This post shares quotes about Healing and Pain Management with the Mind that I find interesting at the moment. After each quote, I add an explanation as to why I feel it applies recovery and pain management with the mind.
If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.
Oprah Winfrey
This can be applied to recovery by focusing on the health we already have. It also helps us realise that our pain is not all of us, it is just a part of a much larger, full and whole us.
A great example of gratitude is a Taoist fable, which goes something like this:
If they cut off my arm. I am grateful that I have another arm.
If they cut off my other arm. I am grateful that I have my legs.
If they cut off my leg. I am grateful that I have another leg.
If they cut off my other leg. I am grateful that I have my head.
If they cut off my head. I am grateful that the knife was sharp.
This is quite an extreme example but it does help us realise that whatever the situation, there is something to be grateful for.
When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.
Alexander Den Heijer
Control the controllables
When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.
I feel the three quotes above are about control and labeling. Don’t blame anyone else for where you are. Right in this moment, right now you have elements you can control and change. You can change your perception, behaviour, environment and belief about what is the best route for you forward from this point on. Find everything that you can control and use all of these to make a better life for yourself.
The quote about the flower says to me don’t label your whole being as having cancer (or whatever illness) or pain, label it as a feeling or current condition because this indicates that we can change. And I am sure you will agree because others have overcome pain and cancer so it is possible you can too. So never give up hope.
Pain is real. But so is hope.
Miracles always happen when you believe.
Your body’s ability to heal is greater than anyone has permitted you to believe.
Toaism reminds us that we do not know enough about the future to predict what could happen. There are so many different possibilities from this moment forward that could happen. One of those options is always full recovery, however, likely or not, it is always an option. That is why we can hope and choose to control our controllables by picking the best beliefs, perceptions and behaviours that are mostly likely going to move us towards our goal of recovery. As they say the difference between just wishing and hoping is action. Please don’t get me wrong we are all going to pass away somewhen, there are no 200 years olds alive to prove this but whilst we are alive anything is possible. This is summed up by the next quote.
You can believe the diagnosis, not the prognosis.
Deepak Chopra
Doctors understand the body enough to give us a diagnosis but the outcome of that diagnosis (the prognosis) is much more than just the body. It comes down to the determination, belief, expectancy, behaviour, adaptability and much more, all things a doctor can not fully know to give an accurate prognosis. This is why I feel strongly that doctors should never give an idea or prognosis, there are just too many variables to be considered. Many of which only the individual themselves can control and actually know.
The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silent the mind
Caroline Myss
A quiet mind is able to hear intuition over fear.
This, to me, is one of the keys to helping our recovery. We know the answers but very rarely give ourselves space to listen because we are distracted by advertising, our phones, the internet or TV. When we do stop, relax and ask our gut, heart and head individually the question ‘What do I need to do to fully recover?’ the answers that start coming back really do show that we have the answers with in us. They may not be what we want to hear but if we want to get well they are the things we will need to do.
Comfort is the enemy of achievement.
Imagine yourself at the gym trying to improve your physique, all those reps and that last, almost impossible last push. It is very uncomfortable to the point of pain but it is that which improves your body. We have tendency to expect to be comfortable and think that anything that hurt us or makes us feel uncomfortable is bad, but that is not the case. Most people who have been through hardship, given the opportunity to go back and wipe that part of their history out of their life would not because of the lessons and strength they have gained.
Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.
J.K.Rowling
Feel the feeling but don’t become the emotion. Witness it. Allow it. Release it.
Crystal Andrus
Feelings are just visitors, let them come and go.
Remembering that pain and discomfort are just a feeling is quite powerful. It enables us to remember it will pass and not last forever. Once it has been felt and passed through our body it will be finished. Not resisting it makes this process quicker and easier. I think of it like ripping off a plaster (band-aid in the USA) quickly you get the pain but it is fast and there is very little suffering in comparison to taking it off slowly.
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.
Nathaniel Branden
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
William James
A fantastic way of learning to feel your feeling and emotions is to accept and be aware of them. This is best achieved by stopping, relaxing and observing the sensations, not resisting or trying to change them or putting a story to it, just observing them and watching them pass through. When you do this you only have the sensation and are not suffering.
