Why Searching for Answers Can Keep You Stuck in Chronic Pain, Anxiety, and TMS – and What to Do Instead
Some days, I used to wake up feeling low, anxious, or in pain. And almost instantly, a part of me would kick in, searching for answers why.
Why do I feel like this today?
What did I do wrong?
Is this ever going to stop?
If you live with chronic pain, anxiety, fatigue, migraines, IBS, back pain, or TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome), I know you’ve asked these questions too. It’s human nature. When something feels wrong, we want to fix it. I spent years desperately searching for answers—reading books, going to doctors, trying every new therapy in an attempt to solve what felt like an impossible puzzle.
But no matter how much I analyzed my symptoms or tried to control my emotions, the pain and anxiety kept returning.
That’s because I was making the same mistake so many people with TMS, chronic pain, and anxiety make: I believed that relief would come from figuring out the perfect answer. But true pain relief—the kind that actually lasts—wasn’t found in solving the question. It was in learning how to let go of the need for answers in the first place.
The Truth About Chronic Pain, Anxiety & the Mind-Body Connection
I didn’t understand this at first. It was Dr. John Sarno’s work on TMS relief that introduced me to the idea that chronic pain, stress, and anxiety aren’t just random symptoms—they are messages from the body. My mind and body weren’t punishing me; they were trying to get my attention.
The truth is, emotions we suppress don’t just disappear. If we don’t allow ourselves to feel them, they often show up as physical symptoms—back pain, migraines, IBS, muscle tension, fatigue, or even anxiety attacks.
And here’s the biggest realization that changed everything for me:
🚨 The very emotions my body wanted me to acknowledge were the ones arising in the moment of my symptoms.
That means…
If I felt pain, whatever emotion I was experiencing in that moment was the one I needed to allow.
If I felt anxiety, the fear and frustration I felt about the anxiety were the very feelings that needed to be acknowledged.
But instead of allowing these emotions, I spent years resisting them, questioning them, and searching for ways to fix them.
I see this happen with so many people struggling with chronic pain, anxiety, burnout, and stress relief. We believe that if we just uncover the root cause—some hidden trauma, a dietary trigger, the exact stressful event that caused it all—then we’ll finally heal.
But healing doesn’t happen by endlessly searching for a reason. It happens when we learn how to stop running from what’s already here.
(If this is resonating, and you want guidance on how to start doing this, click here to join my Pain Relief Community, where I teach these concepts in depth.)
What the Mind and Body Actually Need From You
For years, I thought the way to resolve my symptoms was by answering the question why?
Why do I feel anxious today?
Why is my pain flaring up?
Why do I feel exhausted even though I slept?
But the mistake I made—the mistake so many of us make—is believing that this part of me asking “why” actually needs an answer.
It doesn’t.
This questioning part of me wasn’t looking for logic. It was looking for safety—for permission to exist without needing to be solved.
When I finally understood that, I stopped trying to force answers and started acknowledging what was really happening:
Oh, I see that a part of me is questioning things again. That’s okay.
I see that I feel anxious right now. I can let that be here.
I feel frustrated about this pain. It’s okay to feel that way.
The irony? The more I allowed these emotions, the faster they passed. Stress relief, pain relief, anxiety relief— they all started happening naturally when I stopped resisting my own experience.
Learning to Let Go of the Need for Answers
At first, this felt impossible.
I didn’t know how to just let myself feel anxious. I didn’t know how to sit with stress, sadness, or frustration without getting lost in the story. It felt like I was doing nothing—and that terrified me.
But I wasn’t doing nothing.
I was finally listening to what my mind and body had been asking for all along: to be acknowledged. To not be pushed away, questioned, or fixed—just seen and allowed.
And that’s what shifted everything.
Now, when I wake up feeling low, anxious, or in pain, I don’t immediately spiral into searching for reasons why. Instead, I pause and notice:
✔️ I feel anxious today. That’s okay.
✔️ A part of me is trying to figure this out. I don’t need to answer it right now.
✔️ I can let this be here without needing to fix it.
And more often than not… the intensity eases on its own.
The Path to Healing
Healing from chronic pain, anxiety, fatigue, and TMS isn’t about finding the perfect answer to why. It’s about learning to be with what’s here—without resistance, without judgment.
The more I practiced this, the less power my symptoms had over me. And slowly, I started to experience real relief.
Not because I finally found the right answer, but because I stopped needing one in the first place.
🚀 (Want to take the next step? Click here to access my Pain Relief Community, where I offer free resources, live calls, and a step-by-step approach to healing.)