What else is there - Seriously

I love the line ‘the cure is in you’. I speak with my father often about mind/body issues and he was the first person who said that to me. It has a lot of meaning and places total control in the individual’s hands.

 

Irene Lyon's SBSM is a very interesting somatic approach where you release tension by awareness and breath instead of by thinking about thinking.

Set a mini goal like "it's ok to make mistakes but I'm going to return my focus back to my breath for an hour" etc. Write down what works and what doesn't work in terms of freeing your mind. Even a nanosecond of relief counts as work. Don't worry about edge cases and beliefs and just be as chill and carefree as you can. Humans have a rifht to be happy. Period.

Be realistic about how bad your pain levels are, watch your thought patterns and change them, and look at areas in your life that have progress because of positive thinking (career, school etc.)

Neck pillow or no neck pillow, busy or not busy, music or no music. Commit to getting out of fight flight and into rest digest at least. You can also talk here if you need support for a stressful situation, or you have trouble understanding what's causing a thought or flare up.

It's impossible to avoid self doubt so just re train your empathy and emotional EQ. It's ok if you can't understand it. Listen to your gut in any situation- it's deeper than fear and the often unconscious fear must be dealt with first.

Listening to your gut is fun and not dependent on urgency and severity of symptoms. It's ok to feel bad, it's ok to make mistakes, get off track, but don't add to your suffering. Self love starts with what you tell yourself. Never give up on yourself, ever.

 

What a perfect response in my opinion, @RogueWave! i had the exact same response and was about to write something myself, but you have said it beautifully and succinctly as you always do. there is a point where one is getting a payoff of such magnitude that none of us are going to find it for him; it's in his own inward inquiry into why he keeps coming here arguing with very suggestion while so tenaciously hanging on to his victim mentality. his comment that he can't buy into the "joe despenza cancer is cured by positive thinking thing" is such a complete and utter misunderstanding of a very complicated process and consequently a dismissal of something he obviously knows nothing about and isn't interested enough to find out more. he's turned into a bumper sticker and moved right on along continuing to ask for help. it just makes me wonder how sincere he has been with the myriad other things at which he says have failed him.

anita moorjani's book as extraordinary. her journey is the ultimate encouragement for all of us. there are many stories like hers, but hers is one of the more famous ones right now. it has become abundantly obvious to me, after the astounding number of comments on this thread sincerely trying to help, that eskimoeskimo does not want to heal right now. and that is fine...i hope he will at some point find out why this is actually a gift to him rather than a curse. he has fully become his pain.

 

I don't neither! I've read Joe Dispenza 'You Are The Placebo' and I've seen his videos, and he always seems fishy to me(sorry to all here, that really like him) - I don't know, something in his smile and eyes reminds me of snake oil sellers or TV Preachers that are so popular in USA(at least from European perspective, as we don't have something like that here). He's not even a true doctor.
But that doesn't matter! Both you and I don't have cancer, and true doctors like Sarno, Schubiner, Mosley all shown how pain is an nebulous and weird sensation. Did you tried book/meditations that I recommend you? We really need some kind of mental resilience to even try to get better, and hold all those dark clouds at bay. This is one thing everything is onboard with - it can take a while and you have to not interact with thoughts about your pain over and over and over again. I know you tried that for years. But have you really? I thought I did this for years too. But even when I was working, traveling, reading book on the back of my mind I was thinking about pain, how I miss my painfree life, how the future will be more of the same. I was multitasking sure, I was active with my life, but nonetheless I was always interacting with pain thoughts, instead of just letting them go. If you really lived your life and was able to hold those thoughts at bay for months or years then disregard what I just said, but I trully want to help you. You don't have to believe in curing cancer via mind, in what Dispenza wrote, but we know scientifically that reinforcing neural pathways is something we do, and that we are able to change them, and it doesn't matter how old we are(I mean sure, younger brains are easier to change, but in the past people thought it stops changing with age, but nope - it can be changed as long as we live)

 

Amen.

 

Excellent reply. I completely agree with your words regarding Dispenza and was about to write the same but you have articulated it so much better.

I listened to Anita Moorjani’s book (it’s read by her which really adds to the experience.) I agree, it is an amazing story.

 

How does documentary evidence that someone got unexpectedly better from late stage cancer against the odds prove that she got better - as she believes - as a result of emotional discovery/work?

If I'm not receptive to Joe Dispenza - the chiropractor lest we forget - 's take on things I don't want to heal? I suspended disbelief and read You Are the Placebo and Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and Becoming Supernatural. If it's helpful to you, more power to you. But it's not my thing. I'll just leave it at that.

As extensive as this thread is, and as grateful as I am for people taking the time to try to help, I have not found much in it to be clarifying or convincing. To say that that's because I'm not sincere or interested enough, or that I want the pain, or I want to be a victim is simply wrong.

 

Yes I get the snake oil vibes. And trying to use a cheap butchered version of quantum mechanics to say something about consciousness as he does is a pet peeve of mine.

I got the book you recommended. I'll admit I am afraid to start meditating again but I'm thinking about it. I'm not ruling it out by any means, just proceeding cautiously as I've had some bad - I'm tempted to say traumatic - experiences with meditation in the past.

