Three Pronged Life Style Approach

i like the idea monte has about using these strategies as a way of living and not a treatment. i think that is a key thing because if you use them as just a treatment you are expecting results.. and when you're expecting the results to happen i think i would inevitably calendar watch to see how much progress ive been making. monte also mentions that if you're the type of person that constantly reads about TMS, tries to learn everything about it, etc etc that you aren't expressing your emotional energy but are repressing it. this is kind of what i did when i stopped investigating physical causes for my pain. i found out about TMS and then I started reading all about that, kept buying books even though I hadn't read the ones I already had, it has become an addiction as well. i think its key to make it a lifestyle change rather than a short term treatment just to get rid of the symptoms. everything monte suggests in his writings are good for your lifestyle anyway.. positive thinking, changing the way you express emotion, etc.

 

I understand what you and Monte mean: When I first time read Dr Sarno's HBP three years ago, I read it again and again and annotated it, then went on to read all of his books using heavy underlining and notes in the margins. But nothing happened. I had just become obsessed with another project to distract me from whatever TMS is trying to distract me from - repressed unpleasant emotions like sorrow, anxiety and rage. I had become a TMS "junkie" full of all the cliches and stereotypes. However, my TMS only started to get better when I started doing the Structured Program and felt my repressed unconscious emotions surfacing in my conscious mind as anxiety and fear. That's how I could tell the biochemistry of my brain was really changing. Before that, it was all neat theory, but without the hard-earned practice that really gets rid of TMS. But you also have to go out and really challenge TMS by engaging in rigorous physical activities, no matter how much you're afraid of what might happen. I suspect that it's only through really rigorous activities that the programmed pain pathways are deconstructed and re-routed. Of course, it may be possible to just stop repressing when you understand the TMS process, but that certainly wasn't the way that "getting better" happened to me.

 

Actually, now that I look back, my sciatica and lower back pain did start to improve slowly and gradually after reading and re-reading Sarno, but doing the Structured Program definitely sped up the process. So, having all that theory packed in my noggin did make it easier for me to do The Work in the SP.