There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes with chronic pain and anxiety: not just the physical toll, but a harder-to-name weariness. I can’t describe how many times people have said to me, ‘I don’t trust my body any more’. That’s such a hard thing to hear.
Somewhere along the way, pain may have taught you to doubt every twinge, question every good day and brace yourself for every setback. You’ve stopped listening to yourself because your body seems to be lying to you, working against you, or breaking down in some way that’s difficult to explain. What I hear is a sense of betrayal.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Most importantly, I can tell you that you’re not broken and this is not a life sentence. You may feel like your body has betrayed you - and knowing what you feel is vitally important - but together we can examine those feelings and reframe them. Once it becomes clear that you’re simply experiencing the natural consequences of long-term neuroplastic pain, you can re-learn how to trust your body.
Why trust matters more than you think
If you’ve read a few of my Resolving Chonic Pain blogs, it’s likely that you already understand that chronic pain is very often the nervous system doing its job too well. It’s protecting you long after the danger has passed, sounding alarms that no longer match any real threat. The pain is real, but the signal has become unreliable.
Here’s the thing about unreliable signals: the way out isn’t to fight them harder, but instead to gently and patiently show your nervous system that it’s safe to stand down. The message that ‘you are safe’ can’t be delivered through grim determination alone: it has to be conveyed through trust. Trust that your body isn’t the enemy, that sensation doesn’t always mean danger, that you, the whole of you, is capable of healing. Without that trust, every strategy becomes another battle. With consistent trust in yourself, the same strategies become acts of care.
An inner knowing
Historically in Ireland we know the value of patience: with the land, the weather, even with a pot of soup left to simmer rather than rushed on a high heat. We also know that some things like true friendship, a child or a garden will only grow when given steady, unhurried care and faith that the growing is happening, even when you can’t see it.
Your body deserves that same faith. Not blind faith, but one informed by an understanding of what neuroplastic pain really is. The kind that says ‘I don’t have to understand every sensation today to trust that healing is under way.’
What does trusting yourself look like?
Firstly, it’s not about pretending everything is grand when it isn’t. It’s about:
Noticing a flare-up and reminding yourself, gently, that this is not a relapse; it’s about your nervous system being loud, not right;
Doing an activity you once avoided and choosing to believe your body can handle it;
Speaking to yourself patiently the way you’d speak to a friend who was frightened and hurting, rather than with the harsh inner voice that says ‘you should be over this by now’. I hear this so often, and you know it saddens me that some of you really are quite unkind to yourselves;
Allowing a good day to be just that without waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Each of these choices represents a small act of rebuilding, a brick laid back into a foundation that pain has worn away. It’s OK to still be a bit wobbly - none of them requires complete certainty. All that’s needed is willingness to trust yourself and the process.
You are instrumental in your own healing
You can’t think or force your way out of chronic pain, but you can trust your way through it. Trust isn’t passive: it’s one of the most active and courageous things you can offer yourself, especially after pain has spent months or years teaching you the opposite lesson.
Take this as your invitation, not your instruction: begin, today, to trust yourself again. Do it in some small way. Trust that your body wants to heal. Trust that the sensations you feel are just signals, and signals can change. Trust that although you may be feeling weary and worn down, you’re still here, still trying, and you can get well.
It’s difficult. Anything worth doing usually is. But it begins with healing, and that healing starts the moment you decide to believe in yourself again. You’re not starting from nothing, you’re starting from you; and that’s more than enough.