I would be remiss if I did not begin with a clip from the Ambassador of Weed, Snoop Dogg:

Do Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana?

Marijuana is legal for adults in 22 states and Washington, DC. Medical marijuana is legal in 38 states and D.C.

Cannabis is an illegal Schedule I drug, according to the U.S. federal government.

What percentage of Americans do you think support legalizing marijuana? 25 percent? 53 percent? 88 percent? If you guessed the last, you are correct.

An overwhelming share of U.S. adults say that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use by adults (59%) or that it should be legal for medical use only (30%).

Just one in ten Americans say marijuana use should not be legal, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey.

Over the long term, there has been a steep rise in public support for marijuana legalization.

Let’s turn to some basics and then address selected medical uses of marijuana.

What’s in Marijuana?

Marijuana — the dried leaves known by names such as weed or pot — comes from a genus of flowering plants called Cannabis.

Cannabis plants have over 100 chemicals (cannabinoids) that affect the human nervous system.

Some chemicals stimulate brain parts, while others block the same effects. The best-known plant-based cannabinoids are:

• T.H.C. (D9-tetrahydrocannabinol): the psychoactive component of cannabis that can make one feel “high.” Sativa strains of (Cannabis sativa) tend to have higher T.H.C. concentrations than others. Today’s marijuana typically has 10 to 30 times the amount of T.H.C. from the 1970s.
• CBD (cannabidiol): This cannabis component may have calming effects on the nervous system. CBD doesn’t have the psychoactive effects of T.H.C. Therudaralis, and indica cannabis strains (Cannabis indica and Cannabis rudaralis and cannabis indica) tend to have less T.H.C. and more CBD.

Marijuana — Medical Use in General

The most common use for medical medical marijuana in the U.S.A. is for pain control.

My patients with severe pain do not generally respond to marijuana. On the other hand, the drug can be effective for chronic pain.

Many of my patients prefer a trip to their local marijuana dispensary. Part of the appeal is that it is safer than opiates.

Folks don’t generally overdose on marijuana*; weed is far less addictive.

Others cannot tolerate NSAIDs (for example, Aleve or Advil) because of kidney or stomach problems.

• Overdose is also possible with edible cannabis (though an overdose on cannabis is rarely fatal). Users taking it by mouth may not notice any effects for up to two hours. They may then ingest more, thinking they need a higher dose, and take too much.

Marijuana Use for Multiple Sclerosis

Here’s an example of the use of marijuana in medicine: Multiple sclerosis. The drug can ease pain (including nerve pain).

Alternative medicines (such as Lyrica, Neurontin, and opiates) can cause sedation for many. Enter marijuana:

Nearly one in three adults with multiple sclerosis report using cannabis for pain management.

Oil or tincture is the preferred method of administration, according to a survey of over 200 individuals.

Does Marijuana Relieve Multiple Sclerosis Pain?

Evidence for cannabis effectiveness for MS-related pain is limited, according to a 2022 Cochrane Review. The researchers offer this conclusion:

We are uncertain whether cannabinoids reduce chronic nerve pain intensity.

On the other hand, for spasticity (feelings of stiffness and a wide range of involuntary muscle spasms), more people reported benefits with cannabinoids than with placebo.

For their review, the Cochrane Review authors analyzed randomized clinical trials. These studies examined herbal Cannabis, Cannabis flowers, plant‐based cannabinoids, or synthetic cannabinoids.

The doses, routes of administration, frequency, and duration of use for those with multiple sclerosis varied.

Slightly more people on cannabinoids quit the medicine than did those on placebo. The absolute effect was 39 more people per 1,000 people.

Marijuana Use for Parkinson’s Disease Tremors?

Marijuana can be a very good muscle relaxant. Might it help lessen the tremors associated with Parkinson’s disease?

The National Aging Institute explains that Parkinson’s disease (P.D.) is a brain disorder that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements, such as shaking, stiffness, and difficulty with balance and coordination.

Unfortunately, P.D. symptoms usually begin to worsen over time gradually.

