Interpretation matters when healing chronic pain. How we interpret the pain is essential to our recovery. Seeing life and pain through a lens of safety is healing. Just as we sometimes interpret what someone says or does incorrectly, we also interpret what is happening in our bodies incorrectly.
Misinterpretation or misunderstanding of pain
Our brains can be wrong about many things, and it’s not our fault. As children, we learn how to interpret our world from how our parents interpreted it and from what we learned from teachers, friends, and others.
Interpretation matters when healing Tension Myositis Syndrome because miscommunications happen frequently. You may think someone is angry at you because they didn’t say hi, but maybe they didn’t even see you. You may feel upset about this for days when it was never true in the first place.
Another person may walk by someone who doesn’t say hi, and it would never occur to them that the person is angry at them. We don’t all interpret or perceive things the same because of our different backgrounds.
This is what happens with chronic pain, which I will discuss below.
Why do we sometimes interpret things Inaccurately?
As mentioned earlier, we learn to see the world a certain way in childhood through our relationships and experiences. The first person mentioned above may have had a parent who wasn’t very accepting, so this person learned to look for ways to get approval.
This person interpreted someone not saying hi to them as disapproval. The following person may have had approving parents and a pretty happy childhood and would have never thought that someone not saying hi to them would mean disapproval.
They would not be stuck in their heads thinking about why this person didn’t say hi and be able to move on.
How do people with chronic pain interpret pain?
People with Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS), also known as neuroplastic pain and mind/body pain, often interpret life like the first person mentioned above because they see life through a lens of danger even when they are safe. It’s all about perspective.
This is precisely what happens when we have pain. Our brains interpret safe sensations in our bodies as dangerous. It’s a misinterpretation. There is nothing wrong with the body; maybe an injury has healed, but the pain remains.
Our brains make mistakes interpreting signals from our bodies, just like sometimes when we misinterpret someone’s feelings toward us. This is common and can be changed.
Interpreting life through a Lens of danger
Most people with TMS are stuck in a fight or flight state, which helps them to be prepared for the worst and see life and their pain through a lens of danger. Their brains are just trying to keep them safe.
People with chronic pain may respond to life in ways that are:
- Pessimistic
- Self-sabotaging
- Catastrophic
- Worrisome
I often write about my mom because it’s from her that I got a lot of my fear programming. She had terrible anxiety. Her mom (my grandma) was institutionalized for severe depression when my mother was young, and being prepared for the worst was a coping mechanism.
It developed into hypochondria later in her life. She thought every lump was cancer, every bruise was a blood disorder, and every headache was brain cancer. She couldn’t see the truth that a very low percentage of these symptoms are severe. We are safe most of the time.
How do we teach our brains to interpret accurately when healing tension myositis syndrome?
Teaching our brains to interpret experiences and pain accurately helps our nervous system to calm down. When our nervous systems are regulated, we can access our rational brain for interpretation instead of our primitive, survival brain.
Here are some steps to take to teach our brains to interpret through a lens of safety:
- Build thought awareness through relaxation and meditation.
- Reframe your thinking so it works for you, not against you.
- Practice daily.
- Understand that you are safe most of the time.
- Give yourself compassion and grace.
- Lean into a thought, feeling, or perspective that is positive.
The goal is to get accustomed to leaning into positivity and acclimating yourself to this new state so there is a new default setting. See if you can watch your mind gravitate toward a negative thought. If it does, you know you are seeing through a lens of danger.
When our rational brain is in charge, we tend to interpret things more accurately. We don’t immediately respond with fear.
I like giving real-life examples because it’s easy to have an intellectual understanding of how to do this, but when putting it into practice, change happens, and new patterns are formed.
An example of interpreting through a lens of danger
Here is an example of how I interpreted a situation through a lens of safety yesterday. I was driving to Fort Collins to celebrate my son’s birthday and stopped for coffee along the way. When I got back in my car, it wouldn’t start.
When I was in the midst of my pain and could not notice my thinking and how it was affecting me, I would have panicked and made it into a really negative situation.
My thoughts would have gone something like this: “Oh no, this is going to be really expensive. I just got this car and knew I bought a lemon. Now, I don’t get to see my son today. It seems like nothing works out…”
An example of interpreting life through a lens of safety
Because I understand that interpretation matters when healing chronic pain, I have done my work on my thinking, which has been very freeing. I learned how to become aware of my thoughts and how my thoughts make me feel. The above thinking would have made me feel stressed and in pain.
But yesterday, my thoughts went like this: “It’s okay. Everything will work out as it’s supposed to. I wasn’t meant to see Eli today but will see him next weekend. I love my new car, and I probably need a new battery. No big deal.”
I found someone to jump my battery, and I drove home.
TMS is pain that the brain has learned and can be unlearned. As we notice how we interpret our lives through a lens of danger and work intentionally to change this, our nervous systems can shift.
Interpreting life and pain matters when we are recovering from neuroplastic pain. Can life be this good?
Yes, life can be really good when we change how we see it. Our nervous systems become regulated. I can’t even believe how good life is now. I had to change some of my life situations, but mostly, I changed my view of them.
As my nervous system became more regulated, my pain decreased. I began to interpret my pain accurately. Chronic pain that the brain has learned is safe. There is nothing wrong with the body.
So, as we begin to interpret life through a lens of safety, which becomes our default, our brain doesn’t need to be in protective mode or fight or flight. When we shift our lens from fear to safety, our pain disappears, and we are free to live life like we never thought possible.
I learned that most aches, pains, fatigue, and even dizziness are usually nothing to worry about. They are a sign that our nervous system may need a little regulation. Seeing life through a lens of safety heals chronic pain.
Interpretation matters when healing chronic pain.
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