5 Common Roadblocks when Healing From TMS (And How to Beat Them)
When you first discover you have TMS or The MindBody Syndrome and begin the healing process, you can hit a number of roadblocks.
The largest hurdle is learning about TMS, what causes it, and how to recover from it. Luckily, there are ample resources online for learning about the underlying function of TMS and how it triggers phony pain signals along with other, unsubstantiated responses in your nervous system.
I recommend the following books to get started as a total newbie:
But not many people are talking about the number of sticking points when it comes to your healing journey and how to get past them. The latter part is very important, because what I’ve personally found — is that these sticking points are often a fork in the road when it comes to your healing journey.
When you hit one of the roadblocks below, you feel like it’s all a waste of time. You begin doubting your TMS diagnosis. You start thinking, “Maybe I actually do have a real physical problem with my body.”
So, it’s critical to be prepared for these obstacles and to be ready for the challenge of working through them. In a sense, TMS is a war between your Mind and Body. And the best way to win a war, is to make peace ☮️.
1. Removing Your Negativity Bias (Catastrophizing)
It’s easy to think of the worst possible outcome, when your body seems to be rebelling against your mind and conscious wishes. TMS can be like an errant child, constantly wreaking havoc then running away from you. In psychological terms, it is exactly that — your id (child mind) is running away from your ego (adult brain) and trying to distract you from where it is by throwing phony pain signals in your body.
However, thinking negatively about what could go wrong, blowing your symptoms out of proportion, and catastrophizing about unlikely (and impossible, if you just have TMS) outcomes is a one-way ticket to pain flare-up hell. This alone is enough to make someone quit the healing process.
Catastrophizing is like a sink-hole — these thought patterns suck you in and lead you down a path of costly but unhelpful doctor visits, a limited lifestyle in terms of mobility and happiness, and ultimately death will come for you like it does for all of us.
How to shed your negative skin and develop a rock-solid, positive outlook on the universe is a topic for another day. But when it comes to turning the TMS negativity train around, we have a few tricks up our sleeve:
Step One: Create a list of real physical symptoms you want to rule out, and stick to it.
In the ideal world, everyone would get a real TMS diagnosis from a qualified physician. Unfortunately, given the limited number of doctors who are aware of or trained in treating TMS directly, this is not realistic for most people.
What I would recommend instead, and what I have followed myself, is to rule out any real physical issues with your body. Then, you can be confident that your symptoms are due to TMS and nothing else. You may then want to schedule some time with a qualified TMS therapist or coach, if you want to get a formal ‘stamp of approval’ that you have TMS.
The caveat here, is that you need to trust your doctor if they say there is nothing wrong with your body. It is easy for us TMS personalities to worry, doubt, and criticize a doctor’s opinion and diagnosis of our bodies. After all, it’s our body, obviously we know best what’s going on with it right? Maybe not, our minds and bodies have a way of playing tricks on us.
It is especially frustrating if the doctors find nothing wrong — although hopefully this is the case for you! Better to have TMS than a serious physical injury or disease. Although TMS symptoms can be harrowing and painful, you can recover permanently from them and even become healthier, more fulfilled, and more confident in Life than before.
To ward off this second-guessing and stop further catastrophizing of symptoms, I recommend creating a list — you can and should work with your doctor here — of potential serious issues that could be causing your issues. Do not go overboard here — does your chest hurt? Ok screen out a heart attack, and so on.
You may need an MRI, or a quick check for cancerous lumps.
Now, after you have screened out any serious issues with a basic, rational amount of rigor…
Be done with it. Check off these tests on your list — and remind yourself whenever you start thinking negatively and spiraling downwards about the possible things that could go wrong with your body:
“I have already screened out these serious conditions, with my doctor, and all tests came back clear. There is nothing physically wrong with my body.”
Having complete confidence in this process of ruling out serious medical conditions, is crucial to staying positive in your moments of doubt when healing from TMS. You have to believe 100% that your symptoms are caused by TMS and be 100% onboard with the steps (self-education, journaling, meditation) needed to heal.
Step Two: Change your Environment — Eliminate Negative People, Places, and Activities
While fighting the battle with TMS, you may come across a number of obstacles outside of your MindBody that can turn the healing process from a flat jog, into an uphill slog.
Ultimately, the cure for TMS is entirely internal, and the only way to permanently recover is by building healthy thought patterns and emotional processing techniques.
