The Advice Is Only as Good as the Action YOU Take!

There is a pattern that will sound more than familiar to anyone in mind‑body recovery circles. People come on here, describe their symptoms, get thoughtful, proven advice from others who’ve walked the same path — and then… they disappear. Or they say they’ll try something “later”, but life gets busy, doubts creep in, and the advice just sits there like an unopened gift.

And then comes the classic: “Yes, but…”
“Yes, but my case is different.”
“Yes, but I’ve already tried that.”
“Yes, but what if it makes things worse?”

We’re all likely to have done this at some point and to some degree. The “yes, but” usually comes from fear or self‑protection — We all need to understand as far as we can what's going on with us, but it feels safer to over-analyse and discuss, and then discuss some more, rather than to act. It also fills your time with distraction, distraction from getting on with the action you need to take.

But sometimes, it’s resistance or plain laziness — wanting change without the stretch it requires.

And for some, it’s a quiet hope that someone else will appear with a magic fix, so they don’t have to risk trusting themselves.

Often, it’s not that the advice didn’t work — it just wasn’t tried consistently enough. Real change takes patience.
The mind‑body process asks for grounded practice, again and again, even when nothing seems to be happening. Practice is what makes the old, protective patterns begin to loosen and the new, life‑affirming ones start to take root.

And here’s something vital to remember:

Whether you’ve had symptoms for a few months or for many years, there’s no time limit on your ability to 'heal'/lose symptoms/recover.
The brain and body are always capable of learning and adapting — that never expires until you are on your death bed. What matters isn’t how long you’ve been struggling, but your willingness to begin today.

You also don’t need to be perfect at this. Recovery is messy and uneven. What matters is showing up with honesty, not performing flawlessly. Being willing to get it “wrong” sometimes is what teaches your system safety and flexibility.

And also remember — it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Think of recovery as crossing a long bridge: you don’t need to leap across in one go; you just take one small, brave step at a time...

A few minutes of journaling, one mindful breath, one kind pause toward your body — that’s enough to begin.
Those baby steps might look small, but they build momentum. Recovery is built on repetition, not perfection.

A big trap to watch out for, that I've already touched upon, is the brain’s habit of wanting to understand everything down to the tiniest detail before taking action. That urge feels logical, but it’s often just the brain’s clever way to distract you from vulnerability and real change. You don’t need to know every mechanism to recover.

Another thing worth saying — because it happens a lot — is how people all too often ignore and scroll straight past posts that carry a few home truths. Those are often the most valuable ones, but they can sting a little (or a lot) because they challenge your defences. Then a day later, the same person posts, “I’m desperate — nothing’s working.” Usually, the answer was already there. They just weren’t ready to receive it yet.

The ‘tea and sympathy’ replies that these posts often attract can feel comforting in the moment — and there’s nothing wrong with receiving empathy. But the danger is when it stops there. Instead we need to move forward, away from the misery.

If this sounds familiar, please don’t take it as criticism — take it as encouragement.
It takes courage to face what’s uncomfortable and to listen to what your body, emotions, or others here may be showing you.

Recovery asks for truth, patience, and a bit of grit.

No one else can recover for you. Mind‑body work isn’t magic — it’s practice.

The emotional awareness, the daily follow‑through — these are what transform ideas into recovery. Reading helps, but applying is what gets you recovered.

You don’t need perfection — just a bit of gumption.

The advice works if you work it.

Sometimes the truth that stings a little (or a lot) is the one that finally sets things in motion. Let it land, take a breath, and let this be the moment something quietly begins to change.

 

Wow. Amazing, well written post Bloodmoon.

glad you are here.

 

Thanks, Rabs! I really value your pearls of wisdom on these threads too — you have such a great way of summing things up and putting them in an easy-to-understand nutshell.

 

The absolute truth, said with love. Thank-you @BloodMoon

 

Nice post moon.

