I strive to keep my ego in check and make decisions based on my actual, not perceived, needs as filtered through recovery, not through my desires based on a distorted perspective of a self-image. I do not allow my ego to control all aspects of my life today.
LISTENING WITHIN
MENTAL BALANCE
“Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you.”
St. Bartholomew
As I wake up in the morning, stretching my painfully stiff limbs, my mind starts to race. I hear others in the household or neighbors perhaps, getting ready for their days as I get up and get ready for mine. I know I dreamt last night, but the memories of my dreams are already slipping away as my head starts to clamor with plans for the day. Before I know it, I’m up and about and into my day, and I’ve forgotten to take the time to make contact with my higher power to ask for strength and guidance and hope.
Today, I must ask for help with my recovery, both from addiction and from my chronic pain. I must remember to ask for the help I need in the morning, if I want it throughout the day. And when the loving answer comes, I want it to find me listening.
I take the time to focus my thoughts, to hear and listen to the spirit inside me. That spirit is filled with joy, which today I take time to notice and appreciate, whereas in the past I have taken joy for granted. Joy comes when I focus my thoughts on the body-mind-spirit connection.
GRATITUDE
EMOTIONAL BALANCE
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Not only has my pain negatively influenced all aspects of my life, such as my thoughts, feelings, emotions, daily habits and rituals, and even my connection to my higher power; it also has detrimental effects on my attitude. Every day, I wake up and my first thought is of my pain, wondering how it might influence the rest of my day. I go to bed at night, again thinking of my pain, and how it hindered me that day. Gratitude gets lost in the midst of thoughts such as these.
Rather than dwelling on the negative, today I search for the positive. I now wake up each day feeling blessed to be alive. My pain reminds me each day that I am living, and from the moment I realize that, I choose to live each day to the fullest, simply doing the best I can. I take time to become more in tune with my spirit, my thoughts, and my emotions. I embrace them each day for I know I am alive and my higher power has a plan for me.
Gratitude is everything. I know I cannot control the situations that created my chronic pain, but I can control how I live each day. I take control of my life and no longer let my pain control me. I am grateful to be alive, even with my pain, just for right now.
MOVEMENT TOWARD SPIRITU AL CONNECTION
SPIRITUAL BALANCE
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
Louisa May Alcott
In my active addiction, I had been in fear of making my pain worse, so I would make every attempt to move as little as possible. Early in my pain recovery, I was unaware of what would alleviate my pain and what would exacerbate it. Just thinking about getting out of bed or walking to the mailbox would cause my body to tense up in fear of the pain that was to come. While it’s true that simple acts such as these may make my pain momentarily worse, going into them full of tension and fear only makes the pain that much more difficult to bear.
I have learned in recovery to work on improving my inner strength and my spiritual balance to help alleviate these fears. Movement is not my enemy, and I do not need to walk through my pain with any fear. I have a relationship with a higher power that takes each new step with me—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Each day, each step, each new movement brings me new knowledge of the best ways to manage and live with my pain. As long as I am actively seeking this knowledge, I do not have any reason to fear movement.
I move about freely to the best of my ability. I embrace movement as my friend, and with each move I make in the physical world, I’m increasing my inner strength to handle a life with chronic pain.
SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES
RELATIONSHIPS
“. . . becoming aware of the wishes, feelings, and needs of others, and taking the needs of others into consideration . . .”
Adapted from Pain Recovery: How to Find Balance and Reduce Suffering from Chronic Pain
A solution-oriented strategy to deal with my chronic pain is to develop a habit of thinking and acting that is consistent with the Serenity Prayer’s guidance to “accept the things I cannot change,” and that includes “the wishes, feelings, and needs of others.”
Paradoxically, surrendering to the things I cannot control or change is necessary to reestablish the ability to choose how I want to act and what kind of life I want to have in recovery. One of the most important skills necessary to pain recovery is learning how to cope effectively with the often small, but irritating normal and natural frustrations of life.
I am aware of the small, normal, frustrating aspects of life, knowing that a spiritual awakening depends on my making a habit of dealing with daily small struggles—including the wishes, feelings, and needs of others—in ways that are consistent with the tools and principles I’m learning in recovery.
ACCEPTING FEELINGS
EMOTIONAL BALANCE
“Accepting your feelings takes less energy than trying to deny or suppress them. Also, accepting your feelings sometimes helps prevent them from recurring over and over and enables you to change them. Finally, fully accepting your feelings allows you to shift your energy to productive thoughts or actions.”
Pain Recovery: How to Find Balance and Reduce Suffering from Chronic Pain
When I have emotional balance, I am free to feel my full emotional experience, recognizing that all my feelings are part of me. I don’t avoid any of my feelings when I stay focused on being present in my body. I accept my emotions without labeling them good or bad, healthy or unhealthy.
Understanding that feelings are neither good nor bad (not judging my feelings), seeing that simply experiencing emotions does not hurt me, I know that feeling my emotions results in physical healing. By avoiding my feelings I know I will have ongoing suffering. Balanced thoughts and actions create balanced emotions.
Accepting my emotions, my feelings, frees me from my physical pain. My physical actions and habits lead to physical balance,