Does your Guilt hold you back?

So I currently have a close family member who is suffering with chronic leg pain. Now the pain is in and around the knee and sort of just below the knee in the upper shin and so on. And they've had this chronic pain for quite a while now. And that's one thing, you know, nobody wants to be stuck in chronic pain, of course. So I've been recently doing some things to try and help her and so on. She doesn't yet feel ready for me to get hands-on and do any treatment and so on, because apparently the pain is so bad. So at the moment, she's trying various exercises and things to try and strengthen the area and so on, and to reduce some of the pain that she feels like she's in on a day-to-day basis. Now, the catch is she's been going for a couple of months now doing a few different exercises that she feels like are benefiting, are helping, and she doesn't really want to stop. The issue she finds is that sometimes, because the progress is slower than she wants, she feels as though maybe she's not doing enough. And then on the flip side, obviously, when she talks to myself, it's a case of, well, is it that you're not doing enough, or are you actually doing too much and therefore not getting the recovery you want? Oh, I don't know. I just felt like maybe because I'm maybe pushing myself a bit bit hard. That's why it always seems to hurt. So I'm like, okay, cool. Well, you tell me that it hurts whether you do the exercise or not. Yeah, that's true. Have you tried doing less? No, I haven't. Okay, why don't you try doing less? Oh, well, I don't know. I feel like if I stop doing stuff, then it's not going to get better. So the catch is she's sat in this place right now where it's you've got two choices. One is you either have to live with the pain of doing the thing because you feel obligated to do it. So you either got to accept that, all right, well, when I do this thing, it's going to hurt, even though it hurts anyway, so it's just going to continue to hurt. Or I have to sit with the fact that if I don't do it, I've got to feel guilty for it. Because this is what's going on at the moment. At the moment, she feels guilty if she tries to do less. Now, this unfortunately is a tricky place for us to get stuck in because quite often when we are in chronic pain, whether in the back, the shoulder, the knee, the hip, doesn't matter where it is, sometimes, at least for a brief period, we often need to do less in order to get more of the result that we want. Sometimes we need to give the body the time it needs to heal. Sometimes the energy that's going to be required from our system to heal and repair us, we're then spending it on exercise and attempting to, to actually get better and to heal ourselves. So unfortunately, as much as we feel like, well, I need to do something in order to get the result that I want, quite often that doing is what's preventing your body from actually getting better. Now, that's not always the case because sometimes we do need to do more and we need to stimulate the body in a particular way in order to get specific responses and specific adaptations from it that's actually going to help heal the body, going to help strengthen around the area of the injury and the pain and so on. And if we don't do that, then again, we stay stuck. But unfortunately for many of us, due to various stories, narratives, and beliefs that we have around ourselves and how we should or should not show up and operate, that can unfortunately hold us back too. So it might be a case of, all right, well, maybe I'm doing a bit too much and I need to back off. The problem I have is that the narrative in my mind says if I do less, I'm being lazy. If I do less, I'm being weak because I need to show up and be strong and, and, and prove to myself that I'm strong enough to do this, prove to others around me that I'm not weak. And therefore, if I, if I am to take some time away— sorry, I've got a funky runny nose here. This is just what we want to see live, isn't it? But anyway, so yeah, the catch is she's caught in this place between do I go through physical pain of having the issue or do I sit in the emotional pain of not doing the physical thing I think I should be doing in order to heal, even though the catch is this physical thing that I'm doing might not be what's needed right now. Now, I don't only see this with, with my family member. I see this with clients too, and many people that come to me for consultations and so on. It's that same thing. It's like, I know I need to do something, or I feel like I need to do something, or I should do something. But at the same time, I know that maybe my body needs to rest, but I feel bad or feel lazy or guilty when I do rest because I feel like I'm not actually doing anything about it. But sometimes the best doing we can do is to do nothing at all. Now, I know that sounds counterintuitive, but sometimes that's what we need. We actually need to step back from the situation and allow the body the time and the space and the energy that it needs to begin the healing process. Because sometimes if I'm already in pain and I already have an injury and an area of the body that's inflamed and hurting, well, doing more on and around that area can sometimes keep that, that inflammation— sorry, that can keep it elevated. And if it stays elevated, then I'm likely to stay in pain. Of course, there are times where no, we actually need to get in there, we need to do things. But if you're doing this thing for an extended period, couple of weeks, even a couple of months, and you're not really getting the result that you want, and it's not as quick as you expect or feel like it should be, try something