The Power of our Thoughts over the Physical Body
Before I started suffering from chronic pain, I had no idea that our thoughts could actually affect the way we feel in the body.
I thought that thoughts were just thoughts, whereas my body was a separate physical entity, subject to random or genetically-induced conditions and illnesses.
But then I started having some very strange experiences...
One day, which happened to be a low-pain day, having just had a reinvigorating massage the day before, I jumped over a puddle of water, and seconds later, I had this thought creep into my mind:
"What if that was bad for my legs??"
Sure enough, my familiar sciatica and piriformis pain started creeping up again, intensifying until I felt that all the treatments I'd done had been for nothing.
To make matters worse, when I told my aunt what had happened, she 'confirmed' to me that I shouldn't have jumped. That served to strengthen my belief that my legs were too damaged to take any jumping or any sort of strenuous activity.
How my thoughts were shaping my physical reality
As I started to learn about the mindbody connection, I reflected on all the thoughts that had crept into my mind since I'd had chronic pains. Here are some common ones:
“What if I've overdone it and I'll be in pain tomorrow?“
“What if I won't get better?”
“What if my body is breaking down?”
“I hope X or Y activity wasn't too much for my body...”
“I’m so unlucky not to be able to do X or Y again…”
You get the gist of it. Because I'd been taught to fear my body, I was having all sorts of negative thoughts and expectations about how it would or might behave.
And weirdly, they were becoming reality!
It got to a point when I couldn't do ANYTHING without pain. My zone of safety kept shrinking. And I believed that my body was hopeless.
The more cautious I was, and the more treatments I had, the worse it got.
And that's when I knew that I had to change tack.
As I learnt the truth about why chronic symptoms developed, I started to understand that I was contributing to their persistence. The majority of thoughts I was having were reinforcing the idea that my body was prone to pain, and my body was responding accordingly.
Emotional and trauma work on their own wasn’t enough to heal my pain.
Luckily, I eventually learnt that my stressors and emotions had something to do with my chronic symptoms, and I embarked on a mindbody journey based on Dr John Sarno’s TMS concepts. But here’s another thing that I learnt as I started doing this work:
It wasn't enough to resolve my stressors, release trauma, take psychotherapy, and release my emotions.
Emotional work such as journaling, helped immensely, but what was even more important was learning how to challenge and change my thoughts about my body, especially those thoughts that had become so embedded in me that I no longer had to think them out loud.
Nowadays, I get plenty of clients telling me that they believe they have a mindbody issue, while at the same time they're stuck carrying a deeply-ingrained belief that their body somehow cannot be 'normal'.
Think about it: How much do you really 'know' that your body is ok? How strongly do you feel this on a deeper level?
How sure are you that your symptoms are not a true reflection of weakness, illness or damage in the body, but are simply a case of the brain misfiring?
Truth is, it's this deep knowing that needs to be nurtured and developed before one is able to resume all activity pain free. And working with one’s thoughts and expectations is crucial to achieving this.
Watch my YouTube Video about Thoughts and the Body for more detail!
In this recent video, I explain how to work on approaching negative and catastrophic thinking in order to direct your recovery better.
Changing your thoughts isn’t something that you can usually get done in a day, so be patient with yourself. You’ve probably had these thoughts visit you daily for months or years, and if this is the case, that means they have an addictive quality.
But the process starts with awareness that you’re having such thoughts in the first place, and is immensely helped by the firm determination to keep on challenging and redirecting them.
Check out my Pain Recovery Program for a structured process out of pain!
As you might be aware, I offer a comprehensive Online Recovery Program to help guide individuals out of chronic pain or symptoms. The program is based on Dr John Sarno’s concepts related to the mindbody connection, and supplemented with additional techniques, including pain reprocessing and thought redirection techniques.
If you’ve never followed a step by step process for chronic pain, this Program (or something similar) may be something to consider. I personally wouldn’t have been able to break free of my pain if it hadn’t been for a structured Resource I’d found online.
Pain Free Breakthrough
In this program, I take you through 14 lessons, where you’ll learn exactly what is triggering your pain and what to do about it.
The Program is accompanied by a Workbook and downloadable meditations.