I hear the same advice all the time in the TMS therapy circles and every time, I am a little confused by it. People say, “you have to fully believe that your pain is TMS in order to get relief.”. Or “If you are still in pain then you must be doubting that you have TMS”. I know and would agree that if you are unable to accept that your condition is TMS you will not likely heal from the associated mind-body relationship cure. But simply believing you have TMS is also mostly irrelevant in my experience with healing. You can have 100% belief in TMS but lack any usable knowledge about how to cure it. That is where most people fall when they are asking for help from TMS support groups. Obviously, they believe they have TMS or they wouldn’t be there. And if they are doubting, the reason they are doubting is lack of knowledge, not lack of believing. You can also not believe you have TMS and still get better. That describes my experience.
I am a skeptic by nature. I also have a degree in Electrical Engineering, and I have worked as an Avionics System Design Engineer for close to 30 years now. I am not someone that has typically been into a lot of alternative medicine. When I first read Sarno’s Healing Back Pain, my main goal in purchasing and reading was to prove to myself that my condition was not psychosomatic in nature. I had watched the 60 Minutes episode; I read the online book reviews and had heard a few healing stories about TMS. As much as it sounded great, I was not onboard at all. I had 100% belief also backed up scientific evidence from experts that my pain was not psychosomatic. Belief, backed up by evidence and combined with a personal experience leads you to a certain amount of knowledge. I had belief and was very knowledgeable about my own pain and what was causing it, or so I thought. But through Sarno books, I started seeing some different evidence. I became obsessed with back pain studies and pain management studies and with reading everything I could that refuted what I thought I knew well about chronic back conditions and my degenerative disc disease. I also read countless accounts from people that refuted my commonly held beliefs that I thought were knowledge. I was learning.
The more research studies the Sarno books lead me to, the more frustrated I became. Why was study after study showing me the exact opposite of what I learned from the doctor?
I was unable to find any plausible connection between chronic pain and spinal abnormalities like disc bulges or herniations. Many people with terrible scans have no pain, and as many have the same pain without problematic scans. The evidence was there everywhere I looked. What was flawed or biased about the study? I better keep reading because I simply don’t believe any of this. I just had to find the right evidence that proved that traditional medicine was right and this Sarno alternative TMS was BS.
I kept reading, I kept learning, and I absolutely maintained complete disbelief that what I was reading was applicable to me. I maintained that firm disbelief right up until it became impossible to believe that this wasn’t applicable to me. The final piece of evidence that turned me was simple. I was feeling better every day that I read, researched, and contemplated. In other words, I was getting better just by educating myself, without even believing in TMS! Eventually the available evidence, the education, and the personal experience all lead me to a different place of knowledge. Will the evidence change, and will they eventually find that flaw and go back to proving that all my pain was from degenerative disc disease after all? I sure hope not. The last ten years have been too great for me.
So, what is the person that believes 100% in TMS but isn’t getting better supposed to do? My answer would be that belief isn’t the problem but maybe lack of knowledge and understanding is. We all should keep being curious and keep learning until the evidence leads to knowledge and knowledge leads to personal healing experience that leaves you no choice but to believe whether you want to or not. That is how it worked for me anyway.
Working daily as an electrical engineer, we don’t spend a lot of time doubting or questioning whether the science behind what we are working on should be believed. I realize people that have chosen other lines of work may not have the same basic faith in scientific principles but that is an entirely different topic. I don’t have colleagues walking into a meeting room and saying “This broken flight management system is really confusing to me. I fully believe in science, but it still isn’t working. What am I doing wrong?” “Oh Joe, there you go doubting science again. You just must believe to make the system work!” What about the cashier that believes 100% in mathematical concepts but is completely lost when the computerized register breaks. So clearly in these situation, it is understandable why belief in the science or math is somewhat irrelevant as an avionics electrical engineer or cashier. You must have knowledge and understanding if you want to use what you believe to enact a meaningful change, or to make change for that matter.
A TMS chronic Pain Cure is no different. Your permanent cure will only come when you have a thorough knowledge and the related mindset of a person that knows something very well. Belief in the diagnosis is a very first step and will only get you so far. If you find yourself in this category, where you believe in TMS but maybe don’t fully understand it, I suggest hitting the books! If you have read all the Sarno and Ozanich books, and have completed my website, start searching Sarno online interviews. If you have exhausted all those, chase down some additional studies about your specific chronic symptoms from a TMS perspective. Read testimonial from those having a high level of success and from those that are not and compare. There is plenty to be learned from both!