If you’re starting to play with your Protectometer you’ll likely have noticed there are sticky-notes that you have no idea how to move out of the “danger” zone.

These concerns are going to need professional help to get them moving –– and I’m sure you feel like you’ve already exhausted the search for the right professional, so this lesson aims to teach you how to find that right person.

Now, what if I told you the health care industry itself is the reason you’re struggling to find the right help!

You see, there are so many options to choose from and everyone in the industry claims they can fix you. Their websites and literature are jam packed full of testimonies of successful treatments (and not a single one of their failures!), which makes it feel like you’re the problem, not the therapy –– Which is another sticky-note on the danger side of the board, saying, “I’m unfixable”!

But the real reason it’s so hard to find a therapy that works is that you’re not applying a strategy to choosing a therapy. So let’s illustrate a strategy I recommend in a short metaphor…

Fire Fighters and Construction Workers

If your house catches fire, who would you call?

No, it’s not a trick question. You’re completely correct. You would call the fire service.

Now, would you expect them to come back a week later and tidy up? Would you expect the fire service to dry out your house, remove the fire damaged items and start the rebuild for you?

I hope not.

Instead, you’d call in the construction team to start the long and arduous task of rebuilding a more fire resilient home.

Now apply that same logic to the fires of pain.

There are professionals that specialise in Fire Fighting –– bringing acute bouts of pain under control.

And there are professionals that specialise in Construction –– rebuilding you to become more resilient to future pain episodes.

Yet when we seek help with pain, we think all therapies are equal –– “If a therapy can ease my pain in the acute flare up, surely it can resolve my pain altogether if I keep going back.”

Thinking this way is like asking the fire department to hose your house down with water every week, so it doesn’t catch fire again. Sure, it probably won’t catch fire, but your house will develop wet rot!

What I want to teach you is that some therapies are for “Fire Fighting” and some are for “Construction”.

So when you look at your challenging sticky-notes, try to think, “does this need pacifying so I can think more clearly, or do I need to rebuild resilience in this area of my health to become truly safe?”

Now, this leads us to the obvious question –– Which therapies are Fire Fighters and which are Construction Workers?

Fire Fighters

This one is simple to answer. If the therapist offers “treatment”, then it is Fire Fighting.

Medication, Massage, Acupuncture, Osteopathy, Chiropractic, Shiatsu, Kinesiology and more, these are all therapies that offer treatments, in which you are the passive receiver.

And they all work. Brilliantly in fact! These therapies are invaluable because they offer the chance of bringing pain under control.

But they don’t fix you.

They settle the pain––Then pain then comes back––They settle the pain again––And the pain comes back––ad infinitum.

Don’t turn them into a fire department soaking your house down every week!

Fire Fighting therapies are the heroes of pain management because they can ease the fires of pain, and deservedly so. But lest we forget the Construction Workers, our unsung heroes. Let’s talk about them next…

Construction Workers

These are the men and women of the world that focus their attention on rebuilding you. Their job is far less glamorous, and it’s easy to get impatient with them because results aren’t instant like fire fighting.

What these people do is rebuild your resilience. They help you push pain into the background by building your confidence and moving those sticky-note concerns over to the safety side of the board.

And, like our fire fighting therapies, they are also quite easy to spot.

Simply put, you know a Construction Worker because they are going to get you actively involved in your health, in order to rebuild your confidence and resilience.

Think Physiotherapists, Specialist Exercise Coaches, Clinical Psychologists, Nutritionists etc. All of which ask you to follow a plan of activity or behaviour change that will lead you towards greater confidence and resilience.

And those two words are so important here, because confidence and resilience both move you across the Protectometer Play Board.

(Interestingly, relying on a therapists to settle your pain and wondering how long it’ll take to return, does not promote movement across the board –– In fact, used too often, “treatment” often reenforces a sense of danger because the management of pain is out of your hands.)

No matter what the sticky-note says, for you to feel safe you have to prove it to yourself, which mean doing things for yourself –– Have you ever seen a person scared of heights attempt an abseil on a TV show? No matter how much everyone tells them they won’t fall, they actually have to lean back over the edge themselves to learn that it’s true.

Great Health and Wellness Construction Workers help you do that. They meet you where you are at in your sense of danger and they hold your hand as you step forwards.

They also iterate with you. Meaning they help you notice what is working and what is not and quickly help refine the path you’re on accordingly. That way they help you learn about your pain and grow in confidence as you find ways to overcome it.

Rounding Up The Lesson.

Both kinds of professional are needed to help you move across the play board to safety.

When you feel your pain is having a flare up and you need to get it under control, then Fire Fighters are the way to go.

Firstly, use them as sparingly as possible. The body get’s use to methods of pain suppression over time and begins to respond less well to treatment.

Secondly, choose which ever therapy works for you. That could be Osteopathy, or it could be Crystal Healing, it really doesn’t matter as long as you feel the benefit of bringing a flare under control.

But when a flare is back down to a tolerable baseline, shift over to your Construction Workers asap.

If the Sticky-Note concern is about the physical body, then use a Physio or a Specialist Exercise Coach.

Use Physios when you have a complex medical diagnosis for your pain or are under the guidance of a medical consultant. In all other circumstances a Specialist Pain Coach will help you rebuild confidence and resilience in your body.

If the Sticky-Note concern is more psychological, then I’d recommend seeing a clinical psychologist as they are great at helping you develop skills that build confidence and resilience.

Hopefully this all helps you see why seeking professional help requires a strategy –– One for easing flares and one for rebuilding resilience. And if you’re still unsure, at Sussex Pain Coach, we can help you build the right team around you, so please get in touch.

In our last lesson I’d like to round up everything I’ve spoken about and give you a concise direction to go in to help you overcome your persistent pain.

If that sounds good, then I’ll see you in the next lesson…