People think that chronic pain is something which cannot be fixed, only alleviated.
The good news is that pain is not stuck with you for the rest of your life; it can be not only alleviated, but fixed.
When you are alleviating your symptoms, all you’re doing is changing an existent, variable system.
To completely fix the pain you have, you have to get to the root cause of the problem.
How To Fix Your Pain
The root of your pain can be anything—muscle tissue, a movement pattern, or a habit that you’ve been doing for a long time. Yet sometimes the biggest cause can be a psychosomatic one.
Related: 7 Surprising Causes Of Back Pain
People hear the word ‘psychosomatic’ and think that the condition is all in your head and it will go away with time.
The condition can be very real, and your head is trying to rearrange the things you do now to defend against things you did in the past.
Many people think of big traumas as being the cause, like abuse or a tragic car accident, but it could be as small as falling off a bike, getting your hip hurt, and being laughed at by others when you were a child.
Your brain is designed to protect itself and you just have to give it a compelling reason to heal itself.
Related: 3 Reasons To Exercise Your Brain
1. Changing habits
Once you find the cause, you have to start changing the habits you made that created this chronic pain problem in the first place.
You can’t get rid of habits, but you can override them with better ones. The first step is to stop the things you were doing which were putting you in that position of pain. Then replace the protective habit loops with healing habit loops.
2. Staying present
You have to get your body to realize that you are no longer in the past, but in the present.
This is where staying mindful becomes important. Once you do this along with the new habits that you are creating, your body pain will start to diminish. This is because your body has developed a mechanism for defending itself all this time, and when you stay present, you are helping your body open up its defenses.
3. Release emotional blocks
For psychosomatic pain especially, removing any emotional blockages will help with removing the physical blockages within your body as well.
You have to get yourself to do the rehab as well to get yourself clean. The body can finally heal once the brain determines there are no threats. Moreover, this all can be done at your pace and is mostly based on how much you really want to fix the root of the problem.
Related: 5 Reasons Why Your Emotional Intelligence Matters More Than Your IQ
For example, I once had an ankle issue. Upon reflection, I remembered I had watched a movie called Higher Learning. In one of the scenes, Omar Epps rolls his ankle and places his foot right on top of his ankle. I realized that I had picked up that habit because I thought Omar Epps was cool. That was the psychosomatic cause that was causing me pain in my ankle!
I eliminated that by not only changing my habit, but by mentally reassuring myself that rolling my ankle is most definitely not cool.
The Takeaway
Replace old habits by first discontinuing the habits that create chronic pain and then by replacing them with stronger ones that encourage healing. Staying in the present will allow your body to heal emotionally and physically. Releasing the emotional blockages you have will help pave the way for your body to heal itself because it no longer has to protect itself.
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Patrick Lerouge is a restorative specialist that gets people out of pain for the long term. Patrick’s unique ability to isolate the core problem in a patient situation has been honed over 13 years of practice. In 2006, Patrick established his own practice, Evolve Restorative Therapy, which teaches people how to live easier pain-free lives, physically, mental, and emotionally while restoring the human body to a younger, more vibrant person.
Photo by elkora995