Bodymind's demands

Since becoming ill in 2001, my symptoms MADE me have to deal with stuff that I might have previously put up with. It has been a very difficult and painful learning experience. When I started RT I wrote a list of things that I though my bodymind had wanted me to do over the years of being ill. This is the list:

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Learning to say NO - Had to learn this very early on in my illness, getting quite good at it, but always room for improvement.

Learning to ask for help - found this really difficult as always been very independent, but have learned to ask a lot more than I used to...still feel bit uncomfortable about it sometimes.

Putting my needs first - Have found this tough. Have been a people pleaser in the past & like making people happy. Sometimes not even aware what my needs are to put them first and have thought I'm 'laid back' when in fact I've just been a pushover. Still learning.

Being assertive - I'm much more likely to start a sentence with 'I want...' than ever before and often make decisions by thinking 'what do I want?'

Being in the present - mostly very good at this now. Have let go of striving for the future and I'm much more content and happy for it. Happy to just mooch about and go with the flow.

Not to get stressed about things that I can't change - much less likely to get stressed about things out of my control. Didn't even get stressed about my DLA doctors visit, but would have got incredibly stressed and anxious 2 years ago.

Express my emotions and not supress them - Find I can express happy emotions easily, but find that expressing anger, disappointment, disatisfaction etc with other people tough as I still have the old banana of not wanting to upset people, but getting much better at it now.

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By the time I started RT I felt a bit stuck. I kind of knew deep down that dealing with some of these issues was what I needed to do to help me get well but I was still getting symptoms so didn't realise how close I was. I expected RT to come up with something profound that I had missed. What RT did was confirm I was on the right track and help me take action on these things in a way that undid the chemical memories attached to the symptoms. My symptom message was really obvious, but it worked.

I think the key to RT working is to just trust and accept that the symptoms are all connected to keeping you emotionally and physically safe. They have been there to protect you, but are no longer needed. In RT theory the reason you have symptoms is because you have ignored emotional messages and then you have ignored tension and anxiety, so your hypothalamus has gone into overdrive causing symptoms. Using the symptom message and acting on what your bodymind wants as soon as possible, when you get symptoms, reassures your body that you are listening and undoes the chemical memories that are stored in your body.

In the RT books it says as you undo the chemical memories you may experience the reverse process, so physical symptoms replaced with tension and anxiety, then replaced with emotions. I have found this to be the case and now get mostly tension, some mental fatigue and very very strong emotions that I cannot ignore. Sometimes the emotions burst up out of nowhere and I have no choice but to deal with it. Bodymind is getting very demanding, but each time I give it what it wants, it allows me to have more of my life back.

I think I was almost doing RT before I started it, but because I didn't realise the link between chemical memories and action, it wasn't working as efficiently as it is now. It was like walking around trying to find my way with a blindfold on and RT has removed it allowing me to see what is happening and where to go next.

I know all of this seems really obvious and really simple and it is, but undoing the chemical memories takes a lot of hard work as it is trying to undo years of learnt behaviour and social conditioning.