Wow, this is my favorite photo of last year– and I have been waiting for the right topic to use it. Do you love and hate change? Opportunity knocks and we are terrified or exhilarated, like these baby ducks on leaving the nest.
My dog waits patiently in her little round bed until I get up, wether that is at 6:30 or at 10am, so that she can get petted and sung to. It seems to me that all of us– our bodies and minds– love routine. And we feel threatened, bereft and lost when we loose the familiar.
At the same time we hunger for newness and excitement and change.
I don’t know who said this, but: the bad news is everything changes and the good news everything changes. Living with chronic pain it is easy to be afraid of change. Once we have found a routine that makes our days bearable and keeps our pain at bay, finding out we have to adjust to something new can mean a profound loss. For example a favorite Zumba or Yoga teacher leaves and the new person’s style just does not fit us (or just the class time changes and we cannot go anymore). Or there is a re-organization at work that forces us to work longer hours, or in a different way– leading to more stress and pain.
On the positive side, change can offer all kinds of new possibility and even hope.
Tools for seeing patterns
When we are down in the dumps, are blue, have depression or pain, it is so much more difficult to believe that change is possible. It is easy to just remember that we have been in pain for too long, but not that we had pain-free days or hours not long ago- that point to the possibility of future times of being pain free and able to re-engage with activities we enjoy.
That’s why it is sometimes good to keep a pain diary, so we have proof that things have been and can be better. This can also show us the patterns when we are doing better, that are often impossible to see otherwise. Are you feeling better each time you have an intellectual challenge, or after you do a favor for your neighbor, or the day you bring home flowers? I am not one for filling out forms myself, but I think I missed out on detecting some patterns, that could have really been helpful. (Such as noticing that staying in bed too long gives me more pain). Here are a number of tools at the American Chronic Pain Association website.
The brain changes
Finally– there is a lot of potential for impacting chronic pain through changes in the brain. Newest findings show us that we can rewire the brain through new experiences. So let’s wire it toward ease, and comfort, and joy and away from pain. Check out mindfulness and my top picks in books. I will continue to research and write on this topic, which gives me a lot of hope. Meditation and mindfulness, in any of their forms appear to be able to make a difference. I try to write about these topics in ways that make them accessible for you, no matter your ability or experience. Meditation and mindfulness also offer resources when things change to the worse, helping us deal with stress, anxiety and helping us become more resilient to the chaos change brings. Please explore the many resources I share on this site.
Picture credit naturen-ar-fantastisk.blogspot.com.There are more wonderful duck and other pictures at this site.