Rest And Recovery Means More Than Sleep
As chronic pain patients, we need extra sleep, often more than the average person, but so often “painsomnia” is what we get instead of sleep. This lack of ability to recover from a deep nights sleep only feeds further into the cycle of pain we are in and can often make us even worse. However, I’m going to set the sleep topic when it comes to resting and recovering aside for a moment and talk about an aspect most folks don’t think about when it comes to deep recovery.
“To thine own self be true” - it can be so important to know yourself and learn more about what makes you tick. Personally I have done tons of work to learn about my personality and the way I think and process the world around me. I have come to realize that I’m the kind of person who is most energized by helping other people, often to my own detriment.
I’m sure you can immediately think of those few people you know in your world, the people who you have to tell, “please, for the love of all things holy, GO ON A VACATION BY YOURSELF.” Natural helpers like me tend to completely set aside, forget or blatantly ignore our own needs, and you’ll almost never hear us voice them. Very concerned for everyone else’s needs around us, we can tend to overdo it and push ourselves too far or spread ourselves too thin without realizing how.
Of course, there are many other personality styles out there and I’m not just trying to speak to the helpers out there. Empathizers, for example, have a hard time because they feel everyone’s climate around them and can often have a hard time calibrating their own true feelings with just themselves. Every personality style has a way in which they can “overdo”.
So I just want to encourage you to take a step back. Assess why you are doing what you are doing. What is your motive? Does this thing absolutely require YOU to be the one doing it? How can you also take care of YOUR needs? It’s funny, because so many of us as chronic pain patients also feel like we’re taking over other people’s lives with our needs. It’s important to learn that our needs are not a burden and we can all help each other.
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