Some thoughts

Well It's coming up to a year since I've had my pain.

I've undoubtedly made some progress. Just last week I had an extended period of a few days where my pain was almost non-existent, and remember thinking to myself 'I'm almost completely better!'.

Of course, that didn't last too long. Although I'm becoming much better at recognising the stressors that result in a flair up of my pain - I'm not getting that much better at dealing with them!

I've got a lot of stress related to all the usual sources, work, family and education for me. I'm having to resit some university exams I should have done last year as at the time I was too 'ill' from TMS to do them.

It also got me thinking about the kind of stress / pressure I put on myself. I know that being a perfectionist is a key part of the TMS prone personality, but I've never really thought of myself as a perfectionist. I'm often very unorganised, unreliable, and unless I'm really driven to achieve something I'm even prone to being a bit lazy.

However, I have come to realise that while I may not be a perfectionist in the traditional sense, I absolutely DO want my life to be a certain way. I want my family, job and everything else in my life to be the way I want it to be, and I also want myself to be the way I want to be - i.e. not so prone to being unorganised / a bit lazy. If I feel myself, or other things in my life aren't living up to the way i want them to be it really does bother me.

Anyway, I hope everyone's doing well. I don't post that much but often come here to read through other threads and find it really helpful.

Ben

 

Can I share a story with you?

Last week I went tubing down a river when I went camping. The water was getting low this month so tubing was difficult because we kept getting stuck between rocks and it was difficult to navigate and release your tube from the rocks.

Since I was trying to take advantage of being active since I started all this TMS stuff I was really psyched at going fast and being the person that went down the river the most. My sister kept telling me to slow down, the water will just take me but, I didn't realize what she was saying.

I was stuck again and I was scooting, reaching down to un-wedge my tube, trying to reach the nearest rock to kick. I finally took a breath and said forget it. I didn't mean to but I just sat there and then the water moved me along. I never had to do anything in the first place.

I'm not sure why, but this strong thought came into my mind and I said "ohhhhhhh...." I even laughed out loud because it all became clear. My whole life I've been really ambitious. I always have to be the best and I'm really hard on myself. I want everything a certain way (just like you). I want a certain house, to do certain things, to even look a certain way. At that moment I realized that no.. I need to stop fighting life so much. I need to just let go and see what happens. Let go of the expectations I put on myself and everyone.

We use so much energy fighting our own currents. In the end, we don't need to worry as much as we do. Everything will be fine. We're doing the best for today so already we're setting up tomorrow to be great. Why fight it?