The concept of Tension Myoneural Syndrome as explained by Dr Sarno and many of his followers presumes that stress and repressed emotions related to traumatic or highly stressful situations can lead to the onset of pain.
Over the years, neuroscience has backed up the fact that stress increases pain perception and that people are more likely to feel pain if they are feeling sad or negative, rather than happy.
Which begs the question: can you overcome TMS pain if you’re stuck in a stressful situation? What if you’ve already identified the source of your dissatisfaction or anxiety, but you cannot change it? It’s a delicate question, which I shall attempt to answer here in this post.
Repressed emotions are more likely to cause pain…
First of all, the theory behind TMS is that when we repress strong negative emotions, we are more likely to develop psychosomatic pain. Why? Yet again, it’s only a theory, but it could be that our body is trying to warn us that something is really NOT ok (after all, pain is a danger signal), OR, as Sarno believed, the pain is there to distract us from our emotions, so that we do not have to face the pain of these emotions.
Till this day, we don’t exactly know which of these theories is correct. That said, we know that people who have done the work to acknowledge their emotions and to release certain repressed feelings have experienced significant relief - if not full recovery - from TMS pain. And some of them experienced this change even though they could not change certain situations that were external to them.
I am one such example. My pain was caused due to a traumatic conflict and a couple of unjust circumstances that had shattered me from the inside, and was being made worse by the fury I felt due to my current stress at work. I realized how much certain events had impacted me, and acknowledged those feelings that I had kept buried in order to convince myself and others that ‘all was well’.
Even though I couldn’t change what happened in the past, and I also couldn’t change my stressful job back then, I overcame my chronic pain completely. This is because acknowledging your emotions, and trying to bring some of those repressed emotions to the surface can provide significant relief in and of itself - you don’t always need to change an external situation!
There are things you might need to change…
Now let me get this clear. There are certain situations that you might have to change if you want to live a happy and fulfilled life. It’s one thing learning to deal with certain pressures at work, or with a misbehaving child, but it’s another thing if you keep yourself exposed to an abusive boss or partner.
Although there are techniques for dealing with pain even in highly stressful situations, keeping yourself stuck in an emotionally damaging relationship or situation can lead to other health problems. So this is just one caveat I’d like to make clear before proceeding, especially before making the next statement:
Don’t keep blaming your TMS on a situation you cannot change!
With that said, I’d like to make you more aware of the ‘blame game’ that we sometimes start to play when we realize we have stress-induced pain.
More often than not, we can easily identify the source of our stress levels. Sometimes, it is a current situation, like a stressful or unfulfilling career, or else a not-so-happy relationship. Of course, there can be other factors which may still be repressed, and it is not unlikely for us to blame a situation (e.g. job) as being the main source of unhappiness, while in reality, the real problem would be something that’s buried deep within and which we are denying (often, because it feels unacceptable for our ego to acknowledge it). So that’s something to be aware of as well. But now, back to the ‘blame game’.
The blame game happens when we start to blame an external situation which we cannot change for our pain. What happens in this case is that we are more likely to develop conditioned pain as a result. This happens in the same way that we develop pain in other situations or under certain triggers (such as exercises or moving in certain ways).
So if, let’s say, we start to blame our job for causing pain flare-ups. What’s happening in this case is that we’re setting the expectation of pain in relation to our job. As a result, we build or reinforce the association between our job and the pain. This makes it more likely for us to experience pain when we are working - because we perceive work to be a threat to our pain levels. We then form the belief that we need to quit our job in order to recover - but this may not be the case!
But in reality, the job is not directly to blame for pain in this case. It’s mainly your belief that the job will cause pain, and the conditioning that resulted from this belief. It is absolutely POSSIBLE to stay in the job and train yourself not to expect pain, and to reprocess and reinterpret pain differently (see my article on Pain Reprocessing Therapy). That said, you might need to give yourself a little break to reduce the stress-load and learn the techniques first.
It’s also possible to counterbalance your stressors with relaxing activities and habits, and achieve what we call a good Soothe to Rage ratio (i.e a good balance between negative and feel-good emotions).
Fear may be limiting your opportunities…
Now, this will likely not lead to your becoming self-fulfilled in your job (or any other unhappy situation that you feel you cannot change). Which is why, I always encourage changing an unhappy situation if possible.
Sometimes, there are situations which we believe we cannot change, when in reality we can absolutely change them. It’s the fear of the unfamiliar, or our fear of the risks involved, that hold us back. If we perceive the risks as being too high, we may logically decide not to pursue change. This is a perfectly acceptable decision, but I do encourage you to seek professional advice or a different perspective on the subject. This will help you assess whether it’s your fear and ingrained beliefs that are magnifying the risks and overwhelming you, or whether it really makes sense not to take those risks.
We can also console ourselves that things sometimes do change, with or without our input. If you think back to two years ago, you may realize that the problems that felt so huge for you back then are no longer an issue for you. It could be same with your current problems. Sometimes, when we don’t have a clear solution, it’s good to simply trust that things will work out - this mindset in itself can be transformative (and, by the way, helps significantly with addressing pain!)
Conclusion - you can reduce or eliminate your pain anyway!
In conclusion, by working on your beliefs and reactions towards the pain, you can eliminate the pain response and break the association between a stressful situation and pain. There are plenty of tools to help you do just that, including my own Pain Free Breakthrough Program (which, will also get you to assess your priorities and evaluate whether or not you should change or accept a given situation).
So do yourself a favour, and don’t play the blame game. By all means, acknowledge your emotions, and look into changing an unhappy situation if you can - but don’t allow yourself to believe that you can’t get rid of pain unless you also get rid of all your stressors.