With disease progression, some have challenges talking or walking. Others experience behavioral changes, sleep issues, memory difficulties, fatigue, and depression.

The Parkinson’s Foundation offers some possible benefits of marijuana for those with Parkinson’s disease:

• Anxiety reduction
• Pain improvement
• Better sleep
• Less weight loss
• Nausea improvement

Of course, marijuana use has associated risks. These include:

• Impaired cognition (especially in executive function and judgment). Researchers worry about marijuana use for a medical condition associated with executive function impairment.
• Dizziness
• Mood changes
• Blurred vision
• Balance problems
• Hallucinations

Marijuana can increase the risk of mood disorders (especially among young users) and lung cancer.

Does Marijuana Help Parkinson’s Disease Tremors?

Given marijuana is a great muscle relaxant, does it lessen tremors for those with Parkinson’s disease?

While some studies are encouraging, many problems have plagued much of the research.

The studies are generally small and lack a comparison group that receives a placebo). There is often no standardized dosing and no comparison with existing treatments.

In this context, the Parkinson’s Foundation does not endorse the use of cannabis for Parkinson’s disease treatment because of the lack of definitive data.

A Greman survey suggests marijuana use is linked to pain and muscle cramp improvement.

Selected individuals may see positive results for anxiety, depression, motor symptoms, and restless leg syndrome.

Unfortunately, the survey had a low response rate and a possible placebo effect.

Marijuana for Glaucoma

Glaucoma is among the most frequent reasons for medical marijuana use.

Research from the 1970s shows that marijuana and T.H.C. reduce intraocular (within the eye) pressure, a key contributor to glaucoma.

Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve. This nerve sends visual information from your eye to your brain, which is vital for good vision.

Optic nerve damage is often related to high pressure in your eye. However, glaucoma can occur even with normal eye pressure.

While glaucoma can occur at any age, it is more common among older individuals. My late dad developed the condition in his 30s, as did his mother and several brothers.

Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness for people over 60.

Does Marijuana Help With Glaucoma?

Several studies have shown that cannabinoids or marijuana reduce intraocular pressure (I.O.P.).

Marijuana is as effective as conventional glaucoma medicines.

Cannabinoids effectively reduce eye pressure, whether administered by mouth, vein, or inhalation. However, direct application to the eye does not work.

In most trials, a single dose of marijuana or cannabinoids maintained the eye pressure drop for three to four hours.

Marijuana, Nausea, and Weight Loss

A few small clinical trials investigating smoked marijuana show it can help treat nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy.

A few studies have found that inhaled (smoked or vaporized) marijuana can reduce neuropathic pain (pain caused by damaged nerves).

The American Cancer Society observes that scientists have reported T.H.C. and other cannabinoids (including CBD) slow growth or cause the death of certain types of cancer cells growing in lab dishes.

Moreover, some animal studies suggest certain cannabinoids may slow growth and reduce the spread of some cancer forms.

Dronabinol can reduce nausea and vomiting linked to chemotherapy.

The drug can also improve appetite and prevent weight loss in patients with H.I.V. In studies of cancer patients, though, it did no better than a placebo or another drug (megestrol acetate).

I look forward to seeing more evidence of the effects of cannabinoids in treating cancer in humans. While the approach seems relatively safe, we do not know if the drugs will help control or cure cancer.

Relying on marijuana alone as treatment (while avoiding or delaying conventional medical care) for cancer can have serious health consequences.

Marijuana and PTSD

Finally, marijuana appears promising for those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Many war veterans report significant improvements in their symptoms.

A placebo-controlled, double-blind study published in PLOS ONE is the first randomized placebo-controlled trial of smoked cannabis for PTSD.

All treatment groups, including placebo, showed good tolerability and significant improvements in PTSD symptoms during three weeks of treatment, but no active treatment statistically outperformed placebo in this brief, preliminary trial.

We need much more research to understand the effectiveness and safety of cannabis in treating PTSD.

