Paths and Passages to Conquering Chronic Pain: A True Story and a Nine Process Guide to Emotionally and Mentally Conquer Your Chronic Pain

By D. G. Fraser

Paths and Passages to Conquering Chronic Pain is a guide for learning to change how you let your pain mentally and emotionally affect you.

D. G. Fraser looks back at his eighteen-year journey living with chronic pain, including how it changed his normal life into one of fear, chaos and turmoil. How his pain brought him from almost taking his own life, to embracing the value of the blessings and inner strength that his physical pain has brought him to find within himself.

As you read his story, you’ll learn how to:

apply a nine step healing processes on a journey of healing;
end the cycles of negativity in your life;
heal and grow in ways you may have never expected;
guide and help others who are battling physical pain.

The author also shares how he underwent three very painful surgeries on his cervical neck and spine. He also had one-third of his right lung removed and underwent a life-saving surgery that involved sawing his face in half to open his airway.

Whether you’re suffering from chronic pain or illness or you care for someone who is fighting such a battle, you’ll discover ways to grow and heal with Paths and Passages to Conquering Chronic Pain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798765228937

D. G. Fraser

D. G. Fraser, a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, enjoyed a successful career as a hotel banquets manager and director until his ill health and chronic pain ended his career. He has spent the past eighteen years learning about and examining how chronic pain emotionally and mentally affects him, and then conquering and healing himself within his pain. He is currently working on his second book, Inner Healing: An In-Depth Guide to Conquering Chronic Pain.

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Copyright © 2022 D. G. Fraser.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 979-8-7652-2895-1 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-2894-4 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-2893-7 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date:  05/20/2022

For Leo, my love, my family, my best friend, and my most cherished blessing.

I love it here in the heart of my Tin Man. :{)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am humbled and very grateful to have had the support of my friends and family while writing this book. My very special thanks to Catherine Abbott Jones, for your Beta read and very helpful suggestions and advice. Catherine, your insights have helped me to better see.

My heartfelt gratitude to my dear friend Michelle Braun. Thank you, for your support and Proof and Beta readings which were very helpful. Also for coaxing me to think through my process and my perspectives of a Warrior. Thank you Michelle, you have helped me to better listen, to think, and to convey.

My heartfelt appreciation to Kelly Nezat, for his teaching and guidance. Thank you Kelly, you have taught me to see within myself, and to grow from the new perspectives that I find within.

Thank you to Leo Vincent Gagne for your selflessness, for your unyielding support, for your generosity, and for how being with you helps me to be a better person. Because of you, I live humbled in gratitude for the blessings within every second that we have together. Thank you Leo, with you I know true happiness, great joy, and the powerful magic of your love.

I wish neither to possess nor to be possessed.

I no longer covet ‘paradise’.

More important, I no longer fear ‘hell’.

The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning but I did not take it.

My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it, until this moment.

Now I see that I will never find the light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, consuming myself.

Bruce Lee

Our wounds are often the openings

into the best and most beautiful part of us.

David Richo

But pain is like water.

It finds a way to push through any seal.

There’s no way to stop it.

Sometimes you have to let yourself sink inside of it

before you can learn how to swim to the surface.

Katie Kacvinsky

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

PART ONE: MY STORY

Chapter 1 Here I Am, Motivations for Inner Healing and Conquering Pain:

Chapter 2 My Story

Chapter 3 Dealing with Procedures, Surgeries, Medications, and Finding Paths and Passages to Healing:

Chapter 4 Breaking Repeating Cycles of Negativity and Learning to Heal From Them:

Chapter 5 The Guidance of My Inner Light Through My Darkest Passages:

Chapter 6 All Paths and Passages Lead You Back To You.

PART TWO: A GUIDE OF HEALING

Chapter 7 Relaxing and Controlling your pain, Controlled Breathing, Meditation, Choices for healing, and Mourning your losses:

Chapter 8 Shadow Work, Archetypes, Spiral Work, Mirror Work, and A Closer Look At Breaking Cycles of Negativity:

Chapter 9 Connecting Inwardly and Outwardly, Vibrational Energies, and Spirituality.

Epilogue

Affirmations, Inspirational Quotes, and Poems, by: D. G. Fraser

INTRODUCTION

Paths and Passages to Conquering Chronic Pain is written in two parts. The first part is my personal story of chronic pain and ill health which I tell as graphically as I lived it. I speak of how chronic pain changed my normal life into one of chaos, despair, and emotional turmoil. I also speak of my experiences of personal and spiritual growth throughout my journey of learning to conquer myself within my pain, and to then conquer the pain within myself. In Part One, while telling the story of my journey through ill health I only scratch the surface of my healing processes, and I inject parts of those processes within the time periods of my journey. It is in Part Two where I explain my healing processes in full detail.

