This little series of videos documents my multidisciplinary evaluation for a chronic pain management program. I have trained myself to hide the pain, so that has become an automatic state for me. In my videos about pain, I am actively working on showing it…on being my authentic self and showing the world what is actually happening for me rather than my pattern of pushing through and numbing and avoiding.
You’ll see me at different levels of pain, and also when I am on autopilot and hiding it. As I rewatch these myself, I am noticing where I’m not asking for help and I should, where I am doing things that hurt and I’m pushing through anyway. Why am I carrying my own drink when there is pain firing up my arm from the weight of it?! Marie!
This is a beautiful example of a couple of different things:
1) When we step back and watch ourselves from a distance, like in a video, or in our own minds, we gain insight and see things from a new perspective, and notice things that we didn’t at the time.
2) Rewiring our brains takes time and practice. When we have trained ourselves to think and behave in a certain way, it takes time to untrain the unproductive thoughts and patterns, and replace them with productive thoughts and patterns. This is the beginning of my rewiring pain journey, it’s my starting point. And it will be an imperfect journey as I continue to move forward. And I am committed to doing it. I *will* do it.
14:09 is a special moment for me. It’s the moment that I realized I had gotten a diagnosis that actually made sense. A diagnosis that the doctor was confident about, rather than trial and error, and confusion about why I was experiencing something that wasn’t showing up on the tests. I’m SO grateful that we caught this moment on video so I can go back and rewatch and revisit it when things get hard. And so that I can share it with you, and celebrate.
