Could you be trying to do too much to heal from chronic pain?
Sometimes, spending time in the company of someone who makes you laugh, or taking a peaceful walk in nature can be far more beneficial than staying at home and forcing yourself to meditate for an hour.
Anyone who has come across Tension Myositis Syndrome and decided to look further into it would know that there is a lot to learn in the beginning.
In fact, the approach is first and foremost an educational one - you need to learn about the mindbody connection in order to eliminate all those false beliefs that you may have been carrying around with regard to chronic pain.
That said, some people may take their ‘education’ a bit too far - in the sense that they end up doing too much TMS work and overwhelming themselves in the process.
What is TMS work?
When I speak of TMS work, I mean all the learning and tools involved in dealing with Tension Myositis Syndrome (the term was later revised to Tension Myoneural Syndrome or MindBody Syndrome).
This includes all the journalling, meditations and vizualisation techniques, as well as remembering and applying the basic principles and mindset shifts to your daily life (such as Dr Sarno’s 12 daily reminders).
This work is important especially in the beginning, when you’re still learning about the mindbody connection and exploring how your personality traits - as well as your beliefs and behaviours around pain - are contributing to keeping your symptoms alive and kicking!
The only issue comes up when certain people end up taking TMS work a bit too far. These kinds of people probably already know they have TMS, and they also know a lot of things about the neuroscience of pain. They have read hundreds of success stories but still, they can’t seem to break out of the cycle. Why is that?
When TMS work becomes just another ‘chore’
In the end, one must keep in mind that recovery cannot be ‘forced’, neither can it turn into an unpleasant process.
The mistakes some people make with TMS work is that they force themselves to do a particular exercise like journaling (or multiple tasks) every day, as a way of ‘fighting’ TMS.
This is particularly true in those who identify themselves as perfectionists - those who want to do everything in the best possible way - including the recovery process.
In this way, the journaling or exercise starts to become like a ‘chore’, something else on their overwhelming to-do-list.
In this way, TMS work can simply become another stress-inducing factor. Each time we fail to do an exercise (due to other commitments or time constraints), we may start feeling guilty and frustrated at ourselves. These are the very feelings that we need to avoid when trying to recover from TMS chronic pain.
Watch out for Resistance
What’s more, building a ‘fighter’ attitude towards pain is equivalent to resistance. Resistance is a key concept in TMS healing, and happens each time we desperately seek to ‘get rid’ of pain from a standpoint of despair, irritation or ‘lack’ (i.e indulging in feelings of dissatisfaction and unhappiness towards a present situation).
For this reason, the intention behind your TMS work is much more important than the work itself: whatever action you take - whether it’s journalling, meditation, or another habit-forming technique, it has to be done with a feeling of trust, self-love and curiosity.
Although you should always entertain the possibility of healing from TMS, you should not be setting definite goals and deadlines. One must always remember that TMS recovery is a side-effect to all the work you do, and not a direct result.
This means surrendering to whatever outcome you may experience, experimenting with different techniques or reading new TMS-related info out of interest, then reflecting on how it could apply to you.
Any action that is taken out of despair, frustration or fear, will likely backfire, because it is actually done from a standpoint of resistance.
How do you know you’re doing too much?
Which brings us to the question: when is too much, too much?
One of the things you need to do is be aware of your attitude towards TMS work. Are you looking forward to your journalling, reading or meditation, or are you forcing yourself to do the exercise or task every day?
Are you constantly seeking new information, and scanning hundreds of success stories? In this case, ‘despair’ may still be your main driving force.
Do you end up cultivating feelings of self-loathing and guilt because you ‘forgot’ to watch out for certain thoughts or behaviours? Or because you didn’t find time to ‘do the work’ today?
Are you working on inducing the relaxation response?
At the end of the day, gaining knowledge about TMS and Pain Neuroscience is not enough to heal from TMS.
You may have read dozens of books and may have become a fountain of knowledge on the subject, but if you cannot induce the relaxation response and calm down the nervous system, complete recovery will be very difficult.
By inducing the relaxation response, I mean learning how to do things out of enjoyment, learning how to calm yourself and your thoughts, and getting over your fear of pain and its consequences.
Sometimes, spending time in the company of someone who makes you laugh, or taking a peaceful walk in nature can be far more beneficial than staying at home and forcing yourself to meditate for an hour.
TMS Recovery should be simple!
If recovery is starting to seem complicated for you, take a few days to re-evaluate the situation. Once you’ve read a TMS book or two and followed a TMS Program, the way forward should be simple.
You need to simply apply the principles to your day to day life, and learn how to find more joy and relaxation in the present moment - despite the pain.
A shift in mindset and attitude towards pain is far more powerful than a forced journaling exercise.
That said, you do need to have covered the groundwork first. If you haven’t followed any program that helps you with implementing TMS principles in your daily life, check out my Pain Free Breakthrough Program here. I keep things simple and practical to help you progress faster!