This Chronic Pain Writing Technique Changed My Life
Chronic pain journaling is something that I personally laughed at whenever it was mentioned in a book I was reading.
To be honest I am probably one of the most removed people from my own personal emotions (choose to be happy, goofy, and less tapped into the emotional side of me). It’s not that I don’t feel sadness, anger, fear, etc. I just don’t dwell on it or allow myself to really experience them for long.
I can confidently say this has played a big role in how I experience pain and managed my own recovery for years while I suffered from chronic back pain.
There are many layers to overcome chronic back pain for good but today I want to share with you one of the most powerful tools you are probably not using in your own chronic back pain recovery.
Can Journaling Help With Chronic Pain
6 years ago I would have said no. But I was also less educated and under the belief that back pain was 100% mechanical and the only way to fix it was to fix the mechanical problems you had.
Boy was I wrong.
What chronic back pain sufferers don’t realize is how much our brains control our pain system and how we experience pain signals.
Not all pain is created equal and what you may be experiencing right now is not actual pain from damage but simply a signal your nervous system is sending out of habit, not from facts.
This is a concept that needs a lot of self-exploration, mental shifts, and reading to really understand so I encourage you to start educating yourself on the mind-body connection now.
Where Should I Start With Chronic Pain Journaling?
I can share what has worked best for me.
When I was doing this strategy nightly I would take 5-10 minutes before bed and break out a legal pad and pen and literally start dumping every thought that came to my mind.
Whether it was fear, anger, frustration, sadness, worry I wrote it down in detail. Sometimes it was my side of an argument I was currently having with my spouse, anger towards a coworker, life season or financial situation, etc.
If it came to my mind I wrote it down.
Now there are some key details to really maximize this technique so I’ll spare you the reading and just point you towards the video for the in-depth breakdown.
Below are all the tools I used for my own personal chronic pain journaling including the book where expressive writing is taught.
Legal Pads I would use (you want a notebook that you feel okay ripping the pages out, tearing them up and throwing them away so don’t waste money on these nice leather-bound notebooks….these journal entries will get trashed right after you right them.
