We recover from chronic pain by taking a gentle path from fear to safety. I spent years going to doctors and practitioners, hoping to find an answer for chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and head pain, but nothing worked. I was on a constant hampster wheel, thinking the next thing would be the cure.
Then, one day, I was telling a new friend of mine about my symptoms, and she told me about tension myositis syndrome (TMS), and my life started to change. TMS occurs when we have chronic pain, but there is no injury in the body.
Pain can be learned, making it chronic
Sometimes, we have an original injury, but our brains keep signaling pain long after it has healed. Pain is a danger signal. It protects us from harming ourselves further, but sometimes, our brains signal pain even when there is no danger.
Our brains can learn pain just like they learn to ride a bike. Pain can become automatic.
After learning about TMS, I began working with a pain recovery coach and started my healing journey. I had to understand that the way to recovery was the opposite of what I had been doing for decades. I had been trying to heal with intensity, just like I had approached most things in my life.
I was constantly pushing myself to be better and to work harder. I seldom listened to myself to find out what I wanted and needed. I was on automatic and forced myself to do what I thought I should do.
I was trying to heal from my chronic symptoms in the same way and knew I needed to make some significant changes, which included refraining from going to doctors and practitioners looking for answers.
The Answer is inside you.
After working with my pain recovery coach, I stopped searching for an answer. The answer to chronic pain is within each of us. It’s not out there where I was looking.
Recovering from chronic pain is a reparenting process. We learn to nurture ourselves how we wish we had been nurtured as children, and through this process, we begin to realize that there is no danger. This is how we gently teach our primitive brain to signal pain accurately.
what is safe and what is not?
My primitive brain has less power over me now. I now know that I can relax. My rational brain is getting more space in my life, and my survival brain is not duping me as much into believing that things that are safe are dangerous.
I became hypervigilant as a child because I did not feel safe. My brain was wired into fear-based thinking, and it wasn’t my fault—it isn’t your fault. My brain understandably became stuck in fight-or-flight mode, and I started to see the world through a lens of danger.
Instead of seeing that some things were safe and some things were dangerous, I began seeing many things that were safe as dangerous. Everyday things such as work, relationships, church, food. I could find fear everywhere.
My fear-based primitive brain had me fooled, believing so many things that are perfectly safe, were dangerous. But now that I see the world through love, compassion, curiosity, and calm, I know that none of those things were dangerous, including my pain. It was just my interpretation; my perspective that was off.
The Truth will set you free.
“The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.”-Oprah Winfrey.
The truth about what is safe, and what is dangerous, is what will free you. I was not too fond of it when my loved ones hurt, and I believed it was my job to make them happy, but now I know the truth, which is that we are all responsible for our own happiness. This truth set me free.
I began to feel pain and fatigue in my body, but there was no injury. This made me even more afraid, and most of my life was spent trying to fix the pain even though there was nothing to fix.
Once I began understanding how all this happened, the truth set me free. I started to heal. I began to be easier on myself and take the pressure off. I learned the truth about what is safe and what is dangerous.
I noticed that the primitive brain thinks there is a danger even when I am safe. I now know that most of the time, I am safe, and this truth set me free.
I learned that making mistakes is safe. It might be uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous. This truth set me free.
I can go through hard times in life and know that they are a normal part of being human but not dangerous. This truth set me free.
I began to make space for emotions. There is room for all of them in this world. I now know that emotions are safe. This truth set me free.
I discovered that my wants and needs are important, and this truth set me free. I learned about self-compassion and how to feel it, and my adult brain started taking over for my primitive/child brain.
Recovery from TMS is possible when we give our brains more safety messages than danger messages. This takes time and practice because those of us with chronic pain are hard-wired to see life through a lens of danger, but you can do it just like I did by taking the gentle path from fear to safety.
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