I had chronic pain in my right shoulder from a cycling injury 3 years ago. My doctor told me it would not be going away but would get worse as arthritis took it’s normal course.
I had chronic pain in my left shoulder from a weight lifting accident 20 years ago. My orthopedic informed me that surgery might help but most likely it would be a push. Better to just deal with it, he said, until you can’t take the pain any longer.
I had chronic pain in my left hip 2 years ago and had to stop playing golf for a season. After some good physical therapy, the pain dissipated to a “tolerable” level for the past year. My orthopedic told me that this would be temporary as the arthritis has only one way to go, worse. 2 years ago he told me that a hip replacement was in my future, it was just a matter of time and how long I could tolerate, you guessed it, the pain.
I had, is a beautiful pair of words.
August 1, 2010 I made the decision to attack my chronic pain that was unrelated to the three above. The chronic pain I went after was the pain on paper regarding my cholesterol, blood sugar nums, visceral fats, and blood pressure. The mode of attack was to change my eating habits and my exercise habits. Changing my exercise habits produced the unintended consequence that “I had” thought was simply mine to live with.
I began to plank, pull, and push for 30 minutes three days/week. I stumbled onto the TRX about month six and added it to my exercise arsenal. The pain in my shoulders increased and oftentimes slowed me down. I kept pushing and embraced the acute pain that came when I really “hurt myself” in a good kinda way. I was beginning to feel the difference between pain that truly hurt me and pain that hurt and built me. Either way you look at it, I began to embrace acute pain.
About 3 or 4 months ago something crazy happened. Both of my shoulders stopped hurting even a little bit. My hip pain had dissipated long ago, but the shoulder piece really surprised me. The TRX puts such a load on your shoulders that I hadn’t noticed what it was doing under my skin. It was building lots of little tendons and tiny muscle fibers that the joints were relieved. No more chronic pain.
Gone.
Pain is inevitable, misery is a choice.
Want to rid yourself of your chronic pain? All it takes is identifying it, stepping into more acute pain in the near term and not stopping. There’s the hard part, not stopping. We all want it to just end. The chronic pain you are facing can only be beaten by you putting yourself in more pain, now. Relationally, true. Spiritually, true. Physically, true.
Chronic pain is not inevitable. “I had” is possible and painful. Choose this pain, now.
I hope this helps…
BUILT TO LEAD 