3 Great Tips To Beat Your Pain

So how do you win over or beat the pain that you’re experiencing right now?

Whether you are having physical pain from a past trauma,  accident or injury or you’re experiencing emotional pain from, again, a past trauma or the present day stresses and anxieties that have you overwhelmed.

Today I’m going to give you three tips on how to beat your pain …and they’re probably not what you think.

Now, some of you may know that I was involved in a very serious life threatening car accident years ago. Now, all I remember were the screech of the tires and the blinding lights. And I woke up three days later in the hospital.

I’d found out later that a car had come careening over a hill and t-boned our car right where I was sitting.

The firemen had to cut me out of the car and they helicoptered me to the local trauma hospital because they weren’t sure if I was going make it.

Turns out I had shattered my right leg in eight places and I had a head wound that needed two blood transfusions for and I had fractured my back as well.

They did an eight hour surgery where they used two long rods, six screws, four cables and a plate to put my leg back together.  And then they also worked on my head to repair the wound that I had there.

I didn’t walk for five months and I was out of work for a year. I had a second surgery about a year later where they took out some of the hardware, but the two long rods and the cables stayed in permanently for the duration, … hopefully until I’m a hundred years old.

Now, the challenge comes when you are all healed but you still have chronic pain. Then you go back to the orthopedics and they throw the x-ray up on the board and he says, “Everything looks great”, but you still have chronic pain.

And if you still have chronic pain then you have one or two options.

They send you to pain management where you could either get medication or injections or you deal with the pain.

Now over the next seven years, I had significant chronic back pain, hip pain and leg pain that had a major significant effect on my life.

And then the “aha” moment came for me after those seven years.  I was getting into my truck to go to work, and as it happened many times before in that those seven years, my back and my hips seized up and I couldn’t move.

My wife, who was also a physical therapist, had to help me back into the house and I had to call in sick that day, to my orthopedic practice that I own.  And for those of you who know me, I don’t call in sick.

And that “aha” moment came when I was laying in my bed and missing work because of the pain in my back and my leg that I said, “Enough is enough!  I have to figure out what I can do about this!”

Now, as a physical therapist, I was an expert in dealing with pain and dealing with patients with pain. I specialized in dealing with patients in chronic pain. So I felt I was, was well suited to figure out what I could do about my own chronic pain.

So that’s when I went through my search phase and I started reading everything I could about the subject of pain, chronic pain, the psychology of pain, and treatment of pain.

I researched personal development in other books. I read everything from  Lao Tse Zung, the Bible, Buddha, Norman Vincent Peal, to Tony Robbins, to Louise Hay, to James Allen, and many other books that dealt with self growth and personal development.

And the amazing thing was that over the next four to six months, my pain level started to reduce …And for no apparent reason at all. Nothing else had changed other than the fact that I was reading about and working on my mindset and what I focused on.

And the realization I had was that my challenges were stemming from or amplified by the mindset that I had and what I was focusing on… that I was focusing on the pain and my accident.

But what I also realized was that the improvements that I made and the reduction in my pain was stemming from my mindset; my new mindset, and the fact that I was now focusing on what I wanted and what I wanted to accomplish and not focusing on the pain.

And you see this was a game changer and transformational in my life.

But the fact that I had done no new treatments or new exercise programs, but I HAD been learning about how to improve my mindset and enhance my focus, and then I started to implement this into my life…and this had ended a period of chronic pain for me that lasted seven years.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have pain and I get pain just like the next person. If somebody tells you that they have no pain after years of chronic pain, they’re probably not telling you the whole truth.

I get pain from things that I do excessively during my day. I love to landscape. If I landscape too much, or rake leaves or do a new garden bed for six hours, or if I go on a hike in the mountains and I do excessive exercise or activity.  I get hip pain, I get back pain. But it’s acute pain that resolves. It has an ending to it. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know that I can treat it and it’s going get better.  What I broke was the cycle of chronic pain.

So you see, when you have chronic pain, you feel like there’s a sense that you have no control and that increases your stress and anxiety and you feel like you’re overwhelmed and you lose that sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.

But the “aha” moment is when you realize that you are in control and that it starts with your mindset and what you focus on.

Because when we’re stuck in a, in a cycle of chronic pain, what’s the only thing you can focus on; The pain.

And if you focus on the pain and you focus on your problem, your brain will give you back more of whatever you’re focusing on. You focus on pain and problems, you get more pain and problems. 

If you focus on what you want and you set specific goals for yourself then, guess what? You’ll start to focus on reaching those goals.

So in that way, it’s kind of like the social media algorithms. If you click on or look at pictures about gardening, then the social media platform will give you more pictures about gardening. If you focus and click on things about politics, although Lord knows why you’d want to do that, then you’ll get more pictures and more articles about politics. Same thing with the brain. If you focus on your pain and you focus on your problems, you will get more pain and problems.

