Step 3: Connecting the Dots between your Pain and your Emotions
Now that we know that the vast majority of chronic pain is caused by repressed negative emotions and stress, let's see if we can help you make the mental connection between your pain and emotional events going on in your life.
Here's how we do this.
- Get out a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center.
- On the left side, start by making a list of every major health symptom you've had throughout your lifetime. (Childhood through present) i.e. Back pain - 1994 or something like "During High School".
- Include any and every type of symptom. Headaches, migraines, stomach problems, IBS, back or body pain, neck pain, tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, etc. List everything you can think of even if it's not the current pain problem you are having right now.
- Now, on the right side, next to each pain episode or health symptom, write down what was going on in your world emotionally. (divorce, bully's at school, abusive parent, etc.)
- Keep listing all symptoms you can remember on the left and the corresponding emotional details on the right.
- The goal of this exercise is to help you see that for most major problems, we can usually identify some particularly stressful or emotional events going on at the time.
- Then look for times when you were feeling good. Emotionally, how was that different than when you had the symptoms.
- Again, look to connect the dots between your physical and emotional world.
Are you seeing a connection between your emotional life and the start or flare up of your symptoms? This should be an eye opening experience and allow you to realize that everything is connected. Your body responds to your emotions.
Did you find some connections? Either way, I would encourage you to move onto step 4 of the process. Take the pain test to see if your particular situation can be resolved through following the Zero Pain Now program.
