Increased anxiety (and other symptoms) on your recovery journey

Irene Lyon has some incredibly valuable video content regarding our nervous system and how it relates to stress illnesses. Her vast knowledge and insight have really helped me understand what to expect and how to interpret the different stages of recovery based on scientific knowledge, research and her own personal experience and practice.

As we move through the TMS recovery process and become more deeply aware of our mind and body connection, one of the most common things to happen is for us to suddenly feel increased pain even different symptoms than we did before. As we learn how to self-regulate it's very common to experience waves of anxiety, heightened emotions or perhaps other symptoms raising their ugly heads such as fatigue, bouts of depression or stomach issues for example. 

This has happened to me recently, seemingly out of the blue, even though I'm already chronic pain-free and 'recovered' as I continue to unravel and heal my suppressed emotions and buried traumas. So I thought it would be a good time to cover this subject with one of my favourite videos that will hopefully calm any worries you might be having if you're experiencing the same sort of sensations.

The nervous system shake-up

This process will be different for everyone, but what typically happens is that anxiety (or other symptoms) will flare in an erratic and seemingly sudden way. This can happen early on in your recovery process, or after a period of time healing. For me, this happens in waves that are usually triggered by digging into certain memories. 

What is actually happening is quite simple nervous system science, which Irene explains so well in this video. When we move through the healing process and work on accessing our 'reservoirs' of old stored biological sensations our nervous systems are unsurprisingly shaken-up, as all of the dormant layers of fight-or-flight energy are finally allowed to come up and out.

This commonly happens after a period of doing this work, and we are no longer defaulting to that 'numb' repressed mode. Our brains are getting the message that our shut-down self is no longer required.

Dr Sarno referred to this sudden onset and change in symptoms as the Symptom Imperative, and it can be interpreted as a good sign that you're on the right path to healing and your brain is getting the memo that it's allowed to feel your unfelt emotions, before it levels out and fully recovers.

After years of suppressing emotion, it's logical that our bodies naturally take some time to process this intense release and we can feel pretty shaken-up after what can feel like periods of steady progress.

Irene explains this process so well so I'll stop here! There are hours of fascinating content on her YouTube channel for you to devour and she also offers a free 3-part healing trauma video series on her website, amongst other courses, live streams and drop-in classes.