Some progress, by doing "nothing"

Recently I had a flare that lasted a while. Weirdly (or not so weirdly) the way I got out of it was to actually just say fuck it and go through a day not avoiding anything.

I just realized I had been avoiding so many things, which were all small things but had started to add up in the background and I think this was generating a lot of fear. Being in the flare made me even more scared to do anything that would possibly affect my nervous system. Don't drink any coffee, it might hype you up too much; don't go to the cafe and read a book, you might have a symptom and have to leave; don't socialize, you might get anxious and have a flare that lasts days.

I also was pressuring myself a lot to do TMS-related recovery activities. Running, swimming, meditating/somatic tracking 2-3x a day, journaling (or not doing these things but stressing out about not being consistent). This was good at first, as these methods did reduce my fear, but now I think I'm getting the hang of self-soothing and "somatic tracking" (or really just reducing my fear of symptoms) without needing to rigorously structure my healing routine, or have one at all.

Whenever I have symptoms I ask myself what I'm feeling and what my brain/body is trying to tell me. I remember to breathe. I am finally understanding what it means to "lean in" to sensations—for me it feels like accepting them as a part of me, in a nurturing way, as strange as that sounds.

Anyway I'm still taking it slowly but I'm removing these phony safeguards and so far it's going great, I've had several basically pain-free days now in a row despite drinking coffee, doing things I like to do for fun, etc. I know it's a bumpy road and I don't expect things to be perfect going forward but it seems that just taking a simpler approach is going better for me.

I think I'm beginning to understand that all of the TMS experts are basically saying the same thing, which is that you just need to reduce your fear and you'll get better, and the various tools are just ways of teaching your brain how to generate a feeling of safety for yourself—even when you're so scared. And this means that a religious commitment to a particular method may be what one person needs, but it also definitely isn't the only way.