Lessons from a Life of Pain: My Journey from Chronic Pain to Powerful Living

The Beginning of a Painful Journey

Today, I want to share my personal journey with chronic pain and the lessons I’ve learned along the way. As a child, I was always on the move, even though I never participated in school sports. Stress often drove me towards physical activity, leading me to discover video tapes my mom had on stretching and mobility. This sparked years of practice and exploration into various forms of movement, including dance, acrobatics, martial arts, and weightlifting. Additionally, I often worked physically demanding jobs, requiring repetitive movements and heavy lifting for extended periods.

The Onset of Chronic Pain

One day, I noticed a sharp pain when standing up after sitting for a while, and my right leg would sometimes give out during the first few steps. The pain gradually intensified, becoming a daily burden. This led me to seek help from a physical therapist and a psychologist. The psychologist assessed my daily pain levels and its impact on my mental health. She then told me something I’ll never forget: she would provide tools to cope with what could be chronic pain for the rest of my life. This revelation hit me hard. Was I going to live with this pain forever?

A Glimmer of Hope

Despite the grim prognosis, I remained determined to improve my situation. I decided to join a new gym and hire a personal trainer when I first got the opportunity. During our consultation, my trainer noticed the strength disparities in my injured and painful areas. She must have seen the look of despair and sadness on my face because she looked me in the eye and said something that changed my life: “It doesn’t have to be that way forever; we can fix it.” And she did.

Through meticulous analysis of my movement patterns and a tailored weightlifting plan, my pain gradually subsided. My very intelligent and experienced trainer came up with a plan that addressed my weak muscles and targeted them for strengthening. The plan also addressed my tight and overworked muscles and targeted them for flexibility and mobility training.

With her guidance, I thought I had finally overcome pain and I was going to live pain-free moving forward. I learned quickly that more injuries and more pain would inevitably come. This wasn’t a one-time fix-all situation, movement would have to become a lifelong habit if I wanted to be able to move freely and manage pain.

Core Principles for Navigating Pain

2. Prioritize Recovery

The harder you work your body, the more effort you must put into recovery. Proper recovery helps repair tissue damage, allowing you to exert more stress on your body while minimizing pain.

3. Accept the Inevitability of Pain

Whether you lead an active or sedentary lifestyle, pain is inevitable. The goal is not to avoid pain but to understand its causes and address them effectively. Stay calm, be patient, and develop a recovery plan to keep moving and feeling good throughout your life.

4. Practice the Basics

The most crucial exercises are often the most basic. For example, proper breathing is fundamental to all movement patterns. Focus on optimizing the movements you perform most frequently, such as walking and breathing. Once you have the basics down, you can start incorporating light weight training and more complex movements.

BREATHING

Before diving into advanced exercises or targeting specific muscles, I prioritize learning the basics, starting with my breathing. Breathing is the most consistent action we undertake daily. Yet, many of us overlook its significance. Improper breathing can lead to detrimental patterns that strain our neck muscles and pelvic floor. This strain can cascade into poor posture, which in turn affects our overall movement patterns. It’s a domino effect, where one misalignment can disrupt our entire physical balance.

WALKING

Walking is another fundamental movement that deserves our attention. For many, it’s a primary mode of daily transportation. Walking isn’t just about moving from point A to B; it’s a synchronized dance involving the feet, legs, hips, core, arms, and head. Proper walking reinforces good breathing habits, ensuring every step is taken with purpose and alignment.

To begin working on your walking posture, start with training your feet, move up the body to calves, thighs, hips, core, shoulder, arms, neck, and head, and then put all the movements together in perfect synchrony. It’s a lot more challenging than it sounds!

Once I felt comfortable with my walking movement, I began to practice lifting things up, sitting down, standing up, bending down, stepping up, stepping down, and then jumping. Then I began adding weight to all those same simple movements to start building more muscle and bone density.

5 ways to succeed

Here are five ways to incorporate these lessons into your life to move strongly and without pain well into your old age:

1. Listen to Your Body: Pay attention to the signals your body sends you.
2. Make Recovery a Priority: Incorporate recovery tactics into your daily routine.
3. Stay Calm and Strategic: Don’t panic when you feel pain. Understand its causes and address them methodically.
4. Focus on Fundamental Movements: Optimize the movements you perform most frequently.
5. Customize Your Fitness Routine: Tailor your fitness routine to your specific needs and goals. Start with the basics, then more complex movements, then add weight.

Sometimes, Pain Will Always Be There

It’s important to acknowledge that there are indeed cases where pain may not have a cure, or chronic illnesses that are not related to muscular injuries and cannot be addressed through physical therapy. It’s crucial to recognize that everyone’s journey with pain and health is unique, and what works for one person may not work for another.

Small movements and incorporating training with whatever mobility one has can be incredibly beneficial. Practicing breathing patterns and mobility in the joints that feel good can make a significant difference in one’s quality of life. Everyone can benefit from dedicating time to recovery and doing activities that make their body feel as good as possible, in whatever way that means for them. It’s all about finding what works for you and your body and being kind to yourself along the way.

Conclusion

Chronic pain can be incredibly challenging to navigate, but it is not insurmountable. By understanding the signals your body sends you and taking the necessary steps to address them, you can lead a fulfilling, active life well into your later years. If this post resonates with you, please share it with others who may benefit from it. Additionally, I invite you to leave a comment and start a conversation about this important topic. Together, we can support each other on our journeys towards empowered living.

Read my previous blog and learn more about the importance of proper breathing techniques and a lifelong breathing practice: Breathe Life into Your Health & Fitness with Diaphragmatic Breathing

Dive deeper into the intricacies of walking! Keep these suggestions in mind as you traverse your surroundings. This individual has dedicated a considerable amount of time and effort to thoroughly research and understand the nuances of walking, foot anatomy, and posture, all with the aim of helping us refine the activity that most of us engage in the most frequently! How To Walk