Is FEAR holding you back? A 3 step process to overcome fear.

One of my biggest concerns when I undertook my pain management course was the fear of failure. What if I can’t do this? What if I can’t change my automatic thoughts/behaviours from continuing to surface? What if old habits really do die hard? What if I keep choosing rest over activity? What if I give in to old food cravings and loose the discipline? While I was super motivated to change (I didn’t want to keep going the way I was and I was desperate to prevent any more darkest days). I was also really scared I wouldn’t be strong enough to commit.

That’s a lot of fear and worry about the future. A future that may not even occur. And while I was wasting all that time fearing my possible failure, what was I doing in the present moment? Nothing. Procrastinating and not taking action. Don’t let a fear of failure hold you back from starting something new. By the end of my course, I had realised that I was just wasting time worrying. This time could be spent taking action. So my new motto became...Just Do It (sorry Nike but it is a good, motivating mantra!) So the next time I had a worrying thought that “If I go for a walk, it might just flare my pain further”, I stopped. Took a breath and said to myself “Come on, just do it! Because there is only one way to find out!” And, of course, I soon learnt that getting outside and going for a walk made me feel much better. I was using pacing and mindfulness and daily regular exercise, so I wasn’t overdoing it. I was slowly strengthening and improving my fitness and flexibility.

There can be a problematic self prophesising which can happen when we are afraid. For example, the fear of increasing pain may trigger the stress response. We are hardwired for this fight or flight response and when it kicks in we have a rush of hormones and a quick conversion to the sympathetic nervous system. We are now ready to run or fight for our lives. In this mode, we do not need non-essential body functions like the immune system, digestion system. You can read more about it here. But if we have caused this response to fire, guess what happens to our pain? It can increase because the regulatory systems that can sometimes control (or at least mask) pain have been switched off. And so then what happens? You have pain and you say “See, I told you so!” (refer to an excellent book by Dr Lissa Rankin, Mind over Medicine).

I am often motivated to do (or not do) something from fear. Fear of failure, fear of hurting someone’s feelings, fear of not being liked, fear of pain, and fear of being vulnerable.  For me, overcoming this fear has been a critical component on my self pain management journey. So here is my 3 step process to overcoming fear. For the purposes of this, we will use the example that fear is holding you back from changing a habit. For example, we will say you are afraid to start a new exercise program.

Identify.

You need to be pretty honest with yourself, if you are to identify the factors that hold you back from making a change/commitment. You might hear yourself saying things such as “I’m afraid I will injure myself and cause more problems” or “I’m afraid I can’t commit to doing anything properly”. So the fear may be resulting from past experiences and long held beliefs about yourself and your capabilities. These can be based around INJURY and FAILURE. For me, I would often flare my pain after playing netball when I was younger. I had to give it up in the end because of the way I approached the game (no warm up and relentlessly throwing my body around). You can read more about that decision here. After this, my fear morphed into “If I do any exercise it will flare up my back. This was a totally untrue statement but based on my prior experience and my deep desire to avoid pain, this became my reality. A fear of failure will result in you never starting something new. I have now figured out that by starting small and pacing up activities (read more about pacing here), I realised it is possible and achievable to get moving again. This approach also means you are less likely to fail because small increments are based on your current capabilities. Also, once you do start to move and get stronger, more flexible, you gain confidence and your motivation increases and you just, well, keep going. To identify fear as a motivator you need to be self aware and truthful with yourself.

Investigate.

We always immediately block or run from fear (that’s the fight or flight response kicking in). But it can be very helpful to confront your fears. In fact, don't just confront them, invite them in for a cuppa and get to know them better. What are these fears based on? Are they realistic? Is this something you have always just told yourself? Does it have grounding in fact/reality? Could this fear be a result of cultural/society influences? A question that I often use to investigate my fears can be as simple as “Is this true?” If the answer could be no, then I look at some of the alternatives. So using the fear of exercise example, is it true I will injury myself? No, not if I undertake the activity in the correct way and this may lead to me enjoying it, continually improving with a long term benefit of increased strength/flexibility. Such investigative thinking can be like drawing up a list of pros and cons. What are the reasons for doing something and what is holding me back? If it is fear holding you back, then you need to work through it, question it and make a strong choice based on these pros/cons.

Challenge.

