Day 25 Moving toward something free

In the last 10 days or so I was experiencing a flair of pain. Maybe it lasted longer than 10 days, I wasn't really keeping track. It did pull me back into a state of fear, or maybe I was already in a state of fear and the pain came on because of it. They both came on about the same time.

I was traveling to another state to possibly consider moving. The trip itself was very enjoyable. Before the trip I was overthinking the possibilities and it generated fear. My pain had really kicked up. Mostly stomach pains IBS stuff. I tried to handle it as best as I could. But I kept gravitating toward what if something is wrong. That is such a hard thing to try not to do because I have done it so many times before.

One day I was out for lunch with a friend and was very into the conversation. I had eaten a large meal and went home and for 3-5 hours I had zero pain. Where normally i would have pain immediately after a meal. Wow, again there was evidence that this was TMS.

During my ups and downs i came across Alan Gordon's TMS webinar. I listened to it. It was fantastic! I reassured me of things I had forgotten and I practiced outcome independence. I was slowly becoming more and more independent. I went on the trip and the whole time - pain free this had not happened since before the pain. Even my best days I had little peeps of pain.

Currently I have some difficulty but I got a little taste of freedom once again and it felt great and I keep practicing my independence of the pain.

Happy healing.

 

Glad to hear that you're keeping at it and recognizing moments where things seem to come together.

I also had a little break in pain on Friday when I went for an outdoor concert with a friend. We had a beer (something I haven't had in months) and just chilled out listening to fun music. I sat in a chair with no pain for 2 hours - something I hadn't been able to do in weeks. My back hurt a lot yesterday but Friday was a grateful reminder.

 

Those are the moments you are like “heck yeah this is great I feel like me again!” Then it comes back and we continue to work.

However as short lived as that may have been its great sign. It means your body doesn’t need the pain. We just need to eventually convince our brain that things are fine.

I used to fear eating food after a gastritis diagnosis. It was tms after all and it would wax and wain some days I was totally convinced it was tms other days I was not. For me it has been a slow process. I have the type of brain that isn’t easy to convince.