Day 9 Need to get out bad thought patterns, not sure how?

[Skeleton Bob]

I found the educational activity really interesting!

I can relate to the following "When they come you think not again, how bad will it be this time, or I can't go on with this pain. By focusing on the fear and the pain itself you are falling into thought patterns that continue and exacerbate the symptoms."

This is definitely me, I have a lot of these thought patterns. I thought these thought patterns were just me, but they sound quite common, which is quite a relief.

I also found the page on breaking the pain cycle really interesting. I found the following paragraph helpful

"...Your mind goes to the pain 20 or 50 or 100 times per day. You monitor it, you fear it, you focus on it, you wonder if it’s going to hurt if you wear those shoes, you wonder if the party you’re going to is going to have comfortable chairs, you think, “How am I ever going to have kids if I can’t even lift them?” Your mind is a relentless machine, churning out thought after thought and fear after fear with one singular focus: the pain."

I thought this was just me as well, I think about my pain way too much. Sometimes it's scary how many times a day I think about pain.

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I'm a bit confused about stopping bad thought patterns. Is it just a case of becoming indifferent to the pain, and journaling? I feel like I'm missing something!

 

[Sita]

Hi,

The technique that I use to change my negative or bad thoughts:
Usually a negative thought comes (only one in the beginning). I observe it but don't inflate it. I just let it fly past me like a bird. Usually another bad thought will come next but I just let it go again, I don't continue to grow it, I don't make a horror story out of it. If the negativity continues I simply turn around the thought so instead of thinking that my back hurts - I think "It's TMS again! I'm OK, my back is fine." From a negative thought I make it positive that second, I don't permit the negative thoughts to grow, develop and transform in a tragic story.

It's not easy but you'll get used to it in time. Basically you change your affirmations in the brain. In the mind. We affirm constantly something (thoughts) so why not affirm constantly positive thoughts? It will come naturally in time for you but you'll have to make an constant effort the first days, even weeks.

I don't feed the negative thoughts anymore now and the pain is not as bad as before. Journaling is good, you can use it to clean your brain so to speak. I used to write my horror stories on the left side of the page and then the rational solutions for each horror story on the right side.

I hope I was able to help you (English is not my native language).