What is pain doing to me?!?

Pain, when at its strength, will isolate a person.  It creates a chasm of separation between the sufferer and their loved ones; it also drives a wedge between the sufferer and his/her hobbies, activities that bring pleasure, and things that bring purpose.  The greatest pain a person can experience deals with the attachment centre of the brain (citation: Ed Khouri, THRIVE Recovery).

Pain is destructive and can deteriorate one's mind, will, emotions, spirit, and body.  Pain is also effective at undermining a person's life capacity and potential.

Pain Compounds Itself

Pain grows on pain.  If you have had the opportunity to speak or live with someone in chronic, medical pain, you will know that pain corrupts your loved one's life.  Pain will lead the afflicted into isolation, damaged relationships, and potentially the removal of his/her meaning & significance.  The pain-sufferer, can easily be riddled with depression, anxiety, uncertainty, and feelings of hopelessness.

Is there a cure for pain?  Not particularly.  There are, however, some treatments: medication, talk therapy, hypnotism, miraculous occurrences, and a compensating increase in joy through loving and stable relationships.

I have been told, by many medical professionals, that Western medicine is a literal response to the problem of pain. Medications is the main 'treatment' for pain.  If it hurts, they will prescribe medication (and in many cases medication is required).

Why talk about pain if it is so bleak?

I get to meet people who have survived lives of horror, terror, and pain.  Their stories are FULL of pain.  Their memories and losses are lived day in and day out.  In fact, one might say, that such people's lives are so riddled with pain that pain is the survivor's full-time job!  The survivor's spare time is consumed with: the avoidance of pain, the medicating of pain, and the search for help, meaning, and hope.

This topic feels overwhelming, what could I do?

I get this question a lot: "What can I do with this overwhelming picture of pain?"

Get talking!  Through talking with a medical professional, through counsel, through spiritual coaching, and through talk therapy, you can identify your "saving joy".  The brain is designed to increase in joy capacity as an internal repair for pain and as a measure of strength.  If your joy level is higher than your pain level, you can repair.  If your joy level is lower than your pain level, you are experiencing trauma (citation from "Restarting" program: http://www.joystartshere.com/joy-starts-here-groups/).

Here is the other thing that talking will do: talking BREAKS isolation and stimulates left to right brain communication.  This left-to-right brain communication will build your capacity to resolve the pain you are experiencing or the pain of watching someone in pain.  Talking creates an opportunity for healing for the brain and for the heart.

Joy can trump pain!

Do you want to help someone you know in chronic pain?  Enter your joy, and invite them to join you in an activity, a memory, or a space where joy grows.

To learn more about building Joy after pain or trauma, send me a note and ask about an upcoming Joy seminar.

5 Things Never to Say to a Sexual Abuse Survivor

This is a short blog, inspired by things people regularly say to Sexual Abuse Survivors that are simply unhelpful and sometimes utterly harmful.

Things to never say to a Sexual Abuse Survivor:

1. Wasn't that a long time ago? 
2. Can't you just move on?  I mean, why aren't you over it yet?
3. There was this one person in WWII who was able to forgive… (then they pause long enough for the survivor to realize that their wounds are being measured against someone else's, even though the two stories have no direct connection and pain cannot be compared)…
4. I was raped and I got over it (glad to hear it, but that is completely irrelevant to someone else's story).
5. In the Bible we are told to forgive and forget (actually, forgiveness is a method of healing the survivor…but we are not able nor capable of forgetting without dissociating).

Things you can say to a Sexual Abuse Survivor:

1. I am here.
2. I am listening.
3. What would be helpful for you right now?
4. I don't know how to respond, but I am willing to learn.  I'm going to get some information so I can better understand how to be a good friend in this.
5. I am so glad that you could tell me.

TRIGGER WARNING: The image in this poster can potentially cause an emotional trigger.  

Photo Courtesy of: LINK