You aren't your thoughts

Creating space

Let's start with an awareness exercise to create a space for discomfort.

Disobeying Unhelpful Thoughts

In your Disobeying your Unhelpful Thoughts Journal, provided in your onboarding materials, write down an unhelpful thought you’d like to disobey today. Write out what values you’ll be honoring when you disobey it. At the end of the day, mark if you completed it. If it’s hard to think about what values you’ll be honoring, that’s okay. Just focus on disobeying the thought and notice what that’s like for you after you’ve done it. If it’s hard to choose a thought, that’s okay too. Just commit to doing this once a day and you can log it in your journal after you’ve disobeyed it.

Pacing Plan

Pacing yourself means doing activities for a specific period of time, then resting regardless of how you feel. It will help you avoid pain and symptom flares, and it will reduce how long they last when they do happen. It’s about respecting your body’s limits.   Let’s make your pacing plan!   Here’s an example pacing plan: Today, I will wash the dishes, for 10 minutes, and then rest for 20 minutes. I will do this 3 times.

Being kind to ourselves 2

Living with chronic pain, you may have thoughts like “I’m damaged,” “I’m broken,” or “What’s the point?” These thoughts are common, but are they helpful? Do they help you live a life that’s worthwhile? You don’t have to argue with these thoughts or make them go away. You can respond with kindness instead and disobey them or simply let them go. Thoughts are simply words and pictures. That’s it. Let’s look at this with a metaphor.