The Strongest Natural Pain Reliever (Part 2)

So what is the strongest natural pain reliever?

Welcome back to part two of my two part blog on the strongest natural pain reliever.

Now I hope you watch video 1 in last weeks blog. If you didn’t do it, go back now, and watch video one from last weeks blog right now.

Okay. So I’m assuming you watch video one.

So let’s tell about the strongest natural pain reliever.

Now I’ve been a physical therapist for more than 25 years, but I’m also someone who suffered with chronic pain for seven years after being involved in a life-threatening car accident with severe injuries and multiple surgeries.

So in part one of this blog, I talked about the different types of pain and the different characteristics of pain that you can have. But today I wanted to talk a little bit more about mindset and how it can have an effect on your pain.

For my entire career, I’ve been in the field of manual orthopedic physical therapy. And for those 25 years, I’ve been dealing with people who are in pain and they come to me because they want to alleviate their pain.

Now sometimes, mechanically with my hands is all I need, with manual treatment, to restore the function of that person, along with, of course, some exercises that have are given to them by their therapist, and this can resolve of their acute short term pain.

But very often, patients with chronic pain, where they’re experiencing pain in multiple regions of their body, they are also experiencing feelings of stress, anxiety, overwhelm, and a lack of fo focus that they’re not necessarily associating with their recovery.

So levels of pain, stress, anxiety, and overwhelm in our society are at unprecedented levels in a study done. They show that…

• nearly 25 million Americans complained of pain almost every day in a three month period.
• And at 20 to 30% of the world’s population complained of chronic pain.
• And that eight out of 10 people surveyed, are feeling stressed by the recent challenges we’ve been going through as a society.

It can affect us every day. And if we don’t do something about it…

it can affect every aspect of our lives.

Listen to that…

…Every aspect of your life.

It can affect your spouse, your colleagues, and it can make us ineffective and unable to be our best selves as we move forward in life.

What I’ve learned with my own experiences, with pain and working with patients who are dealing with chronic pain, that is until you get your mindset, right, you will continue to have challenges moving forward and getting  past your pain, whether it’s physical or emotional.

You see, we know that pain comes from trauma, injury or illness, but what we don’t realize is that the pain cycle can get perpetuated by our mindset and how we respond to that injury, to that trauma, to that illness.

For example, Mrs. Jones comes into my office and Mrs. Jones has been to five doctors and six other therapists. And she comes to me because she’s heard that I specialize in working with patients with chronic pain .  She says,  “Mark, I’ve always had pain since this trauma, I have pain now and I’m always gonna have pain in the future. And I don’t think there’s anything that you can do to help me.”  And I say, “Mrs. Jones, you’re right. If you think that I’m not going to be able to help you, I am not going to be able to help you.”

You see her mindset, with respect to her pain, has got her caught in what I call a “Negative Mindset Pain Loop”.

Now remember your mindset is a set of beliefs or a way of thinking that determines your outlook or your attitude in life.

And until you can change your mindset to what I call a Positive, Proactive Mindset, you will not move forward or you will have difficulty or a challenge moving forward with respect to your pain.

This is why your mindset is so important when dealing with chronic pain, stress, anxiety, overwhelm.

And this is why I believe that…

Your Mindset Is The Strongest Natural Pain Reliever.

Now this is not negating your pain. It’s not saying that it’s all in your head. Your pain is very real. Your injury or your illness is very real. But when you’re stuck in a negative mindset pain loop, it’s hard to see that how just changing your mindset can make any difference at all.

You feel like you have a loss of control. It’s hard to see where there would be a time in your future where you don’t have pain.

Now, maybe, you’re on various different types of Medication and you’ve been on them for a significant amount of time and you begin to rely on them.   You can of lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. And when you’re stuck in this spot, it’s hard to focus on anything other than the pain.

And the way your brain works, you will focus on and think about whatever you are thinking about most often. So if you focusing on pain, your mind will continue to focus on pain.

So the challenge becomes, how do you get your focus off of the pain, off of the stress, off of the overwhelm?

Well, one of the first questions I ask my clients is, What do you want to accomplish? What are your goals?

And very often the response I get is, “I just want to be out of pain. Why am I in so much pain?”

You see the challenge with that line of thinking is that you are continuing to focus on pain. Remember focus on pain and you get more pain.

But if you focus on your goals and what you want to accomplish, then your brain, your mind will start to focus on what you want to accomplish and reaching those goals.

So instead of saying, “I don’t want pain, or why am I in so much pain?”

Switch that to a goal driven statement of positive goals like; “I return to walking two to three miles, five times a week, pain free, three months from now.”

You see, then your brain will start to focus on your goals. And then you can break down those goals into smaller chunks.

It may mean that this week you walk to the end of the block and back five times. And then after that, it then next week you may walk halfway around the block and back three to five times. And then it may mean after that you walk around the block and then to the end of the block and back, progressively moving forward.

But if you set specific positive goal driven statements, then your mind will start to focus on how you will achieve them. Then you will spend less time focusing on pain.

Remember focus on pain, you get more pain. Focus on goals, and your mind will start to focus on accomplishing those goals.

This would be the same process, no matter what your goals are. So remember you focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. And when you start to focus on what your goals are, your mindset will start to switch to a positive bias and then you’re on your way.

So as your focus begins to become more goal driven and less pain driven, you will also learn to recognize and to let go of those past traumas that have got you caught in this negative cycle.

Now it doesn’t mean that you forget those past traumas, but it means that you accept them and move forward.

So for me, concentrating on what happened with my accident kept my mind caught in the past, in that traumatic event and kept me focused on my pain. But when I accepted that the trauma happened and I allowed myself to let go to let go of that past trauma and accept it. It helped me to move forward and help my focus to become more goal oriented.

And it allowed me to focus on what I want to accomplish rather than focus on the pain.

So if right now you’re dealing with pain, stress, anxiety, overwhelm;  I want you to try this.

I want you to sit down with a piece of paper and pen, and I want you to write down and you have to write it down because there’s this magical between your brain and writing things down on paper. That that’s what you’ll be focusing on.

I want you to write at the top of the paper…

I am strong and

I am in control.

And what I want you to write next, is to write down your most important goal that you will accomplish in the next year. That means in the next 12 months.   What I want you to do, as well, is I want you to write underneath that goal, what it will take to accomplish that goal.

Now, remember it doesn’t stop there. I want you to break that goal down into six months into three months into one month.

And I want you to plan out and schedule the actual actions that it will take to make that goal happen.

And I want you to revisit your goal every day, because remember…

Your brain is focusing on pain and it’s hard to break that cycle at first, but I want you to focus on your goals. And I want you to focus on what you accomplish.

If you focus on your goals, your mind will start to work on what it takes to reach those goals.

So remember,…

You are Strong,

You ARE In Control And

Your Mindset Is The Strongest Natural Pain Reliever.

Well, I hope this information helped you out.

Be Positive, Be Motivated, Be Focused and Be Well,

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