However, it would be doing a disservice to not call out some external factors that can make it difficult, if not impossible, to heal from TMS and that are also likely making your life worse off holistically. It’s in your best interest to cut out these factors from your life, and give yourself the best odds for a successful TMS recovery:
❌ Drugs or Alcohol Dependency
You are not in a clear state of mind when on these substances, and it will be pretty much impossible to do the internal mindset and self-reflection work necessary if you abuse them.
❌ Anti-TMS Doctors or Medical Team
There are many doctors out there who, for whatever reason, do not believe that is possible for almost any other body part to be causing pain or affecting the function of a different body part (i.e. the one they specialize in).
They especially do not give credence to the idea that the mind/brain can influence the functioning and health of different parts of your body. Call them ‘Anti-Holistic’ health doctors, if you will.
While you don’t need to seek out a ‘holistic’ doctor or even a TMS trained provider (although that would be helpful), you should start the process of changing your provider to one who takes a more unified, dare I say, up-to-date, approach to helping you live a long, healthy life. For example, if a doctor tells you that regular cardio will not reduce stress and help you live longer, I would run in the opposite direction 😉.
❌ Unhealthy Habits and Lifestyle
This is a broader topic and oftentimes goes hand-in-hand with the first point on alcohol/drug use. Additionally, you may find that working on healing from TMS… naturally guides you away from unhealthy hobbies and towards more active, fulfilling pursuits. Studying the inner workings of one’s mind and facing deep-seated insecurities and fears has a way of making one re-assess their priorities in life.
However, just as the mind guides the body, the body influences the mind. Starting a basic routine of taking 5,000-10,000 steps per day, eating a healthy meal everyday, and getting 7-8 hours of sleep — can give you the extra energy and motivation to tackle your mental demons and treat the root cause of TMS after work… rather than heading for the couch with a beer and the TV remote.
❌ Negative Friends or Family Members
I only suggest this as a last resort. Friends and family, when it comes down to it, are the reason for us being here on this planet. The connections we make, and the experiences we share — bring meaning to the humdrum of life and make any pain and suffering worth it.
But, sometimes there are members of this group that consistently drag us down. Every time we spend time with them, there is an issue — and it’s always our fault too. These people are dealing with their own mental trauma and internal conflict, and we should have sympathy for them.
However, right now — we are dealing with TMS. We need to be selfish with our limited time and motivation — it’s only our health and happiness at stake. It’s best to just let any negative and toxic relationships like this go. Don’t give these people an ultimatum or confront them, just let them fade into the wind. If the time is right later, you can pick up where you left off — hopefully both of you will be in a more positive, healed state and you can create even better memories together.
2. Developing A Support Network
Now onto the fun part. You do not have to fight TMS alone. In fact, it can expedite your progress immensely if you have people to discuss and share your experience with. This should be a group outside of your medical team, we want to have an outlet where we can completely decompress about the seriousness of it all.
If you have friends and family who are onboard with the idea of TMS and your healing journey, you can include them in this group. If not, no problem, it’s easy to make connections with current and former TMS patients and supporters.
You can find groups like this in-person, but I’ve found the easiest way to access like-minded people is online. Meeting TMS friends online also removes any friction, procrastination, and excuses one might have to in-person meetups such as needing time to get ready, traveling, in-the-moment anxiety, etc.
Where do you find these people and groups? Check out the below forum, read a few posts, then make an introductory post — I am positive you will have people reaching out in no time:
If you prefer a more structured approach to making new connections, I suggest checking out Curable’s online workshops and group meetings. These are paid and will definitely be more geared to learning and active healing, but I am sure you will find great benefit.
Why do I recommend developing supportive friends and connections like this? It’s very simple — TMS is, by definition, a solo journey and condition. Pain and dysfunction is experienced by you, only you can do the mind/brain work to process your emotions and change your thought patterns, and when you go to the doctor (no matter how great they are) the focus is 100% on you.
This can all be extremely lonely, and it’s a lot of pressure that you and your medical team are putting on yourself. It’s also not a realistic perspective have on the world. Healing from TMS is about re-establishing balance in your life — and you do not exist in the world in a vacuum.
There are 8 billion+ other human beings we share the planet with. The fact that psychosomatic (MindBody) symptoms are treated and approached in such an individualistic way, is part of the root cause for TMS in yourself and in society at large. We do not think it’s socially acceptable to process our emotions or confront insecurities outside of the confines of our own minds, or maybe with a doctor or therapist.
