The Pain Companion Blog: insights and resources for moving beyond chronic pain

The Pain Companion: Chapter 7: Anger & Blame

6/17/2021

While anger and blame are absolutely understandable when we're living with chronic pain, they can lead to ongoing bitterness and resentment.

Living with these intense emotions and not knowing how to let them move on can add to the sensation of being trapped in pain.

Learning how to safely release anger, blame, bitterness, and resentment frees up the energy we need for true, deep healing and allows us to feel a measure of relief, peace of mind, and renewed happiness even as we are still moving through our physical pain.

In her latest video, Living Free of Anger & Blame in Chronic Pain, Sarah reads Chapter 7 from The Pain Companion on Anger & Blame and suggests practical methods you can use to let go of the cycle of living in anger and blame, including those feelings directed toward yourself.

0 Comments

The Pain Companion, Chapter 6: Guilt & Shame

6/5/2021

0 Comments

It doesn't make sense that we would feel guilty and ashamed of living in chronic pain, but we often do. We begin to feel wrong for not being able to fix ourselves, to heal, and to stop the pain.

Sarah's video, No More Guilt & Shame From Living in Chronic Pain, discusses these difficult feelings and offers a Technique for Releasing Difficult Emotions and discusses ways to let go of feelings of shame and guilt around pain and replace them with self respect and self honoring.

0 Comments

The Pain Companion: Chapters 1 - 4: Living in Chronic Pain

5/20/2021

0 Comments

I think it is so important to acknowledge the extent to which pain alters the way we feel about life and about ourselves. For me, a necessary step in healing was to recognize how much my physical pain was affecting me emotionally and to begin to have compassion for myself for everything I was going through.

I also believe it is important to validate each other because we are the only ones who really understand what it's like to live with long term pain. I hope that in watching this video you may feel acknowledged and validated for facing the myriad challenges that come with living in pain and having the courage to carry on.

In this video, How Does Physical Pain Affect Your Emotions?, Sarah reads Part One: Pain Moves In from The Pain Companion with commentary.

Life Taken Over by Pain
The Submersion of the Self
When Pain Won't Leave
Feeling Bad About Feeling Bad

0 Comments

You Can Heal Chronic Pain!

5/4/2021

2 Comments

As most of you who have been living with pain a long time know, there is no magic pill, no quick fix, but these six approaches can be a positive turning point in your healing journey, as I found them to be for myself.

I am happy to say that I am 90% out of the pain I'd been living with since 2007! This video explores how I did it using non-medical approaches which I developed for myself when nothing else worked. I believe that they can help you finally come out the other side of chronic, intractable pain by working with the whole self, holistically.

In my video, How I Healed My Chronic Pain, I discuss the aspects of living with pain that most doctors do not address, nor recognize - the way pain affects our feelings about ourselves and life, and how our emotional suffering needs to be healed alongside our physical pain.

2 Comments

How I Freed Myself of Feeling Ashamed of Chronic Pain

4/1/2021

1 Comment

It doesn’t make any logical sense that anyone would feel guilty about living in pain, but I have.

In our goals-oriented culture, we’re supposed to keep on keeping on and not complain. We worry that if we let ourselves withdraw from participating fully in life for more than a very brief time, we will be left behind. Or worse, it will mean that we are simply not good people. Good people take short breaks and then keep going, keep trying, never give up and never say die. In fact, it is considered almost a sin to do nothing, to step out of the constant stream of work, entertainment, and busyness.

But once I was injured, I couldn’t do that anymore.

I was forced to slow way, way down and I felt bad about it. I thought I should try to take care of all the things I used to take care of. I thought I had to hide my pain, pretend it wasn’t there and attempt to do as much as I would normally do. I thought I was supposed to just “grin and bear it.” But that didn’t heal me. It only made things worse.

As the length of time I was in pain lengthened, I experienced a subtle, creeping, persistent feeling of shame and failure. Here are the seven things I learned to tell myself to counteract my feelings of shame and guilt around living in persistent, unhealable pain:

1. I am not wrong for being in pain.
Being in pain is not my fault. I am not wrong, guilty, bad or screwed up. Being in pain does not equate with being weak, bad, or needy, nor does it mean I am inadequate as a person.

2. I am not on anyone’s timetable.
Pain keeps its own timetables and no one has the ability to read them completely accurately, not even my doctor. My body is on its own healing schedule that can’t be forced.

3. It’s OK for me to do less.
While in pain, my ability to attend to the every day tasks of life is compromised.It’s part of the package. I give myself permission to do less, and to be honest with others about how much I can and can’t handle.

4. I can ask for help.
Sometimes shame and guilt about needing help makes me reluctant to ask for it, but everyone has times in life when they need to depend on others to help them or take over what they can’t do. This is my time. I will ask for the help I need as clearly and honestly as I can.

5. I can receive financial assistance graciously.
One pervasive perception we have in our culture is that people who accept assistance are mooching off society. The truth is, the money is supposed to be there for me, whether it is from charity or government assistance. At times I have put money into the collective pot and now I need to draw money out. It’s the way it’s supposed to work.

6. I can stop trying to make other people feel better.
Making other people feel better can take the form of a) not expressing what I need so I don’t burden others, b) downplaying my continued pain so my doctor or other caretakers feel better about the job they’re doing, or c) attempting programs or exercises that I’m not ready for because I am responding to someone else’s urging, or avoiding blame for not trying harder.

7. I know that healing is my current job.
My real job, for now, is healing. I won’t judge myself harshly according to what I used to be capable of doing. I am handling another aspect of my life right now that requires a great deal of time and energy.
In doing all of these things, I am taking care of myself, which has to be my highest priority right now — without shame or guilt.

1 Comment

<<Previous

Forward>>

Welcome to The Pain Companion Blog! Reflections and sound advice on living with chronic pain - a peaceful way station on the path to greater well being.
About Sarah Anne Shockley

Books

RSS Feed

© 2015-2021 Sarah Shockley and thepaincompanion.com. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sarah Anne Shockley and www.thepaincompanion.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.