What are you imagining? If you are the typical person in pain, you are imagining the pain getting worse, limiting your ability to work, play (you might have already forgot what that is), and enjoy your life. You are imagining having to get that surgery you have been trying to avoid and imagining having the long hard recovery that you heard people have to go through to get better. You are imagining that your health will continue to get worse because of course you’re getting older and that’s what happens.
 
But what if you chose to imagine something different? What if you chose to imagine your pain decreasing and going away? What if you chose to imagine being able to get well without needing surgery? What if you chose to imagine being able to resume a pain free and active life full of joy? What if you chose to then help others imagine the same for them?
 
If Albert Einstein is right (and he usually is), then what you choose to imagine right now, and each moment from now on, is what you are going to experience. So the question is: What do you chose to imagine?

For help imagining a pain free and active life, contact me for a free posture evaluation and consultation and I'll help you understand what you need to do to achieve your goal of living pain free and enjoying peace of mind. 

To truly understand why someone has chronic pain and why they are not enjoying better health, and to help them achieve a pain free active life and enjoy peace of mind, we must understand their psychology along with their physiology. Only addressing someone's physiology and ignoring their psychology is often why people lose 30 pounds only to gain it back 6 months later, or go in and out of episodes of back pain, or have repeated surgeries for chronic pain. 

As humans, there are certain things we need for survival (food, water, shelter) and there are other things we need to thrive and be healthy. One very important thing we all need if we are to maintain good health and be happy is community. 

Community is a unified group of individuals, brought together by common location, history, characteristics, circumstance, interests, or goals. 

Humans are social beings and we need to feel love and connection to other human beings. A community give us support, encouragement, love, and a sense of belonging. This gives us the very important messages that:

• you are not alone
• you belong
• things will get better

I have written many articles about how what you think and what you believe and your mindset will determine whether you become pain free or not. ​

I wrote the now famous article "The 3 things you must do to be pain free for life" in 2004 and the first of the 3 things you must change is: your mind or mindset. This starts with moving away from the "what's wrong with me?" questions to "what's my body trying to tell me?" Moving beyond thinking "my back hurts because I have a herniated disc" to thinking about "why did the disc herniate?" ​

Having a tough week? Stressed out? Feeling overwhelmed? Dr. Mike Evans has some easy things you can do to feel better, calm down, and get through a crappy week. 

One more thing I would add to this list is doing your Egoscue Postural Alignment Therapy menu from Oregon Exercise Therapy. 

Related videos/articles:
Low back pain video by Dr. Mike Evans
Why sitting is bad for you
Could a simple misunderstanding really cause all my pain?
​Doctor's miracle drug: the exercise cure

What do you believe?

“Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” H. Jackson Browne

“Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death.” James F. Bymes

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” Louisa May Alcott

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” Marcus Aurelius

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson

“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive — the risk to be alive and express what we really are.” Don Miguel Ruiz

"Fear appears in layers and is removed with LOVE not soap." Pete Egoscue

“Fear grows in darkness; if you think there’s a bogeyman around, turn on the light.” Dorothy Thompson

"Fear is excitement hidden by negative beliefs." Matt Whitehead

"We only fear what we don't understand." Unknown

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“One of the first things a relationship therapist learns is that couples argue to burn up energy that could be used for something else. In fact, arguments often serve the purpose of using up energy, so that the couple do not have to take the courageous, creative leap into an unknown they fear. Arguing serves the function of being a zone of familiarity into which you can retreat when you are afraid of making a creative breakthrough.” Gay Hendricks

“You will fear the darkness only to the extent that you yourself are not providing light.” Marianne Williamson

"An unbalanced body fears motion." Matt Whitehead

"Suffering is optional, you have the power to choose between sickness and health, hope and fear." Pete Egoscue

If you did not read my post about creating a new definition of fear, read it here.

Science has shown us that what we believe and think from moment to moment and year after year have a profound influence on our lives and health. Studies have shown that the placebo effect is real, that thinking positively improves outcomes and broadens our mindsets allowing new possibilities, and that the nocebo effect and negative emotions have the opposite effect. 

Lets look at how this might play out in someone – let’s call her Sally – who has chronic pain.

Sally has back pain that is slowly getting worse year after year. She has been to her doctor who never had a good explanation for the pain and only treatment plan was pain medication. Over the last couple months the pain has become unbearable and during a consultation with a new doctor, a battery of tests shows moderate stenosis, degenerative disc disease and arthritis in the lower back – all findings never mentioned before. 

Negative emotional response: Sally could react with anger towards their previous doctor for never ordering the tests that would show these changes were happening and never figuring out what was causing the pain. Sally could also react with fear about being diagnosed with “scary” things like stenosis and a “disease”. Sally might also feel sadness and grief related the idea that this diagnosis will lead to disability and an end to the activities that have also brought her joy – golf, hiking, gardening. 

These emotions are known to fuel other anxiety disorders and chronic stress that in turn create more negative feelings. And these emotions and feelings are linked to immunosuppression, loss of productivity, heart disease, cancer and even suicide. We also know these negative emotions can cause Sally to narrow her mind and focus her thought on one idea which can lead to paralyzation. Sally’s mind and body are in survival mode. To Sally the world is flat, people are inherently bad, the odds are stacked against her, and her future looks hopeless. 

Positive emotional response: Sally could react with interest, contentment, and even joy toward the medical diagnosis. How and why? Let’s take a look. Interest is related to curiosity, wonder, and intrinsic motivation which means Sally wants to investigate and explore these new findings with an openness to new ideas, experiences, and actions. This intrinsic exploration has been shown to produce the ability to integrate and differentiate complex relationships and is the primary instigator of personal growth, creative endeavor and development of intelligence. 

Contentment basically means accepting what is and not fighting with reality. To Sally this means being ok with the diagnosis and savoring every moment and day regardless of the diagnosis. Contentment involves full awareness of and openness to each and every experience as it happens and can create a new sense of self and worldview. 

Joy might seem like the last emotion likely to be experienced by Sally in this situation but let’s explore it anyway. Sally might feel joy in response to the diagnosis because now she finally has an explanation for the pain after not knowing for years. Joy creates the urge to play, which is imaginative, unscripted, artistic, intellectual and inventive. Play is looking at what some might call an obstacle as an opportunity.

These positive emotions – joy, interest, and contentment – together create what’s called the broaden-and-build model. They broaden our mind and thoughts, build our intellectual, physical, and social resources and are the most enduring of emotional states. To Sally the world is round, people are inherently good, the odds are stacked in her favor, and the solution is waiting for her.

What set of emotions do you think will create the greatest possibility of Sally finding a solution to her chronic pain while at the same time giving her the perseverance, energy, and outlook necessary to overcome? 

Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1693418/pdf/15347528.pdf
http://www.rickhanson.net/wp-content/files/papers/CultPosEmot.pdf