Did you know that stories of triumph especially related to chronic pain and illness can help you heal? - Part 1
I love a good story about triumph, generosity and kindness. I find them heartwarming, encouraging and inspiring. There’s another reason I love them. They shift my perspective. Stories of other’s successful triumph helps me diminish my own self-doubt and create an “I can” attitude.Let's talk about how and then I'll follow up about using this as a tool in healing from chronic pain and chronic illness.There is a Native American Story often used to teach this principle:
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
The work of number ours researchers studying the brain, neurology and psychology, has enabled us to understand why this principle holds true. Are you familiar with the reticular activating system (RAS), a bundle of nerves at the base of the brain that filters information going to the brain? The RAS has a number of complex functions but the filtering of information is particularly relevant here. When the Cherokee focuses on the evil wolf, the RAS will filter more anger, envy, sorrow, etc into his consciousness. When the attention is on the other wolf the RAS will filter more joy, peace and love. Hence whichever one is fed is the one that is at the forefront of the conscious mind and thus winning the fight inside the Cherokee.Do you remember the last time you made a big purchase such as a new car. Perhaps you put a lot of thought into this. Once you decided on the car, did you start seeing it everywhere? What happened? It’s not as if suddenly, Honda sold a large amount of Accords in your neighborhood. What did happen is your focus on a particular model of car triggered the RAS to filter appropriately so you would see examples of this.Gratitude journals have become quite popular in the last decade and they are a wonderful way to feed the good wolf and shift perspective. By intentionally focusing on what we are grateful for, we trigger the RAS to filter similar examples. Individuals documenting gratitude on a daily basis experience an increase in outlook on life, improvement in quality of relationships and even gains in level of physical activity. Read more about that here. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happierSo what does all of this have to do with chronic pain and chronic illness. We’ll talk more about that in my next post. In the meantime here’s an exercise to try. Identify what would you like to see more of in your life. At the end of each day write down 3 examples you saw during the day. It’s okay if some of them are the same examples you documented previously. The goal here is just to begin to filter success. Try this for 30 days and see what kinds of shifts you will experience.