Healing the Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
All physicians should be practitioners of “holistic medicine” in the sense that they recognize the interaction between mind and body. To leave the emotional dimension out of the study of health and illness is poor medicine and poor science. - Sarno, John E.. Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
Neck, shoulder, and back pain syndromes are not mechanical problems to be cured by mechanical means. They have to do with people’s feelings, their personalities, and the vicissitudes of life. If this is true, the conventional management of these pain syndromes is a medical travesty. Traditional medical diagnoses focus on the machine, the body, while the real problem seems to relate to what makes the machine work—the mind. - Sarno, John E.. Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
Here are some KEY tips Dr. Sarno mentions in his book that helped the patients to heal:
1. Stop covering up your feelings.
If someone says something offensive, most of us would react by covering up the emotions:
- by thinking about it,
- by rationalizing why they said, what they said, the context
- by finding a justification for what they said
The EMOTION is what is important. We often go with the mind and pretend that we are not offended, but the truth is that we are. FEEL THOSE EMOTIONS and tell yourself : It’s ok to feel this! I am ok!
2. Stop overthinking.
Who wasn’t in the situation of worrying for hours and hours, thinking: oh maybe this will happen, but what if that happens. Take charge and say NO to your worry thoughts. It will be difficult for a while, because worry is a habit and it takes time to break through. You have to learn to watch your thoughts, stop the unpleasant ones and the worry will subside. Channel that inner rage at your thoughts.
Tell them: Change! I won’t abuse myself this way anymore, I deserve to feel good and I choose to feel hopeful!
3. Practice positive thinking and meditation/prayer.
Doing loving things for yourself will vibrationally help you to heal. Feed yourself POSITIVE THOUGHTS, POSITIVE ENERGY, as much as you can. Believe in your healing, no matter what the pain is telling you!
Listen to nice music, spend time in nature, pet your dog or cat, spend time around kids, think about all the great things that have happened to you and brought you where you are today.
4. Journal your EMOTIONS!
Write about what makes you angry, sad, scared, insecure. Write it out. You would oftentimes feel the repressed rage boiling up to the surface as you start giving it attention. But do not dwell on it! Just acknowledge it!
This is exactly what the pain is trying to distract you from, your Emotions.
5. Let your EMOTIONS out, but without hurting others.
Cry, scream, beat the hell out of something, beat your pillow, whatever you’re feeling. Get those emotions moving! If you have chronic pain, you have stuck emotions sitting in you.
Lay on your bed and breathe deeply into your belly, so you can switch from the stress mode to the balanced mode. This will also reset your Vagus Nerve.
6. Don’t worry about setbacks!
There will be many times when you might feel you lost your trust after the pain disappeared for a while and then returned even more powerfully. Doubts start to arise, that maybe it isn’t working. But even the fact that you could switch your state a few times and you could feel the difference, it is a clear proof that things are changing.
Keep practicing, hold strong, and eventually the pain starts to lose the fight!
Even the largest bone in the body, the femur, only takes six weeks to heal. And during that process, there is pain for only a very short time. It is illogical to think that an injury that occurred two months ago might still be causing pain, not to mention one of two or ten years ago. - Sarno, John E.. Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
