Managing Our Thoughts With Polymyalgia

Have you ever noticed how when you spring a happy mood that everything becomes light, and the it becomes much easier to achieve the impossible.
Everything looks and feels completely different.

But its not so easy to do with PMR especially when you have those ‘out of bed’ blues at that time of day when we should be bouncing to the tune of a fresh new day.

A lot of how we deal with life and the lemons that life gives us can be brought back to how we manage our thoughts towards them. And as much as its easy for me to pen them here(yes I know), I still want to impart to you what I picked up recently.

After digesting some articles on the subject I have put together my “GEMS” for coping with PMR. Base on worthwhile research the letters of GEMS stand for:

G Gratitude
E Exposure
M Meditate
S See

Now you probably think I’ve gone nuts and these words alone don’t really mean very much by themselves. So I will explain each one and then you may feel more comfortable with where I am coming from.

Gratitude.
Gratitude is a composed decision to be thankful for what we have. The very decision releases us completely from the clutter in our mind about why, where, how, and who is responsible. It is in fact the key to true happiness.
Instead of fretting through what we do not have or what we are unable to be, take a step back and a big breath and express thanks for what we do have.
I strongly recommend a gratitude journal where you can write all the good things that you have in your life. On a daily basis write down the points that you identify are things to be grateful for.
And for every day have a “victory” component. Write down every ‘victory’ you have no matter how small. This will put a lot into perspective for you.

Exposure.
Monitor and control your exposures. These consist of thoughts, influences, and people.
Thoughts. Dismiss all negative thoughts. This takes practice and often we will still think negatively without realising it. Nip it in the bud and toss the thought away. A good strategy is to write the thought on a sheet of toilet paper and throw the sheet into the bin, or better still, the toilet. Try it!
Influences. Television and radio often carry the days news and 90% of that is negative. Trust me you do not need to know. Cut out all negative influences, and only watch happy or funny TV. And no talk back radio!
Also avoid depressing books.
People. Not so easy to do but you must take control of this. If someone is not pleasant to be with be up front with them. They will respect you for it. But ask them to behave differently or not be there at all. You do not need it, and by dealing with it you achieve 2 outcomes – clearing out negative people, and feeling good about your yourself for facing the issue.

Meditation
Meditation means different things to different people and I am not proposing any specific process here. Quietly – if you can give yourself some periods of the day where you are quiet and relaxed, then this is highly beneficial, and in some cases more than enough to achieve.

If you can also incorporate a meditation technique or self hypnosis, then these too become very powerful healing processes, for the body and especially for the mind.
The addition of ‘affirmations’, then completes this process. This combination then becomes significantly more powerful for assisting your mind to deal competently with the daily stress’s of PMR.

See.
Finally use visualisation techniques to paint a different picture than the one you hold in your mind. It is scientifically proven that the subconscious mind can not tell the difference between an eye-captured vision and a mind-created vision. If you permanently imprint a vision of a healthy ‘you’ getting about easily, without the inhibitions of the PMR then eventually this will become your reality.

The world is now experiencing the truth about healing via the mind, and there are many stories where seemingly fatal situations have been overcome. Please do not dismiss this process. I accept that PMR is what it is, and I’m not so naïve to think that we can just push it away. I just ask you to use the techniques and see what it does for you – it won’t hurt you anymore will it?

So there you have my GEMS. I hope that these introduce some thought process’s that will help you deal with PMR more constructively. Of all the information there could be on the internet there is virtually nothing that teaches us how to “think” about PMR.

I hope that my GEMS help you in some small way, even if nothing more than to give you some amusing reading.

To discover more on how to live with polymyalgia please CLICK HERE.