following on from https://magnificentpeople.co.uk/back-to-the-future-part-1
I thought my back (and leg) pain resolving overnight was a miracle, but perhaps saying it's simply science in action is fitting enough. The evidence is out there, the journey is replicable, and many people who have followed the process have recovered from chronic pain. But not all. It's important to acknowledge that too. Important to acknowledge their struggles, frustration and continued pain. The body, brain, mind, and environment are complex enmeshed beasts, and it can be difficult, sometime impossible to get all the conditions right for processing pain and becoming pain free.
I was fortunate that the change happened relatively quickly - about 11 years of priming myself, and then overnight for it to dissapear. By that point I was ready to believe in the possibility it could happen to me. I also didn't have any significant complex traumas trapped in my body (that I know of). I'd also been doing plenty of managing techniques; pacing myself, gentle stretches and exercise, meditation, breathing exercises. And in the latter years I had started to go deeper into the mind, and was starting to get an understanding of how I was in part creating a stressful reality, where I was often on the look-out for threats, as well as having some weak social boundaries (such as saying yes to things when I really didn't want to do them!). The penny was beginning to drop that I could change elements of my beliefs and actions and I would see the world in a different way, perhaps it would become less threatening, perhaps other good things could happen because of it.
Looking back to when my pain first came on, I see now that I was under considerable stress, my nervous system was hyped, and my body was saying no to it, even as I tried to plough on. My partner was having some difficulties with her health that impacted our relationship, and then, a week before the pain kicked in, there was an incident at work where my boss really should have had my back, but instead he (perhaps inadvertently) humiliated me and the volunteers in my care, after siding with a client who unfairly tried to shame us in public. My back gave me a week to make a stand, and when I didn't, it took an excecutive decision to tell me to get away from the stress. That's my interpretation of events, and it would fit with the kind of situation Dr Sarno might have seen in his patients.
I was angry, but I held my anger in and pushed it down. I continued to see my boss as a threat, and also perceived a threat regarding expressing my anger about his action - I would get in trouble, I would lose my job, I wouldn't be liked. I rejected my anger because I thought anger would make me rejected.
As I carried out my pain management strategy over the years, I didn't address my repressed anger at the core. So I was just dealing with the heat and steam from the pressure of holding it down. I was taking the edge off it when I could, but... I wasn't calming the nervous system down at source; I was trying to cool down what was eternally hot. This was a kind of avoidance. And I was trying to avoid situations where I couldn't cool down quick enough.
Looking back even further into my past, it appears that my repressive relationship to anger was cultivated young. Most of the messages I received was that it was safest to repress it; It wasn't encouraged or spoken about in the family, not accepted in the classroom, I was too small and sensitive for it to be taken seriously in the playground. Being cool, calm, collected, unflappable was respected. That's what I aimed for, and I played the part well.
So, part of my healing has been to face emotions. I start by acknowledging I'm safe (provided I am safe!) - I can look around, and pick out objects or sounds that demonstrate this. Then I turn my attention to what I can perceive internally; sensations, thoughts, my emotional state. I label them as safe. I notice if I have thoughts, sensations, emotions that pull in opposite directions, I feel the tension involved in the struggle. I see if I can get a sense of what I'm being told by my emotions - is it advice to say no to something for example. And then if required I will take action. Reading this back through, I see that it looks simple and easy to do, but that's not often my experience of it... it can be clunky, I can lose concentration, I can have resistance to it. Sometimes I don't get it right, and I've learnt that this is ok, just try again.
Redirect to...