As such, we push away threatening emotions and thoughts when we’re in public or around others. This is not healthy, and will make TMS symptoms worse.
The solution, is to re-establish a healthy dialogue with friends and strangers about having emotions and dealing with them in Life. You don’t have to go in-depth and you probably shouldn’t. But, we want to get a place where it’s natural for us to tell the grocery cashier “I’m having a sh*t day” or asking them if they are doing alright, if they look sad or upset.
TMS support groups are a great way to start walking the path towards a better life while also building a more connected community to live in. They can serve as an extra boost of motivation, when you are going through a mental low point or pain flare-up. Hearing others’ perspectives and experiences with TMS, can remind you that you are not alone in this fight and help you see the irrational mind tricks that your subconscious is playing on you.
You might even meet a lifelong friend, or two.
3. Re-Establishing the Mind-Body Connection
It’s difficult to dive into releasing your emotions, if you have been suppressing them. And as a TMS traveler, you are definitely repressed — the part of you that truly feels raw emotion, be it anger, sadness, unabashed joy — has been choked off of oxygen, often times for years.
It’s like a dam that’s reached it’s limit, and leaks have begun springing out of the side.
While it is possible to release all these emotions and “retune” your MindBody all at once, I do not recommend it. This is the approach taken by many of the new, psychedelic “research” centers popping up thanks to the partial-legalization of Psilocybin, MDMA, and other drugs.
I actually have experimented with these compounds a few times myself. It was always an insightful, euphoric, and healing experience to an extent, but as more time distanced itself from the experience, I would always fall back into living a clouded, emotionally repressed life.
Thus, requiring a new experience to re-open the doors to my mind and feel and think like a carefree child again.
So I recommend a more gentle approach. Just like working out in the gym — slow and steady gains are best for most people, not blasting a ton of steroids. And you’re more likely to build and maintain a healthy state of mind in the long term.
With that said, the main roadblock I encountered when retraining my mind to not repress emotions and to not falsely trick my body into experiencing pain or seizing up my muscles — was the process of reconnecting my thoughts (mind) with my physical responses and actions (body) throughout the day.
It is easy, to read the books on TMS, to do meditation or yoga, and even to write down your deep, innermost feelings into a journal. It feels good to do these things. It’s a positive feedback loop.
What is hard is maintaining that opened state of mind and connection during the hustle ‘n bustle of daily life and through unplanned adversity. Until you can do so, TMS has the opportunity to strike back at you and cause a flare-up.
If you’re like me, you won’t even realize you are thinking negatively, doubting your body’s resilient and sacred nature, and repressing your natural emotions.
In order to truly heal, you have to tackle this head-on. Start with baby steps.
Have a list of motivational TMS quotes in your phone. Monitor your thoughts, even just noticing a negative or anxious thought — is progress. Next time, you can re-assess if the thought has a logical reason for existing (it likely doesn’t). And the time after that, you can replace the thought with a more positive, accurate take on the reality you are experiencing.
If a flare-up or anxiety attack occurs, take out your phone and jot down your thoughts. Have an unbiased, unrestrained conversation with yourself, through the Notes app. Go to the bathroom, your car, or somewhere private if you want. You don’t need to remember or review this note, and you can even delete it after. The point is to open the door to your heart and reconnect your Mind to your Body, after having taken a hit in the fight. Show your Mind and Body some Love ❤️.
This is the Brain Reprocessing aspect of TMS healing, in action. Studying material is great, but nothing replaces real world practice. We will break down more techniques for this in the future, but just know that achieving an expressive, connected state between your mind and body during your normal life — is a crucial step in your healing journey.
Don’t let the occasional flareup from daily life stop you in your tracks — this is an opportunity to truly take back control of your life and free your MindBody as it was meant to be.
4. Taking TMS Too Seriously
It’s possible to take the healing process too seriously. To explain, we’ll need to take a small peak behind the curtain of what causes TMS.
TMS, at its core, is our id or child-mind rebelling against our ego or conscious, adult brain. In more scientific terms, its our limbic system running haywire and not letting our pre-frontal cortex control it.
By itself, the emotion-driven id or limbic system is not problematic, even though it causes unpleasant feelings like hunger, fear, and anxiety. These are normal, healthy feelings. They tell us when to eat, to run away from danger, and to be productive to gather resources needed for survival.