What doses are optimal? Are there sex differences? What are adverse outcomes? What is the best ratio of T.H.C. relative to CBD?

Finally, could cannabis (or some of its components) help create a bridge to psychotherapy?

Considerable research in animals has pointed to the benefits of cannabinoids in the treatment of PTSD.

My Thoughts — In the Weeds: Unveiling Medical Marijuana Uses

I have not tried to create a comprehensive list of all of the conditions for which marijuana may be beneficial.

Rather, I wanted to briefly survey the types of conditions for which medical marijuana has been touted as beneficial.

Please evaluate any effectiveness claims critically and with caution. In addition:

• Inform your healthcare provider. Marijuana can interact with some prescribed medicines. Some care providers are not open to the idea of medical marijuana or don’t feel comfortable filling out state-mandated paperwork. If so, consider finding a clinician who can work with you. Finally, medical marijuana should be approached as a complementary therapy, not a substitute for appropriate medication.
• Cannabis products are often not regulated.
• Not all marijuana products are the same. Even if two products contain the same strain, for example, the cannabinoids in them may be different and have different effects.
• Stay consistent and start with a low dose. Stay with the same product from the same dispensary or source to get the most consistent dose.
• Avoid smoking. Oral drops can be an effective alternative.
• Consider using skin creams or patches for localized pain. Topical marijuana derivatives can serve as an analgesic for certain areas (for example, the legs).

Have you used marijuana for medical purposes? If so, did it work for you?

The post In the Weeds: Unveiling Medical Marijuana Uses appeared first on Medika Life.

But it also made me cry… and as a vehicle for getting in touch with my emotions, it helped me step out of an intensity spiral 🌀 that had been brewing in me for a few days — the kind of spiral that, if left unchecked, can often result in a headache for me.

Here’s a step-by-step of how I was reluctantly healed by Barbie 😅. Regardless of what you think of the doll or the movie, you might relate to parts of this story…

It started with stress… and escalated into the stress cycle

When we experience a flare-up of anxiety or any of the physical symptoms that can come with it (like pain), we often want to trace the steps back to how and why the flare-up started. “What caused it? What could I have done to avoid it?” We’re often looking for one singular thing that we did “wrong” so that we can course-correct for the future.

But most of the time, it’s not one singular thing. Stress is cumulative. And in my case on this particular occasion, I’d recently heard several heavy stories of sad news, I was (and still am) undertaking a number of home improvement projects with my partner, and a week I’d taken off for vacation wound up being subsumed in to-do’s.

These normal, everyday stresses that come with life then kicked my stress cycle into gear. For me, it looks like this: I start fixating on stress-induced thoughts. Thoughts like, “I’m not doing enough. My partner is working harder than me, so I should be doing more. I shouldn’t relax because he’s not relaxing…”

These thoughts, of course, perpetuate more stress. It becomes a cycle that escalates.

I recognized the symptoms of the stress cycle starting to brew

In the old days, I used to think self-critical thoughts were true. And I thought that I just needed to do more and be better in order to quiet those thoughts down. I still get caught up in that kind of thinking… when I’m stressed.

What I recognize now is that those thoughts themselves are a symptom of stress. And they seem very true when I’m stressed! It’s an act of will to notice them and name them as a stress symptom so that I can start making choices that will help me unwind from the stress cycle.

Another stress symptom I noticed was that it was getting harder to concentrate on work. I felt like I was pushing myself instead of feeling led by inspiration or energy. Work started to feel like a drag and I began to feel resentment towards it.

In the days before I ever experienced a migraine, I would ignore these signals that are telling me to slow down. And I still do, sometimes. But what my recovery from chronic pain has taught me is that ignoring the signals can have very unpleasant consequences — and that as hard as it is to step off the stress merry-go-round, there are immeasurable benefits to doing so before my nervous system pulls the emergency break in the form of a pain flare-up.

I didn’t do it “perfectly”

Yes, I’ve gotten much better at listening to my nervous system’s signals. But I’m not “perfect” at it! I don’t always catch the stress before it manifests in physical pain. And I did wake up with a mild headache before fully tending to the stress.

