Pain: How To Deal with It | Warrior Notes

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

The Warrior Soul podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Albert. Our goal is to empower US military veterans to live their absolute best lives, and we do that by providing tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas that they can apply into their lives to become wiser, stronger, smarter, more resilient, and more capable human beings in the civilian world. If you're not a veteran, stick around because anything we talk about here can obviously apply to you. And if you like what we have to say, any information we provide, and the guests we bring on, please head over to iTunes and write us a written rating and review. It really helps to spread word about the show and to get this helpful information into the hands of more veterans so that they can in turn improve their lives and shape the future of this country.

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This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

What's going on ladies and gents? We got another podcast coming into your ears right now and this is gonna be one that's a little bit off the cuff. Today I want to talk about something that we all experience. It's something that drips in and out of our lives in different ways. That's pain.

We have physical pain and we have emotional pain. And I may not be an expert on a lot of things, but I'm definitely an expert on pain. I can tell you that for the past twelve years I've dealt with an autoimmune disease called ulcerative colitis. Without getting into the really graphic details of what ulcerative colitis is, essentially what happens is my immune system attacks my intestinal tract. When it attacks my intestinal tract it eats into the interior lining.

And when that happens, you get what's called gut permeability, and your immune system starts to go a little bit crazy. Essentially, the side effects or the symptoms mean that I am running to the bathroom about 20 to 30 times a day. And when I am running to the bathroom, I'm passing a lot of blood. Not just a little bit of blood, but I'm talking about the entire entire toilet covered in bright red blood. And again, sorry for the graphics, but when I first had the disease, when I first got it, I thought I had cancer.

And I was actually relieved when after a colonoscopy they told me that I had this autoimmunity because it meant that I didn't have cancer. And so ended up taking the medication, going about my merry way, and then pretty soon more flare ups started happening. There's been times when I've been able to put it into remission. There's been times where I thought that I didn't have the disease anymore, only to have it rear its ugly head one more time. Over the summer, because this disease generally comes back up whenever you're dealing with times of stress.

I lost a dear friend Patrick "Juni" Gutierrez who passed away suddenly a couple of weeks after I'd seen him. And the grief from that, I wouldn't say is the only thing that started it, but it was amongst the combination of things that that put me back into this position. Over the past few weeks, it's gotten so bad that in the first three to four hours of my day, I am in excruciating pain. I am to the point that I'm so in so much pain that I'm vomiting, and I am to the point that I'm losing so much blood that I get dizzy. I still try to go to the gym.

I still try to train, but, it has definitely eaten into who I am, what I am, what I'm trying to do here with my mission. And so if you've noticed that I've been a little bit loopy when I'm talking here on the podcast or maybe when you've seen me on some of my videos, that's the reason why. Now last week my doctor put me on prednisone, a forty milligram dose, and most people go on twenty milligrams. Prednisone is basically injecting cortisol, the stress hormone, into your system. It helps to take down the immune system a notch.

Essentially what it feels like is lightning bolts going through my body. So when I'm lying in bed at night, I get super nervous, super anxious. It's like I can't calm down. So one of the only things that helps me to calm down is THC. I don't like the feeling of being high, But if I didn't have cannabis, then I don't know where I'd be right now.

I don't think I'd be functional. I don't think I'd be sleeping. I don't think I would be anything. Now I'm telling you all this right now, and you're probably sitting there like, oh, woe is me, whatever. I'm not telling you this to get sympathy from you.

What I'm telling you this, the reason why I'm telling you this is because I I want you to understand that if you're going through pain. I can relate. I can relate to the emotional pain, the darkness that comes. And I can also relate to the darkness that comes from physical pain, from being torn down from your former self and worn down into a nub. And it's a battle.

It's a battle that we all have to fight when we're going through something like this. Now what are the the keys to getting through this? What are the keys to trying to to not lose yourself because of the pain you're going through? And that's a question I think we all have to deal with because it's real easy to lose yourself. It's real easy to sit there and say, well, why has God cursed me with this pain?

Why has the world cursed me with this pain? What kind of world is this that would allow somebody to go through these types of things? And I don't just think about myself, I think about those people out there that that don't have anything. We're sitting on street corners. Right?

Those veterans out there who served this country, who who currently are on, some highway exit begging for a few dollars. Right? What kind of world is this that would allow that to happen? And it's easy to fall into that. One of the things you have to do when you're going through something like this is you need you need to get yourself away from the mindset that you are a victim.

The only thing that being in a victim mindset will do is it will condition you to try to exude sympathy from other people, and that will become your purpose in life, is exuding sympathy from other people, trying to give them to give get them to give you a break. Now, I realize that when you're in a state like this, you feel impaired. You don't feel like you can do the things that you used to do. So the first thing that you need to do is you need to push yourself to do something that you wouldn't have otherwise done. The reason why I continue to go to the gym, the reason why I continue to try to go to jiu-jitsu practice is not because I'm trying to to, you know, get myself in a better shape or or or to do anything like that, but it's because I'm trying to get my mind out of the mindset that I'm not capable.

