What is pain? Simply put, pain is a term that describes uncomfortable sensations within the body. There are different kinds of sensations that are associated with pain, ranging from throbbing to steady. Pain can also lead to other types of experiences and emotions. Pain can cause you to become scared and confused, which causes anxiety. This anxiety also causes you to fear the future.
Chronic pain is something that many Australians, a whopping 1 in 5, have to live with. Pain can be disabling and stressful. Many people suffering from pain find that they do not have the ability to enjoy the little things in their life and some even find that they are un-able to work.
Suffering is also related to pain. Suffering is the experience of your pain, plus anxiety and fear. When you are dealing with pain and uncertainty, you are constantly reflecting upon what you have lost and the unpredictability of the future. Suffering is the state of living with these different negative experiences.
Pain is not the enemy, but an alarm system letting you know that something is wrong.
If you are experiencing pain, it’s caused by something else. People tend to experience pain when nociceptive nerves detect damage to the body and send that information to the brain. For example, touching a hot surface causes the body to immediately contract the muscles in a manner that pulls you away from a hot surface. Pain is instinctive and it is a response in the body that is designed to protect us.
Be more powerful than the pain.
Being more powerful than the pain is something that can be learned. We can overcome our pain by learning the root cause of the pain and isolating it.
How you can become more powerful than the pain.
You truly can become more powerful than the pain. Dawn Cady has a great story about this. By choosing to overcome her pain, she was able to get past a nervous breakdown and build a healthy relationship with her son. In short, she is now enjoying life to its fullest.
The Neural Alignment Method® is the key to overcoming pain. This process helps you identify what caused the pain originally and what is triggering it now. When you can pinpoint what set it off in the present, you can trace it back to when it was created in the past. Next, you remove the cause of the pain, which will cause the triggers to gradually collapse.
In addition, other practices can be helpful in overcoming pain successfully. These include:
- Deep breathing: reduces the tension you may be feeling
- Relaxation response approach: sit alone and close your eyes for a while so that you can get a handle on your thoughts
- Meditation: with guided imagery, can also help you focus on something else besides pain, anxiety, and stress
- Mindfulness: being in the moment while doing one of your favourite activities will help you focus on something that brings you joy
- Positive thinking: when experiencing pain and suffering, it is quite common to become fixated on something we’re incapable of doing; focusing on the things we CAN do gives us a better view of the world overall
What types of pain are you experiencing and what are you doing about it?
The type of pain that you are experiencing could be related to a wide variety of different conditions in your life. For example, back pain or another type of chronic pain could be related to poor posture that comes from stress at work. Sometimes, we may receive medications to help deal with the pain itself, but the medication does not actually deal with the cause of the pain. Over time, painkillers can become addictive. If you actually work to isolate the trigger of your pain, your pain will start to go away once that trigger is no longer in place.
Do you have a plan in place for getting rid of your pain?
Once you start getting rid of the sources of pain and suffering in your life, you will notice that the vicious cycle of pain will start to end. Keeping track of what you are doing about your pain each day can help reinforce these measures.With our free planner, you can remind yourself of the steps you are taking each day to eliminate the triggers that cause pain and suffering in your life.
The cycle of pain will eventually end.
Sometimes, it feels like the slightest thing can set off pain and anxiety. For example, too many people, housework, driving, and even little things like sticking to a schedule. Some different things can also make this anxiety associated with your pain worse. For example:
- You might not know all the side effects of the drugs you are taking.
- You might feel like you are counting down for the next painkiller.
- You might get stuck with looping thoughts about your pain and anxiety.
- You might also get told by your doctor that nothing can be done about your pain.
Learning how to overcome your pain starts with identifying the causes and triggers. Once you eliminate the triggers that cause your pain, you will learn to overcome it.
