{"id":853,"date":"2021-09-14T10:04:51","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T09:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unityphysio.ebc-designs.com\/?p=853"},"modified":"2023-06-23T11:56:35","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T10:56:35","slug":"meaning-purpose-values-in-recovery-from-suffering-with-pain-to-living-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unityphysio.co.uk\/meaning-purpose-values-in-recovery-from-suffering-with-pain-to-living-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Meaning, Purpose & Values in Recovery From Suffering With Pain to Living Well"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is Recovery From Suffering With Pain to Living Well<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am referring to recovery from suffering with pain to living well in this blog as being able to live a values aligned life that\u2019s full of meaning, with pain being in the background.\u00a0 Let\u2019s get the clouds cleared and say now that pain can and does change, it even fully goes for some people though this is a low percentage of people.<\/p>\n

Very little in life is linear, recovery from suffering with pain to living well with pain certainly isn\u2019t linear, it can look pretty messy.\u00a0 If you tried to draw pain recovery it would most likely look like a child\u2019s scribble. \u00a0Just as children learn through scribbling how to draw we can also learn through suffering with pain how to live well again. \u00a0There can be small ups and downs, big dips, sometimes steep rises and lots of back and forth moves. \u00a0Life in general is messy, it\u2019s often not plain sailing and it can be helpful to recognize the resilience we have built in the tricky waters.\u00a0 We have things that help as we sail including our crew, a lighthouse, a map of our favourite destinations, a compass, understanding the weather and the current changes, and of course an anchor (or a few different anchors).\u00a0 Want to know what a compass, lighthouse and a crew have to do with recovery from persistent pain?\u00a0 Keep reading\u2026<\/p>\n

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What Has a Crew, a Map, a C<\/strong>ompass, an Anchor & a Lighthouse Got to Do With Recovery From Suffering With Pain & Living Well?
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\nAll of these things work together, so for example when a rest is helpful if the water is not still enough to rest safely we can drop anchor to add some safety.\u00a0 An example in life could be when things are busy, we have a lot to do and are feeling stressed, it\u2019s is likely that if we simply sit to rest our minds will carry on and our fight-flight system doesn\u2019t get chance to down regulate.\u00a0 One thing we can do is sit and focus on our breathing and do a breath practice like soothing rhythm breathing (used in compassionate mind training), or we can practice a meditation or another grounding practice.\u00a0 Anchoring our mind in our bodies, staying fully connected to the present moment and restoring some balance in the autonomic nervous system are all important and help us live well with pain and can help change it too.<\/p>\n

Our crew are important, one really important crew member is our compassionate self, I see the compassionate self as the chief officer.\u00a0 The chief officer shares compassion with the captain and all the crew and also extends this further afield to passing boats, helping everyone to navigate the tricky water.\u00a0 We all have a critical voice, it\u2019s part of being human, and when we are suffering with pain this voice commonly gets quite loud.\u00a0 When we have a flare-up guess what the self-critical voice often gets even louder alongside more threat based feelings & emotions like guilt, frustration, anxiety and shame.\u00a0 These all ramp up the pain volume, it\u2019s one of the common vicious circles in pain. \u00a0Self-compassion has been shown to help decrease self-criticism and modulate threat based feelings & emotions. \u00a0Self-compassion is also a more sustainable place to motivate ourselves from than self-criticism, it doesn\u2019t have the drawbacks that self-critical motivation has.\u00a0 Compassion is also important because it\u2019s been shown to help decrease stress, increase resilience and generally be helpful for our wellbeing. \u00a0Gilbert et al (2017) showed that self-compassion and self-reassurance overlap and that self-compassion mediates the link between self-reassurance and wellbeing.<\/p>\n

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Other crew members could be family and friends, maybe a pain specialist clinician, and things like exercise\/movement and sleep.\u00a0 Sometimes some of the people in our crew need teaching about pain as there are lots of myths and misconceptions around pain.\u00a0 Everyone having an up to date evidenced based understanding of pain and how this relates to you is important.\u00a0 Understanding pain could be seen as a crew member too. \u00a0All the crew members work together to nurture our health and wellbeing, all are important, some of the most important could be said to be: regular exercise\/movement, sleep, good nutrition, connection and compassion.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a link to the exercise and pain blog I wrote about exercising with persistent pain\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/www.unityphysio.co.uk\/exercising-with-persistent-pain\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Apart from nutrition different aspects that nurture our wellbeing (our crew) are all also discussed in detail in my book, Dancing Through Life: A Guide to Living Well. \u00a0The PACE\u2019s & SIM\u2019s, the key concepts in my book, could be a useful summary of the crew so I have included the PACE\u2019s & SIM\u2019s summary diagram from the book here.<\/p>\n

