Читать книгу Taming Chronic Pain - Amy Orr - Страница 17

Exercise: Seeing Through Age and Gender

Compassion toward yourself takes practice. Start trying to exercise compassion toward others. If someone is walking slowly on the street, don’t just hurry past them. Think to yourself: maybe that’s as fast as they can walk. Ignore their age or the way they look. If someone can’t lift a bag of groceries at the market, don’t think “They’re weak” or “They should exercise more.” Think: maybe they’re experiencing muscular difficulty today. Maybe their joints have seized up.

Being in pain can feel like being on an island alone, and this fosters an everyone else mentality. It seems like everyone else can cope fine, has no issues, has their good health. But pain is invisible; just as they don’t know yours, you don’t know theirs. Stop presuming about others’ bodies and pain, and it will become easier to stand up for your own.