Video script: intro to values
GGC - 12 Week Pain Management Programme
This content is designed for the participants of the GGC Pain Management Programme.
Values … what matters to me?
Hello, it’s Anna here. This session is about values. We are going to be asking ourselves this question - what matters to me? You might think this is a strange question to be asking at a Pain Management Programme. It is certainly a big question. At the beginning of each group we spend quite a bit of time thinking about what matters to you, who you are, what you want your life to be about. For lots of us, this is not an easy or straight forward process but we have found, over many years of running these groups, that it really helps people to go on to set goals that make a difference to their lives.
Many of you may feel that you have changed from the person you were before developing pain. Even if you feel you are the same person deep down, it’s likely that you will have changed in other ways. Often it is the things that we do that define us as individuals. For example, if you ask someone to tell you a bit about themselves, they will often say what they do for a job, what hobbies they have, what role they play in a family or community, etc. All of these things are about the stuff that they do. For many people, having pain will have meant a big change in the things you are able to do, so in some senses it may have changed who you are, and quite possibly, how you see yourself.
Many of you will be doing less than you did previously because of the restrictions that pain imposes on you. Many of you will also have given up on specific activities, such as exercise or socialising. Sometimes this is ok if these things weren’t that important to you, but other times you are likely to have felt sad at having to give up some of these things.
Have a think about the kinds of things that you’ve had to stop and how this has made you feel about yourself. Has it affected how you and others see you? Does this make you sad or angry? Or maybe it is a relief and even makes you happy? Does it make you view yourself differently?
You may feel you have been fighting a battle with your pain. Over time this battle has started to consume your life. The time you’ve spent searching for solutions to your pain has likely left you exhausted, stressed-out, and, worst of all, still in pain.
Some people say that they are so tired of the pain and so caught up in getting rid of it that they’ve forgotten why they wanted to get rid if it in the first place – take a moment to think about this question.
What would you be doing just now if you didn’t have pain?
Take a moment to stop and ask yourself this question: If I had no pain, what would I do with my life?
PAUSE
This may sound a bit radical, but what if you could learn to do some of those things with your pain? What if you could carry your pain with you while you live the life you want to live – this a large part of the focus of the PMP.
Please spend some time before the next session, doing task 1 of the values worksheet. This task gets us to think about the habits and patterns we may be in that are in fact not helpful for our lives. Maybe things that you do to cope with your pain that in fact don’t help that much in the long term and maybe even pull you away from what matters, causing you to miss out.
This task also asks us to think about what matters to us. Spend some time thinking about this. If you are struggling, or want to spend some more time thinking about this, you could use the list of Forty Common Values in your workbook to help clarify what characteristics matter most to you.
We will soon be asking you to set a goal to work on through the remainder of the programme. Hopefully spending time thinking about what really matters to you, will help you to identify a goal that will improve your life and help you feel you are living a life that matters to you.