You may have seen various challenges online. For example, loose weight in 6b weeks or a 10 week improve your love life challenge. Do you know why these work? If you give yourself a challenge and you stick to it, the chances are you may have come close to kicking a bad habit. By replacing a habit with a more helpful one (even though you were initially scared to try it) you will be achieving a massive milestone and motivating force to continue. And you will see the benefits too. But don't be afraid to get some help! Maybe make your commitment to overcoming fear accountable by telling a friend or loved one you are going to try something new. Maybe even just the discussion about the fact you are scared will be enough to get you up off the couch and into something new. An you know what, if we were all honest with each other, there is probably heaps of things we do/don’t do a result a result of fear. So, you may just get an interesting response from a friend...”Really? Me too!”.

I would love to know your thoughts? Are you sometimes held back by fear? With regards to your pain, what are you most afraid of? Is it true/realistic/likely? How do you overcome fear?

Here are some motivational quotes and interesting reads based on fear/excuses.

Don’t let a fear of failure hold you back from starting.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take – Wayne Gretzky

"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" Vincent van Gogh

Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. – Desiderata by Max Ehrman

 

Some additional good references about fear and its impact:

http://www.chronicpainandlife.com/blog/the-yeah-but

http://www.copyblogger.com/f-e-a-r/

 

Helpful versus unhelpful thoughts

What is your experience?

Unhealthy attachments to pain

I recently decided to come up with a daily affirmation. I designed it to be something that was going to get me into the right frame of mind to tackle the day ahead. I wanted it to be strong and I wanted it to be a positive statement about the kind of person I want to be. So here it is:

“I self manage my chronic pain. I am a wife and a mum and I honour and respect my connections (with my family and friends, with my community and to my environment). I consciously accept the things I cannot change with a non-judgemental awareness of my reaction to these situations. I am practicing to let it go”

This is now what I say to myself each morning. It has made me think about attachment. I think much of my frustration is born from my attachment to things I cannot change. For example, I get frustrated at silly little things that have already happened like spillages or accidents (when you have two little ones in the house, these kinds of things happen all the time!) I have little control over them and once they have happened there is no real point getting too annoyed. Yes, I realise there are learning opportunities and discipline to be determined but I need to let go and move on.

It can be the same with pain. I used to have unhealthy attachments around pain. These attachments (when fiercely clung to) can really hold you back when attempting to self manage chronic pain. I thought it might be useful to highlight a few of these negative attachments.

Emotional: I often harboured an emotional attachment to my pain. I cycled through many different emotions but all involved a strong feeling, often a negative, draining, stressful emotion and these were not helpful for my pain or for achieving my goals. ANGER. I would often get angry when pain reared its ugly head. I was angry for needing to change my plans or angry at my own poor reaction to pain or just angry that I was lumped with this situation. DENIAL. I think this is a common emotional reaction to chronic pain. Ignore it and it will go away? Um, no chance! But I would allow myself to be fooled that I was doing ok, I didn’t have a pain problem. In doing so, I would ignore my physical limitations; push beyond my thresholds and, in the process, further increase my pain. GUILT. This was a huge one for me. I often would feel guilty about needing help because I felt I was being a burden on others. Or I would often think I was not up to standard (some unrealistic model of perfection I has set for myself) as a mother, wife or friend. This unrelenting guilt was an emotional burden I carried which further increased my own physical pain.  FEAR. This is the reason that I held myself back from trying new things for so long (such as self pain management techniques or new physical therapies). I was scared of making the situation worse. I already felt out of control and was worried any change would exacerbate the dire situation I had gotten myself into.  Fear held me back for a long time. But once I had made those first initial baby steps, I soon realised my real inner strength.

Ideal of normal: For some reason I had a very unhealthy attachment to the notion of being normal. I was often upset that my back and associated pain made me different and I just wanted to be normal. But what is "normal"? Is there such a person? Some people may not have pain but there is likely some other challenge or issue in their lives. Comparing is not helpful.   

Past pain experiences: These experiences would negatively influence my decision making. A previous flare up from exercise may have prevented me from attempting a new daily exercise program. I was afraid I would have another flare up.  But these experiences were often based on my inaccurate  interpretation of the situation. For example, if I was to go from doing nothing at all to playing a very rough and physical game of netball, I would get a pain flare up. This does not mean that controlled daily stretches is going to flare my pain because this is a totally different approach. Similarly, if I was told to do some exercises by a new practitioner, I would do them for a while then think it was having no impact so I would give up. Therefore, my past experience led me to believe that exercises don’t work. This is just not true. My poor commitment to the exercise was the reason there was not a noticeable improvement!

