Have you been suffering from chronic pain for a while now and visited every doctor but no one can help? Maybe you even feel like medicine let you down, nothing improves your situation and you’re desperately wanting to finally live fully again. You might have chronic migraines, back pains or joint and muscle pain, fibromyalgia or any other disorder. Regardless where your body is aching, life is exhausting and draining and all you want is to move freely with ease and joy.
I’ve been there. Not too long ago I wasn’t able to function normally. I was suffering from something called fibromyalgia, which gave me unbearable joint pains all over my body, fatigue, and traits of depression. For almost 2 years I wasn’t able to sleep, put on my clothes, get up by myself or carry anything heavier than a jacket. Today I’m sharing my journey to physical well-being and how you can heal your own pain within 8 weeks.
Where it comes from
Chronic pains and most physical disorders and illnesses are the results of stress and tension. Pressure can come from many different situations and is sometimes not even obvious.
The death of a loved one, work, money issues or social stress can translate into pain but also positive occasions like the birth of a child, a new job or relocating can put pressure on us, especially when we demand a lot from ourselves. Even childhood trauma has a big potential of piling up and causing pain decades later. These emotions are threatening to our brain and it wants to protect us, so it creates a distraction. Even though we’re focusing on chronic pain right now, it can translate into anxiety, depression, fatigue or insomnia as well.
Who get’s it?
Are you a perfectionist, someone who has their life adjusted and is very successful and driven? Are you trying to do good, be a kind and loving person, essentially a “goodist”? The calmer and more centered people may experience you, the higher the chance that all of your rage, anger, and emotions are bottled up inside and you don’t even know. Having emotions trapped in your unconscious means that you don’t have access to them, so even if you tried expressing them you wouldn’t be able to find them. The reason people who are very “put together” are more likely to experience chronic pain is that they don’t allow themselves to lose control, be a victim of their emotions or break out in rage. Also, they are more likely to put extra pressure on to thrive and achieve their goals.
How to solve it:
1. Knowledge Therapy
The most important step towards change is to truly understand how our brain works and reprogramming the way you think about pain. I repeatedly reread the information and books about how our mind does what it does and at one point it sank in my unconsciousness. I finally understood and my brain’s trick of distracting me with pain wasn’t working anymore.
2. Stop Treatment
You’ve been paying your doctor, physical therapist, acupuncturist and chiropractor regular visits? The only thing you’ve been looking forward to is the 2-hour massage twice a week where you get relief? I know this is probably the last things you want to give up but very essential for getting better. Your mind wants you to be busy fixing your pains but our goal is to take all of the stress back to an emotional level.
3. Meditation
Meditation takes away pressure, stress, and tension because it lets us focus on the present moment. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Think of it as calming down inflammation in your body. Starting the day with a 15 min meditation was most helpful for me.
4. Deep relaxation
Deep relaxation is related to meditation and has the same effect on the nervous system. The difference is that it also focuses on the body and muscles and has it release tension and stress. It was and still is one of my favorite exercises before going to bed because deep sleep helps with speeding up the healing process. Find body scan meditations on youtube and stick to them for 2 months.
5. Journaling
Think of all your repressed emotions, stress and tension as a pile of dirt that gets bigger and bigger each day. Journaling will withdraw some of this pile and release stress. Each day for 20 minutes write down everything that bothers you and could possibly create pressure in your life. These things can be unpleasant but also positive, like a new exciting job where you have to perform well.
6. Exercise
I know you’re in pain and the last thing you want to be doing is to move your body in any way. But that’s exactly what your brain is trying you to do and the more you buy into that idea the more aches you’ll get. Exercising will break the cycle.
My personal hero
You might be wondering how I was able to figure all of that out. Despite my own experiments and research on curing pain, I stumbled over a woman called Cristina Iacob. When I heard her story about healing chronic migraines after 14 years I immediately started working with her and healed within two months. Meanwhile, she has developed a program based on her knowledge and the Dr. Sarno method (Author of “Mindbody Description”). You can find her at http://cristina-iacob.com/.
The cure for your pain is to completely change your approach, understand where it’s coming from and what the purpose of it is. Yet, becoming aware of stress and tension being the cause of almost every physical imbalance is great but not enough. Some tension we can reduce ourselves and take off pressure but other circumstances are out of our control. The secret is not to solve each and every stress factor in our lives, which is simply impossible but to change the way it translates into pain. We have to start dealing with it on an emotional level before it goes into our unconsciousness. Our bodies show us when we’re off balance and instead of treating symptoms, we benefit so much more from listening to it and addressing the cause.
You might be skeptical and wondering if this actually works but I can tell you from my own experience, it does! The only thing you have to do is to actually apply the things I’ve listed and not just think of them as an idea. I am completely pain-free and grateful every single day.