Combat Chronic Pain. (Pain Management and How the 3 Principles Understanding Helped)

tnarduzzi0
6 hours ago
8 min read

When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. It, often left my joints swollen, stiff and in turn I suffered for more than 30 years in pain, pain and more pain. I found ways to hide my pain over the years. I felt like I was too young for such a crippling disease. I just wanted to look like a regular teenager, and then a regular young woman in my 20’s, then in my 30’s. By the time I was in my 40’s, I thought I had figured out a way to look “normal”. Or at least that’s what people told me. They would always say, “you don’t look like you have Arthritis”. Mission accomplished I guess…. But at the core, I was still in so much pain, it just didn’t appear that way to the outside world. Not too long ago, I came across a new understanding that rocked my world and helped me to sweep away decades of chronic pain. All my ideas, limiting beliefs, thoughts came crashing down when I discovered the “3 Principles” in Psychology. It was an understanding that lead me to miracles beyond my imagination.

Over the years I had so many other areas of pain, I was never sure if it was Arthritis or something else. Should I ask my Rheumatologist or was it linked to some other, unknown physical diagnosis? Or if it was linked to the amount of medication I took? I spent a lot of time at the doctors - getting injections to feel better, getting referrals to other specialists, surgeries, check ups, blood tests, and on and on. I changed my career to cater to this disease!!! Back in the early ‘90’s, I had graduated as an Interior Designer and was drawing floor plans as my forte, full time. I loved it, but I felt it made more pain in my neck, jaw, shoulders, wrists, fingers. I couldn’t take it anymore. I used the money I had saved to open a Tanning Salon, thinking that would be a very easy and ‘zen’ business. Nope. What I saw, is that whatever business I was focusing on and whatever joints got used more often would be where my disease would thrive. I was standing a lot and walking up and down the salon halls, therefore, the swelling jumped to my knees and ankles and feet. It felt too late. I was stuck with this huge investment so I just sucked it up and decided I was meant to suffer. I stayed in that business for 17 years! During those years, I added all kinds of ailments to my roster. I had TMJ which had me wearing night guards in my mouth, top and bottom so I couldn’t grind my teeth at night. I had left shoulder pain from what I thought was a childhood injury. Unexplained neck pain; low back pain; infertility issues, etc., etc., etc. My life truly revolved around, ‘what I thought was wrong with my body’. When I would visit the Rheumatologist’s office for checkups, I would have with me, my written list of every painful joint since the last visit so that I wouldn’t forget. I thought they MUST NEED to know every time I had a twinge of pain. I would make sure NOT to take my morning meds because then I would be stiff and at my worst, so I could show them just how bad MY disease was doing. Sometimes I would get into nice conversations and I would forget to give them my list. The next day, I might say to myself, “damn, I forgot to tell him about that time my left toe was hurting”. Boy oh boy was I ever doing a lot of thinking about myself. Now that I see it from a 3 Principles view, I understand that the more we think about something, the more we feel that particular thinking. So if I’m not thinking about the little toe, I don’t feel pain in the little toe. Sounds too simple, but if we are in a nice feeling and having lovely conversations with other humans, we can truly forget about our pain.

My change came when I wasn’t paying attention. For several years, I was seeking and training and gaining Certificates in Life Coaching, and Financial Coaching, then in NLP Coaching(Neuro Linguistics), and stumbled onto what I consider to be the answer to my personal problems! As I see it, I am DONE seeking. Learning the 3 Principles is a game changer! Also, while learning the 3 Principles, my mentor told a story of Dr. John Sarno. He was an Orthopeadic Surgeon and Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Shool of Medicine. He originated the term TMS which is Tension Myositis Syndrome. His study revealed that TMS is usually presenting as pain in the back but could also be connected with a whole laundry list of perceived problems. It even includes skin conditions. He referred to it as holding onto all the Rage inside. But that also equates to the holding of stress, anxiety, anger; dwelling or ruminating I would say; holding onto negative thoughts. Over the years more people have looked into this and discovered that Dr. Sarno was just scratching the surface of just how many physical conditions were connected to our brain and therefore psychosomatic. If we learn to settle our mind, the possibilities are endless for the amount of suffering we can delete from our lives. Sometimes just knowing what is possible can heal us. I watched a two hour video I found on YouTube where he goes into detail with a group, of what pains are not necessary to hold onto.

