When I was in the Army, it was my job first, to learn to speak and write German, then translate the words to English.
I love languages.
I love to read. I love to write. I love words.
But I realize my body’s been speaking to me in a language I don’t recognize.
Communication in any language means stringing together words to paint a picture that best represents meaning.
Pain is your body’s non-verbal communication and it’s up to you to translate the message.
Until you learn your body’s language for pain, it’s like playing Wordle. You have some of the clues that let you take a stab at the meaning, but sometimes you get it wrong. You put an e where there should’ve been an a and totally change the meaning.
In many languages if you get the gender wrong, or your sentence structure is out of sequence it changes the meaning.
It’s a wonder we can communicate at all.
The worst communication transgression is not listening. When you don’t listen properly, you’re left to fill in the blanks on what you missed. You infer meaning that might not be there. This can lead to a serious breakdown in communications.
Do you know what your body is saying when you have pain?
First you need to define pain
Not an easy task because pain has so many different nuances. Pain language varies by type of pain, when and where it’s occurring and intensity.
Next come the modifiers i.e.: tolerable, intolerable, sharp, dull, sudden, chronic, throbbing, stabbing, etc. Pain has a never-ending list of adjectives that change its meaning.
It all means pain, but what does it tell you?
To stop doing what you’re doing immediately? Keep going because you’ll get stronger?
Do you recall a time when you had a goal to look a certain way in an outfit, so you went to the gym? You probably pushed yourself, maybe a little too hard and caused extreme soreness the next few days. Did you stop? Did alarm bells go off in your head telling you not to do that again? No! You went back to the gym once you recovered enough so you could keep working towards your goal!
Everyone interprets differently, but pain while exercising might not necessarily mean, Stop! It might mean hey I’m being cautious because I haven’t done this in a while. I’m a little rusty and I don’t want to overdo it here, but it’s ok. But pain while exercising can also mean, don’t do that.
How are you supposed to know the difference? Is all pain bad?
Learn to communicate with your body so you can manage pain from arthritis better. Pain is a normal part of living. It’s feedback. But it can’t get its message across if you’re not listening.
When you interpret all pain as “this isn’t supposed to be here” you’re setting yourself up for miscommunication.
Pain is non-verbal communication. It’s up to you to become skillful at interpreting your pain language.
We communicate a lot non-verbally. Even when words are used, non-verbal communication is happening. For example, when your doctor says, “it’s just arthritis”, they’re neutral words that have no meaning beyond the facts until you process them non-verbally. You might infer one or more meanings like:
They said “just” so it must not be bad.
My grandmother had arthritis; this is normal.
Why am I even seeing the doctor? There’s no treatment for arthritis.
Arthritis? I’m going to be deformed!
I have to stop doing all my favorite activities!
Highly different in meaning, these sentences race through your head and form the non-verbal communication of the doctor’s words.
Tune in to your pain with an open mind and try to understand what your body’s trying to communicate. Listen to what your body said before you infer meaning. Question the emotional sentences running through your head. The more you fine-tune this ability, the better you’ll be able to manage your arthritis and get stronger for the garden!
