Tag Archives: ocd disorder

Coping With Chronic Pain and Stress

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By learning how thoughts and actions influence our feelings and coping we can learn to reduce and better manage life’s emotional challenges.  The figure below is the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) paradigm for negative automatic thoughts leading to painful emotions and resulting in unhelpful (actions) coping strategies.  The thinking process is repetitious and circular, whereby thoughts lead to feelings that lead to actions continuously ( I could not add directional arrows to my diagram).   Thoughts, behaviors, and emotions affect our physical experiences and sensations, including emotional pain, and vice versa.  How we think also affects the severity, intensity, and duration of chronic pain episodes, emotional pain, stress levels, and disease progression (i.e., diabetes, terminal cancer, arthritis,  back pain, etc.)

THOUGHT

                                          “I’m not achieving enough”

PHYSICAL PAIN & STRESS LEVEL INCREASE

                                         w/NEGATIVE THINKING

ACTIONS = “Isolate”                                             FEELINGS = “Fear”

This approach teaches us ways to change thinking and behaviors to best cope with stress/pain and reduce negative thoughts.  You may believe that talking about your fears is a weakness.  Or you may perceive that other people believe these things, causing you to feel embarrassed and angry.  Either way, you might hide your fears from others, criticize or make excuses for yourself, and smile when you are feeling sad.  It is estimated that a deep thinker (perfectionist) has somewhere around 60,000 automatic thoughts per day.  Research shows that for most people, 80% of thoughts are negative and repetitious.  As the saying goes, “It is a bad neighborhood in my head and I try not to go there unsupervised.”

You may believe that there is nothing that can be done to stop your negative thinking and to better cope with stress.   Learning to tune-in to ourselves, learning to listen to ourselves takes practice. You may be dependent on others for approval in order to cope or don’t talk to anyone about your concerns.  Lastly, you may believe that you need to get rid of your problems on your own in order to live your life.  You believe that you have to endure alone. These beliefs are mental traps!!!

Thinking you are not achieving enough during these unpredictable times can be stressful and tiring and this can make it hard to think clearly, leading you to feel frustrated and hopeless.  However, it is possible to improve your mood and to learn to cope effectively with your problems that remain unresolved.  By learning to focus on the things you have control over, you can change parts of your reality by choosing how you will think and behave.

 Total reality is made up of at least the following parts:

1) What you see, hear, and can measure, 2) how others think and act, 3) how you think and feel, and 4) what you do.

EXAMPLE:    Different responses to negative thinking and stress can produce many types of  “realities.”

WHAT YOU SEE, HEAR, AND CAN MEASURE

My thoughts tell me I’m going to lose everything, I’m  not good  enough, and I must be worthless.

HOW OTHERS THINK AND ACT                                               1.  Supportive

2.  Dismissing

3.  Critical

 

HOW YOU THINK (you have a choice)                                    1.  This is what my mind does.

2.  I can change my thoughts.

3.  I can’t stand it!

WHAT YOU DO (you have a choice)                                        1.  Isolate

2.  Get angry with others.

3.  Appreciate what is good in my life.

4.  Learn techniques to cope effectively with stress.

Negative thoughts may be interfering with your life by keeping you from doing the things you want to do.  It is important to remember you do have some control over your thinking.  You may feel vulnerable and powerless when negative feelings appear.  But keep in mind (excuse the pun) that you can learn to notice your thoughts, feel your feelings, figure out if there’s something you need to do, and then go on with your life.  Life works best when you take charge of making change in your thinking.

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Thank you for reading this article.  My learning journey with chronic physical pain is a result of my experience with phantom limb pain.  I was graced with the gift of self-acceptance upon realization that my forearm was amputated.  Before my limb loss, I sacrificed my emotional and spiritual well-being for perfectionism and looked to others for approval at the cost of trusting my intuition and developing my self-worth.  My drive for perfection was crushed along with my arm.  I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to put an end to self-created emotional pain.  And, as I learn and grow, I teach self-compassion and give advice I use myself, in the hopes that it helps you to improve your own life.

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Stopping Complusive Mind Chatter

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Thinking Courtesy of Wikipedia

Thinking Courtesy of Wikipedia

Meditation is the single most important thing you can do for yourself each day to stop compulsive mind chatter.   Starting the practice of meditation is often a salvation.  Your authentic self will appear in moments of quite awareness, and in non-resistance to the present moment, the dialogue in your head will stop and so will the compulsive emotional pain.  During meditation one’s still self can become present and is empowered to de-identify with the drama the ego manufactures in order to feel alive and keep the negative chatter going.  By practicing meditation you will experience stillness, peace and self-acceptance.  We all have the power to stop attending to the seemingly involuntary thought processes, the continuous negative monologues, and the repetitive victim stories playing in our minds.  Emotional, physical, or mental pain can be used as a gift to motivate you to stop the mental fighting in your mind.

My experience with emotional trauma and chronic pain has been a major influence on my values and self-care.  I have been moved by intense struggling into accepting “what is.”  When I practice acknowledging that my emotional pain is self-created and I am not a victim, my thoughts commence to change dramatically.  Moment by moment I practice giving up my attachment to past, future and present thoughts to make living in the present my main focus.  I have found peace through this surrender and a profound need to demonstrate kindness through my actions.  The compulsive drive for more, better, new, in order to feed a false image and ineffectively heal emotional wounds is no longer fulfilling to me.  This awareness came from an accumulation of personal losses, emotional pain and chronic physical pain.  I use to have a voice in my head that continuously attacked and punished me for not doing enough.  I decided I would no longer tolerate the self-created misery and unhappiness.  The negative thoughts still lurk, but I practice observing and releasing them without judging.

I have found it is necessary to practice not taking people or situations personally and to stop building negative thoughts.  The minute I make a situation “about me,” my fear is in charge and creating a story.  I have learned that the challenge is to respect that who “I am” is not my minds activity, my appearance, my work, my achievements, or my bank account, etc.  This “I am” realization is a sense of my own presence, it is not thought.   As soon as I am conscious and stop the compulsive mind chatter I’m hearing, (i.e., “Hello old friend that has come here to make me feel like crap, you can go now”) I become present.  I seize to become my reactions and negative emotions; I stop acting out my compulsive projections.  I quit beating myself up and instead become conscious of my present worth.  The challenge is to remain in the present moment and give up identifying with the drama for things that happened in the past or with fearful projections into the future.  I take responsibility for my actions and self-respect.  I recognize that I am continuously creating my minds reality and I give myself permission to be ”perfectly imperfect.”

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Thank you for reading this article. I’ve dedicated my personal and professional life to the importance of non-violence and self-love by teaching from my  experience.  In the past, I’ve sacrificed my emotional and spiritual well-being for perfectionism and looked to others for approval at the cost of trusting my intuition and developing my own self-worth.  As a result, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to put an end to the self-judgment and self-bondage.  And, as I learn and grow, I teach self-compassion and give advice I use myself, in the hopes that it helps you to improve your own life.