Hello & welcome,
Jane Laurel Carrington:
A few more things about myself: I've suffered from mild depression, anxiety, and sleep problems my entire adult life, now have fibromyalgia.
You may want to consider the possibility that the fibromyalgia is psychosomatic; which would mean that reducing and eliminating those symptoms will happen as soon as you’re ready to accept yourself (you may also eliminate that self after you accept it, if that is what you wish, but it must come in that order). I know this is a possibility because I experienced it myself (along with chronic lower back pain, the root cause in my case) for several years.
I’ve developed a method which has demonstrated success in reducing / eliminating psychosomatic pain. It's derived from the knowledge of what I went through and how I eliminated it. Those methods have since been supplemented with knowledge uncovered from working with other people dealing with similar issues. I’ve included an overview of instructions pertaining to that method in case you would like to investigate it for yourself / test its efficacy. The instructions assume that what you're experiencing is psychosomatic, as that simply made it easier to tailor to your post.
Use step one only for a few days, then step one and two for a few days, then step one, two and three for a few days, then all of them until they no longer seem necessary.
First, you want to identify and differentiate physical pain from affective pain by focusing on the physical aspect of the problem. To do this, you’ll have to pay very close attention to your physical body and your emotional state. You’ll need to inspect the body very carefully. Pay delicate attention to the body, feeling the body in your mind and at your body. For instance, spend 5+ minutes every day just feeling one of your feet. Feel every tendon possible, every muscle, the skin, the temperature, etc. Use your hands to palpate the targeted area, or gently flex or stretch the area. Do this for every part of your body, especially areas that are particularly uncomfortable. Really get to know how your entire body feels in a very precise way. If there is actually physical pain, try to find the precise source of it. Figure out where the physical pain emanates from and remember that point. Psychosomatic pain will tend to feel ephemeral; like a relatively large, vaguely defined region of your body is off-limits to physical use or mental reflection (this “off-limits” intuition is likely due to fear / denial, the source of the pain). (When that vague region is whole body and is severe enough, it may be diagnosed as fibromyalgia). Note that you may have an aversion to doing even this first step, because it requires that you begin to clearly define mental and/or physical pain. This is par for the course. Don’t worry or fret about progress, you must be patient with yourself. Working through the discomfort is necessary, because although it might sometimes seem like you’re hurting yourself or otherwise antagonizing the discomfort by doing this, that is not actually the case… it is just that you may begin to become more aware of how you’ve been hurting all along. Leave not a single inch of your body unexamined, and do this as often as you can (really: as often as you can).
Second, you want to identify and differentiate physical pain from affective pain by focusing on the emotional aspect of the problem. Sincere application of step one will help you begin “pulling out” the emotional feelings from their effect (physical sensations) but it focused mainly on the physical aspect of the body. This step focuses mainly on continuing to draw out the emotional aspect of the pain so you can address it clearly (it is impossible to address something you’re unaware of). This essentially means becoming mentally, clearly aware of some aspect of your emotionality that has been rejected so harshly as to become (at least partially) disassociated / suppressed “into the body.” This source likely has something to do with thoughts regarding an event which you currently view to have been traumatic. For me, it was injuring my back at a very young age. I hated it, resented it, blamed it for other problems in my life, etc. I piled those emotions (and others) “onto” the associated area, one layer at a time for years, because I just didn’t want to / couldn't deal with it. Because I disassociated from such a core part of my body, I began feeling very weak physically, and that made me feel vulnerable, and that made me feel deeply insecure in the world. Because those feelings stemmed from the original injury, they were also rejected and repressed, and that is when I began experiencing it as a whole body phenomenon (fibromyalgia). Thus, in this step, you’ve got to be brave, honest and accepting of whatever is causing you so much mental trauma. You must care about yourself and your health... you must care about how much you’re hurting yourself because of whatever part of yourself is being repressed. If you combine these: bravery, honesty, acceptance, caring, and other sincere sentiments, the source trauma(s) will appear to you without you doing much more than intending for them to do so. And why shouldn’t they appear? After all, they are all fundamentally “you”!
