Hi Everyone,
This is the 2nd runningpain.com- TMS update of several to come this year in which the theme is exploring the experience of learning to live with TMS. My experience in living with TMS, which is now quite extensive, has convinced me that most people (TMS patients) are unclear about this "journey" and for several good reasons. Because these reasons are so valid (keeping you stuck) we are going to explore them (and call BS when needed) to help get you unstuck and on the healing path that allows you to live with TMS but without the pain and other TMS symptoms affecting your life in a negative way.
Do you genuinely care about how you feel on a day-to-day basis?
Do you realize that how you feel is a direct result or effect of how you are being (behaviors & thoughts).
Can you genuinely care about how you feel and practice actually feeling or experiencing your emotions without it being a means to an end...without it being a "treatment" to fix this TMS syndrome?
Thinking psychological is the most important practice to engage in when living with TMS.
Part of thinking psychological is thinking clean. We have to clean-up some of the daily tension that we generate and we have to stop repressing some of the emotional energy that we allow ourselves to avoid or deny on a daily basis (generating more tension). We do this with think clean strategies.
A big, huge part of Think Psychological and Think Clean is learning how and when to stop thinking and instead to be with our feelings or emotional energy!
Allowing or experiencing emotional energy in this way can only be done when you get out of your head/mind. Make it your daily practice to call time-out and be with your feelings/emotional energy a few times a day for a few minutes.
Sitting with your Feeling or Emotion
(A very important part of Think Psychological)
Sitting with our feelings or emotions as a way to release or dissipate our emotional energy is part of Think Psychological and Think Clean. This is a very powerful practice of calling time-out on all this thinking stuff and instead give ourselves the opportunity to be with or allow our emotional energy to be experienced.
The willingness to be with, to befriend our emotions and allow this energy to be experienced is key to releasing tension or stuck emotional energy that we repress on a day-to-day basis.
1. Have it your intention to be mindful of your feelings. Be genuinely interested in how you are feeling.
2. Acknowledge to yourself how you are feeling. I feel and state how you feel. It could be angry, sad, lonely, depressed, bored, frustrated, anxious, scattered, or guilty. Do not allow yourself off the hook by saying I don't know what I feel. This isn’t about naming/identifying an emotion it is about being with what you feel. It is about allowing your emotional energy to be experienced!
3. Be present with whatever you are feeling. Take a few deep mindful breaths and stay out of thinking and be with whatever feeling is present within you.
4. As you are being with your feeling, resist the urge to avoid or deny it. It is going to come as a thought like: I don't have time do this right now, I need to get back to work, or I think I will search on the internet, or I think I will call a friend or I think I will get something to eat, or I think I will read about this again and then try it tonight. These voices are trying to sabotage you so recognize this and dismiss them.
This is the uncomfortable part of this practice. Be with the feeling and be with the uncomfortable-ness and do not allow yourself to slip away into thought.
5. As you stay with the feeling, whatever is there, keep breathing into it and being present with it. Avoid the need to analyze it, judge it, find blame or negotiate with it. Stop any of the reasoning stuff and be with your feeling.
6. That's it. When the uncomfortable-ness is gone you are done. A final note to help make this effective and efficient, don't look for the payoff or reward. No agenda and no timeframe. When you let go of any expectation and incorporate this practice as a way of being open and allowing with your feelings you will experience positive progress and the transformation has begun! This is a very powerful and effective practice to begin to incorporate into your daily life a little more often. A couple of times a day for two or three minutes will provide big, huge benefits.
Remember that our thought and behavior patterns are doing two things. 1. Generating inner tension and 2. Repressing or helping us deny/avoid our emotions. Sometimes we simply need to change or redirect out of our tension generating patterns/repressing activity via the practice of Think Clean and sometimes we need to experience or be with our feelings with no thinking involved first and then redirect into the present moment or into more open, flexible or balanced patterns.
This is how you reverse TMS symptoms and how you live with TMS but without the constant struggle with new/old symptoms. This is your work! When you incorporate these practices into your life as a way of being and not as a treatment to fix something that is wrong you change everything! You change the communication back to the TMS Strategy from one of being distracted and "feeding" the pain syndrome to one of "I know exactly what is going on here, I know this is mindbody, I don't need you anymore, I am not distracted"! And that is the communication that renders this pain syndrome useless!!! Of course the big, huge side benefit from all of this is that you are no longer generating all this extra pressure and tension, you are no longer repressing as much emotional energy on a daily basis and you are living/being in a more open, present, balanced, flexible and aligned way. You have dramatically changed the quality of energy that gets transmitted to your autonomic nervous system, which means you have dramatically changed the effects/symptoms that you will receive and experience. This is how piriformis or sciatica or back pain or a sore & stiff body magically transform into a body that is open and balanced and aligned and flexible.
No matter what TMS symptom you are experiencing, the formula for eliminating them is always the same. Don't get distracted and "feed" the pain strategy and do the Work as a way of being and not as a treatment.
Stay the course,
Monte Hueftle
TMS Mind Body Coach
www.runningpain.com |
TMS Update - a message from Monte Hueftle
Posted - 04/20/2011 : 07:36:25
