An obvious insight.

Quite often I've heard people ask the question "what would your life be like if your pain stopped?" To be honest I've never felt compelled to reflect on it as it always seems startlingly obvious to me that if I was no longer in chronic pain then life would be hunky dory and I'd be good to go again. It was only a couple of days ago when I let the question actually sink in and then attempt to frame a response that it was actually blindingly obvious that if my pain stopped I'd actually just have the same mundane and unfulfilling life that I had before the pain started but with the one less thing to whine, moan and bring everybody else around me down about. I'm guessing that's the point hey.

 

I think this article explains it well.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/27/chronic-pain-learning-to-cope-remedies-health (How I learned to cope with chronic pain)

That idea of saudade....the concept that we have a remote longing of days gone by which only really ever existed as a subjective viewpoint anyway. A longing melancholic nostalgia. I think it's far too easy to fall into this trap and think that the resolution of pain will solve all our ills when this obviously just isn't the case.

 

We end up with TMS because of the situations and relationships in our lives which cause us to generate threatening emotions, thus creating pain as a distraction.

The way I understand it, we need to look at our lives and the reasons behind emotional reactions in order to make improvements, therefore increasing happiness and decreasing pain.

It's the other way around get happy, then get rid of the pain