Day 3 My journey to heal back pain and live happily

Day 34

I miss the gym. My gym is unusable due to repairs for a few months and I think that's been hurting me, because it was a great way to release tension. My pain is strong again, as strong as when I began TMS treatment. I need to go back to the roots and remember to power through the pain, ignore it, and know that it isn't serious or important. Anyway, feeling stressed out about a lot of things as usual and I don't know, iasdlkçjfoipwjefiowjw. I can't really focus today.

 

Day 35

Self care day. I'll take it. I just want to say that I'm having a really annoying flare up. I need to remember that it's not important. Something that I have been thinking about is how I used to say that what motivated me to live was dissatisfaction. I wasn't satisfied with who I was and what I could do, so I lived to change and become better. In theory, when I became better, more skilled, more effective, then I could be happy with myself. But this way of life knows no end. When you live to achieve motivated by a dissatisfaction with yourself, you remain dissatisfied no matter how well you do, no matter how much you change. It is not a good reason to live. I lived disliking myself for years. I still do, though not as much as before. But these same motivations are still the ones of today. I do things because I'm unhappy with myself. This unhappiness with myself has a lot to do with other people's perception of me. The main reason I want to change is to look better in the eyes of others. I want to be flawless so they can't make fun of me, so they can't point out my flaws because I don't have any. That would show them. Show them that I'm superior, that they're lazy, that I have achieved so much more than they have. It's consuming. It's taxing on me. It's really tiresome trying to prove everyone wrong when they don't even care themselves. In my head, the battle is against everyone else, but in truth it is against myself, because it's against what I think they think. I turn my own expectations into the expectations of others and in this way I remove the blame from myself. Like I don't expect anything from me, it's other people that do. It's other people that are mean and evil. It's them who mock me and make me try so hard and sacrifice myself so much. But it's not. It's me. I bully myself into these impossible, self-sacrificing efforts. I am my own torturer. Why do I do this? Maybe it's insecurity. Maybe I don't feel loved enough, or whatever. The thing is that I have to ignore this voice, I have to tell this torturer: fuck you, I don't have to do anything to please you. I am angry at myself. That's it. My inner child or whatever is angry at all these expectations. That's the fucking pain. Because I keep burning even under all these expectations, I keep performing but I'm also in a state of rage while doing things. Like "fine, I'll do this you fucking dictator, but I'm fucking mad for having to do this". Maybe that anger manifests as pain, or maybe the pain exists so that I don't see this anger, so that I don't express the anger and keep doing the things that I have to do. I remember that the pain is a distraction from emotions. I'm trying to get to these emotions. I think this rage at my inner dictator is one of the emotions. And I feel it. I have to feel it and let it out. Feelings are fine. It's okay to be angry. It's fine to feel rage. This is how it is. This is human nature. I'm okay. I'm normal. I'm just doing exactly what I should be doing. It's natural. It's fine.

 

Day 36

I've tried doing the spider writing thing but I didn't find it interesting. Lots of stuff to read about fear today. Yeah, I know it. I've felt this fear of the pain never going away, of not having a bright future. I've felt the fear of being teased and criticized in childhood. I've felt the fear of not being good enough today and most days. Sometimes these advices are contradictory. You have to ignore the pain, you have to feel the pain, you have to ignore your fear, you have to feel your fear, you can't let your fear grow, you have to feel the fear, you this you that. It's all over the place. I hope I can figure out by myself what is the proper method of dealing with this, because the advice is very fucking all over the fucking place.

 

Day 37

I think I've been doing fine with self care. I like playing games and after 6 PM I basically allow myself to play freely. In the weekends too. So yeah.

 

Day 38

I've been powering through the pain and trying to ignore it even though it's the worst it's been since I began the TMS journey. In the past couple of days I feel really pumped to get stuff done, work, enjoy things, create things, live. I wish I could feel like this all the time. It's such a great feeling to want to do things and use my time alive. I don't even feel like journaling because I don't want to focus on bad things, I just want to enjoy the moment. Enjoy enjoying life while this feeling lasts. But on the journaling topic: my personality represses emotions to get things done. I ignore how I'm feeling because shit needs to get done so I shove my feelings aside and focus on the external world and how to fix something or accomplish something. I ignore my own needs and feelings a lot because of this. Yeah.

 

Hey Lucas,

We sound really similar. I've used the same mental strategies as a crutch since I was a small kid.

