Flipping Your Pain Upside Down
Ask anyone who is in the world of illness and they'll tell you the truth: it isn't easy.
I have been challenged with Central Pain Syndrome and quite frankly, it’s flipping my world upside down. It's teaching me how to listen without prejudging, share without expectations and love without concern for my own comfort.
I do believe there are some clear things that we have personal control over; our thoughts, our attitudes and our actions. But thinking we have control over our life circumstances? Hah. The last two years has taught me that over and over. All of the constant pain, finding treatments, experimenting with medications and nutrition, the in between, the long (I mean decades long) process, the unknowns and the ups and downs. What a whirlwind.
And in spite of every curve ball that life and CPS have thrown at me, focusing on what I do have control over has given me so much freedom. Learning regardless of the circumstances that my thoughts, attitudes and actions have the biggest bearing on my experience with Central Pain Syndrome has probably been the closest thing to a “cure” I have ever found.
A bad attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sometimes embracing your life just the way it is can free you up to make it what it’s meant to be. Wishful thinking can take up too much mental real estate and blind you to the reality you could create by intentional change.
When we are waiting for relief it often seems like the wait will never end. But we need to stay focused on what else we will have gained by the time relief comes. Your attitude can be your best asset or your worst companion.
Ask anyone who is in the world of illness and they'll tell you the truth: it isn't easy. But for those who let it become the broken up soil for planting a garden, it's so worth it.
Questions or comments? Join the CPS patient conversation at our closed Facebook group or email us at info@cps.foundation