Find Joy in your Journey
As a therapist, I encourage my patients to find joy in their healing journey. Do not wait until you reach a certain benchmark to feel accomplished, or to feel good about your progress! PAUSE for self-praise along the way!
It has been documented that a "pain diary" is counter-productive and reinforces the pain circuits in the brain. (Ferrari, 2013).
Instead of paying attention to pain, practice “Self-talk” or “Affirmations.” We all have a dialogue going on in our heads throughout the day. Try to only allow positive self talk. Affirmations help us to challenge and defeat self-sabotaging thoughts.
Learning to think differently is part of how we learn to get rid of the pain pathways and replace them with new circuitry. Affirmations can help us stop bad habits and pain is a kind of habit that we need to break, in a neurologic sense.
I want to share a personal story that gave me a good dose of perspective! It was a lesson from my 9 year old son.
Since he was about 4 years old he has always jumped towards this particular branch as a fun little challenge. He was a foot or two away from reaching when he started, but over the years as he got taller, he was closer to reaching his branch. “OH MOM” “look how close I got this time” He would request my attention to his attempts….every time.
Fast forward 5 years to this Fall. He finally reached the goal he had been anticipating. “MOM, I reached the branch!” He was completely shocked by his revelation. His joy immediately turned to disappointment, “Awwww, I don’t feel as accomplished as I thought I would. It didn’t make me as happy as I expected.”
His realization resonated with me in a BIG way because I feel as a Mom I am constantly setting benchmarks that I feel will make life easier, or better, or make me more happy.
It was a good teaching moment for not only him, but for me! I could definitely benefit from pausing more to realize the JOY in the journey, and pause more to offer self praise and positive self talk for my progress along the way.