I feel inadequate, and unloved, and I did not fit in. So what I tried to do, was make people Think that I was better, and lovable, through achieving stuff.

I prided myself on "taking care of business." I prided myself on being a machine-repressing emotions, and just getting through everything.

I think the TMS is a message to slow down. Now though, I don't know how hard to push. I have chronic back issues, as well as RSI in my hand/wrist/forearms. RSI limits me in my usage of my hands for work.

I have generally been taking it pretty easy The last two months. The problem is, this lifestyle isn't sustainable and I need to start doing things again. This stresses me out.

 

I think it's very important to develop stronger self-esteem. A pattern of feeling bullied and worthless can develop in our childhood. I suggest watching videos on YouTube about self-esteem. It's surprising how many highly successful people have to conquer their low self-esteem.

We don't have to be super-achievers for people to like us. I am the author of fifty books, but almost no one among my family or friends cares a bit about that, and most have never read one of them. They like me for who I am, warts and all.

 

douggie: Thanks for the reply. Yeah, both of us.

Day 39

My pain is lessening after over a week of being the worst in a long time. I think getting back to the basics helped: the pain is trying to distract you, don't let it. So I dedicated some time to journaling and thinking about life and feelings and stuff. I worked despite the pain and did my best to not have those thoughts of doom: "when will it go away", "will it always be like this", "why me", "if only I didn't have pain" and stuff like that. I reinforced to myself that the pain is harmless, that it doesn't matter, that it's just something you can notice and you can be not bothered by it. I have been thinking about my life and there is something I'm holding in. It's an old problem, the knowledge that my current romantic relationship has to end because I don't want kids ever and she does eventually. We've been ignoring this because we're still young and we're fine with how things are right now, but eventually this has to end. For a while now I was also thinking about what's the next step in my life, if I should move out or live in another city or spend some time travelling or get a job or whatever, but just recently I realized how fortunate I am to be in my position. I like staying home creating my things and I'm fortunate that there is a way for me to be successful thanks to the internet and digital distribution. I don't have to follow the standard route of structured jobs and offices and work hours and stuff like that, and I thought I missed that for some reason or that it would make me happier, but now I see that it won't, and that if I'm lacking happiness that is not the solution to my problems. I feel a lot more grateful for being in my current situation and I feel less restless about wanting more or wanting something else. I do believe that contentment is a huge part of happiness and when I feel unsatisfied or like I could be doing better it's very hard to be happy, and it's not even that easy to change my situation, and changing my situation isn't even a real solution anyway. So contentment is a very easy path to happiness, though it's hard to feel content because you have very little control over whether you feel content or not. At least I have no idea how to force myself to feel content, it's just that sometimes I do. I feel that I can be more productive starting from a place of contentment and happiness, of enjoying life and wanting to make it even nicer, than starting from a place of unhappiness and need for change. The first is generous, the second is desperate.

 

Day 40

I think the most important conclusion is that I don't need the pain. I am fine without it. I am fine without all this work, all this proving that I'm good enough. And I don't have to fear that I will not be good enough if I give up trying so hard. It's going to be fine, I am not going to be an unproductive lazy bum if I stop pushing myself so hard. Even if I was, that would be ok. But since I seem to care so much about that, then I can reassure myself: don't worry, if you let go and stop worrying so much about being great, you won't be any less great. So that's the lesson for me, the self-knowledge that I do care deeply and I do put myself through so much, and the knowledge that it's fine to slack off, that it's not slacking off at all, and that it won't hurt me. On the contrary, it is this obsessive worrying that ends up hurting me, and I don't have to fear what will happen if I let go. Because nothing will happen. Life goes on just the same. And I can get to enjoy living and creating things without all the pressure. The point, again, is that all this pressure and worrying isn't a requirement for productivity, self-worth, greatness, accomplishments and doing cool things. If I feel good then I'll naturally do good things and be happy. There's no need to worry so much. No need to regret so much. This is all gonna end eventually, life. And it's all gonna be like it never happened. Just enjoy.

 

Hi Lucas,
I just read your daily journal and that's really inspiring. My partner is also INTJ and when you are writing I feel like it could be him. He suffers from back pain for years now and I just recently came across TMS and I shared it with him. He bought the book "healing back pain" even if he has a tendency to be skeptical about things.. I wonder how you feel now And since your last message ? It would be so helpful to have an updare from you. Hope you are going well

Thanks.
Sandra