Categories
chronic pain

Feel More Pain on the Weekend?

Why does my pain get worse on the weekend?

Why did my pain start just before my trip to Barcelona?

Shouldn’t I experience more pain when I’m stressed and less pain when I’m relaxed?

A university student recently mentioned to me, “When the pain started I was a carefree first year, loving living with my mates and celebrating everything in my life!”

I can’t answer this question for everyone but I can share my own experience.

I used to have more pain AFTER stressful periods but not during stressful periods.

When I was anxious about a million things, when I strived for getting top jobs in the City, I didn’t have time to think about my pain!

But when I was ready to relax and enjoy my weekend or holidays…

“Oops! Hello, my wonderful pain! I missed you!”.

Categories
chronic pain

My Chronic Pain Disappeared When I Did This

My chronic pain went away when I was ready to say goodbye to it.

Pain served many purposes in my life.

Pain distracted me from difficult and uncomfortable decisions I knew I had to take in my life.

It was easier for me to deal with the pain rather than quit a successful investment banking career, for example, and disappoint all my family and friends.

“You are too stiff, I can feel tension here and here and here”, Lance my osteopath used to say.

He was right but why was I stiff in the first place?

Because all I did was to please people, say always “yes” to everyone, and care for everyone else except for myself.

I always tried to control others’ opinions and thoughts about myself.

Guess what?

All those maladaptive behaviours made me perfectly stiff. That was the perfect recipe for stiffness! lol

And stiffness brought my back pain, lower back, upper back, leg, chest and everything in between.

And IBS and insomnia and skin conditions and more.

But I’m telling you, for a long time it was easier to put up with the excruciating pain than dump a toxic relationship or the “perfect career” that everyone else would love to have.

Only when I addressed my emotions, my anger, my needs, my wants and took action, did the stiffness, the back pain and all the rest in that package go away.

That process was not easy though.

It took time.

Sometimes I would go halfway and return to my comfort zone—which came with pain of course.

Until one day I had enough and went full way.

I ditched a “successful” career, a toxic relationship, useless friendships, and most importantly, the need to strive to be someone I was not.

And guess what?

I became less stiff.

Lance missed me.

And my pain went away…

Only when I was ready to say goodbye to it.

With love, Angelos

P.S. To learn more about how I healed, check out my chronic back pain story.

P.P.S. And this is how repressed emotions can cause chronic pain (Tension Myositis Syndrome).

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Categories
chronic pain

Hypnosis for Chronic Pain?

Someone once mentioned to me that their physician recommended cognitive behavioural therapy and hypnosis as part of their pain management regimen.

“I thought it would be total BS at first, but, I’m actually learning a lot and finding physical relief from pain”, she said.

“It does work!”, I replied.

But it’s not as rocket-science as you may think.

Has it ever occurred to you to “forget” about your pain when enjoying an engaging conversation or doing some interesting activity?

You can enter a hypnosis state many times throughout the day on your own without the help of a professional hypnotist.

Hypnosis a sleep-like state, a state of focused attention, a state of hyper-awareness.

Chronic pain is often a habit—neural pathways which get switched on and remain so.

An engaging activity that puts you into what we call “flow” can break that habit and switch off those neural pathways.

You can unlearn your pain the same way you learned it.

How?

By focusing your attention on something else.

Something interesting, engaging, captivating, rewarding.

Something other than pain.

Whatever you used to focus on before pain entered your life.

Right now your eyes are locked on the pain.

You just have to turn your head to a new direction.

What do you want to be hypnotised by today?

A book, a song, a conversation with a friend, sun rays cutting through the water?

I’m sure you’ll find something more beautiful than pain to lock your eyes on.

With love, Angelos

P.S. Subscribe to receive my tips on chronic pain relief straight to your inbox.

Categories
chronic pain

Sunrays Cutting Through the Pain

Why is the pain still there?

Why does it get worse in the morning?

Why does it move?

Why? Why? Why?

I don’t know why.

Pain was always a mystery to me.

I noticed something though.

When I stopped asking “why” and went on to live my life, pain eased.

No longer was it always there.

Or was it? Did I not notice it?

I don’t know.

I noticed though that when I stopped checking in with my pain, it slowly went away.

When I gave up on my pain, pain gave up on me.

One day I had a moment of enlightenment.

I said, “F*** it”.

“I’m going to swim today and watch the rocks and the fish and the sun rays cut through the water”.

And, for a moment, I forgot about the pain.

My pain and I disconnected for a moment.

But the pain returned and intensified.

The following day, I thought, “F*** it, I’m going to swim again and watch the rocks and the fish and the sun rays cut through the water”.

And, for a moment, I forgot about the pain.

But, sadly, the pain returned.

Until one day, I could only see the rocks, the fish and the sun rays cut through the water.

The pain was not there.

All I could see was sun rays cut through the water.

With love, Angelos

P.S. Subscribe to receive my tips on chronic pain relief straight to your inbox.

Categories
Personal Development

1-min Mindset Fix for Chronic Pain

If you’ve believed X for years and X doesn’t seem to have served you in any way, try to believe Y for a day.

There is nothing to lose, right?

Be curious.

See what happens.

If you believe you can’t lift a vase, lift a vase.

If you believe you can’t make it to the party, go to the party.

If you believe you can’t travel anymore, book a flight.

If you’ve always blamed your herniated disc for your pain, apologise to it and go to the gym.