Sometimes I'm afraid I'll be the only one left here. Everyone living their luscious lives -- me, having failed one final time, sitting in the tms graveyard.

There's no excuse anymore. TMS has been figured out. The only thing thats left for us is to grab our sword and face the dragon

 

“Sometimes I'm afraid I'll be the only one left here. Everyone living their luscious lives -- me, having failed one final time, sitting in the tms graveyard.“

well said @Mani the ridiculous things we believe and think for some reason that we deserve. I’m so thankful you can see through the fog.

 

Amen, @BloodMoon! You said it all so well!

 

Love it!

 

Great post, @BloodMoon!

 

What a fantastic post. I didn't know what TMS was before, but I managed it anyway without following any advice, without a plan or any work. I simply lived with the belief that, no matter how bad it was, it would eventually go away. I even thought it was just a winter pain, and paradoxically, even this illusion helped me because, over the years, the pain had become less and less time-consuming. I even resorted to an exercise that physically overworked me during a period of high stress (when I was already experiencing other pains), and since then, I've been trapped. However, my experience tells me that you don't always need to resort to treatments and methods; sometimes, just living with hope is enough.

 

Thanks, @Giofe86!

This! This is the perfect mindset for losing TMS symptoms.

You just scared your brain is all. Self-soothe - for example, just regularly throughout your day take one or two deep breaths, lower your shoulders and relax your jaw - and continue to go about your daily business with your already excellent mindset and you'll get there.

 

Thank you so much for your reply.

Unfortunately, in the past, I simply didn't obsess over the pain. Today, it seems incredible to me that such a burning pain, capable of making both knees sensitive and red/inflamed, could be solely mental.

Yet, I've experienced at least 10 episodes of TMS in my life without knowing it, which magically disappeared in the face of medical visits, MRIs, or other coincidences. Only today do I understand why, but it's still hard to believe because I never consciously overcame TMS, always by chance.

The knee pain is the most complex pain I've ever had because a surgeon operated on me for no reason (so I feel angry and scared for a wrong decision that could have changed my life). In 2019, after a year of pain, I managed to overcome it after spending 10 days with a sick loved one, distracted by more important things. The pain diminished dramatically and, in the following years, it slowly disappeared almost 100%.

Between 2019 and 2024, I had some problems during the winter. I simply continued working on the computer, having happy hours, going out, and suffering, bored, but never obsessed. After 1, 2, 3 months, the situation improved. But I didn't know about TMS: that's how it happened.

Today, it's as if I'm looking for a magic formula, a solution, things to do like keeping a journal. But in the past, I didn't do any of this: I simply lived. Today, I'm in psychotherapy, and since then, I've been able to do things—work, live—without getting too distracted. I spend a lot of time doing things that stimulate me and that I really enjoy, like walking outside for two hours every morning, having happy hours, spending time with friends, and I manage to distract myself without being absorbed by thoughts. It's wonderful, but the pain is there, and doing more still leads to fear, redness, and sensitivity.

I feel like I've improved a lot, but I'm missing a lot of pieces of the puzzle.

 

The above is what stands out for me from your story and imo it is almost certainly the stumbling block. (All advice given on this forum is always on the assumption that people have been checked out medically.)

Back in the day, I suffered bouts of severe redness and inflammation of the breast tissue, which made some of my breast ducts bleed. I was investigated for inflammatory breast cancer. I was post menopause and therefore it wasn't mastitis associated with breast feeding. Medics could not come up with the cause, so all they kept doing was giving me antibiotics. I didn't believe that this was of mind/body cause, but then I read two success/recovery stories on these forum from two people who had been diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome which not only involved pain but inflammation - one of them suffered severely inflamed and swollen feet and with the other the inflammation affected their hands. This gave me hope and since doing mind/body work, I have not experienced any breast inflammation.

Since then I found out and bookmarked this information re the mechanism:

Mind-body issues can trigger inflammation through stress-induced pathways that amplify pain and inflammatory responses in the body. Chronic emotional stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, leading to elevated cortisol and pro-inflammatory cytokines like IL-6 and TNF-α which can target tissues and joints.

