Resistance manifesting as physical pain?

[invisiblehouses]

I'm not sure if this is the right category for this, since it could also be seen as a health topic, but here goes:

I'm a big evangelist for The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, and I think his ideas about Resistance (that negative, primitive, change-fearing force that keeps writers from writing, painters from painting, dreamers from living out their passions, etc) are dead-on. I've also seen it called the "lizard brain".

I've fought against this resistance most of my life, and usually lost. The victories are starting to pile up, I'm happy to report. However, time and time again, when I'm at the cusp of "delivering" on a piece of art, writing, or music, I get sick or injured.

For example, last night I finally began the process of putting some of my janky indie rock tunes on Amazon via Createspace. By this morning, I had a pulled hamstring appear out of nowhere (I have done nothing to cause it that I can recall). Other times I've joined a gym and come down with a sinus infection or stomach flu the very next morning, when I was supposed to begin my regimen. I could probably name ten more examples of this happening from the past five years. I start to make progress, I get sick or hurt.

Has anyone else ever experienced this? It's like that lizard brain is so afraid I'm going to experience something new (and worse of all, succeed) that it's causing my body to physically revolt against the progress I'm trying to make.

Now, through a fair amount of PD reading these past couple years, I'm not gonna cave to the pressure of a pulled hammy. I've become too ornery for that. It is frustrating, though. Do I need to do some intention work before I deliver on something? Revoke my amygdala's permission to hurt me, so to speak?

[Angela]

Have you read the work of Dr. John Sarno? You might find it interesting, because it's a very non-woo-woo approach to these questions, and he's gotten some remarkable results, results he never got when he was using traditional medicine.

[Lakshyayidhi Lakshmihi]

Originally Posted by invisiblehouses

Now, through a fair amount of PD reading these past couple years, I'm not gonna cave to the pressure of a pulled hammy. I've become too ornery for that. It is frustrating, though. Do I need to do some intention work before I deliver on something? Revoke my amygdala's permission to hurt me, so to speak?

I know eggs-actly what you are talking about. My trapezius muscles are somehow connected to my emotional centers ever since I pulled them both while doing a headstand in yoga, and now they are my proverbial achilles heel. They magically stop functioning at critical points and suddenly I can't turn my head without searing pain shooting through my neck.

Like right now.

[invisiblehouses]

Originally Posted by Angela

Have you read the work of Dr. John Sarno? You might find it interesting, because it's a very non-woo-woo approach to these questions, and he's gotten some remarkable results, results he never got when he was using traditional medicine.

I didn't think I'd heard of him until I looked him up on Amazon and went, "Oh, that guy." I've never read his work, though. I'll see if the library has anything.

I've also been wading into the waters of lucid dreaming. Maybe here soon I can sustain one long enough to sit down with my lizard brain and explain the new rules. I wonder what it looks like...me, only Neanderthal? The Geico gecko? That'd be pretty cool...

[LindseyRae]

Oh yeah, thats me. Funny thing is, my hamstring pulled itself mysteriously in the past few weeks, right as I was working through some huge stuff personally and taking the step up to Reiki Master.

I broke my foot in 2006 and any time I am going to do something big, start a new job, start yoga again, new school, the old injury flares up and my foot is swollen and tender. Quite convenient.

My latest: Whiplash from March of this year, it flares up whenever I’m stressed, but any time I am faced with something socially challenging or frightening to me, my neck hurts all night to the point where I cant work through whatever blocks I have or learn what I need to.

My thoughts on it so far, and I haven’t read the book you mentioned (yet), is that i am sabotaging myself as an excuse to fail. Because if I fail, I can blame it on the injury/pain/inconvenience/Dr. apts etc. If I succeed then I get even more praise for succeeding 'despite the odds.'

I wont let it hold me back though, I am working on it