Did you know that avoiding emotions is one of the main reasons we experience physical pain? Yep, it’s true!
I have avoided emotions for much of my life, most of the time not even realizing I was doing so. I did not realize that much of the anxiety I was feeling was actually a by-product of me trying like mad NOT to feel some other emotion. I was living life with “don’t go there” as my mantra.
Now, I live my life with quite the opposite mantra: GO THERE NOW!
Physical pain is not the dilemma our minds like to tell us it is. Our thoughts come roaring into our awareness:
This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt.
The old pain is back, oh no!
I can’t stand this!
And on and on…
The key to moving forward is to NOT GIVE YOUR MIND ANY CREDIT. Treat it like you would a young child – lovingly, with compassion, but don’t take it seriously. If you believed everything your three-year-old told you, your life would look much different. You’d be feeding her ice cream because she said she couldn’t live without it. You’d be letting her stay up late because she said she didn’t want to go to bed.
Respectfully decline to believe your own mind.
Pain is just there to let you know that you need to turn and focus on your emotions and what’s been shoved down, pushed aside, or stuffed away for later. It’s the steam escaping from the pot right before it boils over. It’s just a signal, a message, or an alert. Beep, beep, says your pain! You must GO THERE NOW! To the emotional stuff you don’t want to face!
Can’t find that emotional stuff? Don’t know what it is? That’s okay. All you need to do is focus your awareness on your emotional inner world (use last week’s post to help you do so). Let the pain be – it’s there, and that’s okay. There’s no denying, no arguing, no fighting against it. See it for what it is – just a signal – and then follow the directions it’s trying to give you. Go toward all those things that haven’t been dealt with, faced, or felt.
That’s the journey.
Abigail,
It’s funny that you write this today: GO THERE NOW!, because I had a moment today that needed me to do did just that.
Thanks for the reminders you post here to remind us to take care of ourselves!
Jenny
I realize now that I had become such a successful repressor of unpleasant emotions that when my mother died after a long illness I felt absolutely nothing. Just went through the motions and followed procedures. However, six months later, when I inherited her house, I came down with what the doctors called a herniated disk. I can see now that because I had not expressed or even felt the pain of my loss that the pain in my back acted as a distraction from deep feelings of sorrow and fear of abandonment that were trying to come to the surface and find expression. I realize now that if I’d been in touch with my emotions the TMS pain would not have manifested as physical symptoms. Like the video, there was a huge gorilla in my psychic space, but going through the procedures associated with a death in the family, concentrating on those things, allowed me to ignore the obvious.
MorComm
Boy, does this sound familiar. My mother died in October of 2014 and I immediately put on my executor’s and began the process of settling a fairly complicated estate. It took over a year to untangle the mess and get her huge house ready to sell and I was second guessed the entire time. We finally sold the house 15 months later and guess what happened- yep, back pain, herniated disc, and surgery, my second one. I was diagnosed with another herniated disc earlier this year with the solution being a double fusion, but, mercifully, I found Sarno’s book and realized I’d never truly grieved my mother’s death. It was extremely painful to dig into a lot of the emotions, but today I am pain free and absolutely doing all of the physical activities multiple doctors told me to stop. I have my life back and my family had me back.
I went through this scenario at the beginning of 2019, Same nightmare trying to execute a trust with many pitfalls and complexities. At the same time I was dealing with spending $20K repiping my house to avoid a slab leak and moving everything to get the inside painted. I also had continuing job stress which escalated in 2015 when my company went through a merger. That was when i developed pain in the left side of my body and on top of it i went through menopause at the same time. Crippling neck pain occurred right after a difficult time selling my mom’s house. I had chronic pain since my 30;s but never recognized myself a chronic pain sufferer. I had severe abdominal pain from IBS and severe pelvic pain supposedly from endometriosis but now I know that pain was also TMS/PPD. So I came to this realization at age 60 and discovered Sarno’s books after a psychic reading in April 2020.
I like this! I came to this page from http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Educational_Program_Day_9, and I’ve already read a lot about TMS / AOD / PPD / whatever you want to call it.
But I’d never come across these 3 helpful thoughts:
* “don’t go there” vs “go there now”
* treat your mind like a 3 year old (compassionately but without taking it seriously)
* hear your pain as steam coming out of a pot (just a signal to go there now)
Thanks!
I also came here because of that Wiki and I love the way you put it. However, if my hands hurt because of typing and you are saying go there now…..where am I actually going? The the thoughts? If so, which one as I have many?
Thanks
Hey Andrew!
Go there means go directly to your emotions. Just notice the thoughts, but don’t let them distract you from feeling your emotions! 🙂
could you please add a link to the previous blog referred to in the last paragraph (how to focus your awareness on your emotional inner world)? or share how to locate it & email me when that is done? I can’t seem to locate it thanx
ba
Hey Bruce! Thanks for the catch! 🙂 Here’s the link: https://abigailsteidley.com/accessing-emotions-the-most-important-skill/
thank you this is very helpful!
Hi,
I’m wondering if you could explain what you mean by treat ur mind like a child–what would that sound like when the pain comes on (in my case migraines:()?
Hi Alissa,
Treat it as though it needs you to be in charge, like a young child. Tell it you heard its message, and now it’s time for it to go take its nap. 🙂
Alissa, it’s a good analogy for treating yourself kindly, yet consciously firm, deflecting the knee jerk kind of panic that we experience when migraine prodrome – or symptoms – begin. For myself, I used to just give up and become miserable even before the disabling pain took over, telling myself “Oh no. Here we go again, why me? Why now?” Envisioning all the inevitable agony that we’re used to, I let my mind take the wheel, driving me down a highway to Hell. We can take the wheel back – with some self talk and acknowledgement – recognise your body is trying to show you there’s a deeper issue that needs to be addressed. Stress, PTSD, anger, frustration, intolerance, perfectionism, fear… Basically – if you knew a child experiencing these things, use what words you would to calm them down,to see a balanced solution and encourage their body/mind to relax, expressing some of the pressure that is the real cause of the migraine. Hope this helps, one year later?
When you speak of emotions what are some examples. I think I’m not in touch at all with my emotions. I have intense pain and just try to hang on and keep calm and not freak out.
So the easiest way to start is to ask yourself what you’re feeling stressed about in your life BESIDES the pain. Write a little paragraph or two around whatever comes up. This will start opening you up to the emotions. Trying to hang on and keep calm is actually suppression. You need to allow yourself to acknowledge where life is feeling hard (and you can acknowledge that the pain is hard, too, but then move to other areas of your life).
Thanks for this, I came here from TMSwiki as well, and my migraines are becoming much less intense as I catch my mind before I go into panic mode. Last night I deflected one, breathing deep and reminding myself I was angry about opposing philosophies and some views people had expressed that I did not agree with. Like one would remind a child, or a good friend, I told my mind that not all people are going to see the world your way, give up the controlling feelings, listen to their views, let go of the frustration and enjoy your evening – darn it! Migraine took a backseat. 2 hours later, instead of being a nauseous, shaking mass of agony, I was sculpting a new piece and listening to new music. There really is something to this re-programming our response to pain!
That is so awesome, Larissa! Nice work!