else. Don't keep showing up doing the same thing, expecting a new result. Because unfortunately it's very rare that happens. Yes, of course, at times we need to just keep doing the same old, and over time we compound results and do see the improvements that we want. But when it comes to getting out of pain, if I, if I have an injury or an area of my body that's chronically in pain and it's at, say, an 8 out of 10 on day 1, and then I get 4 weeks into doing a thing over and over again— I've got this corrective exercise program, for example— and I'm doing it over and over again, and 4 weeks I don't see a single change or single improvement, then it's probably not the thing I need. I probably need something different. Maybe I need different exercises, maybe I need less exercises, maybe I need more. Who knows? But we don't know until we start testing things out, tweaking things, looking at the program that we have and the, the, the exercises and things that we're doing, and really analysing and sitting with yourself to identify and discern, well, which of these maybe do feel like they're helping and which of them maybe are keeping me stuck where I'm at. Now, sometimes as an individual, we can't do that. We don't maybe have that knowledge or the ability to connect the dots in that way because we're relatively new to it. But if that's the case, then we get outside help. We seek guidance and expertise from somebody else. Could be me, could be your chiro, your osteo, or whoever it is you're maybe seeing for your pain. But whoever it is, you need to see someone that maybe can go, oh, well, actually, you've got this particular problem, whether it's a slipped disc or a rotator cuff injury or an MCL or ACL injury in the knee or whatever the thing might be, doesn't matter. But if you've got somebody with some skills and knowledge that can then look at what you're currently doing that doesn't seem to be working, maybe they can identify the areas where, oh, actually, that exercise is no good. That's just going to perpetuate your problem. Maybe try this instead, or swap that out, try this one. Or those are nowhere near what you should be doing. Don't worry about that particular type of exercise, because you need to do this sort of exercise, and so on. So there are often things that we maybe don't see ourselves. But at the same time, regardless of whether we see it or not, we have to learn that unfortunately, we can only live with— sorry, we have to choose which consequence we are happy to live with. Sometimes if we do something, it's going to hurt a little bit. We either have to be willing to do that and sit in the physical pain, or potentially sit in the guilt of not doing the thing because we're self-obligating and making ourselves believe that we should be doing more, we should be doing this, I should be, I should be. And the problem is when we have these ideas of I should, or I must, or I need to, often that sense of self-imposed obligation just makes it makes it too much. It elevates the urgency of it. Plus also it comes from a place where we feel like we're talking to us like we're a child. That's the sort of thing we say to a kid. You can't do that. You should do this. You shouldn't be doing that. You need to da da da. And that's how children often get spoken to and bossed around. So now when we start doing that to ourselves, because that's what we had done to us and we think that's the only way to parent ourselves, often that energy is not an energy that we respond well to. Whereas if we were able to say, oh, all right, well, hang on, here's the situation, here's what actually is going on right now. Do you think that this particular path that you're on is serving you? Now, it sounds like, why would I have this kind of weird conversation with myself? But believe it or not, you will get more progress and more insight into what it is you need to do if you learn how to have conversations with yourself than you will get from just about anybody else on the planet. Because the truth is, you know you better than anybody else on this planet knows you. You might have the idea sometimes that other people know you really well, or, oh, Tyrone spoke about a particular thing and he phrased it in a way that makes it sound like he knows me better than I know myself. Yes, on occasion there might be odd nuances, but the truth is ultimately, you know you better than anybody else, the same as I know me better than anybody else does. So we have to be willing to accept that responsibility and then show up for ourselves as if we actually care and as if we actually do believe that I know better for me than anybody else does. And then that way we're more likely to make the right decisions that are actually going to serve us, that are actually going to help heal us and help us get the body we want, whether that's getting out of pain, burning body fat, building muscle. It doesn't matter what the particular body goal is. If we show up for ourselves in the way we know we should, then 9 times out of 10, we're going to get the result, and we're going to get it without having to fight ourselves through these self-imposed obligations that often just hold us back. Now, if you want me to dig into this any deeper, or if you have any specific injuries or concerns of your own with your body and you want some help, some guidance, or advice, drop a comment below or reach out to me in the DMs, and I will get back to you with some helpful information and tips that you can use. Start implementing in order to start healing yourself. Any questions, people, drop them in the comments below. And if not, I look forward to chatting with you all in my next video. Take it easy, people.