ABRACADABRA!

Your pain tells a story. But what story are you telling about your pain? 

What I hear from patients are things like this: 

• I don’t think the pain will ever stop. 
• I’m afraid it’s never going to get better.
• I just wish I could go (golfing, curling, swimming, walking)  again. 

Our words - like our minds - are very powerful. The words we say, out loud or in our heads, create actions, and our actions create habits and patterns. Then when we realize that we’re stuck in a painful rut, we try to change our ACTIONS and our habits to relieve the pain - but we repeat the same words, and we don’t see or experience any lasting change. 

Do you know the story behind the word “Abracadabra” ? It has Hebrew etymology, and translates to “I will create as I speak.”

If we are speaking chronic pain, we create long-lasting pain. If we are speaking our FEARS about future pain (“I’m afraid I’m going to hurt if I do too much or try that”), then we create that future. Or we become so fearful that we stop trying, and our lives get smaller and more limited. 

If we are attached to the story of how the pain started, then we’re living in past pain. To clarify: we can’t change what happened in the past, obviously, but we can change and rewrite our interpretation of the event and the pain that came with it or from it. 

For example: I was very attached to the story of a concussion I had in July 2019. First I denied (and ignored) it, and when I did too much / too soon afterward, the symptoms came slamming back in a much more intense way. I went from mild headaches to whopping headaches, plus double vision, and the long-term consequences of being an emotional zombie for MONTHS. (Concussion emotions are very real, and can manifest as depression, anxiety, and uncontrollable anger, since the body’s stress and hormonal systems are in complete disarray. If you or your kids experience a concussion, get checked and keep an eye on the emotional aftermath.)  

As a chiropractor / massage therapist - I’ve spent the past 20+ years learning new ways to help people relieve, decrease and eliminate pain. No one wants their life dominated by pain or chronic injuries - we’re not here in this lifetime, in this place, to suffer. We’re here to become our best selves. 

For the past year, I’ve been studying and learning the emotional connection to physical pain, and learning how to unhook the emotions that surround pain so that deeper healing can take place. Like my concussion story - I was completely wrapped up in the unfairness of what had happened to me - and how stupid I was for not taking better care of myself and seeking help sooner.  All I thought about was WHY this had happened, and WHY I was so stuck and miserable. I felt like I needed to be “fixed” or “solved” because I felt broken. But I wasn’t broken; 

I just wasn’t addressing what was happening emotionally, below the surface of the symptoms. So I blundered around in a fog of numbness and apathy, doing irreparable damage to people in my life, existing but not truly living.

What brought me back to life emotionally was the power of the stories behind the pain, and getting to the root cause of my “stuckness.” Using hypnotherapy, I was able to rewrite my story and rewire my beliefs, my words, and my actions. Hypnotherapy didn’t change that the concussion happened, but once I was able to interpret the story differently and learn from it, I could heal.

(I also got adjusted regularly, stopped eating inflammatory foods, took fish oil for brain health, and did a lot of neurology exercises and eye training! I was rewiring my body-to-brain connection as well as my brain-to-body connection through hypnotherapy.)

So remember: ABRACADABRA. Speak what you WANT, not what you dread or fear.