The headache — along with increasing levels of feeling jittery throughout the morning — were my nervous system’s way of sending a louder signal. One that I decided to heed.

I’d planned to spend most of the day working on my podcast. But I made an executive decision to step away from my desk, play hooky for the rest of the day… and go see the Barbie movie. I figured two hours of sparkly pink Hollywood entertainment would get my mind out of productivity overdrive and overwhelm.

Then came the guilt!

I tiptoed out of the house, feeling tremendously guilty that my husband was still glued to endless Zoom meetings for work.

I debated whether to even tell him that I was going to the movies.

I finally sent a text message to let him know… and then sat with the waves of guilt mixed with waves of relief all the way to the theater.

Lights, camera, tears

The lights went down in the movie theater, and just as I’d hoped, the magic of Hollywood glitter took my preoccupied mind into another dimension. But much to my surprise, it wasn’t just a trip to the land of distraction and fluff.

Despite my misgivings about Barbie… that dang movie got to me. And I cried! I literally wept in the theater. Funny enough, the movie touches into a lot of the themes that we talk about in chronic pain recovery: Breaking out of numbness and feeling your full range of emotions, taking off the mask of perfectionism and revealing your authentic self…

I was reluctant to be swept up in the story — but it was exactly the emotional release that I needed. And my whole mind and body felt like they were re-set and re-energized by the time the lights came up again.

Laughter and perspective

By the time I got home, all the feelings of guilt that my stress-cycle churned up had subsided. My partner was still working away when I turned the key in the door, and when he got up to greet me he said, “Where’d you go? I didn’t know you were out!”

I had to laugh at all the angst and worry I put myself through debating whether it was okay to take time for myself while he was working.

It felt good to give him a hug and tell him about my movie escapade — and I could tell he enjoyed seeing me in such a good mood.

My takeaways from this vignette? While I might not have time to run away to the movies every day, feeling guilty about slowing down to unwind is always a signal that… it’s time to slow down and unwind. In whatever way, shape or form is available to you. Even if it starts off as a guilty pleasure, making time for pleasure will guide you back home.

➡️ If you need support with chronic pain and anxiety, take my FREE QUIZ called “Why the *bleep* am I still in pain?!” so I can help you get some clarity.

The post Reluctantly Healed By Barbie 😅 appeared first on Medika Life.

I find this concept helpful for understanding and healing from chronic pain and other stress-related symptoms, but I want to propose an additional layer of nuance.

Fear, like pain, is something that we need for survival. Without fear, we wouldn’t run for cover when a tornado is coming. Without pain, we wouldn’t pull our hand away from the stove when we get burned.

So, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that all fear is undesirable or that all fear leads to chronic pain. And it’s certainly impossible to get rid of fear or to never feel afraid again.

But there’s one type of fear in particular that I find most often in clients who struggle with chronic symptoms, and that is the fear of social rejection. This fear can trigger self-abandoning thoughts and behaviors, and habitual self-abandonment leaves us feeling helpless and hopeless. It can put our nervous system into a state of chronic stress that manifests in chronic symptoms.

Here are some anecdotal examples:

I’ve seen folks who are afraid to sit, stand or walk because it hurts, and the more they fear these activities, the more the pain persists. But what really escalates their pain levels is the fear that they will be rejected by their family, their job, their partner and friends for not being able to “keep up.” This social fear preoccupies them so greatly that they spend most of their energy trying to please others rather than prioritizing their own feelings, needs, desires and pleasures. And this habit of self-abandonment puts them in a chronic state of stress.

I’ve seen folks who are afraid to go out for a night on the town for fear that it will trigger a migraine attack. And the more they fear and predict pain, the more the pain persists. But what really escalates their attacks is the fear that friends and loved ones will see them as weak or pathetic or uncool for not being able to “keep up.” And again, it’s that social pressure that triggers self-abandoning habits which in turn leads their body to feel like it can’t trust them. And when our body feels like it can’t trust us, it freaks out and pulls the emergency alarm: symptoms.

