Lesson Learned

December 17 Prompt: Lesson learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

This past year, I learned that I could live a completely full life that includes friends, family, my own business,and romance even though I have a chronic pain condition. I have learned so many lessons from the pain over the last few years, and the most important lesson I have learned is that pain does not have to limit your life. With a little forethought, planning, accomodations or modifications, I can do almost anything I want to do. Sometimes pain is a signal from the body to stop and remove yourself from danger (think hand on a hot stove and the reflex to jump back), but when you have a pain syndrome, pain has a very different meaning. Instead of stopping, you actually have to keep moving: exercise as much as possible, laugh a lot, be social, keep working and stay in a heart space of gratitude and abundance to mitigate the pain. Self-care is crucial, as is learning to understand this different language of pain that is spoken by a pain syndrome. You can learn to listen to your body's clues just like a mother learns how to understand her newborn's different cries, and you can nurture, nourish, rest, massage, stretch, meditate, your body in the way that it needs to turn down the pain volume. Going forward, I will continue to listen to my body, treat it lovingly, and gift myself with the accomodations and modifications that make anything possible.