Perhaps surprising to initially hear, our personality traits are another helpful clue to consider when an informed health professional is gathering evidence as to whether our chronic pain is likely from a mindbody (neuroplastic) source... and therefore potentially reversible.
(That is alongside the more typical patterns & behaviours of pain, & the caveats (1), that we discussed in Parts 1 & 2 of this blog series.)
The good news
By bringing our main personality traits & behaviours into our conscious awareness & reviewing how they may be adding extra stress in our lives today, we can learn to gradually soften those traits, learn how to pre-empt, respond & act differently - & so reduce the pressures & stresses those traits may be causing us.
The important connection is that too much added pressure in the way we live our day to day lives can add significant accumulative emotional turmoil & a sense of threat to the functioning of our brain and autonomic nervous system which, especially if repressed, adds fuel to the underlying cause of our mindbody symptoms.
These traits include qualities such as:
people-pleasing, needing to be good, over-giving, non-confrontational,
being resentful, anxious or having low self-esteem,
being continuously driven to succeed or achieve very high standards, competitive, be the best,
perfectionism, being highly analytical, self-critical,
being overly responsible, reliable,
needing to be right or in control.
The more of these personality traits each of us can identify with - & the more “intensely” we identify with them – the more likely our pain or other chronic symptom may include a mindbody source, and therefore critically, more likely resolvable with the right knowledge, changes and practices.
Exploring Personality & its Effects on Symptoms
Our personalities are mainly created when we’re very young. Through our interaction with our carers & life’s early experiences, we learn to adopt certain behaviours in order to feel loved & accepted in the families, cultures and peer groups in which we’re brought up, eg feeling the need to always be good or please others, or feeling driven to always be the best. And within this adaptation we also end up developing certain subconscious beliefs about ourselves - such as whether we feel we’re good enough, capable, loveable, worthy, etc.
Entwined within this process of developing certain beliefs and behaviours, we often subconsciously reject certain natural traits in ourselves that we've deemed are “unsafe” to express, eg being lazy, loud or answering back – because that very young us knows innately that we need our adults to approve & thus care for us in order to remain safe & alive.
So from today's perspective, reflecting back to our early days is helpful to not only understand those origins of our various personality traits and allow us to acknowledge that they were helpful to us as children, but that now as adults we most likely need to believe, think and act differently for the benefit of our health, mind and body. (2)
By lessening our emotional turmoil & encouraging more calm in our brain & autonomic nervous system, we are helping ease some of the underlying fuel for our chronic symptoms.
The Benefits of making the Unconscious Conscious
Part of this explorative process is to bring our underlying beliefs to the surface, noting how they’re still affecting our thought patterns, emotions, behaviours & actions in the present day. We can then work to rewrite any inaccurate beliefs and start making new choices and taking new different, healthier actions going forward - and so allowing emotional turmoil & symptoms to ease.
The same goes with bringing those rejected traits into our awareness, acknowledging they have positive aspects too and learning how we can reframe & welcome them back into our daily existence in order to improve our lives.
For example, being "lazy" has its positives - it allows us to embrace necessary rest and recovery time, preventing us from burning out; "answering back" allows us to each express our fair opinion and declare healthy boundaries, empowering us to take better care of ourselves; being "loud" perhaps allows us to celebrate needed fun, play and emotional release!
Many thousands with often years of chronic symptoms have already recovered with a mindbody approach and are now enjoying wonderful, fully active and fulfilling lives, at work, in their careers, at home & in their sports & hobbies, free from their symptoms.
Part of their recoveries were because they discovered the extensive benefits of exploring their personalities and learning how to soften & adapt their stress-inducing traits.
If you'd like to find out more, please click here to watch my free & helpful introductory webinar on the mindbody approach.
Towards the end of the webinar you'll find you may also be able to book a free Discovery Call with me. During this session I'll invite you to share your story, allowing me to offer insights into what may be holding you back from recovery and discuss whether my online Freedom From Pain programme, which is both live and interactive, could be the right choice for you.
I’d be honoured to guide and support you towards your recovery. I look forward to speaking with you!
*****
(1)This is after a structural cause has been ruled out such as a fracture, infection, tumour or an autoimmune condition - and where any of the changes noted on scans, MRIs and X-rays have been attributed to normal abnormalities, ie benign changes that occur within our bones and joints through life and aging, & which are probably more akin to grey hair and wrinkles.
(2) Reflecting back in this way is not however intended to attribute blame, particularly since guidance & interaction from our carers, teachers & community figures is often interpreted differently by a young child than the intention in which it was offered or given (although, very sadly, in some circumstances that intention is far from kind).
Comments