Is chronic pain controlling your life? Do you feel exhausted, frustrated, or even hopeless?
Suffering through chronic pain due to injury or extended illness or some unknown cause can put you in a negative state of mind. It can negatively affect your sleep, appetite, and in turn, relationships; it can even make you withdraw from people altogether.
In other words, chronic pain can be physically and psychologically devastating.
You may be experiencing something like that. Is it hard for you to focus? Do you sometimes feel like you are outside of yourself? If so, it could be that you’ve had an intuition that your physical pain and mental distress or instability are connected.
And your intuition would be right. Bodies have power over minds and minds over bodies; they are locked in a symbiotic relationship. This is known as the mind-body connection.
When you’re in pain, your mind may take you to some dark places where pleasures you once enjoyed don’t interest you anymore. Things like hobbies, get-togethers, and romantic nights with your spouse or love interest.
“I feel all alone.”
Perhaps you’ve been avoiding these things and have felt increasingly isolated. Fixating on regrets and fears and carrying hopelessness around can crowd positive thoughts out, leading to thoughts about ending your life.
It may seem no one around you understands what you’re going through. If that thought has occurred to you, then another may have, as well: Someone out there might know.
Chronic pain can make your life harder and harder. Sometimes you may feel like you can’t stand it anymore – the pain and the loss of functioning you could always count on before.
The people closest to you are carrying on with their lives as usual. They don’t have your pain. They don’t have any idea what it’s like. And that may be creating tension. Maybe you’ve tried to stay quiet and just “get over it.”
But that hasn’t worked.
You might have had times when you’re tired, and everything is too much, and your pain wraps around you like chains you can’t escape. It’s an overpowering sensation like you’re losing control.
Or perhaps you’ve healed from an injury or overcome a disease and have gotten back to your routine. But the pain keeps coming back.
The added stress may be to blame, but you can’t give up your responsibilities now because your loved ones depend on you. Maybe your spouse or partner has been doing a lot of extra stuff to help out.
You may have given up thinking there might be a way out of this mental and physical distress.
You are not alone.
Please know that there are people out there who know what you’re going through.
People who listen well and want to understand you, help you know yourself, and help you live with more freedom, less pain, and a deep connection to your body.
Here’s something you should know: There is scientific evidence that our bodies use the same neural system to feel psychological distress and physical pain.
Health experts suspect that one affects the other, and chronic pain conditions are linked to psychological disorders such as PTSD.
Indeed, it’s likely mental distress is to blame for the pain people experience after their diseases are cured and their injuries, surgeries, or other traumas have healed.
Now, it may seem impossible, but you can overcome this — with the right guidance. A combination of psychological and physiological therapy can help you.
Mind-body medicine focused on integrating physical therapy, body-centered psychotherapy techniques, and trauma resolution modalities can completely change your perception of pain – and help you take back control of your life.
The aims of mind-body medicine are:
- reducing stress
- giving you back a sense of control
- improving mood and quality of life
A chronic pain therapist can help you transform your chronic pain experience by helping you take charge of your symptoms.
They can help you reunite your body and mind through a unique integration of proven physical therapy skills, body-centered psychotherapy techniques, and trauma resolution modalities.
The techniques are simple, and you can do them nearly anytime and anywhere.
Mind-body chronic pain management: Transform your experience.
Mind-body therapy has a decades-long track record of helping people change how they think about chronic pain, so they experience less pain.
Therapists in this field have expertise in physical therapy, somatic psychotherapy (also known as body-centered therapy), and trauma.
The mind-body approach draws on all three specialties to transform trauma, chronic pain, and loss of function into personal, relational, and career growth.
Based on science, it integrates research from several fields, including neuroscience, trauma resolution therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and psychotherapy.
Though it may sound complicated, it’s not.
Your physical and emotional well-being are connected on a deep level, and decreasing the pain on one side will do the same on the other side.
During chronic pain management sessions, a body-mind therapist goes over how chronic pain changes the nervous system – how it knocks it off balance and how you can start to rebalance it.
They help you create a unique therapy plan that’s right for you based on natural ways to decrease your pain and improve your health with activities that build greater freedom of movement, strength, and functionality.
There is hope.
You can transform the cloud of anxiety and depression chronic pain has placed around you by learning to trust your body.
Though not always a clear communicator, if you know how to listen, your body has wisdom you can tap to start on the path to healing.
When you hear about chronic pain management, you may want to believe it can help, but you have doubts.
“I’ve already tried professional therapy. They promised I’d get better, and I haven’t. I don’t want to spend more money, time, and energy on something that may not work.”
You want to feel better, and you may have tried – hard.
Here’s what you need to know: Mind-body therapists can help you and sincerely appreciate you and your desire to be whole.
You may have been in talk-based therapy or had therapy based in another therapeutic discipline in the past. The problem is, any single therapy is limited in its approach to chronic pain management.
The human pain experience has its roots in the body. And pain responds to a combination of body-centered treatments that involve the mind.
Discovering new ways to think about pain and your body can give you control over your suffering.
“They told me my pain is only in my head, and now I don’t want to talk about it with anyone.”
So many people judge what they don’t understand. They dismiss, and they minimize. Or, they won’t even talk about it.
Unfortunately, some therapists do this, too.
Dealing with people’s lack of sympathy and empathy is frustrating because your problem is real. Too many people like you have suffered through it. Besides, the science doesn’t lie.
Mind-body therapy sessions are different. These therapists are full of compassion and empathy — and free of judgment or any negative energy. They listen to you and connect with you.
“If I could be fixed, I would have been by now. More therapy will be pointless.”
Evidence for the success of mind-body therapy for chronic pain is well-documented in the medical community.
You have a path to guidance, support, and healing. Like so many others, you too can outlive the pain and enter a new life with new possibilities.
Chronic Pain Management at Texas Pain Physicians
Come to Texas Pain Physicians and meet our friendly, expert therapists. They are here to help you.
Please give us a call at (972) 636-5727 or book your appointment online.