And the realization was that the keys to reducing your chronic pain and reducing your stress, your anxiety, and feeling like you’re overwhelmed was enhancing your mindset and focusing on the right things.

So that brings me to my three tips on how to help you beat your pain. Now it’s not about any exercise program or a doctor that you would see or any new treatment plan.

Now, all those things help and they’re within the framework of what I’m going to talk about but first things first…

So my first tip is …

…Having the awareness and the realization that you are in control.

Now, sometimes that’s all it takes.  It’s you saying “Enough is Enough”.  That you’re not going take the chronic pain anymore and you’re not going take whatever it is, whatever situation you’re in right now, and that you are in control of your thoughts and actions and you’re in control of what you are going to focus on.

It may not always seem that way, but it’s true.

Shannon Alder said, …

“When you think this pain is all you deserve, you are right. And you alone can decide how long you will walk in this hell.”

Now that sounds pretty aggressive, but it’s true. When it comes down to it, it’s you deciding that you are in control and you’re going take control about what your thoughts and actions are about your situation and what you’re going to focus on.

Now the second tip is …

Having what I call a Positive Proactive Mindset.

Now that doesn’t mean just be happy, Mark said be happy so everything will be okay.

No, it means developing a positive, constructive attitude about yourself, your life, and the things that are happening to you in your life.

Now, we’re not always in control of the cards that were dealt, right?  But we are in control of how we play them.

You can make the decision on how you’ll respond to any situation. It’s okay to get upset, It’s okay to get mad, but have it be temporary and then collect yourself and move forward.

Maya Angelo said,

“If you don’t like something, change it. And if you can’t change it, change your attitude about it.”

My Third tip is …

Enhance your focus.

Focus on what you want rather than what you don’t want.

This is so important when you have chronic pain or you have emotional pain, stress or anxiety.  It’s so easy to get wrapped up in focusing on the pain and focusing on the emotional stress and anxiety because it’s all it seems like you can see there.

Change your reference from focusing on the pain and the problems to focusing on what you want.

This is the time that you get clarity about what you want. You set specific goals for yourself. Because when you’re focused on the pain, all you can think about is the pain and you focus on the stress and anxiety. That’s all you can focus on. And you’re not focusing on any goals. You usually don’t set goals in that state.

Get clarity about what you want.  What you want to be, do, and have and set some specific goals for yourself and work towards them every day.

As you start to do this, you’ll focus less and less on the pain.

So here are some quotes about focus that I think you’ll like.

David DeNotaris said, …

“Our focus is our future and what we focus on will multiply in our life.”

Think about that. What we focus on will multiply in our life.

Clara Joseph said, …

“If you focus on what you don’t want, that’s where you’ll keep steering your ship.”

If you focus on those rocks, you’ll steal your ship right into those rocks. Do yourself a favor. Focus on the safe harbor. Focus on the destination that you want to achieve.

And Venus Williams said, …

“I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest.”

Now remember, one of the keys is to continually focus on what you want and what your goals are and work toward them.

And as you do that, you’ll have less and less time to focus on your pain.

Now, I know sometimes it doesn’t seem that way when you’re going through something horrible. When I was challenged with my chronic pain I had for my accident, there were very real problems that I had. I had a hardware store in my right leg. I had fractured my back. I had lots of pain from orthopedic issues. But what held me back was the fact that I kept focusing on how bad my accident was, how bad my injuries were, and that I couldn’t move forward.

As I started to focus on the goals I wanted to achieve, I left my chronic pain in the past and I gave myself permission to let go of that past traumatic event.

And if some of you know me, and you know one of my favorite quotes is, …

“If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always be what you’ve always been.”   ~Unknown

If you’ve been stuck in a chronic pain cycle or an emotional pain cycle and it hasn’t been going well for you, try something new.

If you want to get different results than what you’ve been getting, then you have to do things differently than how you’ve been doing them.

And my Bonus Tip is …

To keep moving forward.

There’s another quote, and I’m paraphrasing. And it says, …

{You cannot read the next chapter in your book if you’re focusing on the past chapters.}

Keep yourself moving forward. Look to the future, Look to what you want to achieve and that will bring your focus towards what you want rather than what you don’t want.

And one last quote, Confucius said, …

“He who conquerers himself is the mightiest warrior.”

So don’t focus on what you’re up against. Don’t focus on your problems and what the traumatic event that you went through or that happened to you in the past.

Enhance your mindset.

Improve what you’re focusing on.

Focus on what you want to accomplish and what you want to be rather than what you’re stuck in and what happened to you in your past.

Give yourself permission to let that go. It doesn’t mean forget it.  It means let it go and it will lose its control over you.

And you will find that you will start to conquer that chronic physical pain or emotional pain.  The pain will start to reduce as you start to enhance your mindset and what you focus on.

Well, I hope this information Helped you out.

 

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I want you to have a great day and remember as always…

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

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