Right away, I knew Dr. Sarno was right. I had remembered that as I stand in front of the sink to do dishes, it would hurt my back. I would tell myself that my back is going to hurt if I stand here too long doing dishes, and of course I was right. My back would hurt, every time I TOUGHT that thought. I had learned to tell myself, “you’re just tensing. You’re fine and your back is relaxed”. So it became fine to do dishes over the years, UNLESS I was mad with my husband or anyone else. Suddenly the back pain would kick in again. So I kinda knew it was Psychosomatic each time. The missing link for me was that I didn’t realize how my thoughts played into everything. I had thought, ‘oh well, after I finish the dishes, I better go take a walk. A walk always helps loosen up my low back.’ According to Dr. Sarno, he said some of his patients needed to sit to ease the pain and some to lay down. So how is it possible that for the same problem, there are so many different opinions on how to feel better. If someone breaks a bone, they put a cast on or something to hold it in place while the body’s immune system jumps into action to heal it. Same thing with a small cut on your body. Maybe wash it, put a bandaid or not and it heals all on it’s own. Dr. Sarno noticed that when he did MRI on a large number of backs(some in pain and some Not in pain), almost all of them had deficiencies, defects. Many had zero pain. It seems that not all deficiencies equal pain. Grey hair is a deficiency and it’s not physically painful. I once heard someone say, “I clean my floor, but if someone put an MRI to it afterward, they would still find a lot of dirt/deficiencies.” That resonated with me. It’s true. Of course when they put a microscope on something, you will find something that’s not perfect. That doesn’t mean there will be pain associated with the imperfection. I was beginning to learn to ignore my pain and look in the direction of my feelings instead. Was I stressed, panicking, ruminating????

At the same time, learning the 3 Principles of Thought, Mind and Conciousness was helping me get insights and settle my own mind. What struck me first was when my mentor said, “The past doesn’t fucking exist! It’s just memory carried through time. The future doesn’t exist. It’s illusionary. How many times have you imagined the future and that’s exactly how it turned out? All we have is the NOW, right here. Right now” Wait, what?! I was dumbfounded. I said to myself in that moment, “he’s right”. But I still needed to wrap my head around it. Now that I have learned so much more and become very grounded in this new understanding, I say it to myself a bit differently. For some reason, it was important to my brain to say, “The past doesn’t exist, ANYMORE. The future doesn’t exist, YET”. And my brain now knows that we are always in THIS moment and that the future will never exist except for in my mind, but that’s ok. Isn’t it any wonder why are body is experiencing the pain of our brain. We are not at ease. Our poor body has always been right here, right now, in this place where we do exist. But our little mind has been caught up dwelling in the past or worrying about the future. That puts us at dis-ease with our own self.

When I finally realized that I was capable of healing, my body helped me out. It healed, as if, all on its own. I realized I don’t have to be a victim to my thoughts. I can change the story I was telling myself for all these years. Thought is constant, and that’s ok. A thought is only about 10-15 seconds if I don’t hold onto it, play with it. I can take a thought that popped in my head and over analyze it to death or I can turn and look the other direction and POUffff, a new thought comes along. All day long we get thought, thought, thought, thought, thought. Thoughts are great because they tell us we are alive. YAY. Even if it’s a horrible thought that pops in, don’t worry. It will pass if we don’t engage with it. For example; sometimes when I’m driving, my imagination(thought) takes me to a strange place like, ‘I wonder what would happen if I slipped on the snow and ended up in that ditch over there’. What a strange thought. Hmmm, curious… But that’s it. I just keep driving and don’t give it anymore life, so a new thought comes along. I don’t engage with the thought and it goes away. We are the thinker, and we can decide to hold a particular thought or not. And it’s ok if we get caught up in a thought now and again. We just need to know that if we bring ourselves back to the now, we will be right back to our perfect self we always are. I find ways to come into the moment. One of my ways is to be aware of everything around me. I don’t judge anything. I just notice. ‘Oh, there’s a tree, and a bird and the lines on the pavement, etc.’. Then I kinda shake it off and just keep moving on with my day.

Believe it or not, I have dumped mostly all my pain and swelling. 30 years of backache - gone. Shoulder pain - gone. TMJ gringing and teeth marks in the side of my tongue each morning, & mouth guards - gone. That’s just to name a few areas that have changed for me. It seems miraculous and I guess it is. But when I learned how simple it was, wow, why don’t we all know this?! Well, I’m here to pass the word around. I hope this resonates with someone who needs it. If you heard anything and want to hear more, feel free to contact me for sessions to come to your own realization.