If any of this is resonating with you, you might be wondering: OK now what? Now that I’ve recognized this pattern of fear of rejection and self-abandonment that exacerbates my stress levels and symptoms, what the heck can I do about it?

And my answer might not be what you want to hear, because when we’re feeling fearful, we want quick solutions and certainty. And as far as I know, the antidote to self-abandonment is something far more complex than that: it’s the gradual journey of developing self-compassion.

Developing self-compassion is slow work. It’s gentle work. It’s asking ourse in each moment, “what is the simplest, easiest, most doable step I can take right now to be just a little bit gentler and kinder toward myself?”

We can’t develop self-compassion with harsh expectations or by pressuring ourselves to transform our self-relationship overnight. We have to give ourselves the grace to do it one baby step at a time.

So, keep it simple and ask yourself, “what is the simplest, easiest doable step I can take — from exactly where I am right now — to bring just a tiny bit more kindness and gentleness into the way I treat myself?”

I’d love to hear what you come up with!

➡️ If you need support with chronic pain and anxiety, take my FREE QUIZ called “Why the *bleep* am I still in pain?!” so I can help you get some clarity.

And follow me on Instagram for healing tips, inspiration and encouragement.

The post The Role of Fear and Self-Abandonment in Chronic Symptoms appeared first on Medika Life.

The following was excerpted with permission from Healing Honestly: The Messy and Magnificent Path to Overcoming Self-Blame and Self-Shame 2023 Berrett-Koehler Publishers www.bkconnection.com

Now I get to introduce you to a friend of mine, Anna Holtzman, LMHC, who has helped me so much on my chronic pain journey. Anna is a licensed therapist and chronic pain expert whose expertise is at the intersection of chronic pain and trauma. She is also a childhood sexual trauma survivor, and you know we love survivor-to-survivor wisdom!

A year ago, I was dealing with chronic migraines. At my request, Anna sent me information about how chronic pain works in the body, along with resources like guided imagery and journaling prompts. One of the coolest things I learned was that research shows that simply learning about how chronic pain works can in and of itself be an effective treatment for pain. So many fellow CSA survivors struggle with physical pain, like shoulder/neck/ back pain, migraines, and pelvic pain the way I have. It isn’t a coincidence, and it certainly isn’t our fault.

WITHOUT GETTING TOO PHILOSOPHICAL ON YOUR ASS, WE ARE GOING TO ASK OURSELVES, “WHAT IS PAIN?”

Anna explained to me, “Pain is nothing but a danger signal and triggered by fear. Sometimes the danger is physical, like a broken leg; sometimes the danger is emotional, like emotional abuse.” She continued, “Pain is a danger alarm created in our brains when our nervous systems feel unsafe. This is a process that doesn’t happen consciously, nor is it based on decisions we make.”

There are loads of examples of how this mind-body connection works. If we are nervous about a job interview, having a difficult conversation, or awaiting results of an important test, we may get stomach pains, nausea, loss of appetite, tightness in our neck and back. Or, if you’re me, you get the nervous bubble gut and you’re just grateful to make it through without pooping your pants. We don’t decide to get an upset stomach or back pains during these high-stress experiences; they are things that happen subconsciously.

There are these one-off stressful experiences, “but when you are dealing with chronic stress or chronic trauma, it can cause chronic pain. We can see examples around us, like having a super stressful job, which is an everyday experience, which may lead us to have headaches or back pain most days,” said Anna.

It all sounds too simple, right? Well, that’s kind of the point, she said. “This is all actually very simple. We all intuitively understand the connection between pain and trauma and our mind and body. But we’ve been conditioned to distrust our own knowledge of our own emotional and physical experience. We have been gaslit into believing our emotional feelings are not valid.”

While the world outside of us tells us that physical and emotional pain are completely different things, one being considered “real” and provable and the other constantly invalidated and dismissed, they are interwoven inside of us.