A magic cure: For much of my journey with chronic pain, I didn’t realise I was being passive. I relinquished my control to another, whether it was a doctor, surgeon, drug or someone else. I was searching outside of myself for a magic pill that would take all my pain away. I had an unhealthy obsession with finding a cure. My situation may never have a cure. I have now accepted chronic pain is something I need to live with. But in doing so, I haven’t continued to be passive, I now take an active role in managing my pain, on a daily basis. 

As you can see there are many emotional attachments to pain and they all can have an unhelpful influence on our pain! Whether it is emotion pain or pain resulting from overdoing it and stress, the bottom line is, attachments to pain are dangerous and unproductive.

I am hoping that explaining some of the attachments I have had you might be able to identify with some of these and realise their negative impact. If you are truly honest with yourself, do you have an unhealthy attachment to pain? Maybe it is time to become aware that you are desperately grasping and clinging to something that cannot be changed.

 

Maybe it is time to LET IT GO (Alright, Frozen fans out there, go on, start singing!)

When I compare I despair...

I remember when I was in school we would need to line up from tallest to smallest in preparation for school photos. This was so we could march out to the photo area and be arranged in a perfect way, tallies at the back, shorties in the front. I was always towards the end of the line and I often competed with one of my best friends. She was very annoyed when I “grew” 3cm after my back surgery and I became one of the tallest. As kids, we would compare ourselves in this way and it was pretty easy. It was even nice to get that quick visual idea of where everyone was at in that moment in time. There was no judging involved it was just a fact. I’m taller than you are.

As an adult, I have realised when I compare myself to others, it can lead to feelings of despair. Here is how... Lately, I have been reading and listening to podcasts from famous entrepreneurs or about building a business or following very successful bloggers/health advocates. It has been inspiring and I have gleamed a number of red hot ideas worth pursuing. But then I get into compare mode...she has so many more followers than me, that website looks so great, that persons sells an amazing volume of products. And in the process of this comparing, self doubt and negative self talk will creep in. I could never do that, where do they find the time to do that, I’m not smart enough, confident enough...and this comparing is not helpful. These people I am comparing myself to, they haven’t just landed in their success overnight. It’s been hard work and a journey. I am just starting my journey so I need to just focus on the small (and achievable) steps. It’s worth remembering too that we always put the best bits of ourselves forward in social situations or on social media. People often reserve their struggles and vulnerability for behind closed doors. So a comparison might only even be to the best version of someone else, not a true representation (think the “air-brushed” beauty versus the face in the mirror first thing in the morning!). Again, not helpful and not realistic. What I need to do is be mindful of these thoughts and the most important thing for me to acknowledge right now is that everyone is at a difference place in their respective wellness or business journeys.

And I even realised that often I compare myself to myself. If I am feeling low, unmotivated, sick or in pain I will often compare my activity levels, enthusiasm or mood to periods when I was feeling great. Or it might even be that I will compare myself at this moment with the “me” I would like to be (we all have that dream version of ourselves that never puts a foot wrong and is always a picture of perfection...don’t we?). This comparison also brings despair. I am not as motivated as I was last week; I am not as mentally clear as I was yesterday. There is an important lesson from Buddhism that I need to recall in these moments, impermanence. Not to hold on to an image or a comparative version of myself, let it go. She is long gone. I am changing in each moment.

So, comparing as a benchmark for setting goals and aspirations is helpful. Comparing to bring myself down and beat myself up is not. I am going to make a commitment to ditch comparison. Are you with me?  I will not compare myself to others because we are all different. We each have our own unique array of skills, challenges, backgrounds and support structures. I want to be happy with who I am and what I have achieved. I want to celebrate the successes of others and support those facing challenges. But I want to do this without comparing to my own situation. I will also stop comparing myself with myself. I am me at this point in time. Right now, in this moment, I might be sick or I might be feeling awesome and that is ok.

How do you compare? Is it helpful?

Photo credits to my 6 year old...not bad!