Stress Response Pathway
Psychological stress from unresolved emotions or anxiety stimulates the HPA axis, releasing cortisol that initially fights inflammation but becomes dysregulated in chronic cases. This shifts the body toward sustained inflammation, where inflammatory mediators from the brain signal peripheral tissues, causing joint swelling and hypersensitivity in the tissues and joints.

Central Sensitization
The brain's pain-processing areas, such as the anterior cingulate cortex, become hypersensitive (central sensitization) due to persistent negative emotions like fear or depression. This amplifies minor joint signals into perceived inflammation and pain, even without structural damage, creating a feedback loop.

Neuroinflammatory Link
Emotional conflicts or "mind-body blocks" disrupt nerve impulses and immune balance, prompting localized inflammation. Stress hormones reduce anti-inflammatory responses, allowing cytokines to accumulate in tissues.

Dr. Paul Hansma discusses his shoulder pain and inflammation recovery in a YouTube video interview titled "Dr. Hansma: Your Chronic Symptoms Are Physical (the Proof Is Here)" (below). He describes developing diagnosed bursitis—inflammation plus pain—in his shoulder after five years, which caused nociceptive pain from tissue issues, but it resolved spontaneously once he addressed the neuroplastic pain component through mind-body approaches.

He talks about this from around the 24:16 mark:

 

It can take time for the mind to catch up and calm down. The pieces of the puzzle will fall into place and come to you, just as they did for m -- and that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. For me, physical symptoms were what first triggered a crisis, and they were the quickest to unlearn. What lingered the longest, however, was my “Pure-OCD,” which I believe persisted because I had built these habits since I was around 4 or 5 years old. I grew up in a happy yet fairly dysfunctional environment, so my brain developed a false sense of control early on.

Over the past 2.5 years, I’ve been teaching my brain that it’s safe by deliberately exposing myself to situations that feel uncomfortable. I used to fear happiness, sadness, anger, and joy -- and slowly, I’ve been learning that all of it is okay.

 

You’re absolutely right about everything you say. Maybe it’s just that sometimes, when things get too difficult or emotional and physical exhaustion sets in, it helps to talk to someone—or to people who are going through the same thing and understand the issue—since talking about these things with others can be hard for them to understand or even confusing.
I’m surprised you haven’t written your success story. I know you still have some symptoms, but going from being bedridden, as you said, and having lost so many symptoms to having just one or two is already a success in itself. You don’t necessarily have to be completely symptom-free to have already succeeded.

 

Yes, as I was saying, there is nothing wrong with discussing how you feel and receiving some empathy from others in the same boat. (Those who haven't experienced TMS, just as you say, are not going to provide the same level of support because they do not truly understand what it's like.) However, once the empathy has been exchanged, what gets you free is action — and that action only needs to start with doing something small but positive and life-affirming.

You're right — I guess I have succeeded! Even if I don't eventually lose my remaining symptoms, I have a life now, whereas when I was rotting in bed (bedridden), I didn’t.

I think I haven't written my success story for a different reason, not just because I haven't fully recovered. I think it's because it would involve writing a long War and Peace kind of epic tale, and I'm not sure I want to mentally live through all of that again — some parts are tedious or upsetting — but I know that's what people would want to hear: the full, step-by-step story.

I used to wonder why some people left the forum without posting their recovery success story. To be honest, I thought it was a bit churlish not to, but now I think they probably just want to leave it all behind and not have to relive it. Maybe that in itself is part of recovery — choosing to live forward instead of looking back.

 

Personally, I wouldnt want to marinate in this catastrophe. If i ever get so far ill definitely say goodbye and thank everyone and perhaps come back periodically — maybe i would write a success story actually. Idk

 

The other day I saw that someone had came back to write their success story on the forum a couple of years after their recovery. They said they had kept meaning to but somehow never got round to it. My feeling is that after a couple of years they were probably more convinced of their recovery and were finally in the right headspace to relay the tale almost as if it hadn't actually happened to them, but to someone else.