Anna explained, “Physical pain and emotional pain are created in very similar parts of the brain, so the two are inextricably connected. They are coordinated aspects of stress response, so we cannot divorce one from the other, not ever. Even if you have pain from a bone, there’s an emotional response to that from the physical sensation of the broken bone.” I can personally attest to that as someone who, as a kid, all on separate occasions, broke her leg, three toes, one finger, and an arm (from literally, I shit you not, napping on the couch while watching Baywatch reruns and slowly rolling over onto the floor, landing on my arm. Yes, it was just a regular couch.)

Anna continued, “Chronic pain is a result of the chronic tension between the part of us that wants to fight back and the part of us that has learned to be afraid to fight back, probably for good reasons, at least in childhood or before you had allies to support you.”

To illustrate the point, she offered us this prompt:

• First, let’s imagine lots of angry energy inside of you, the kind of fury of fighting back against all that is wrong. Tap into the anger and fury that is a part of each of us.
• Now that you’ve tapped into that feeling of righteous anger, try suppressing all that fighting energy with all of your might.
• What does your body feel like when you try to suppress your anger and fighting energy? It may feel pretty tense and tight in your body. If each of us sustained that for a while, we might start to feel some pain.
• Now that this little experiment is over, give your limbs a light shake or do some deep exhalations to release all that tension and discomfort, because that isn’t a pleasant feeling!

Presumably, if we continued to suppress and silence the natural fight response in us for long periods of time, say our whole childhood, we can see how some pain would start to develop. So this prompt is helping us understand a little better how chronic pain comes from this tension of suppressing our healthy natural emotional selves. Whether the prompt was illuminating to you or not, that’s okay; we have more to learn together!

COMMON SURVIVAL BEHAVIORS THAT CAN PERPETUATE CHRONIC PAIN (NONE OF WHICH ARE ANYTHING FOR US TO FEEL ASHAMED OF!)

In further exploring the chronic pain and CSA survivor relationship, Anna explained to me that there are some common survival behaviors that we survivors engage in that can perpetuate chronic pain.

1. Vigilance and preparing for the threat of danger.
   Many survivors experience hypervigilance as a part of their trauma. I feel I am often on high alert, playing worst-case scenarios in my head as a way to anticipate danger and prepare for ways to deal with the fallout. Do you observe yourself being constantly on high alert? No shame if you do! This was developed for good reasons!
   
   “The habit of vigilance perpetuates chronic pain because it keeps our danger alarm on high alert all the time. Pain is a danger signal, so when we fear we are in danger, our body sends us pain as a message, Anna explained. If we spend a lot of time with our danger alarms going off, this can continue our cycles of pain.
2. People pleasing and suppressing anger.
   Many of us can relate to being conditioned to suppress anger, because if we tried expressing it when we were younger, we may have received explicit or implicit signals that it wasn’t safe for us to be angry. Have you observed any people-pleasing/appeasing tendencies within yourself? Again, no shame if you have! This was developed for good reasons! (Yes, I will repeat this again because it is worthy of repetition!)
   
   “The people-pleasing/appeasing/suppressing anger survival behaviors perpetuate chronic pain in a few ways, including that when we have the urge to fight back but have to suppress it, it is as though our internal gas pedal and brake pedal are being slammed on simultaneously, which causes physical tension,” Anna explained.
3. Perfectionism and self-criticism (I am the best at this one!)
   My therapist says I am the best at criticizing myself for things that aren’t my fault — which also fulfills my perfectionist tendencies, so take that. We can be so hard on ourselves in hopes that it prevents us from “inviting” (we never actually invite abuse from someone, hence the quotation marks) abuse from someone else. Do you join me in having a lot of perfectionism and self-criticism tendencies too?
   
   When I asked Anna how this survival behavior contributes to chronic pain, she explained, “When we are perfectionists and intense self-critics, we are terrorizing ourselves all day long, and that turns on our danger alarms and sends signals of pain within us.” I did a true, honest-to-God spit-take when she said this last one, because it was so real to me that my only option was to hysterically laugh.

