You Can’t Stop The Weather — But You Can Learn To Adjust Your Sails
One of the most disheartening parts of dealing with a chronic illness is experiencing a terrible flare after all the “correct” measures to manage your symptoms.
You may continue to blame yourself whenever your pain returns, even after engaging with health coaches and pain psychologists for extended periods, reading a plethora of books, and cultivating a robust mindfulness practice.
Your mind may be wrecked by these continual thinking cycles. Like a game of chess, it might seem hopeless at times. Realizing this and letting go of the guilt and self-blame can help you recover from this mindset.
Feeling “at blame” for your terrible suffering adds gasoline to the flames of frustration, shame, overthinking, and humiliation. Deceptively useful mental armament that is not what it seems.
Feeling bad about yourself and wasting energy judging yourself for what you may or might not have done to trigger a flare is a vicious cycle after all the work you’ve put into reducing symptoms that are out of your control.
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Practicing Self-Compassion When I’m In Pain
Nearly every time you catch yourself engaging in the “no-win, self-blame game,” practicing self-compassion will help you break free.
For others, the idea of practicing self-compassion as a means of overcoming intense pain seems like an attempt to downplay the severity of their suffering rather than an effective strategy for managing their symptoms. It was too “woo-woo” or “fluffy,” and you might fight against the suggestion that being gentler with yourself might alleviate your suffering.
Although practicing self-compassion may not alleviate suffering or resolve all of your issues, you’ll discover that it does help to soften their edges.
Within the context of severe chronic pain, practicing self-compassion may help you let go of the