The Buddha once said no one should believe things just because he said they were true. He advised his listeners to apply his teachings in their own lives. Take what worked for them, discard what didn’t. Learning to trust yourself is vital when using mindfulness for chronic pain.
Because chronic pain is complex – it has biological, psychological and social components – there is no ‘one size fits all’. Just because something worked for someone else does not mean it will work for you.
Of course you can take advice, however the point of mindfulness is to help you develop the skills to enquire into your own experience and trust yourself to find the right answers for you.
Why trust matters when using mindfulness for chronic pain
Trust is one of the attitudes of mindfulness. The attitude holds that your journey is yours alone to travel and part of that is learning how to trust your own wisdom. There are a number of ways you might use trust to help you manage chronic pain.
Trust invites you to:
- Accept that what works for you is just as valid as what works for someone else
- Acknowledge that whatever help and advice you receive, only you can ultimately decide what is best
- Cultivate being an observer of your own experience, thoughts and feelings
- Question your assumptions, expectations and beliefs
- Be curious – show up fully to whatever is present and have confidence that whatever you experience you can handle it.
Five ways to strengthen your trust
Learning mindfulness is about developing insight into your experience and creating the space for you to respond skilfully and flexibly to whatever life brings your way.
Here are five ways to cultivate trust in your daily life.
- Slow down – get into the habit of noticing when strong emotions arise and give yourself time to feel them. Become accustomed to watching the rise and fall of thoughts and feelings, without the need to react to them.
- Spend some quiet time in meditation. There are short guided practises here to help you. Meditation can strengthen your ability to observe your habitual patterns of thought. It requires a degree of trust because change does not generally happen quickly.
- Is there anything you have done in your life that you just ‘knew’ you had to do? Even if you did not know why? Or how it would work? Are there skills you have learned? Or chances you have taken? Reflect on these, maybe writing your thoughts in a journal to understand how you have ‘backed yourself’ in the past and can do so again.
- Make small changes and get curious about how they show up in your body. Get familiar with noticing your body reactions – often your body will react before your mind has worked out what is happening. Become familiar with the ‘body’ sense of what trust feels like to you.
- Become your own best friend – often others, especially friends, will be far more generous with their praise of you than you are of yourself. Nurture an encouraging and supportive attitude towards yourself. And congratulate yourself for every step taken towards trusting yourself. Each seemingly small steps builds on every other.
Bringing trust to your experience of chronic pain is not easy. It is important to recognise what helps you and stay with those practices, even if others doubt you.
If you have made it this far and think mindfulness might help you, I’d love to chat. Please get in touch for a complimentary consultation.
And sign up for my regular emails, as understanding more about why you get chronic pain is one way to reduce it.
