Turning your Pain into Power

In clinical therapy I often work with clients who are wanting to process and heal from painful experiences. They sometimes describe themselves as ill, broken, hurt, and/or weak. The post traumatic stress symptoms and anxiety has changed the way they seem themselves. The pain they have experienced often described as a heavy burden they carry. What if that heavy burden could be turned into a superpower? Hear me out.

When we have a difficult or painful experience in life it often stays with us. We remember it, how we felt about it and how it impacted our life.

Now I want you to think about a time in your life when you learned the most about yourself. A time when you realized our strength and resilience more than any other time. Take a moment and reflect. Was it when things were easy and going well? Or was it when things are hard? People generally recognize their strength and resilience when they go through something challenging. The experience of pain is an important one. It allows us to appreciate the joy and hope that we often take for granted when things go well.

There is no better classroom than a crisis and no better teacher than trauma. If we are ready to learn from it. The lessons are there. Whenever we feel discomfort or challenge, our brains naturally want to hide from it and revert to what is familiar, even if it is maladaptive. This is a mindset.

It is possible to change our mindset to recognize the discomfort for what it is, learning. When we recognize that challenge is an opportunity for us to learn something about ourselves and the world around us, it becomes less fear mongering.

Learning to appreciate challenge for the learning it brings takes time. It does not happen overnight and often it takes intentionally effort, learned strategies and tools. This can be done through therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy, accelerated resolution therapy and many others that teach us to better understand out thoughts and experiences and to tolerate distress in healthy ways.

One tip: At the end of each day, remind yourself what you are grateful /proud of yourself for.  Start doing this daily and remind yourself that you have already made it through 100% of the worst days of your life. You can get through this too.  We’re here to help.