Have you ever been tired?
Like really tired?
So tired it’s hard to get out of bed?
So tired that getting through the day is almost more than you can manage?
Back in November of 1992, I got the flu. At least, I thought it was the flu. On top of the usual flu-like symptoms, I had a deep fatigue.
At first, I thought the fatigue was part of the flu package. But after the rest of the symptoms wore off, I still had the fatigue.
A month went by and it still wasn’t going away, so I went to the doctor. Multiple visits and tests later, the verdict was in.
I had the Epstein Barr virus, aka Chronic Fatigue Symptom.
I couldn’t believe it.
Well, I could believe it – because I was exhausted all the time and had to sleep twelve hours a night to function.
But I couldn’t believe this yucky disease had come to live in my body.
WTF?
Given that I’m a woo-woo chick, I tried lots of woo-woo things.
Acupressure, Acupuncture, Vitamin B12 shots, Candida diet, Alexander technique, Focusing, Shamanism.
At the time, I was in a Masters program in Spiritual Psychology, so I was also in both group and individual counseling.
None of this work, inner and outer, managed to budge the fatigue from my body.
I wasn’t able to exercise. I had to rest all the time. I had hot flashes and night sweats. My thinking was fuzzy. I gained thirty pounds.
It wasn’t fun.
Finally, after two years, I had an idea.
Several years before this, I had used the works of John Sarno to heal my chronic back pain.
Although Sarno had yet to publicly state that his technique would work with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I decided it would.
After all, his technique works with about eighty percent of the syndromes that drive people to the doctor: headaches, gastrointestial issues, neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain, allergies, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome and more.
Also, Sarno’s technique is often a perfect match for those ailments that baffle the medical establishment, particularly those that have genuine physical symptoms but a mysterious physical cause.
So I dove in, just as I had with my back pain.
And, just as with my back pain, after a few months, my physical symptoms disappeared.
After two years of being unable to make it through the day without having to lie down frequently to rest, being unable to exercise, unable to focus – I was back to my old self.
I had energy. I was able to think clearly. I was able to get through the day with strength and vitality.
I got my life back.
Several years after this experience, Sarno published another book in which he confirmed what I already knew: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome could be healed using his techniques.
For those of you who want to know more specifics about the technique itself, you can find them in this POST about my experience with back pain.
Bottom line:
There’s not a lot involved. The cure mostly consists of reading his work.
And being willing to change your mind about everything you’ve been told about your disease.
For those with neck, back or shoulder pain, I’d recommend his book “Healing Back Pain.”
For those with chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia, I’d recommend his book “The Divided Mind.”
As I mentioned above, there are a host of other ailments that Sarno’s work can cure. They are too many to list here, but if you think you might be a candidate for healing using his techniques, by all means, check it out.
I often say that Sarno saved my life.
Actually, he saved it twice – once from chronic back pain, and then again from chronic fatigue.
Also, thanks to his work, Melissa and I are able to regularly heal a host of other issues that crop up, nipping them in the bud before they turn into chronic problems.
Like I said, the key to approaching Sarno’s work is having an open mind.
Without it, his technique won’t work.
But if you do keep an open mind, you can be healed for life.
Pretty good deal, if you ask me!
Any other Sarno fans out there? Or would-be/could-be-Sarno-fans? Share your comments below!
Want Sneak Peeks, Insider Info, and other Fun Stuff?! Become a member of OhMyGod Life!
Interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Hi Karen, You’re welcome! And Happy Holidays! 🙂
Wow – this is fascinating. I have had back pain on and off for years. I’m definitely going to check this out. Thank you for posting this!
You’re welcome. Yes, definitely check out his work – it’s life changing! 🙂
Dr John Sarno and Nike healed my back pain too. Whenever I feel I can’t, I think “just do it!” And I do and it’s fine.
Hi Tanya! That’s so cool – I remember talking to you about it back in the day. Thanks for adding Nike in there – “Just do it” is such a powerful phrase. XOZ
Wow! I have had the same journey as you! My 8 year ME/CFS journey is relatively pain free, but I hurt my back in September of 2018, so I read his book healing back pain, and used tapping (EFT) to help relieve the pain. As the pain started to lift, my energy levels started to come back too! I am now using tapping to improve my me/cfs and have had an improvement from 30% functional to 60% functional and still improving in just 4 months!!