It’s no wonder so many of us deal with chronic pain! Look at all the coping strategies we had to develop just to try to stay safe and function in the world as survivors. Those same things can cause us pain. Thinking about all this together fills me up with a deep feeling of compassion for all of us.

HOW PAIN CAN SHOW UP DELAYED FOR US, LIKE A FUN SURPRISE FROM HELL!

A really important aspect of pain for us CSA survivors is that sometimes danger is a present-time threat, like touching a hot stove, but other times danger can be a conditioned response that reminds us of past danger or abuse. We can be going about our days and then get a headache or back pain and not know why, but it could be because we smelled or heard or saw something that subconsciously reminded us of our abuse. Anna explained that this can be a confusing part of pain, especially if we are trying to explain it to people who don’t know what it’s like to have trauma and experience triggers.

“An example I like to use is that when we get near a flame, our body automatically recoils from it because we know It’s dangerous. How do we know it’s dangerous? We aren’t consciously thinking about how fire is dangerous, so we must move our hand. We aren’t thinking about the first time we learned fire is dangerous. We may not consciously remember how and when we learned fire was dangerous, but our nervous system remembers fire is dangerous to touch, so our nervous system is recoiling our hand from the flame,” Anna said.

For some of us, we experienced chronic pain throughout our childhood. For others, we didn’t experience it until adulthood. Sometimes people ask, “Why now?!” to their pain who didn’t experience pain in their childhood.

“Often with chronic pain, we experience the pain when our bodies are safe enough to relax our survival mechanisms a bit and we determine, in a subconscious place, that it’s safe enough for us to fully feel the pain connected to the stress,” Anna explained.

WE CALL BULLSHIT ON THE NOTION THAT OUR EMOTIONS ARE “TOO BIG” TO FEEL

I’ve heard some people imply that we have chronic pain because our emotions are too big, or too hard, for our minds to process, so our bodies store them. When I asked Anna about this, she told me that every one of her trauma teachers has said that people suppress their feelings because they are too overwhelming, and that’s what leads to chronic pain.

“In my opinion, that is bullshit,” I was surprised to hear her say. “I don’t think we are unable to handle big feelings. Or that there are feelings too big for our nervous systems to handle. But rather, it’s that we can’t handle big feelings in isolation. We need companionship in order to safely process our feelings.”

We weren’t born suppressing our emotions. We learned to suppress our emotions because we learned from the people around us that we were not going to receive empathy and companionship with our feelings. Expressions of our feelings were met with silence, criticism, denial, and even punishment. Bad f — -ing things. At the same time, we learned that our physical pain would be taken seriously and met with some sympathy and support. So our bodies brilliantly channeled all our pain and emotions into the parts of us that would receive care and support when hurt. Fancy, smart moves from our bodies.

“We feel physical pain because it has a greater chance of being socially validated than emotional pain, and we stuff emotional pain down because we know we aren’t going to get empathy for it and the world around us has shown us it isn’t safe to process it,” Anna shared. Are there ways you’ve seen your physical pain garner more support and empathy than your emotional pain throughout your life?

The good news is that, as adults, we can seek out empathetic witnesses to our pain, like a trusted friend or a good therapist, who can offer us companionship that allows us to safely express our big feelings.

“Feeling our feelings without the presence of compassion makes our nervous system freak the f — – out because it feels exposed and vulnerable to potential threats. But feeling our feelings in the presence of compassion makes our nervous system feel safe,” Anna told me.

What is most important is for each of us to know we aren’t alone in our pain. “You are not crazy, and none of this is your fault. It is possible for you to find relief, and while you can never prevent all pain, it absolutely can get better,” Anna offered.

I know that was a lot of information about chronic pain and trauma! What kinds of emotions, including potentially unpleasant ones, does all of this bring up for you? However you feel, it is totally normal.

Want to read more? Grab a copy of the book, Healing Honestly: The Messy and Magnificent Path to Overcoming Self-Blame and Self-Shame!

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