I fully acknowledge that I have always been aware of the pain and other symptoms essentially 24/7, even when my life has been much more active. Letting go of them sounds nice, but as ever my question is "how?"

 

I want to remind you that I started this thread asking for suggestions for other things to try, being done with TMS. Instead it has turned into 34 pages of people telling me their version of TMS theory and getting frustrated with me when I don't take up their theory.

 

You're stuck where I was. You can't be "done with TMS" ... That's like saying you refuse to accept that you are human.

Somewhere along the line you got physical symptoms because of stress (at this stage, it REALLY doesn't matter why) and you focused on it enough that your brain kept it going for you because you instructed your brain that it was important through giving it the fuels of fear and attention.

You've admitted your pain is low-level. So it is your response to the pain that is the problem. Every time you respond to this thread you demonstrate that, again and again and again. Changing your situation doesn't require a mystical spiritual realisation - can you take ONE step back from the situation, out of your own mind and see how you are perpetuating your own suffering?

I know I couldn't for a very long time so that's okay... Some of us hang around longer at the "questioning everything" stage... But at some point you HAVE to choose something different. The thoughts you have that you express here are what people are talking about when they say words like habit, practice and repetition. It takes a huge amount of effort and desire to feel differently to start crafting new thoughts and emotional responses.. but it's what you need to do.

Take it from me, who has been EXACTLY where you are for YEARS and is now mentally and physically on her way ... I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... Do you want to come with me or not?

 

Meditation from book I recommended to you were helpful to me in that regard. I understand, you are kinda affraid to try meditation again after your bad experiences with them. But meditation from that book are short, 7-10 minutes, and from what I recall you tried meditating for hours.
If you indeed try those meditations I recommend skipping first and third meditations, the best ones are second and fourth. First one is about scanning your body, and I'm sure you tried meditations like that before many times. Third one is about gentle move, but from what I understand, you don't have any physical limitations. Fourth one is about compassion to yourself and I think that would be especially helpful to you.
Don't get me wrong, I still struggle but like I said in this topic, I've gathered all my mental strength and will try to really change myself. Those meditations I recommended are the only ones that helps me

 

Came across this quote, "Real growth is when you are tired of your own shit." Getting out of oneself and one's own self obsession to help others with real problems that are not self created, gives one perspective and gratitude.

 

It's so important to challenge yourself to think better and live better. Growth mindset in anything helps, not just a specific symptom or technique. Really believing your ability to heal lets you make connections and find solutions from your intuition. Intuition is amazing

 

Even if there are other factors in say, getting a job and hitting a new PR in a deadlift, believing in yourself helps make that happen along with practice. Breaking thought patterns can be hard. It's about having an optimistic attitude and being there for yourself no matter what. Some things in life go beyond cold hard logic.

 

I agree completely. You and I are both caregivers and know well the brutality of loving and caring for someone who suffers from a serious condition.

Another wonderful quote:

“What you think you create.
What you feel you attract.
What you imagine you become”

~ Buddha

There is nothing new under the sun.

 

You are kind my darling.
Stay kind.
Stay soft.

 

It's so true that there is nothing new under the sun. It's futile to poke holes in our shared humanity or judge someone based on their credentials. There is nobody on this earth that you can't learn something from. Those are excuses and defenses and distractions from ourselves, the truth, and objective reality. Arrogance and ungratefulness gets one nowhere. At the end of the day we are all the same and the truth is found within. Certainty is an unattainable goal and a fool's errand, so embrace the unknown. "The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." One can choose to believe that or learn the hard way.

 

Dispenza shouldn't get a pass to promote (and profit off) pseudoscience.

 

Well doctors and surgeons and pain management and the medical industry as a whole, profit in the billions and usually cause more harm, so I'm not sure what your point is there. I disagree that his books are pseudoscience (at the very least they illustrate the possibility of humans to overcome seemingly dire diagnoses). Neither are the testimonials of real and regular people with brain tumors, lung cancer, colon cancer, and an array of diseases who got better. No one is saying that Dispenza is the only source of info. or that one needs to spend money attending his events. Just because he has a marketing plan with bells and whistles, does not invalidate the very real stories of recovery, nor does it negate the research in neuroscience. His books cost me a couple of dollars and the videos on YT are free. I don't need to travel to an exotic location for that. I'd also far rather spend time in Italy getting a vacation and a course, as opposed to being in the hospital on ketamine or in the Mayo Clinic spending 40K (like a guy I know) only to leave broke and with zero hope. If Dispenza is not your cup of tea..no worries ! All you need is Sarno at the end of the day...or Dr. Schubiner or Alan Gordon...take your pick (or all). I read many books while I was struggling and took what resonated for me and threw out what didn't. I focused on the success stories on the wiki (also free), not the naysayers. Ultimately it's a personal journey and you have to figure out what makes sense to you. Many concepts are repeated but said in different ways and from different angles. Each person receives the info differently. The core principles are all the same though and I've listed them ad nauseam in this thread. If you keep focusing on why something or someone is "wrong" or "unproven", then you are missing the entire point, which is your actual life. It's not about them or the "approach". It's about you and why your brain is creating this pain to begin with and how to unlearn the habit. In a nutshell, "you do you Boo" lol.

 

Thank you, I'm going to give it a try. I think your intuition is right about which ones to test out. Regards

PS I'm rooting for you