Self Trust in Managing Pain

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past month about the role of self-trust in chronic pain. If part of working with the impacts of chronic pain is creating more and more felt experiences in the nervous system of a sense of safety, then I think creating more self-trust (or self-consent!) is one often overlooked aspect of feeling more secure and stable in the nervous system. How can we create more self-trust in the context of chronic pain?

-Getting curious when your body is in pain and pausing if it’s over your threshold

-Getting creative about your pain, and working with adaptations to certain movements rather than pushing through

-Seeking additional emotional or physical support in times of pain flares 

-Being willing to rest or slow down, rather than ignoring or denying

-Continuously asking your body: What do you want? What do you need? (AKA attunement)

-Showing up with some consistency to your own self-management/self-care routines that help quell symptoms (similarly–avoiding the things known to cause a flare!)

-Advocating for your boundaries when you’re in a pain flare, even if it’s hard 

-Being willing to take risks AND also redirect/reorient if the risk actually doesn’t fit your current needs

-Practicing widening your capacity to sit with the unknown, and having faith that even if you make the “wrong” choice (aka you did something that increased your pain), that you have enough resources and supports to get through it. 

How do you practice self-trust with chronic pain?