“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein
The daily fashion conundrum I faced as a high schooler, was that of desperately trying to look as if I wasn’t trying. This was especially tricky to achieve in an era defined by the ethos of “more is better.” As the 80’s receded into history, along with the big hair and shoulder pads, the “less is more” approach prevailed. This mindset could not withstand the desperation I felt however, years later, in the face of my son’s autism diagnosis. The shock and grief was only compounded by the weight of urgency to pursue every known intervention, before the “recovery window” closed. Little did I know at the time that this ominously narrow window, would rear it’s head again years later, accompanying my CRPS diagnosis. Our frantic quest to “fix” Andrew with endless therapies and biomedical treatments served only to hamper our judgment, waste our resources, and worst of all, traumatize him in the process. This was a clear case of diminishing returns. The greater the urgency and effort, the more he decompensated, and our family relationships suffered. It wasn’t until Andrew regressed and lost all his words that I was forced to accept what was. So began the road to acceptance and the conscious decision to no longer view my child as a science project, but instead as my Andrew.
My experience with diminishing returns proved to be a valuable lesson, and ironically an advantage, during my TMS recovery process. In stark contrast to starting off my days at metaphorical gunpoint, subtracting self imposed pressures, became my super power. So relieved was I to know that the CRPS label would not seal my fate and that this mythical window was an erroneous construct, that I genuinely didn’t care if the process took 2 months or 2 years. After all, tms meant there was nothing medically wrong with me to begin with!
After discarding the tensive thought habits and permitting myself to feel those long repressed emotions, I began to sense a subtle inner shift …a burden lightening, the space around me expanding. The inability to accept Andrew’s autism had caused me untold suffering, and that same resistant energy was now generating physical symptoms in my body. In order to reverse the tms strategy, it became clear that I would need to surrender
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Jung
Before we can embody this state of surrender, we must assess if any of our thoughts or behaviors are keeping us ensnared in the “trying to heal” trap, or in other words, TMSing about TMS! Some counter productive examples of efforting are: applying various and sundry tools (journaling, meditation, breath work, tapping, somatic exercises etc) in a performative way, for the purpose of “fixing” (rather than from a place of genuine interest or desire), comparing yourself to others in groups or to success stories, incessantly scanning your body to check if symptoms are still there and if so, what they are doing, asking yourself questions like “When will this go away?”, “Am I better yet?” “Am I doing something wrong?”, overanalyzing, seeking results in the moment, tumbling down rabbit holes of alternative pseudoscience protocols (detoxing, restrictive diets, fasting, cold water plunges) or spiritual/psychic/wellness gurus and other cults of personality, revolving your day around “healing”, loitering in tms fb groups and message boards, listening to tms podcasts and scouring success stories for the sole purpose of finding someone else with identical symptoms, program hopping (so called brain retraining, nervous system regulating, vagal nerve toning and the like), bouncing from coach to coach, attending retreats or clinics in the hopes of of leaving “cured”, and pondering or attempting healing modalities like PT, chiropractic, cranial sacral therapy, energy healing, acupuncture, gut healing regimens, vitamin infusions, etc. etc… All of the aforementioned examples are not healing “cures”. They are forms of engineering and micro managing the body, masquerading as science, wellness, and even spirituality. The paradox is that one finds themselves right back “on the hustle”. Ego driven, intellectualized, biohacked, and externalized modes of being that yet again, morphe into other forms of avoidance… our emotions, our inner conflicts, existential angst, and ourselves. The question is not “how to get rid of symptoms”, but WHY the need for them in the first place.
“To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened.” Buddha
The oft repeated paradox of “you’ve got to lose yourself to find yourself”, begs the question, “Have you ever tried to lose yourself?” The harder one tries, the worse it gets. We are never as self absorbed and self focused as when we are in pain or depressed. When I have a headache, I feel like a walking throbbing, disembodied head, but when I don’t, I would forget my head completely if it were not attached to my neck! It’s when we are happy that we are liberated from the self and no longer fantasize about shuffling off this mortal coil. When I was in the throes of symptoms, I can recall observing other people as zoo animals… marveling at the fact that they could effortlessly walk around pain free and unshackled, blissfully ignorant of my intense suffering. “How dare they?!”, inwardly, self pityingly, I railed. Since no one was coming to save me, I turned my awareness inward to my patterns of thinking that were generating a cauldron of inner tension. This chronic tensive thinking, combined with emotional repression on a daily basis, formed a state of resistance,.. communicating pressure and frustration (i.e. danger) to my brain. If I ever hoped to return to my factory settings, I intuited that I would need to change my very way of “being”, from one of trying and resistance, to one of allowing and letting go. An image that came to mind of this embodied allowing, was that of “Joe Cool”, one of Snoopy’s alter egos. Although Snoopy played a part in nearly every scene of the comic book and tv series, he never got sucked into the antics and drama of the other Peanuts. Despite his dog-hood, Snoopy was largely considered to be another “kid” by the rest of the gang. He served as a detached observer, responding to events with a certain nonchalance, and saving the day with aplomb, when needed. Snoopy maintained neutrality and thus, his equilibrium. Taking my cues from Joe Cool, I adopted a more powerful and flexible persona than the habitually reactive, rigid, fretting, people pleasing, brittle facade. Allowing, as a concept, can be mistaken for resignation, weakness, or passivity. To the contrary, allowing, surrender, and acceptance, are productive states of being and potent skills to possess. It is only from this place that we finally stop interfering with Mother Nature and the innate drive for homeostasis. Rather than forcing our bodies to heal, or wanting to control what is happening in our world, we can step aside and let the pain leave our bodies and life unfurl as intended.
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