I have had a lot of good feedback about The Boat Story. It seems that many readers relate to the process I outline there and can see their own situation a bit more clearly after reading the story. This is very gratifying and I thank those who have expressed their appreciation.

Because of the interest in the story, I thought it might be helpful to highlight the most important lessons I learned from that experience. While it may seem like the experiences with the various health professionals might be what the story is about, that would be incorrect. There are two primary lessons to be drawn from it, both of which are about me (and therefore, you the reader dealing with chronic pain). The first lesson is Attention, the second is Attitude.

In the beginning of the story I talked about the event that started the whole process, moving a small rowboat. As I described, it was a very uninteresting task that had been performed many times. Also, it was a very brief task in that the distance the boat was being moved was only from the shore to behind the cottage. It is also noteworthy that the moment of injury happened after I had let go of the boat. So no weight was being lifted. So here is the lesson–because the task was so mundane and brief, I took my ability to perform it for granted and did not pay attention to the position I had placed my body, nor how I was moving it. So I was bent over at an odd angle from the waist to put the boat down. So there was a strain in the lower back that was stronger on the left side than the right. I would’ve noticed this had I been paying attention. I know this because I now pay attention to my lower back, especially when bending. But that day I was not doing this and further assumed that standing up was not a big deal because I no longer was holding the weight of the boat. That assumption contributed to ignoring the awkward bend in my lower back. So up I stood and the rest is The Boat Story.

So the lesson here was that of simply paying attention to the position in which I had place my body. And paying attention really means nothing more than taking a momentary look (feel) at what is happening with the body during an unusual position. I don’t normally spend time being bent over, so it was an unusual position that needed extra care. Had I simply given it a moments attention, I could’ve avoided two years of pain. Take a look here for some more information about attention.

The second lesson is attitude. Like virtually everyone who finds themselves with chronic pain, I wanted to fix it. Make it go away, be pain free, not be in pain etc. This is so obvious as to almost be not worth mentioning. Of course one wants the pain gone. The next step in this thought process is to go and get some kind of treatment, procedure, health care provider that will fix it. This process formed the bulk of the story. My searches and disappointments with the methods I encountered were educational and ultimately led me to a change in my attitude towards my situation. Since I was unable to alleviate the pain completely, I finally decided to accept it and work within the limits of my mobility. It was this acceptance that reduced almost to zero the nagging feeling of “if I just find the right treatment….”. That inner emotional tension was gone. That experience convinced me that I had been making the pain worse by constantly fighting it and looking for the cure. The repeated sequence of injecting hope into an possible cure and then having that hope disintegrate with all the disappointment this entails, was finished. So to whatever degree I had been adding to the pain through this emotional roller coaster, my shift to acceptance of the situation reduced this added pain. Take a look here for some more information about acceptance.

Now, those who have read the story know how it ends. It would be very easy to say that my attitude change was the thing that lead to that ending. But, as I said there, I don’t know that this is the case. What I do know is that my suffering was eased with the reduction of emotional turmoil created by accepting my situation.

So these two simple ideas, attention and attitude, are inner states of mind that anyone with chronic pain can benefit from examining. It certainly can be difficult to work through these states and making changes in ourselves, which is one of the reasons we teach the Pain Management Groups. It’s an opportunity to come and explore these and other aspects of pain with other people facing similar issues.

If you have not been in the group for a while and are thinking about coming back, please feel free to come and visit us.