Tag: chronic pain
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Chronic Pain and Codependency Go Together
And healing one can help heal the other. Have you heard people talking about the “psychosocial” approach to chronic pain recovery? It’s a popular phrase in cutting-edge pain science. I would put an extra emphasis on the word “social.” In my work as a chronic pain recovery therapist and coach — and in my recovery…
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Being Sensitive Doesn’t Mean You’re Broken
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist A question that often plagues folks on the path of chronic pain recovery is: “Why me?” To varying degrees, everyone experiences stressors in life. Yet many people seem to be able to tolerate life’s stressors without showing symptoms of stress — symptoms like anxiety, depression, heightened emotions and/or chronic…
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Did You Know There’s a Connection Between Emotional Invalidation and Chronic Pain?
“All pain is real, and all pain is generated by the brain.” — Dr. Howard Schubiner, author of 𝘜𝘯𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘯“The brain processes emotion, memory, and pain in similar regions.” — @curablehealth We live in a culture that normalizes emotional invalidation. Emotional invalidation is like: If someone slammed your finger in a door and then…
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Is Your Fear of Anger Holding Back Your Healing?
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist A theme I’ve noticed with clients is that they want to start using expressive writing as part of their chronic pain recovery, but they feel so much resistance to the activity that they just can’t get themselves to write. When we peel back the layers of their resistance…
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Chronic Pain Is Not Your Fault
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist You have the power to free yourself from suffering. And… that does NOT mean you are the cause of your own suffering!Most suffering (like chronic pain, anxiety or depression) starts with a wound. And wounds are an unavoidable part of life.Common types of wounds include:🔹injuries (both physical and…
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How To Release Painful Memories
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist Do you struggle with rumination (incessant thoughts that never seem to bring resolution) about painful memories? Especially the ones you’re afraid to talk about — or the ones that have been minimized by others when you did tell someone? It’s very common to fixate on traumatic memories. Especially…
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How To Handle Difficult Emotions
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist We all experience difficult feelings from time to time. It’s a part of life that can’t be avoided, no matter how hard we might try to. But how we deal with our emotions can have a significant impact on our physical wellbeing. In fact, the way we interact…
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Chronic pain recovery is intrinsically messy. But there’s a logic to the mess.
Pain is a danger signal that’s triggered by fear. And when we’re in the beginning stages of healing from chronic pain, there are lots of things that can feel scary! Things like… When we start our healing path, we’re going into the unknown. That in itself can be scary. And when we experience fear,…
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In Order to Heal, You May Need to Change the Goalposts
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist You know that annoying phrase, “if you want somebody to love you, you have to love yourself first?” That saying used to make me roll my eyes in frustration. How the heck was loving myself supposed to influence the way others felt about me? And wouldn’t it be…
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What To Do if Your Safety Mantra Isn’t Working
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist Chronic pain is a danger signal created in the brain when your nervous system feels unsafe. So, in order to get the pain signal turned down, we need to help our nervous system feel safe again. For some people in some situations, simply saying the mantra “I am safe” can be enough…
From Chronic Pain to Passion 