Open Minds and Hearts

Believe it or not an open mind and heart are two of the best things you can have as you deal with chronic pain. Most of us may think we have open minds. However, we may have a subtle automatic rejection system operating just under our conscious level of thought. We gravitate toward the comfortable or proven. We give lip service to new ideas, thinking that we will get around to giving them a fair hearing some day. Yet, that day never comes.

Taking a look at our mental boundaries doesn't mean we have to give up safety or try options that are outlandish or ridiculous. It means we should consciously look at when and why we automatically say no to new ideas and methods. What's the harm in reading an article just because our first reaction is to dismiss it? Even if a new idea ends up being 'not for us,' we may learn something. There may be a snippet of information worth knowing about. Following that snippet may lead us to another article and another. Before we know it, we may have something valuable in hand.

It is the same with our hearts. We may have people or types of people with whom we work well. We may also have ideas about types of people we don't see as a good fit, perhaps based on prior bad experiences. This can be valid, but what if we encountered those types of people under utterly different circumstances and with a different frame of reference? Carrying old feelings through to the present may cause us to miss out on opportunities to collaborate, learn, and heal. Just as we should look carefully at how we automatically say no with our minds, we should look carefully at how we automatically say no with our hearts.

Sometimes dealing with chronic pain can be overwhelming and we seek to shut other things out. Perhaps this is productive in the moment, but we have to take care with this approach. We have too much to lose if our minds and hearts don't remain open. Being open does not mean abandoning critical judgment and the right to say 'no.' It means giving ourselves more opportunities to exercise critical judgment and to say 'yes' or 'no' as appropriate.