Hi Rebecca, Thanks for your comment. And YAY for your healing and improvement! It’s just so frickin cool to find your way out of pain and low energy and all that stuff, isn’t it?! It’s so wonderful that the EFT is proving to be such a great resource for you. And I’m grateful that you’re still improving! XOZ
Hello,I’m curious in talking to Dr.Sarno for cfs
Unfortunately, Dr. Sarno is no longer with us. However, if you go to this link, you’ll find ALL kinds of info about TMS, including doctors who use this method: https://www.tmswiki.org/w/index.php?page=The_Tension_Myositis_Syndrome_Wiki Hope this helps! 🙂
Did you have any kind of Bye-bye Fatigue mantra that helped you?? I’m in the exact same boat as you. Sarno via Dr. Schechter in Los Angeles saved me from chronic back pain. But it was pretty magical. By contrast, I have chronic fatigue now and finally determined that this same method could help me. Schecter has a 30-day workbook for pain that I’m re-using, but I’m not as confident, and I fear that being tired all the time is part of the problem–it’s so hard to keep up the motivation and high hopes and to do the work, because I just want to lie down. Any tips you used I’d love to hear! Thanks for sharing, it’s so helpful to know other people got through this.
Hi Alison,
I hear you! I also had some wonderings if Sarno’s method could really work with Chronic Fatigue. There is a book by Marc Sopher, called “To Be or Not to Be… Pain Free.” He talks about all the other disorders that can be cured using Sarno’s work. He has a very short chapter about Chronic Fatigue. I read one sentence in there almost daily, to help remind me that the CFS is another manifestation of Sarno’s TMS: “Chronic Fatigue is clearly another manifestation of TMS, most likely initiated by dysfunctional activity in the neuroendocrine system. Therefore one can anticipate complete resolution of symptoms by treating it the same way as one treats TMS.” And so it is!
XOZ
Hi Alison,
I was fortunate enough to talk with Z in 2012 and she informed me of Sarno’s Healing back pain. It cured me from CFS. I had been wheel chair bound and I am now living a completely full life. I am not sure a workbook could have helped me because psychologically I could not focus. However, reading the book and understanding what was happening gave me the perspective to quietly and gently breath myself back up from the depths of the ocean floor where I felt I had been left for over a year. I suggest reading his book and another great support I recently found was the app “curable”
Hi Margaret!! Great to hear from you. I’m SO grateful that Sarno’s book worked for you. Yay!! And thanks for the app suggestions as well. BIG Love to YOU!! XOZ
Hi Z, thanks for your post. I am nearly finished reading Healing back pain and am really excited about my upcoming ‘painfreeness’. One thing I do wonder about that you may have a response to is “if back or shoulder etc pain is caused by my repressed emotions and I view this pain is a distraction from processing those emotions, then is this not a form of repression also? (Like Positive thinking). How does one uncover the unconscious emotions? I’ve been meditating daily for 4 years now and it has definitely impacted on my way of ‘being’ in a good way, however I still have this pain!! Interested to hear your thoughts 🙂
Hi Yvonne! Great to hear from you! The cool thing about Sarno work is that you don’t have to get at all the unconscious emotions in order for the pain (or whatever it is) to go away. My suggestion is to just keep reading the book. I read it through 4 times before my back pain totally went away. As you read through it multiple times, you’ll have a deeper and deeper understanding, and that’s what will allow the pain (or whatever it is) to subside! Let me know if you have more questions!!! XOXOZ
sorry, to add (after reading that back)… how does one ‘release’ the unconscious emotions.
Hi there
Do you think heat in the body can be Tms ?
I babe had chronic fatigue and back pain. Cited it through Sarno. But I have excess heat in the body now that I don’t focus on tiredness.
Hi Gina,
I can’t say for sure what is causing the heat in the body. But I DO know that it’s very common for symptoms to change once you use the Sarno work to heal one set of symptoms. He talks that phenomenon, which he calls the symptom imperative, in his work. Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Z