Understanding Change

I have been collecting copies of this newsletter over the last 10 months. My wife thinks enough about me to keep bringing them home from her work.
:?)

This particular edition discusses 'change'. Although the lesson discusses how many people find reasons to not change their unhealthy habits, I found the lesson to be just as important to me, the migraineur, the pain sufferer, and me the bearer of an invisible illness.

Key ideas discussed in this edition of LifeWorks could serve us well in understanding changes or lack of changes in our lives. As the possessor's of our pain it becomes too easy to be crippled beyond the boundaries of the illness itself. We may simply resist any change that may or may not promise a better life, because we become ambivalent due to previous defeats. We become static and afraid of having hope. We let the bitterness of the pain prevent us from stepping out in courage. From allowing ourselves the anticipation of the pleasure we are able to harness, and the freedom to let go of the suffering long endured.

I believe that I may have become bound by a form of learned helplessness. I've tried so many things. Given my hope to new treatments in which others rave, but do me no good. Sometimes I feel like I have just surrendered to my situation and forgotten how to visualize a successful result. The author of this newsletter is working in me to understand the culmination of my life's journey. ~ Andy

Please take time to read this article and leave any comments you may have. I have saved it as a .pdf file, so you will need Adobe Reader to open it. Click the image above to download the PDF version.

This newsletter is now being published online at http://carilionclinic.org/lifeworks,  and it is such good information that everyone should take the opportunity to read it. The author is John Ingram Walker, M.D., the Section chief at Carilion Clinic Saint Albans Hospital in Montgomery County, Virginia.

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