When you experience a bad pain day your TFUARs (thinking, feelings, urges, actions, and reactions of others) often change. The purpose of the following exercise is to explore your personal accounts in each of the above TFUAR areas when you experience pain on a bad pain day and then take corrective action.

Please take a brief timeout to breath and center yourself. Then when you are ready, complete the following exercise designed to help you to identify, challenge, and change the thoughts, and manage the feelings, urges, actions and social reactions that can lead you towards using self-defeating behaviors and experiencing negative consequences that lead to worsening your depression and/or chronic pain symptoms.

Thinking

First draw a line down the middle of a page so you have two columns. Title the left hand column PROBLEM and the right hand column SOLUTION. Thinking of your pain on a bad pain day please list three of the self-defeating or negative thoughts that you experience. Now in the right hand column come up with as many positive challenges or affirmations that you can that you can use to challenge those self-defeating thoughts.

Feelings

Again draw a line down the middle of a page so you have two columns—if you have room under the thinking section just continue from there. Title the left hand column PROBLEM and the right hand column SOLUTION. Thinking of your pain on a bad pain day thinking the self-defeating thoughts you listed above; please list three of the uncomfortable feelings or emotions that you experience and rate them on a 1-10 scale. Now in the right hand column come up with as many positive ways you can think of to manage those feelings in a way that moves you out of the problem and into the solution.

Urges

Continue the line down the middle of a page so you keep two columns. Again the left hand column is the PROBLEM and the right hand column is the SOLUTION. Thinking of your pain on a bad pain day with those self-defeating thoughts and uncomfortable emotions please list three of the self-defeating or negative urges or impulses that you experience. Now in the right hand column come up with as many positive ways that you can think of that you can that you can use to challenge those self-defeating urges.

Actions

Continue line down the middle of a page so you keep two columns. Again the left hand column is the PROBLEM and the right hand column is the SOLUTION. Thinking of your pain on a bad pain day with those self-defeating thoughts, uncomfortable emotions and self-defeating urges, please list three of the self-destructive or negative actions or behaviors you use. Now in the right hand column come up with as many positive ways that you can think of that you can that you can use to challenge those self-destructive actions or behaviors and what are your new healthy behaviors that you can implement.

Reactions

Continue line down the middle of a page so you keep two columns. Again the left hand column is the PROBLEM and the right hand column is the SOLUTION. Thinking of your pain on a bad pain day with those self-defeating thoughts, uncomfortable emotions, self-defeating urges, and self-destructive actions, please list three of the ways your behavior causes negative social reactions. Now in the right hand column list as many guides, helpers or coaches that can help you move out of the problem and into the solution. Then list as many ways that you can think of that you want each of these healthy support people to say or do, that will aid you.

To learn more about my views on how to cope with chronic pain without suffering, please read my article Pain is Inevitable but Suffering is Optional when Living with a Chronic Pain Condition that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are living with chronic pain, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication problem and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing your pain and medication effectively, please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

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