearing on me a bit. Moving closer to my job isn't an option, and neither is changing jobs. Husband and I just bought a house 6 months ago and are still paying our parents back and in a little bit of debt from house renovations and such (aside from the mortgage). I'm a pretty passive aggressive person and I'm working on communicating better. (I see how passive aggression is very realtd to TMS -- the rage we don't want to feel is transferred elsewhere). And if I get right down to it, I'm also approaching an age where having kids is being talked about between my husband and I. I'm 29, he's 31. I want to keep my career, its incredibly important to me as I've worked so long and hard at it, I have my dream job, and the closer it gets, the more I worry about how there's going to be time for everything. And deep, deep down... I'm terrified that I'm going to be cast aside, forgotten, and my needs won't be met in my relationship or in other parts of my life once we have a baby. My eyes are welling up just thinking about it. But then there's this other side to me that's reading info about child rearing and excited about a new phase in my life and a side that want to welcome change.

Sigh. It's a lot. Any thoughts?

 

When I hear your story of pain, I think it might be that when you're lying down, relaxing, there is no distraction to the inner "material" coming closer to the surface.

Also, in challenging the pain, you might have a timer, and start with timing how long it takes to be unbearable, and then keep doing this each time to hopefully tolerate it a little longer, or track progress. Even a few seconds a week improvement might be interesting to experience --not because you're getting better, but because you're tolerating it a little more, and you'll see evidence. Use reassuring statements during that brief time, and notice your breath too, if you can.

 

That’s a fantastic idea and you’re right, I think it’s because when lying down I’m forced to just be with myself and I’m terrified of just “being”!!! In that moment there’s nothing to do but to be. It happens to be called the “corpse pose” in yoga, which, holy crap, is also what my username is and I didn’t realize it. Savasana is the Sanskrit word for corpse pose, doing nothing. I will try this out

 

And the guidance then in that moment is "what am I feeling? and What might my Inner Child be feeling about __________ which is happening in my life?" etc.

 

Hey! I just wanted to give you an update on my progress since you were both kind enough to give me such great advice.

During yoga the other night, I was nearing the end where I ALWAYS get the pain. In the middle of it, I remembered that my mom told me about her breast cancer diagnosis 10 minutes before I went to yoga back in September (I had forced myself to go to yoga even though I was really upset). I believe this is related. When the pain started, I kept saying to myself, "you're ok, there's nothing wrong here. you're ok" and i SWEAR, both the intensity and duration of the pain reduced by 50%, possibly even more. I was so happy and pleased.

Thank you again.

S

 

Great! You're seeing a real result with this technique. This is huge!!

 

""I remembered that my mom told me about her breast cancer diagnosis 10 minutes before I went to yoga back in September""

That's the sort of insight that banishes this thing. "What was I doing?" is what the old-mind-physical thinking does to prolong a symptom. "What was going on in my life? " (that I was maybe trying to ignore, or just ignoring) is the beginning of wisdom.

The second aspect; It doesn't take much to condition us.... 1 or 2 times is plenty. So you got symptoms right after you heard a terrifying, enraging thing? You get the reaction and blame it on Yoga. We ALL have done that and we UNdo it piece by piece, conditioning by conditioning until we're pain free! This is really a magic post. Monday to Thursday Insight receipt. I am so glad that you dug that out.

peace