\"Compassionate<\/p>\n

A little note on exercise, some people prefer to relate to this as movement as they have unhelpful associations with exercise & it\u2019s linked to threat for them (I cover this in my book).\u00a0 Exercise is important for many reasons including that it helps enable us to do what\u2019s most important (along with other crew members like sleep, nutrition and self-compassion).\u00a0 Engaging in meaningful activities can in themselves be the exercise\/movement, like in my second example in the meaningful activities & flare-up sections below.<\/p>\n

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The places we like to visit (things that bring things like joy), our compass and lighthouse help us navigate all the different changes in weathers and currents.\u00a0 The places we like to visit are what\u2019s meaningful to us in life and our compass is our values, our direction of travel (values as a compass metaphor \u2013 Hayes et al., 1999). \u00a0The lighthouse helps us connect to our purpose, what feels like home and is also meaningful, even when we are feeling lost at sea it glimmers in the distance. \u00a0Some people find it tricky to relate to purpose, if that\u2019s you that\u2019s ok, think of it like the deep why\u2019s behind what you do and see if that helps.\u00a0 Meaningful activities are commonly stopped when people are suffering with pain, reasons include fear of making things worse and\/or not feeling able to do things. \u00a0The flip side of this is that by stripping life of meaningful activities this in itself turns up the pain volume as does the fact that we lose fitness and tolerance for different activities.\u00a0 Meaningful activities also release feel good chemicals that nurture our wellbeing and may modulate pain in some instances, so there\u2019s added benefit.<\/p>\n

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Meaningful Activities and Flare-Ups<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes the word set-back is used instead of flare-ups, sometimes increased pain volume, or other terms, you can use which ever term you most relate to. \u00a0Some things when living with pain are worth a flare-up and some just aren\u2019t!\u00a0 Usually things that are meaningful and connected to our values are worth the pain volume being a little louder and we can plan to focus more on things like rest and relaxation for a few days after.\u00a0 I usually ask people if the benefits of doing something outweigh the consequences as a way of helping their understanding, and mine, around their meaningful activities and being able to engage in them.\u00a0 Sometimes the answer is no, this is usually when the value associated with the activity isn\u2019t one of the core ones, or when pain is a strong leader, or flare-up management strategies are lacking.\u00a0 Sometimes we need to consider specifically how a meaningful activity is done to make it possible too.<\/p>\n

As well as having specialised in pain I live well with it too.\u00a0 Here are two real life examples of meaning and values in action as part of living well with pain.\u00a0 Recently I went to see my youngest niece on her birthday, within the new covid rules of meeting outside, she had received a trampoline for her birthday.\u00a0 I noticed I wanted to have a go and I also noticed a memory of the significant pain flare-up from a very brief play on a bouncy castle at her party three years before.\u00a0 So, there were some contextual similarities (my nieces birthday party, something bouncy (even though a trampoline\u2019s different to a bouncy castle).\u00a0 I knew that I was ok to do it, that I was safe (hurt doesn\u2019t necessarily equal harm), my body and mind were calm, and so I connected to having fun and choosing to play.\u00a0 What else helped, I also knew that I could rest and pace things differently over the next few days if it was needed.\u00a0 What happened?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t bounce that long and had great fun (ok technically I had another go later!) and as it happened things didn\u2019t flare up either so my systems are either less sensitive than they once were or it was because a trampoline is different to a bouncy castle, I suspect it\u2019s both!\u00a0 This was meaningful to me as I value time outdoors, play, and time with family.\u00a0 Would I have been fine with choosing not to have a go?\u00a0 Yes as two other values were still present and it was a meaningful event, yet I wouldn\u2019t have known if it was possible and I would not have and the joy and energy from bouncing on the trampoline.<\/p>\n

Following on from bouncing on the trampoline three days later I went for a walk with my sister, niece & nephew.\u00a0 The children were on bikes so there was lots of running alongside the bikes!\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t planned this and noticed a couple of thoughts relating to pain & fatigue, I unhooked from these thoughts and went with it, knowing I could have two days where I could adjust how I paced activities and incorporate more rest if needed. \u00a0Ordinarily I would have paced running, however when young children are on bikes this wasn\u2019t an option and I chose not to stay attached to this meaning doing more running than I have tolerance for! \u00a0It was great fun & brought much joy.\u00a0 This again was a very meaningful activity that I made a mindful choice about engaging with.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t something I do regularly, the exercise I do regularly & other practices helped me to be able to do this.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t bothered if things did flare as the activity was absolutely worth it and I knew I could find a way through any flare-up.\u00a0 I have many more examples from myself and patients where some activities have increased pain volume for a little while and some that haven\u2019t, as this blog is already pretty long let\u2019s go to the summary.<\/p>\n

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Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n