Knowledge is Power for Effective Chronic Pain Management
What Is Your Pain Trying To Tell You? Whenever you’re experiencing pain, it’s always helpful to ask: “What is my pain trying to tell me?” I believe that pain is trying to tell you that something is wrong and that you had better find out what exactly is wrong and find a way to fix it.
To understand the language of pain, you must learn to understand how the pain echoes and reverberates between the physical, psychological, and social dimensions of the human condition. Pain is truly a total human experience that affects all aspects of human functioning.
Knowledge is power. Once you know what is really going on with your body and mind you can start to take action to effectively manage your pain. In fact, you need to stop believing pain is your enemy and begin to embrace it as your friend. I know this is easier said than done. Many of my patients have looked at me like I’m crazy when I tell them they must make peace with their pain and that pain is their friend. They tell me—very strongly in some cases—that they can’t buy it, but nevertheless it is true.
Not only have I been working as a therapist and trainer in the field of chronic pain management and coexisting disorders for more than 26 years, I have been living with my own chronic pain management condition for over 27 years. I still have periodic episodes of pain flare ups where I need to put into practice all that I’ve learned and like everyone living with a chronic pain condition some days are better than others. But even on the bad days, one thing is certain – pain does not control my life.
This peacemaking was something I had to resolve for myself early on in my own chronic pain management journey. I always ask the patients I work with and the clinicians I train to consider this question – are you willing to make peace with your pain or continue to suffer? In essence what I’m asking them is: are you willing to do what is necessary to make pain your friend and move on with your life? As you might imagine and perhaps you’re thinking this yourself, they looked at me like I’ve lost my mind and have told me so in no uncertain terms! Nevertheless the question opened the door for a deeper level of healing to begin.
Lack of knowledge is only one obstacle for effective chronic pain management; to learn about others and how to resolve them please check out my article Overcoming Obstacles for Effective Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.
You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.
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To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.