The problem comes, when we reject these emotions and the id or child mind. Just like a real child, id becomes angry and rambunctious when rejected or ignored. TMS-like symptoms begin to form, you may get random pains sitting at work or hot flashes. Id wants you to acknowledge it, it demands attention.
The healthy, normal process here is to show your child-mind some well-meaning, tough love. Don’t give into to its whimsical ways or tell it that’s its okay to behave like this. Instead, talk it out with your emotions.
“Yes, I know we are hungry — but we are on a structured diet plan that will help us feel better in the long term. It is okay for us to wait a few hours to eat.”
“I know we are worried about work and also dislike doing it. But, let’s do 1-2 hours to be ready for this presentation tomorrow, then move on and enjoy the rest of our lives.”
We want to proactively process our emotions, instead of reactively letting them run wild.
We definitely don’t want to do what us TMS personalities typically do, which is shut down our emotions.
Shutting down our emotions, blocking them from surfacing to our conscious mind, is the worst possible outcome when id is acting up.
This is like locking a child in a closet as punishment. You compound it’s anger and give it no where to go — it just builds and builds. More importantly, you damage your relationship to your child-mind.
Your id no longer trusts you. It stops communicating with you when its upset and instead just trashes the house (your body) when you leave.
Now you have full-fledged TMS — chronic pain, an uncontrollable nervous system, a body that seems to always disobey your mind — with no clear reason why or how.
Let’s take a step back now — at it’s core TMS is caused by silencing and repressing your emotions and child-mind.
When one learns about and accepts TMS as the reason for their pain, your child-mind can get angry and want to lash out. Oftentimes, rightfully so.
“Why me?” you might angrily wonder, “Why do I have to deal with these bullsh*t symptoms in normal, everyday life, while others seem to live peacefully without any problems?”
Or, a thought that many of us have, “Screw these doctors who wanted to give me unnecessary surgery, drugs, and bad advice that just made my life worse!”
We have to process these emotions, despite how strong and unbearable as they seem. If not, we face a sort of catch-22, an endless loop. Our TMS is giving us more TMS. TMS-inception.
The most common way of avoiding these emotions, I have found, is by committing yourself to the work a bit too much.
Instead of thinking through these difficult feelings, we throw ourselves into the practice exercises recommended. We read Sarno’s books 5 times, when just once or twice will do.
We commit ourselves to doing meditation and journaling every day (although we will sneakily avoid journaling about the most painful emotions buried within us), and get p*ssed off at ourselves when we miss a session.
This is not the way — the healing journey for TMS is one of establishing balance ☯️ between the mind and body, between the id and ego, and between dealing with TMS and living a normal Life.
5. Being Afraid of Doing the Work (Fear-based Procrastination)
On the flip side, sometimes we just need a good ‘ole-fashioned kick in the butt when it comes to our healing journeys.
I have found, that the longer one has suffered through wrong diagnoses and unsuccessful therapies for their TMS-based symptoms, the less motivation one has for diving into the inner healing work needed to treat TMS.
We have almost become friends with our aches and pains and see them as a place to feel comfortable and call home. Our symptoms are a great excuse to avoid hanging out with friends we don’t want to see or to call out sick from work for. They enable us to live a comfortably numb life, and not feel bad about missing out on the joys of life.
The only way to break out of a slump like this — is to go inwards. The only path forward, is through. You have to face your inner thoughts and insecurities that your TMS symptoms are helping you avoid.
If this is you — break out a piece of paper and a pen, right now. Read the below prompt, and write until your brain is too tired to form another sentence.
If I died tomorrow, what would I miss the most about my current and past life? Who did I do these activities with, and how did I feel during them? What can I do to make sure I don’t miss another opportunity to do these activities again?
After you’re done, if you have the time, turn off the lights. Set a timer for 10 minutes and listen to this meditation. Focus on every sensation in your body, scanning from your head down to your toes.
Then, start taking action on what you wrote down. Take a shower and leave the house. Call that friend that you haven’t talked to for months or even years.
Ultimately, the only thing standing between you and a TMS-free life — is yourself. You have to shine a light on your subconscious thoughts and emotions, then make peace with them. You need to make your complete mind, both ego and id, conscious and unconscious, a home and place of love and acceptance again.
We were all born with a pure, balanced mind like this, but then Life and Death started taking their toll. Don’t let the negativity in this world win. Fight Back. And Enjoy the Rest of Your Life.
Thanks for reading 🙂. If you or someone you know has struggled with TMS in the past, leave a comment and tell us about your experience!