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130 Posts
James,
You just used one of my very favorite quotes and truisms from St Francis of Assisi. I have a C5-8 injury, nearly 6 years now, and that particular quote was on my email signature for years. Thank you for sharing your ideas and for your service to our country.
Carla
58 Posts
As Carla said, I want to thank you for your service to our country. I appreciate your sharing your thoughts and feel that your attitude and method of coping is an extraordinary way of helping one handle chronic pain. The idea that there is "something more important than yourself" and that there are people who "depend on you and are looking to your for guidance" can be one of the most important motiations to moving forward and putting the pain messages in the background of your mind. I hope you continue to share your meditations with us. The training you had in SF and as a Ranger no doubt helped you find a way to control your focus on the task ahead and block out distractions like physical discomfort. Sharing those skills could really help us learn how to function at higher pain levels.
Deborah
453 Posts
Hi James,
Thanks so much for choosing this forum for your first post. Since you quoted St. Francis of Assisi, I shall tell you a Zen story:
nearly 2 centuries ago a man had an unexpected death in his family and he suffered and had been suffering for months. He went to the Zen master to ask for help. The Zen master said "take a glass of water and put a tablespoon of coarse salt into it and then drink it." Of course the young man did what he was told and almost gagged at the case of the water. "Now, take a tablespoon of salt and put it in a spring brook" the Zen master said. Of course the water was delicious. "The problem is not the salt" the Master said "the problem is the container. If you want your pain to diminish, make the container bigger."
That's what you have done with your life. You've made the container bigger. You are bigger than your pain and so is your world. The world needs us. It needs us to teach them about dealing with people who navigate the world differently, people who live with pain with courage and grace. Pain, quadriplegia, depression are all sources of suffering. But they are what we have and not all we are.
And to your point about training your brain to raise your pain threshold, the brain treats itself if we allow it to. I was waiting for the elevator this past summer and an elderly woman came to wait with me. She was on a cane and brightly dressed and gave me a big smile when she said good morning. At the same time, she was in visible pain. When we got to the bottom, she said "I hope you have a good day, I will certainly try to have one." Her pain threshold was sky high. I think she just got there by being open to her pain and not engaging in a lot of self-pity or righteous in the nation.
Take care of yourself James and please continue to be a teacher. And I want to echo what others have said-thank you for your service to our country
49 Posts
I would also like to join in, first..........in thanking you for your service.......secondly, for giving us an important tool to help cope with pain. Using pain to drive the focus away from self ............ A focus outside ourselves. Thank you so much for sharing. I hope you continue to post. God bless.......Norma
