Chronic Pain and Spiritual Health

Living with chronic pain is difficult emotionally and mentally.

Every aspect of your life is affected and you have to adapt each and every day based on the level of pain. It is difficult for other people to understand. 

Sometimes you have to cancel plans or leave places early. You may need help doing things or walking up the stairs. Fatigue haunts you like a malicious ghost that no one can see but you. It is an invisible illness that can be cruel and make you feel lonely. 

You know that other people have chronic pain also, but you still feel like you are the only one much of the time.

Days spent struggling to do the simplest tasks drain you physically and emotionally. No one can see your pain and it is hard to find any validation for what you are going through. 

Your social circle may have dwindled down to the last few who are willing to be understanding. Some of you are completely isolated from friends and even family has moved on without you. People get tired of hearing someone complain about their invisible illness. 

Some people think you are just trying to get attention.

This is backwards because chronic pain tends to have to opposite effect of getting attention. Many people do not realize this. 

Isolation has its own negative effects on your psychological state. Depression falls down over you like a dark cloud. There are days when you just stay in bed because the pain is too great….both emotionally and physically.

Chronic pain can be caused by all kinds of things.

Arthritis, fibromyalgia, spinal problems, diseases, and chronic illnesses. Pain can be mostly localized to certain parts of the body, or change locations from day to day. The mental pain is always a part of living with chronic pain….possible the worst part. 

Finding connection with other people can be difficult, but it is important for you not to feel alone. Feeling isolated and alienated for a continues period of time will wear on you and drain you. Your soul needs to heal and you need to feel special. 

Old emotional wounds can be triggered by depression and anxiety.

Feeling alone with pain can bring up emotional flashbacks from your past. Many people with chronic pain have some kind of ghosts from their past that haunt them. The feeling of being invalidated may be something you also felt in your childhood. 

The inner child that was not heard is now left alone and invalidated again.

Being alone with the emotional wounds feels like torment. Since you feel that people are already tired of hearing you express your feeling about your physical pain, you may be hesitant to talk about old emotional wounds with anyone. 

You struggle to survive each day, and you may push those emotional wounds deep down inside you. The pain will get worse from doing this, but it is hard to find any other way to survive.

Pain gets worse with depression, and depression gets worse with pain. 

You are more than your chronic pain condition.

You are not your body and you are not your thoughts. You are so much more than those things. The world has a way of confusing us about who we really are. 

You may not feel like it, because your life feels like it revolves around it. You had other plans for your life than living this way.

The unfairness of this can make you feel hopeless and question your purpose for living. You feel limited in the amount of things you can do for others. 

But you are worth as much as everyone else. It is the soul and spirit of you that has innate value.

Your value is not based of what you can or cannot do. The uniqueness of your mind, heart are limitless.

We can be broken and bruised, but we are resilient. Your resilience comes from your higher self… the self that does not live in the body and is not limited to the physical self.

Love is an unstoppable force of energy that exists all around you. You are surrounded by invisible energies that are yours to draw from Self love is an important step to emotional and mental healing.