 

En muchos de los casos de éxito que leí, las personas parecieron superar sus síntomas con bastante rapidez. Por lo general, solo presentaban uno o dos síntomas. Quizás ya comprendieran la teoría, lograron vencer el miedo y eso les permitió mejorar más rápidamente. Tal vez tampoco existía una fuerte conexión emocional con sus síntomas. No estoy seguro de si tiene que ver con la intensidad de las sensaciones, pero cuando alguien presenta muchos síntomas, el proceso tiende a ser diferente.
Cuando hay varios síntomas, calmar el sistema nervioso lleva más tiempo. Además, el proceso no es lineal: hay muchas fluctuaciones, altibajos y momentos de incertidumbre. Todo esto puede tener un impacto algo negativo en la experiencia general. Desde fuera, una historia de éxito puede parecer inspiradora, pero a menudo lo que hay detrás no es visible: el tiempo, las emociones, el esfuerzo y, sí, también las lágrimas.
Por eso, cuando finalmente se observa una mejora significativa, incluso contar la historia puede resultar un poco… difícil. De cierto modo, nos hace recordar todo el proceso. Aún así, compartirla puede ser una gran fuente de inspiración para los demás.
Y es cierto: queremos conocer los detalles, especialmente sobre los síntomas que otros han experimentado. Es el pensamiento típico: "Si ellos pudieron, yo también". He visto muchas historias de éxito en foros de apoyo: la gente empieza describiendo sus síntomas, luego vuelve para actualizar su progreso, habla de las fluctuaciones y, finalmente, comparte que ha mejorado muchísimo o que está libre de síntomas en un 95%.
Quizás, si pudieras escribir tu historia de esta manera, compartiendo que estás muy cerca de una recuperación completa, sería realmente inspirador para los demás.

 

In my opinion you've been trying to analysing this too much! You might be right, but there are people who have taken a long time to lose their back pain (their only symptom) for instance. And, if you're a person who has a lot of symptoms, all you're doing is creating a much bigger mental hurdle/wall to climb up and over on your recovery journey.

Yes, progress (in respect of the reduction and losing of symptoms) for most people isn't linear, so when the symptoms flare or new symptoms appear this can fuel doubts, whereas in most cases the reason for the flaring or new symptoms is that it's just your brain 'protesting' against the changes you are making because it's fearful and it's doing its utmost to keep you safe. You just have to remember - and keep reminding yourself - that this is simply par for the course with mind/body/TMS.

Yes, that's true... the only way out is through! Some people will leave out all the nitty gritty details of what they went through when they tell their success story, for reasons of a) not wanting to put people off and/or b) not wanting to mentally 'relive' it.

Yes, but one of the first rules of recovery is to pay attention to and heed how you feel about things... so, if you don't want to tell and 'relive' your story when you've recovered (or nearly recovered), then you simply don't do it. I know it's not the same as reading a success story from start to finish, but I do share some of my story when I reply to postings which hopefully might be of some help and reassurance to people.

Yes, that's true, it was helpful for me to know that some people's TMS involved swelling and inflammation, for instance -- as that appears to be a more uncommon, or less reported, type of symptom in TMS literature. However, a lot of TMSers tend to take this to the nth degree... wanting to establish whether their symptoms were the same as their own and they're not convinced unless the symptoms are exactly the same as theirs (and even when they are pretty much the same symptoms, they want to then go on to find someone else who recovered from the same symptoms because finding one person isn't reassuring enough for them!). It's all a distraction and thus a trap.

Maybe, it will be, but I'm not up for doing it at the moment. But I do appreciate the encouragement! I'll almost certainly do it at some stage, but for the present all I feel I want to do is mention bits and pieces about my recovery in my replies to people's postings.