Third: eliminate the core psychic source of the somatic reaction which is causing the physical dysfunction. This is best done via naivete, which is the most effective way to “let go” of anything psychically generated (in this case: affect). I recommend becoming familiar with actualism methods (haietmboa [1], naivete [2], etc [3]) and the employment of those with a specific intent to relax your mind and body “no matter what”. In practice, this doesn't have to amount to much more than observing the justification for the newly uncovered trauma's existence and then sincerely saying to yourself “I don’t know if that’s really fact” (as a response to whatever self-justified emotional thoughts are welling up). For me, this meant saying “I don’t really even know if my back is still injured” or “am I really vulnerable? I haven’t honestly encountered any danger since becoming hurt…” or “is there really anything I can’t do (that I want to do) because of this? I seem to do everything I use to do, even if it is less comfortable…” and so on. You see, psychosomatic pain works like a loop which keeps itself in operation by continually either rejecting or accepting (or both) some remembered emotional scenario (or a future projection of that scenario). Naivete—saying “I don’t know about that”—breaks the loop. If the loop is broken enough times, and/or with sufficient sincerely, it will simply (eventually) cease entirely and vanish. Letting go of the source of an emotional identification in a way that is explicitly understood to be final or in a way which implies finality can be scary. Notice that sense of hesitation and notice how you’ll still remember the event and whatever lessons were learned, even if you decide to resolve it emotionally. The only significant result of letting go: you stop hurting and any pain you cause others by hurting goes away too. That final point is well worth saying more on: try to see how letting go of it will benefit others by allowing you to be happier and thus a more positive influence on them (altruistic motivation is often necessary for letting go of part of yourself, especially “deep” parts).
Fourth, rehabilitate the body. Below are some examples and specific things to look for, but there are a lot of other things you can discover yourself as it relates to your specific situation. Work on relaxing your body and mind (as it pertains to the body) as much as you can, all the time, with no exceptions. If you’ve forgotten how to use some of your muscles, use the approach in step 1 to get a feel for them, and then try to incorporate that heightened muscular awareness into your everyday way of moving about. This is major because a lot of your subtle muscular system may be “shut off.” Try to see if there are ways of moving your body that are more comfortable than how you moved them before, or try discovering methods of moving around in the same ways you do now but in a way which doesn’t hurt. For instance, if your arm hurts when you raise it a certain way, ask yourself: can I do this same motion with different muscles so that it isn’t painful? Can I do this same motion with less muscular use? Can I do this same motion while completely relaxed? If you identify an instance of this occurring, it might feel kind of weird to incorporate into daily life, because the muscles will likely be weak. This may take a lot of patience. Work on flexibility by stretching, or whatever. If you do stretches every day but make no significant progress, you’re probably still tensing that area; try relaxing the muscle you are intending to stretch, and especially make sure you aren’t flexing that muscle as you stretch; the stretch will come from the rest of your body positioning itself so as to apply pressure to the muscle which needs to be stretched. Let your shoulders relax and "droop" completely all the time. Let your tummy relax. Let your head sit on your neck; it doesn’t need to be tensed at all. Try doing this with anything that is tensed, perhaps beginning at home and then doing so all the time. Try remembering a time in your life when you were so relaxed that your body seemed to float away. While remembering that, ask yourself: where am I not that relaxed right now? Make sure your sitting/walking/standing/etc. postures are appropriate for good health.
A final note: don’t resent this process for any reason. It may sound silly, but I caught myself doing that sometimes due to the discomfort, and that can impede progress in a major way.
Jane Laurel Carrington:
Is this some kind of half-assed Dark Night?
It could be, but due to the possibly repressed nature of your self, I advise against insight practice of the variety spoken of in MCTB (at least until a time when you can confidently say you’re just generally of better mental health). Because if what you’re experiencing isn’t a dark night, a “real” dark night is probably going to be very extreme. Besides, that kind of meditation is not going to be very effective against what you’re going through right now (whether the fibromyalgia is psychosomatic or not); you need something that is capable of uncovering and addressing the affective faculty directly (hence the nature of my recommendations).
Trent
[1] http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/thismomentofbeingalive.htm
[2] http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/naivete.htm
[3] http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/library/default.htm , http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/map.htm