“Of pain, you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.”
– George Orwell, 1984.
Supporting people who experience pain is an area of special interest in my hypnotherapy practice. In fact, it was the reason I became involved in hypnotherapy in the first instance.
It is not unreasonable to want to be without pain. Pain isn’t just a ‘normal’ thing that we should simply get used to and get on. There really are no good enough reasons for putting up with it. We might talk ourselves into thinking that there is – but can you think of a good enough reason to suffer? You are not being weak by seeking support – you are taking great steps to benefit your overall physical and emotional health.
Sometimes we don’t feel like we really are bad enough to warrant additional help – as if our pain isn’t as worthy as someone else’s. If pain is getting on the way of you living a full and joyful life, it might be time to ask for help.
Our bodies are incredible things. Sudden or new (acute) pain is actually helpful because it tells us that something is wrong and that we should seek care. But some pain doesn’t really help us: we might already know that we have an underlying health issue and this may be causing us long term (chronic) pain that on the whole, isn’t helpful to us. And you will know that chronic pain can adversely affect how we sleep, how we function generally, how we work, how we view ourselves and our relationships with others.
Interestingly, chronic pain is managed in an area of the brain that is also associated with low moods – and so you can see how there might be a negative impact on how we might be feeling. Solution Focused Hypnotherapy of course won’t cure the underlying condition, but it can offer strategies to help cope with that pain and the challenging consequences of that discomfort.
