One of the hardest parts of a mind-body healing journey usually looks like this:

1. Discover amazing resources like The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno, M.D or When the Body Says No by Gabor Mate, M.D.
2. Feel hope for the first time in forever.
3. Dig in and try to apply mind-body healing to your situation.
4. Feel some skepticism, but do it anyway.
5. Start feeling emotions rise up into your awareness.
6. Feel a little nervous about this emotion stuff, and worry that the pain hasn’t gone away yet.
7. Start worrying that you’re doing it wrong, because now you feel emotions AND pain.
8. Have a wee freak-out.

When you start down the path of allowing and feeling emotions in order to let your body release tension and pain, you might feel very optimistic. You can see how this could work. You’re excited to try it. However, the mind always pictures the healing process as a linear, improve day-by-day experience. When the actual healing process sets in, the mind usually wigs out, not understanding or liking what’s happening.

The thing is, when you apply concepts from Sarno, Mate, or other well-known mind-body experts, you aren’t actually experiencing a true physical healing. Healing TMS, or Mind-Body Syndrome, is not the same as a cut on your skin that heals bit by bit each day.

Instead, what you are experiencing is a healing within your mind-body system.

It’s a healing from the inside out, of the inner child, your connection to your soul, your relationship with your emotions, and so much more.  Because of this, the healing process is highly erratic. One day you may feel lots of pain or symptoms, and the next you might be pain-free. That might last for a week. Then, you might have a couple weeks of mild symptoms. After that it might be a couple days of lots of symptoms, then nothing again.

I like to think of it as a learning rather than a healing, because that’s more accurate. What you are doing is teaching your mind a new way of being, and that means fits and starts, back and forth, successes and failures – just like when you learn anything new.

When I was learning the violin, there were times when I’d play something amazingly well for a week and then for several weeks suddenly sound like I’d regressed two years. This is the pain of the learning process.

The key to surviving the agony of learning your way to health via mind-body tools is this: Count your successes! I’m going to tell you what they are right now, because you may be accidentally putting them in the failure column.

Three Signs You are Healing (Learning!) and on the Right Track! (In other words, pain relief is going to happen to you, inevitably!)

1. You feel a lot of emotions all of a sudden. You feel like you’re in emotional kindergarten, and a little off-center because these damn emotion things keep surfacing and messing with your usually daily flow. The pain/symptoms may still be very present, erratic, or even increase for a while. All of these are signs of success! You are learning, and it is working.
2. You have more pain than before, or even new pain/symptoms. This is very common, and it does not mean failure. It means success! You are learning to switch your attention to your emotions rather than obsessing about pain, and your mind is pulling you back to your old distraction, the pain, by amping it up. You shall prevail! Keep at it! Feel those emotions.
3. You’re learning all sorts of new things about yourself as you open up to your emotions. You think by now the pain/symptoms should be gone, but they’re not, and you feel really tired. This is normal! It just means that you’re in the midst of the learning and you are on track. Tell your mind that the biggest sign of success is the new self-awareness you are gaining as you use the tools. Keep your focus there and you will soon see pain relief.

I’m in the midst of training a group mind-body coaches right now. I’ve watched the participants experience these very things, and I’ve told them these very words I’m telling you. They’ve been using the tools for several months now, and have learned so much. This week, I just started getting reports in from many of them celebrating the lessening or cessation of physical symptoms. Voila! Just like that, eventually, your mind learns to let the pain go.

The hardest part of mind-body healing is this seemingly backward concept: The healing starts within and slowly works its way out to the body symptoms themselves.

Healing first takes place within your psyche and your relationship with your own mind, emotions, and soul.

Focus on the improvements you’re noticing in those realms, because you can trust that the freer you feel within yourself, the closer you are to a healthy, active body. You can do it.