If you believe you can’t live your life until the pain goes away, live your life today.

Be curious.

See what happens.

With love, Angelos

P.S. Subscribe to receive my tips for chronic pain relief straight to your inbox.

Categories
chronic pain

Chronic Back Pain – The Lies and the Truth

It took me over ten years to get to the root of my chronic back pain and be rid of it permanently.

These days, it’s not chronic and the pain is gone.

I’ve been pain-free for the last five years and I know the pain will not come back.

It’s true, I may have a twinge every now and then but as soon as it appears, I notice it, I laugh at it, and it disappears.

Why?

Because now I understand the pain … and myself.

I promise that if you read this long article to the end, you’ll understand your pain from a new and powerful perspective.

This article will be the beginning of your own healing journey.

Disclaimer: This article is for blogging purposes only. It is not meant to treat or diagnose any disease you may or may not have. For medical advice, treatment and diagnosis please see your doctor or a licensed medical professional.

My Back Pain Story

I’ve suffered from back pain for most of my adult life.

Pain which often lasted for months.

I couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t walk, couldn’t go to the loo, couldn’t do bloody anything!

I put my dreams on hold a number of times due to back pain.

Pain governed my whole existence.

It was no life.

No meds even touched the pain.

Excruciating, debilitating, paralysing pain.

I tried everything—physiotherapy, osteopathy, massage, acupuncture, yoga, pilates, swimming, meditation, stretching, breathing…

… Sticky patches, tiger balm, TENS machines, back stretchers, hot water bottles, ice packs, Epsom salts, turmeric tablets, magnesium, ginger and all sorts of supplements…

… and CBD oil? I didn’t know about it back then.

And, yes, I slept on my side with a pillow between my legs, or on the recliner or the settee when I couldn’t make it to bed.

Anyway, after a couple of hours, I’d be awake with horrendous back spasms again!

It was time for an MRI.

Categories
Personal Development

(The Truth) Why I Lived in Russia

I’m already checking the comments to this article in my head.

Will you call me sexist?

Will you hate on me?

Good reasons not to post this, right?

So, why am I so compelled to share this story?

I think it has to do with my desire to take a deep dive into human motivation—one of my passions.

The Truth

Now that I committed to sharing the truth with you, hopefully, this will story will help you and me build an even stronger connection.

Back in 2015 Dr. Nina Kruglikova invited me to give a talk at the University of Oxford about how I learned Russian.

I showed a picture with red hearts and the things that inspired me to learn Russian written in each one of those hearts.

I still remember creating the Powerpoint slide at home in London and debating whether I should keep or leave out one particular heart.

I imagined some people in the audience seeing that heart and asking themselves, “Who is this jerk?”

Categories
Personal Development

10 Ways to Stop your Racing Thoughts

1 – Let the river run—do nothing!

Racing thoughts are like a river.

Try to stop it and you’ll be swept away.

Stay on the bank, observe its flow and you are safe from the current.

This is the technique that now works best for me.

But this is easier said than done. I know!

It takes practice but, slowly, you become more and more comfortable with your racing thoughts to the point that you totally ignore them!

Because what you resist persists.

The more you fight your racing thoughts, the more they fight back.

The more you try to get rid of them, the more stubborn they become.

The key to controlling your racing thoughts is letting go of the desire to control them.

Categories
Limiting Beliefs Mindset Psychology Self-awareness

The Unconscious Mind

In this article, you’ll find answers to popular questions about the unconscious mind.

The reason I decided to dive into the unconscious is to get a better understanding of how we can uncover things that shape our behaviour whose presence we are unaware of.

One of the main questions I’m trying to answer on this blog and I’m helping my clients every day with is how to overcome limiting beliefs that stop us from reaching success.

You will find a lot of resources out there on how to change your limiting beliefs but you can change a belief only after you have uncovered it and realised that it’s sabotaging your success. That’s why I preach that self-awareness is probably the most valuable skill to have and the good news it can be developed.

Categories
Limiting Beliefs Mindset Personal Development Self-awareness

Why Positive Affirmations Work and Don’t Work

It’s part of human nature to want to believe that something is absolutely true or absolutely false.

Human beings don’t like uncertainty.

An absolute true or false means we can take action in the right direction with absolute confidence.

And if we’re stuck because we’re uncertain about something, we often find a way to trick ourselves to certainty in order to go ahead and take some action.

That’s not necessarily bad. Belief promotes action which then proves or disproves the initial belief.

You may suffer some losses as a result of your actions, but in the end, there is definitely learning, and learning is always good, no?

Do you believe what I’ve just said?

If you read again, you will see I have my own beliefs. I’ve chosen to believe that learning is good because it promotes experimentation in my life.

I am open to suffering some losses because I believe this is how I’ll ultimately achieve success. But it’s just me and what I’ve chosen to believe.

I’m saying all this because, as you’ll see below, research showed that the efficacy of our affirmations depends on the degree to which we believe them.

For example, no matter how many times and how loud you shout, “I’m a superman”, it will make no difference if you don’t believe this statement deep inside.

I’m talking about positive affirmations— positive statements that you say to yourself to counteract limiting thoughts and uplift yourself.

Before you continue, you may wish to watch a couple of videos first.

In these videos, my friends and experts psychologists, Dr Sophie Henshaw and Bill O’Hanlon share their opinions on positive affirmations with me.