Episode 3: 5 Problems and Solutions For Creatives with Chronic Pain

Today I'm going to share 5 problems and solutions that were key to my recovery from chronic pain and to helping my clients recover. And since many of my clients are creative types like me, I'm gonna share some things that are specific to the creative person's recovery from chronic pain. Problem #1: Thinking that pain is only about your body. I used to think that pain meant there was something wrong with my body. I thought that the stress of working in TV had ruined my posture and eating habits and strained my eyesight and that I needed to fix my body with the right diet or exercise in order to get rid of the pain. But what I learned is that pain doesn't necessarily mean there's something WRONG with your body. Pain is actually your body's way of trying to protect you. Symptoms like pain are alarm signals. And they’re created by your nervous system to get your attention when your nervous system senses danger.   When pain is acute, meaning temporary, the danger is sometimes (but not always) something physical, like a broken arm. And after your arm gets the attention that it needs, your nervous system senses that the danger is over, and it turns off the pain signal. But when pain is chronic — meaning that it persists or comes back over and over again — the danger is far more often something emotional. There are many different kinds of emotional stress that can set off our nervous system’s danger signal. Things like: Work stress, relationship and family stress, financial stress, past traumas, and stress from the pressure we put on ourselves to achieve success and make other people happy. Emotional stress can even come from the fear we have of our symptoms and our belief that our body is broken. This fear sets off more pain signals, which in turn triggers more fear — it becomes a self-perpetuating, vicious cycle.   Now, this doesn’t mean that chronic pain can’t have physical components to it as well. But if we want to turn down the chronic danger signal, we need to address emotional stress, we need to soothe the feelings of fear that are triggering the danger signal, and we need to establish a felt sense of emotional safety. Problem #2: Rest alone with not heal chronic pain. A really common block to healing from chronic pain is thinking that rest alone will heal your symptoms, and that you need to quit your passion in order to rest.   The thing is, passion doesn’t trigger symptoms, fear does — however, chasing our passion can bring on a host of fears, like fear of failing, fear of being seen, fear of criticism... alll those fears.   The problem is, if we abandon our passion — the thing that lights us up in life — we actually get plunged into more stress. Because joy is crucial to reducing stress. So, instead of stifling our passion, we need to unpack the fears that are coming up around our passion. And at the same time, we need to stay engaged with the things that feel fun and joyful and replenishing. Including our passion projects!   It's not that rest shouldn't be part of our healing plan — we do NEED rest for our nervous system to heal. But we need to balance it with the things that light us up! To read the rest, go to https://www.annaholtzman.com/GetTheGuide Find me at: www.annaholtzman.com and IG @anna_holtzman