1.“I don’t believe in pain management anymore, I believe in trying to cure persistent pain.”
2.“Chronic pain is not all about the body, and it’s not all about the brain – it’s everything. Target everything. Take back your life.”
3.“The longer you have pain, the better your spinal cord gets at producing danger messages to the brain, even if there is no danger in the tissue”
4.“You can change your brain. This is not wishful thinking, it is science, and we know people can do it even in the most difficult times, when pain is at its most severe.”
5.“Healing severe or chronic pain, I believe, includes transforming our relationship to the pain, and, ultimately, it is about transforming our relationship to who we are and to life.”
6.“With determination, it is possible to block out the negative things and enjoy the positive ones, despite the cons. Most importantly, it is possible to dance through everything pernicious.”
7.“You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other and you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.”
8.“I can easily forget that I’m in control of my life and return to feeling like a victim of my chronic pain. I may start asking myself again why this has happened to me, what I did to deserve this, etc. However, one of the gifts of pain recovery has been freedom from victim-thinking. This comes about over time, but it does come.”
9.“I believe we must press on while giving ourselves permission to feel disheartened at times. Living with chronic diseases is hard enough–there’s no need to pressure ourselves to be strong all the time. It’s not an easy situation, so it’s OK to feel overwhelmed.”
10.“Pain is always accompanied by emotion and meaning so that each pain is unique to the individual. The word pain is used to group together a class of combined sensory-emotional events. The class contains many different types of pain, each of which is a personal, unique experience for the person who suffers.”
11.“That was exactly what Molly’s arthritis was like: as if some big old cow had got into her house and wouldn’t go away. It just sat there, taking up space in her life and making everything more difficult, mooing loudly from time to time and making cow pies.”
12.“Upon getting up each morning, we can reflect on how we can’t be certain if the day will unfold as we think it will and then resolve to greet it nonetheless with curiosity and wisdom. Greeting the day with curiosity means being interested in what each moment has to offer. And greeting it with wisdom means not turning away in aversion from our experience, even if it’s unpleasant and even if it’s not what we had hoped for.”
13.“Laughter truly is medicine. Though this won’t fix everything, finding ways to smile and laugh more will change your body’s chemistry in many positive ways. This is not just distraction: it is an effective way to find some respite from your pain. It’s okay to have fun when you’re in pain. Smiling and laughing may be difficult, but it’s both okay and possible. Keep trying!”