Living with chronic disability or pain can affect ones day to day ability to experience life’s richness. It can lead to depression with an inability to appreciate how limitations can also be turned into strengths. Psychotherapy for chronic pain disability and illness can help you have compassion for yourself and your suffering can lead to new ways of finding meaning and purpose in your life. Discovering meaning in your suffering can be life changing. Realizing that we have a choice how to handle and think about chronic pain or chronic disability, can make all the difference in the world.
Learning the difference between pain and suffering is the key. Pain is the physical sensation of your condition. Suffering is how we think about it. Suffering can be so much more debilitating than pain. The fears and stories we create in our mind about our physical condition are often the leading cause of our emotional discomfort and inability to enjoy the lives we have. Living in the present takes practice but it can truly be a blessing for those of us trying to live fully in spite of our physical imperfections.