Pain, My Old Friend

The irony that after having success with my wellness goals and finally having a few days to rest and restore, I find myself in the most pain I have experienced for a long time. For a while now, I have considered myself lucky that pain no longer reigned as the primary focus of my life. Yesterday, however, I was returned to that familiar place of sore hands, sore arms, sore shoulders, sore neck, sore back… A place where I reach out to do my everyday tasks and find that they are too painful to do. I make choices. Like pushing through the pain at this moment to express my feelings. Like driving the car to do the errands for things I need. Errands I don’t usually have time to do and been planning to take advantage of my days off to accomplish. Sigh. I have my moments of being very discouraged.

I had hoped to wake up today feeling better, but instead the pain seems worse. When the pain goes into day two and beyond, it seems like my resilience begins to fade. The pain seems harder to take. I wonder how it could be that my reward for making positive changes is to regress into a state of so much pain. But in my inner dialog, I remind myself that I have been working relentlessly and pushing myself too hard. Often when you are under stress, your body reacts when you finally stop and rest. So I allow myself the feelings of fear and sadness, but also tell myself to have faith in body’s ability to rebound. Trust that the positive changes are making a difference even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. I’m going out for a walk even though I feel like hiding myself away in my bed to ride out the pain. I know the walk will be be good for me even if the pain increases while I’m walking. I’ll bring my favorite music and focus on that. The pain is temporary. It is temporary.