Techniques for chronic pain don’t work. OK, to be precise, only one works—the one that I call “the subtle art of not giving a f*** about pain”.
Question: I’m using this technique for chronic pain that I found in a famous book but it’s not working for me.
How do I train my brain to do all these things that I could do before? I can’t walk, sit down, stand in one place, have sex. You see my predicament—I’m very limited!
What’s the deal here? How do I make this work for me? Am I just not getting the hang of it or am I missing something?
Table of Contents
Reframe your Situation
You may feel you’re in an unpleasant, difficult and embarrassing situation by not being able to do the things you mentioned above.
I’m wondering… what if you reframed your situation and used different words to describe it?
For example, what you’re experiencing is some temporary sensations and thoughts due to some emotions you’re currently exploring and working through.
And this is not a lie. I’m not even sugar-coating it. You know how the pain works and you’re working through your emotions and beliefs.
Because this may be an embarrassing and frustrating situation to be in, you want to accelerate your progress, you’re anxious to figure out all the solutions—yesterday if possible!
However, the ardent desire to get rid of all these sensations and thoughts and perhaps go a little faster could be exactly what is blocking your progress.
You find it embarrassing—and you think others do, too—“to be so limited”.
Asking “what am I missing”, “what’s the deal here?”—only shows an anxious brain trying to escape from what you perceive to be unpleasant, embarrassing or unacceptable.
The only thing you’re missing is that you’re not missing anything.
What if you said to yourself, “OK, I understand this is a tough situiation to be in but I know how Tension Myositis Syndrome works. Being anxious to find a magic technique may just fuel the pain”
I can give you hundreds of exercises to work on but I decide not to on purpose—because my intuition says you will look at these exercises as more magic tricks or hacks.
The hack right now for you, in my opinion, is just to reframe your situation, remove any judgemental feelings and not look for any hacks.
Another Powerful but Useless Technique!
The problem with techniques and brain hacks is the expectation we place on them.
If you’re invested in a particular technique and it doesn’t work, it creates frustration, which in turn creates more anxiety, desperation, more fear.
In the past, I used to be obsessed with techniques, “Oh here’s a new technique, this one sounds really powerful, not like all the other ones I tried before. Let me try it! Mmmmm… I think I feel better already … or maybe not? Damn it! The pain is still here… This is not a good technique. It’s not working for me”.
Do Nothing Instead
Looking for a magic technique shows how fearful we are of the pain.
The fear is the root of the pain.
How do you tackle this fear?
By doing nothing.
By saying, “F*** it, I’m not trying any technique to control you today. You can stick around for the whole day. I’m done with you. I give up. I’m going to enjoy my life now. Ciao!” lol
To stop thinking about pain, do something that brings you to life.
You’ll never know the exact moment when you will be pain-free.
Because you decided to forget it. It’s not like you tried an exercise and straight away you felt better.
My experience of going pain-free was letting go of any effort to control the pain.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** about Pain
Don’t try to win a war against pain.
What if you saw it like this: “What am I winning here? Not sure what you’re talking about. Sorry, I don’t feel like fighting today because I’m busy with my life and I’ve got some amazing stuff to do”.
This is real letting go.
And the pain goes like, “WTF she completely dumped me, she didn’t even show up to fight. She just doesn’t give a s***!”
And the pain disappears.
Bear in mind that you’ll often come out of this “not-giving-a-f*** mindset” and try to control your pain again with different exercises or tricks.
When this happens, acknowledge it, don’t beat yourself up, and then go back to your “subtle art of not giving a f***” mindset.
P.S. Subscribe to receive my tips for chronic pain relief straight to your inbox.