up:: Chronic Pain MOC tags::#output/youtube☑️#pain rank:: 4
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Outputs: - output::#output/youtube☑️ 2022-11-15 - How Mental Fitness can Help with Your Injuries - YouTube
When it comes to your health, your mind can be as powerful as your body.
When you’re feeling stressed, your mind can make your body feel tense and anxious. But if you’re feeling relaxed, your mind reflects that in your body also.
This plays a big role when it comes to injury and recovery.
One of the most well-known examples of the mind-body connection is the placebo effect.
This is when someone takes a “fake” treatment, like a sugar pill, but experiences real health benefits because they believe the treatment will work.
Placebo effects have been documented in a variety of studies and are now considered an important part of many medical treatments.
So, what does all this mean for you?
It means you have to practice some mental fitness as a part of your recovery process
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We all have inner saboteurs.
These are the voices inside our heads that tell us we’re not good enough, that we can’t do it, or that we’re going to fail.
It’s the voice of fear, or the voice of perfectionism, or even the judging voice that we all have. (This is in everybody, it’s okay and there’s nothing wrong with that in itself)
Remember back in the previous video, we talked about the physical pain we experience. Physical pain is not bad- it has a useful function for survival and keeping safe. It’s becomes a problem when it goes overboard.
The same thing with our inner saboteur voices.
When it comes to your body and injuries- it’s that voice that tries everything to keep you from your recovery.
That voice might tell you that your body is weak, and not recovered. It might tell you that you’re going to injure yourself again if you get back into exercise and activity.
Sometimes that voice will tell you that you were stupid to get yourself injured in the first place! (My voice does this all the time) It tells me that I was being dumb and always putting myself in danger. I would be better off if I didn’t do anything instead.
Your voice might say that it’s not important to you right now, and that you can put it off for next time. There are all sorts of excuses that your saboteur can use to keep you from taking action and getting out of an injured mindset.
So next time you hear your inner saboteur speaking, remember that it’s the voice of fear. It has a role, but it cannot control your whole life.
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What should you do instead?
In the same way you have an inner saboteur that sabotages you, you also have an inner sage.
You can call it many things- your true self, your best self, even your inner coach.
Your sage is the part of that knows what you need to do. It comes from a place of calm, trust and wisdom. The challenge is that we are out of practice when it comes to listening to that sage wisdom.
Because of the many things in our environment or society.
So if you’re having trouble with your injury. And it keeps bringing up anxiety, perfectionism, and other negative thought patterns. You can practice listening to your inner sage.
Instead of letting your saboteurs win, start learning to trust your inner sage.
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Remember, when it comes to your recovery the mind is a powerful tool that can work for or against you.
You might say, isn’t this a self fulfilling prophecy? If I’m optimistic and positive, then of course things will improve.
but if I’m negative and stuck in saboteurs thinking, then I’ll go in that direction also.
The answer is yes and no. It is a self fulfilling prophecy in the sense that what we focus on develops. While what we ignore gets weaker.
My favorite image to think about this is a trail in the woods. I like to go on on hikes, and sometimes I find myself in a place where the trail is bad and difficult. The problem is that I don’t have a better path to take- so I stick to the bad path.
It’s a lot of hard work to forge a new and better path when I’m on a hike. But if I have a guide, we can plan out a good route together. Plus, once I get on a good path once- the next time, I’ll have an easier time finding it.
Over time, if I follow the good path enough- I start to remember how to get there. The trail becomes easier to spot. My hike becomes a lot easier.
Letting ourselves get taken over by negative saboteur thinking gets us stuck in that bad path. For injuries, it can be believing that things will never get better. Or that our bodies will never be the same again.
If we focus on negativity, we will trap ourselves in that negative thinking pattern.
But, it is also true that we have the power to choose our thoughts and emotions. By choosing to listen to our wise sage, we can start to forge a new and better path to recovery. It is challenging for sure, especially in the beginning. But over time it gets easier and easier.
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For now, it is good to explore- what are some of the negative ideas I have surrounding my body and my injury?
Don’t worry about getting rid of those thoughts right now. Like many important things, it takes time and practice.
But being aware of the negative saboteur thoughts that keep coming to you is a great first step. By having those in mind, and even writing them down- you’ll setting yourself up for choosing a better path in the future.
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