Hey Pain! Try as you may. You will not win!

August 29, 2024

None of us are immune to the challenges of life. At some time or another we all endure tough experiences. Nothing ever prepared me for developing dystonia back in 2001, along with chronic, persistent pain, the severity of which was off the charts for years. I didn’t know pain like that was possible. I didn’t respond to it very well and it made my symptoms worse. I cursed the world for what was taken from me and isolated myself from everyone and everything. Pain (both physical and emotional), anxiety, and depression became my only companions.

I have since worked myself out of this mental torment, but it is still a daily challenge for me. Just on a different level than it once was. My physical and emotional symptoms are better under control, and that is what I want for others and why I want to talk a little about how to deal with pain and adversity.

When adversity comes, how we respond to it determines what happens next. Life experiences become tragedies if we make the conscious decision to make tragedies out of them, which is what I did. In other words, we catastrophize. We can either resist or we can accept challenges. I resisted and catastrophized and got worse. I had to choose another approach.

A part of us eventually has to say, “Screw it. This is my life and I am going to live it to the best of my ability despite the challenges and do my best to enjoy every moment. I don’t care what people think of me or say about me as I go about my business taking care of myself. Life is too short to worry about trivial things like that. And if all I do is focus on what is wrong with me, then I will live in a dark and depressing world. I accept that things are tough and it won’t keep me from being happy.”

Let’s be brutally honest…life is really difficult and until we accept this fact, suffering will become our lifestyle. And if really you think about it, even with the numerous problems that many of us have, there are far more things working well in our body than not, and that’s where we need to focus more of our attention.

How much we suffer all comes down to the choice we make about how we want to live. If we want to be content, we need to learn to be okay that things may not be the way we want them to be; accept that they are the way they are and find ways to live with them so we can work through them. Breathe, slow down, ‘let go’ the best you can, and stop white knuckling life.

Some of my many saving graces to keep me from catastrophizing was to learn to look at challenges as opportunities for learning and growth. I also began to practice daily meditation, prayer, breathing exercises, visualization, and other mindfulness and mind/body grounding techniques. When I did this, I turned down the internal catastrophe alarm signal. Calming the nervous system helps us see things from a different perspective that serves us way better than a default anger or anxious reaction to everything that is unpleasant. This is the key for staying in control and ahead of our pain.

When my life feels like it is racing out of control, I close my eyes and repeat the following phrase over and over: “I relax into the flow of life and life flows through me with ease.” I will often replace the word “life” with “pain,” “sleep,” “anger,” among others. I do this to help me flow with experiences and feelings to help them flow out of me. In other words, non-resistance. When we resist what is, we struggle more.

Please practice flowing with life the best you can, all the while, still searching for the best possible relief from whatever is causing you any kind of suffering. Please check out my 2 books, Diagnosis Dystonia: Navigating the Journey (now in audio as well as paperback and Kindle) and Beyond Pain and Suffering: Adapting to Adversity and Life Challenges for more ideas on these tough topics.