I’m feeling motivated today to motivate others and that’s why I’ve put this short video in, to remind you that no matter how bad things are they can get better. I’m on a journey right now to regain my life and overcome everything that has happened to me since being diagnosed with CRPS. Last week I had a really bad week trying to deal with my pain. The emotional roller coaster had me going up and down and at times I had to really fight to keep my focus.

This morning I was watching some motivational videos about moving forward, and couldn’t help but think that this is the direction that I’m headed in. As I surround myself with positive I find that the negative has less and less affect on me. How can you not help being positively influenced by watching videos like these. It makes me think forward to what life will be like and how it can be, if I focus myself on how things can be and not how life could have been. If we stay focused in this way it’s amazing how we put ourselves in the best possible situation to get better and start the changes that needs to happen in our brain. Standing strong in my faith helps as well.

As I was thinking about what I wanted to write about today I starting thinking about the affects of pain and how it has such a powerful grip on those of us with CRPS. When you think about it half the time we really don’t understand how it’s affecting us, and how much it stops us dead in our tracks from doing the things we want to do. When my pain is bad it’s like I’m a different person, I’m not quite as positive and I find things more difficult to deal with. At times like this people can become more negative and only see the negative side of there pain.

I’m not saying that it doesn’t take time to train the brain to focus on things other than the pain. I’m still learning it!!! What I’m saying is that over time I’m starting to learn and tell myself to take advantage of the good times when the pain isn’t as bad. If it doesn’t have me doubled over then I’m learning to take my focus away from the pain. Small steps like this will hopefully lead to more periods of time where the pain isn’t as bad.

What happens with me is that I go through these peaks and valleys of pain. Take for example last weekend at Easter. Our family gathering caught up with me a couple of days later and over the next 3 or 4 days my pain started to build and build until it peaked. Over the next 3 or 4 days my pain started to lesson. What I’ve started to do now, is focus myself on knowing that things will be getting better over the next few days. Before I just used to think about the pain, and as you know pain just has a way of building and building. So I would spend days and days where the pain wouldn’t change.

It’s important to recognize that you can control your pain and that if you work with your pain and understand it then you can gain control over some of that pain. This is something that I’m trying to work on. It certainly isn’t something that’s easy because every day I fight with trying to gain control over the pain. You can’t just snap your fingers and expect that you can do this overnight. This has been one of the biggest challenges to me is not putting a time on how long it takes. It takes determination and focus to try to gain the upper hand over pain.

Small changes may seem like nothing at all however don’t look at them in that way. Small changes in my brain are big changes!!! It’s something!! That’s the way you need to look at it. If you can see one little glimmer of hope then that’s something to hold on to. Don’t let something like this control your life. Pain can beat you down if you let it, so make the decision not to let it!!!