Save Yourself Some Pain

This post is an edited e-mail: My response to a member of The Anger Resolution Recovery Group which I lead at the Anchorage Baptist Temple on Thursday night, 7pm in room 207. I have intentionally removed any information that would identify the person asking the question, "How do I deal with physical pain being the cause of anger?"

I believe that it's extremely important that you ask God for a solution to your pain and then dilligently seek that solution. Sounds like you're doing that. I encourage you to seek information not only from physicians but from alternative medicine sources and nutrition experts. I read a wide variety of health information and take what makes sense to me. I have been able to heal a couple of major health problems with nutritional changes. In 1992, for example, I exited Military Service and found work for the summer on Elmendorf AFB Golf Course. My job was to upgrade the irrigation system used to water the greens and fareways. This involved digging, by hand with pick and shovel, six holes a day that averaged six feet in depth. The result of that repetative daily physical stress was that my shoulders hurt constantly and when I rotated my arm in a full range of motion I would hear a crunching/grinding sound as if there were shards of glass inside my shoulder joint. I prayed for the Lord to heal me, but I also began a search for a natural way for my shoulders to heal. I came across a Health Bullitin from the same people who do the Anger Resolution Seminar that discussed a Scripture verse about honeycomb being health to the bones. I was also reading natural remedies from other sources and found information explaining that honeycomb had properties that helped with health of bones and joints. Donna also found information about preparing a special broth from chicken bones and apple cider vinegar that she began to make for me. I started consuming honeycomb and Donna's "magic" broth daily. The end result was that within about one year, all my pain was gone and the crunching sound in my shoulders went away. Thus God answered my prayer to heal me. Other benefits came from the search as well. The point is to "ask, seek, and knock".


Something I have discovered recently about myself is that I tend to become easily overwhelmed by irritaions and I have not understood how to destress quikly enough. This causes physical pain in my body. Dr. Andrews, a local Psychologist who is also a Christian, pointed out to me that I needed to pay more attention to what is going on with my body when I am stressed or angry. With his help, I came to realize that I have a habit of breathing very shallowly and sometimes hold my breath during normal activities, and more so during stressful situations. I've started to work on noticing tension in my body and using some deep breathing excercises to remove that tension several times a day. I've discovered that my physical, mental and spiritual selves are very tightly enmeshed so that being out of balance in one affects the others. Another thing I discovered was that changes I make seem to have a delayed effect. It takes time to see any result from the changes I make so I have to excercise faith and patience. Negative habits and changes are the same way. It's like a farmer planting seeds in faith, knowing that the law of the harvest is in effect and if he does it right he will reap in due season. If I plant good seeds I get a good crop. Plant bad seeds and I get a bad crop, but I don't see it right away.

To manage physical pain as an irritation I recomend working to balance your life as well as you can. Make sure you are treating your body/temple well, balancing physical excercise, rest, and the best food that you can afford(p.s. I know much about this if you don't. I can help), and get proper rest. Work on having a balance of the fruit of the spirit. work on mental stressors like fear, worry, aggitaions of thought like negative self talk or negative memories including memories of books and movies you may have encountered in the past. Work on controling your thoughts and forcing them to line up with God's word(bring every thought into captivity the scripture says). Use your thoughts to bring negative emotional states under control. Change your thinking about the struggles and begin to get excited about the process of growing, changing and learning what works and doesn't work. Work on your anger triggers by first discovering what they are and then going back to the root cause of each one and resolving it. This will greatly reduce irritations to a more manageable level. Practice the "Great Steps" (from the Anger Resolution Seminar) DAILY. G-Give Thanks, R-Rejoice, E-Engraft Scripture, A-Appeal to God, T-Triumph over evil with good works. The Great Steps are always the proper response to unchangeables in our life because God has either directly caused or allowed the unchangeables to exist in my life. They are his deep and wide thoughts to work for my good. They are for me to search out and understand. So I change what I can and to resolve what I can't change I use the Great Steps.

Finally, as a temporary measure, I am not against taking mild pain relievers to knock the edge off my pain when I feel like it's causing me difficuly. Ibuprofen is not just for headaches in my life. I use it for muscle and joint pain for example if I have pushed myself a little too hard excercising and need relief in order to not be a crazy person. Don't be a hero, in my opinion. Take drugs if you need them. Then once you think you've got your life balanced and all figured out, be ready for God to reveal new information that causes you to tweek things a bit or radically change what you thought was correct. Also don't worry about being perfect. Do your best and don't sweat the rest.

I've thrown alot of information into this message in the hope that just one thing might be useful. It is possible that all of it is familiar to you and you are already doing these things, in which case I will need feedback about what was useful and what was worthless. I'm looking forward to hearing what Donna has to say. I always learn things from that girl. She's much more spiritual than I am!

God bless, and thanks for reading my ramblings,



Jeff