1) Understand Pain 

“Your brain cares about survival, not optimal”.

Your brain only has one goal: survival. That’s it.

Pain is ultimately a protective mechanism for survival.

Your brain doesn’t care if you are in ‘chronic pain’. You’re alive.

As far as it’s concerned, all is good. You can survive & reproduce and keep the species living on.

So it’s up to you to learn about the pain mechanism and how to manage it, or else it can stay in undesirable patterns forever.

I have a detailed newsletter on “what pain is and how to manage it”. Read that one for a deeper dive on pain.

Here are 3 analogies you can use to remember why the protective mechanism of pain happens:
• It’s like the driving instructor pulling up the handbrake to protect the driver
• It’s like an overprotective mother grounding you for your own good
• It’s like a fire alarm going off to smoke from the toaster

Protective mechanisms have to be overly cautious.

Otherwise they wouldn’t serve their purpose of protecting you.

You can gain peace knowing the pain signal goes off way before something really bad happens.

And this helps us not to catastrophise, which leads into point 2.

2) Treat It Like A Flu

Common flu symptoms are:

• Fever/chills
• Cough
• Sore throat
• Runny nose
• Body aches
• Headaches
• Fatigue

And the list goes on.

Now imagine if you DIDN’T know what the flu was.

How would you feel if these symptoms started happening to you for the first time?!

You would be catastrophising & freaking the f**k out!!

You could think you are in your final hour. The grim reaper has called your name.

You would be calling the doctor and getting him over ASAP. You would go through this massive ordeal to find out that yeah, it’s not a big deal. It’s the flu. You’ll be ok.

And it’s the same with chronic pain flare-ups.

Once you understand what a flare up actually is, you can react to it just like you would a flu:

• You know it has happened for a reason
• You know you won’t be feeling great for days/weeks/months.
• But you understand it’s not a big deal
• You still go on and do what you can in the meantime

Catastrophising is a slippery slope that only makes things
worse.

It’s all downside and no upside. A terrible move on the chessboard of life.

It guarantees you will lose, but yet most people continually take it.

When we catastrophise, we are raising the stakes in our head. It’s like a poker game where you have gone all in.

You’ve made a normal situation into a life-or-death one.

Now you have the accompanying emotions for a high- stakes situation: anxiety, worry, fear etc.

But once you understand what a flare up is, you can handle it in the same way as a flu.

Treating flare ups like the flu enables you to lower the stakes, see it for what it really is, and take back control of the situation in an empowering way.

3) If You Can’t Do What You Want, Do What You Can

This is a frame I use for a lot of things in life.

But it’s very useful to manage flare ups too.

This frame trains us to focus on the opportunity within the obstacle.

Rather than sitting there feeling terrible about the obstacle itself.

If you can’t do what you want = the obstacle.
Do what you can = focus on the opportunity.

For example I have 2 torn meniscus in my knees and can’t do Jiu Jitsu right now. And I utilised this strategy:

If you can’t do what you want: Jiu-Jitsu 
Do what you can: kickboxing & muay thai

Rather than being down about not being able to do Jiu-Jitsu, I started kickboxing for the first time. And I did a month of Muay Thai when I was in Thailand. 

I focused on the opportunities NOT being able to do Jiu-Jitsu gave me.

When a flare up happens you can either take on the victim mindset and focus on what you can’t do. Or cultivate the Don’t Settle attitude and focus on what you can do.

Usually there are 3 options depending on how bad the flare up is:

• Continue your training as usual (while being mindful not to irritate it further)
• Modify your training.
• Stop training something completely (like my Jiu-Jitsu example)

When you focus on what you can do, you are empowered no matter what happens.

Your focus becomes your reality. Choose where you put it wisely.

Don’t Settle,
Mark

Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Physical Freedom Program
   (Overcome chronic pain & injury. Reach your athletic potential)
2. Mental Freedom Course
   (Stop looping & suffering. Skillfully navigate your own mind)
3. Lifestyle Design University
   (Avoid the biggest regret of humanity. Design the life true to yourself)