Fixing Chronic Pain
People think that chronic pain is something which cannot be fixed, only alleviated. Yet this is where people go wrong. They think this pain is stuck with them for the rest of their lives, yet it can be fixed. When you are alleviating your symptoms, all you’re doing is changing an existent, variable system. To completely fix the pain you have, you have to get to the root cause of the problem.
How To Fix It:
The causes can be in many different places, such as in muscle tissue, a movement pattern, or a habit that you’ve been doing for a long time. Yet sometimes the biggest cause can be a psychosomatic one.
People hear the word, ‘psychosomatic’ and think that the condition is all in your head and it will go away with time. The condition can be very real and your head is trying to rearrange the things you do now, to defend against things you did in the past. Many people think of big traumas as being the cause, like abuse or a tragic car accident, but it could be as small as falling off a bike, getting your hip hurt, and being laughed at by others when you were a child. What you have to realize is that your brain is designed to protect itself and you just have to give it a compelling reason to heal itself.
- Changing Habits
Once you find the cause, you have to start changing the habits you made that created this problem, in the first place. You can’t get rid of habits, but you can override them with better ones. So the first step is to stop the things you were doing which were putting you in that position of pain. Then replace the protective habit loops with healing habit loops.
- Staying Present
You have to get your body to realize that you are no longer in the past, but in the present.
This is where staying mindful becomes important. Once you do this along with the new habits that you are creating, your body pain will start to diminish. This is because you body has developed a mechanism for defending itself all this time and when you stay present, you are helping your body open up its defenses.
- Release Emotional Blocks
Especially true if this is a psychosomatic pain, removing any emotional blockages will help with removing the physical blockages within your body as well. You have to get yourself to do the rehab as well to get yourself clean. The body can finally heal once the brain determines there are no threats. Moreover, this all can be done at your pace and is mostly based on how much you really want to fix the root of the problem.
A good example of fixing chronic pain, was when i had an ankle issue. At some point, I noticed that my ankle was acting weird and I started asking myself all these questions. Upon reflection, I remembered I had watched a movie called Higher Learning. In one of the scenes, Omar Epps rolls his ankle and places his foot right on top of his ankle. I realized that I had picked up that habit, because I thought Omar Epps was cool! That was the psychosomatic cause that was causing me pain in my ankle! I eliminated that by not only changing my habit, but by mentally reassuring myself that rolling my ankle is most definitely not cool.
Takeaway:
Make sure you replace old habits by first discontinuing the habits that create pain and then by replacing them with stronger ones that encourage healing. Staying in the present will allow your body to heal emotionally and physically. Releasing the emotional blockages you have will help pave the way for your body to heal itself, because it no longer has to protect itself.