Have you ever thought your chronic pain can only be relieved by taking ever-increasing chronic pain meds? Yeah, me, too. But, in this second of a series of posts on dealing with your life’s pains, I’ll tell you what I found out. If you will apply the P10 Principle to relate with your pain, instead of just using drugs to avoid it, then you can manage your pain with a lot less pain medication, a lot less harmful and/or addictive pain medication, or may be no pain medication at all.
Pain has three components; Suffering from pain ignores them; Relating with pain embraces them.
Each and all of what we call physical, mental, or emotional pain are comprised of each and all three physiological, psychological, and emotional components when it comes to perception of and response to a pain stimulus. The physiology of pain is the signal transmitted from stem to stern and around about through the central nervous system that “something is wrong and we need to do something about it.” The psychology of pain is the interpretation or meaning we give to that pain signal. And that interpretation of pain is created, viewed, and perceived through the often abraded and/or opaqued lenses of our emotions.
Suffering, if one choose’s to allow it, results from ignoring or, worse, denying one or more of the physiological, mental, and emotional components of pain and negatively and reactively responding to one’s pain instead of positively and proactively relating with one’s pain. Relating with both temporary and chronic pain involves understanding all of such pain’s three components and differentiating between the actual pain and the suffering it causes, and focuses on achieving relief from that suffering.
Suffering from pain flows from thoughts such as: “Why is this happening to me?!” “This isn’t fair!” “It’s horrible!” “I can’t stand it!”
Relating with pain flows from thoughts such as: “Why is this happening in me?” “This is a physiologic process.” “I can physically, mentally, and emotionally work with this.” “I CAN handle this!”
Using the P10 Principle can move you from suffering from pain to dealing with it.
Proactively want to reduce your pain using better resources than medications.
Perceive your practically perfect performance of dealing with your pain; your present quite imperfect way of dealing with it; and your life’s precious resources of self, time, effort, energy, emotion, intellect, property, and people that you can use to deal better with it.
Plan how you can use your life’s precious resources to deal affirmatively with your pain as best as you can.
Prepare your resources.
Practice your plan.
Persist by continuously monitoring the quality of both your practice and your results, and improving your planning, preparation, and practice.
Promote your Practically Perfect Performance as much as you feasibly can.
In the next post of this series, I will discuss in more detail how to apply the P10 Principle to specific examples of pain.
In the meantime, Go Out There Today And Be Great! All The Time!