Because the more I tell myself that I'm not capable, that I can't go on, the more I make that a reality. So the first thing you need to do is to think about that thing that you've been putting off because of whatever you're going through, And you need to try to do it. And I know that's not an easy answer. I know that's not something that a lot of you want to hear, but it's the truth. Because the second you do it, is the second you grab back a hold of the one thing that's going to get you through this, which is your pride, your self image, how you wanna carry yourself as a human being in this world.

Because I don't wanna walk around having everybody feel sorry for me. I don't want my love of my life to come home each night to look at me and say, oh my God, I can't believe what he's going through. I want her to look at me and say, you know what? That dude's got himself in control. And no matter what gets thrown at him, he's gonna get through it.

And I'm gonna be by his side because of that. That's what I want her to feel. So get yourself out of that mindset of trying to get people sympathy. Number two, what you need to do is you need to try to do everything you can to get yourself to feel better. Now, how does that happen?

Well, it comes from the first thing I mentioned, is trying hard things. But number two is also making sure that you're taking care of yourself. Making sure you're getting enough rest, whether you're going through emotional pain or physical pain. A lot of us, you know, will feel so bad about ourselves, feel so bad about what we're going through, that we'll try to turn our minds off and we'll try to get into a bunch of bullshit. Right?

Sitting there watching Netflix, you know, sitting on the couch all day moping about. Right? What you need to do is you need to start taking care of yourself. And taking care of yourself doesn't just mean resting and sitting on your ass, It means doing the things that are going to push you forward. Making sure you're getting rest, making sure you're taking care yourself, making sure you're getting some exercise in, educating yourself, and moving on to the next mission.

Figuring out what you can still do in your life that's going to push you forward. Over the past few weeks I've been really pushing at this podcast. Really pushing at it. Doing everything I can to get these downloads up, to get this information in the hands of more people. You know why?

Because this disease is reminding me of something. It's reminding me of the fact that I don't have a hell of a lot of time here on this Earth. And that's not to say that I'm going to die anytime soon, but it's to say that life is short. The more time we waste sitting there doing nothing because we're waiting for the perfect time, because we're waiting for the perfect place in our lives, the more we are keeping ourselves from being who we truly should be. Right?

That is going to be the biggest tragedy of your situation if you allow it to happen. So you need to keep going with whatever mission you have in life. And if you don't have one, you need to find one. Right? And that starts with thinking about how you could help other people who are in a worse off situation than you.

Because you might have it bad, you might have it horrible, but like I said before, there's people out there who have it way worse, who have a lot more pain. Right? And far too often, we get so drowned out into our own pain, own situation, we think we're the only person on this earth. The real way to move yourself forward in life is by figuring out ways that you can bring value to others. And there's so many more ways to do that now than there ever was in history.

You could start talking, putting videos up, things like that, or you could start going out there and you could start volunteering. Get yourself into a position to where you could help other people. Now, that's what I've got right now, right? The other thing I'd add to this is I'd say nutrition. Make sure you're putting good food in your body.

Make sure that you're getting exercise, but now I'm talking in circles, and that's honestly quite honestly probably the medication I'm on right now. But bottom line, take care of yourself, guys. And don't let whatever's going on in your life take you away from being who you should truly be. If this was helpful, please let me know. You can let me know on the Warrior Soul Agoge empowerment and resilience page or or group that we have.

It's a private Facebook group. I'll put a link to join that up on the show notes. You can let me know on Twitter. It's at Warrior Soul Gear, or you can let me know on Instagram at Warrior Soul Agoge, a g o g e. If you like this podcast, do me a favor.

Go ahead over and go over to iTunes and write us a written rating and review. I know a lot of you don't listen on iTunes, but iTunes reviews are where it's at. Like, you're giving us reviews on SoundCloud or or or Stitcher, that's awesome. But it's really the iTunes platform that drives the algorithm. So even if you don't use iTunes, just look up Warrior Soul Podcast on Apple Podcasts and write us a review there if you can.

Beyond that, if you want to support the podcast in other ways, we've got a great shop at warriorsoul.shop. We got some awesome gear, awesome t shirts that are made by US Marine Corps veterans, designed by US Marine Corps veterans, and and they're just great shirts. So check those out. And then if you want, you can join our private face or not a private Facebook group, our private group, the Warrior's Obituary Society. That's a group of men who are empowering themselves to live epic lives worthy of epic obituaries.

And with that you get an eight week development program up front. We help you outline your vision, help you outline your goals, we help you customize your own fitness plan and nutrition plan, help you to focus on your relationships, your network, your career, and your business. And the work doesn't stop after that eight weeks. It keeps going. We hold each other accountable.

And a program like this is usually thousands of dollars. This one is not. It's a really low monthly fee under $40 a month. So if you're interested in that, head over to warriorobituarysociety.com. That's warriorobituarysociety.com.

Beyond that, I wanna thank you guys for listening to the Warrior Soul podcast. Please share these episodes out and get out there and live your best lives while you can. We're back at you later on this week with some more awesome content.