Part Two is a guide to How I conquer my pain, and How I hold my peace and happiness above any pain. I explain the processes from my experiences of healing. I speak of the steps we all need to take for healing ourselves within our pain, the decisions that you need to make to change how the negatives of your life affect you, and to guide you to learn how to be your own hero instead of your own victim.

In Part Two, I discuss the paths of my healing journey, the processes, the tools, the methods, the philosophies, the many perspectives and exercises that I have learned from, which I have combined to create a successful healing process. I share it here for all those who seek to find how to heal and to grow themselves in many ways beyond their pain.

I also discuss mourning the losses which pain has taken from your life. I discuss presence of mind, tuning into positive frequencies, acceptance, meditation, controlled breathing, Shadow Work, Archetypes, Mirror and Spiral Work, vibrational energies, synchronicity, and of how they and many other processes and perspectives have helped me to heal and to grow as a person.

Finally, I speak of spiritual strength and of inner growth. I speak of openness, of feeling your connections beyond your physical self, and I speak of inner and outer compassion to heal and to grow within yourself and in your life. Throughout this book you will see several of my creative poems and writings which stand as examples of my triumphs of presence of mind and happiness above my physical pain. Other than the three quotes at the beginning, I have written every word of this book from my soul with gratitude and love.

At the very end of this book, I also include a section called "My Affirmations, Inspirational Quotes, and Poems.’’ All which I have written from what my pain has taught me to find within myself and within every moment of living. I share all of my story, my processes, and my writings from my heart, with the hopes to inspire others to heal beyond their pain, and to create happiness within and beyond themselves.

I wrote this book to show, to teach, and to guide others in their choices of healing. When you learn to face yourself in your pain, you learn to heal and to grow in ways that you may have never expected. I have changed the way that I let pain affects me, and it has changed my life.

In the early years I just gave in and let the pain beat me physically, emotionally, and mentally. Eventually I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I realized that if I spent my time focusing on how severe and how uncomfortable my pain is, then all that I’m left with are memories of being in pain. Living in the negativity of my pain wasn’t for me. Instead, I started to focus my attention on learning to accept my life with pain, on learning to calm my pain, and on counting my blessings and appreciating the moment of here and now. In these years I have grown mentally and spiritually stronger because of my ill health and chronic pain. In this and every moment, I am living a better quality of life, I am feeling more awareness of love, I absorb and celebrate my connections to the energies of nature and to all life, I feel more joy, and I am in control of how I let anything or anyone affect me. I have learned from my pain how to create my own healing, how to foster my inner peace, and how to create my own happiness.

It is my hope to help others who wish to learn to heal and to change how they let pain and ill health mentally and emotionally affect them. By sharing my journey of healing and the wonderful perspectives and insights which have opened me throughout my journey with chronic pain, I stand in service to help others. With this book, I hope that each reader learns something personally valuable which may help them to better see and to help themselves in their own healing and spiritual growth processes. I pray that what I share on these pages will help others in healing themselves within their pain, and to open themselves to experience more happiness and joy in their everyday lives.

With love, David. :{)

PART ONE

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CHAPTER ONE

HERE I AM, MOTIVATIONS FOR INNER HEALING AND CONQUERING PAIN:

Here I am in 2022. It has been more than seven years since a surgery when they sawed my face in half from under my nose and cheekbones, all the way past my back teeth. They also sawed my lower jaw on the left and right side, wired it shut, and moved everything forward along with my tongue to enlarge my airway. It was a horrific surgery that has saved my life, but there have also been some very painful and grueling complications.

Also in the last eighteen years, I have had one third of my right lung removed, and three very painful surgeries on my neck and cervical spine. I live with the nerve damage from all these surgeries with little feeling in parts of my face, lips, and gums, including my jaw and maxilla. I have nerve damage in most of my neck, arms and hands, also the complications in my right side from the ribs they removed for the lung surgery. I have six L-shaped metal plates and thirty-six screws in my face. I also have a Neuro-Stimulator, that is about two and one quarter feet of thin coated cable leading from a large hockey puck shaped battery implanted in my hip, that runs up along my spine where the electrodes on the cables end extend up against the spinal cord and brainstem. This helps me by sending constant electrical pulses that block about twenty percent of my neck pain before it reaches my brain. This also helps to reduce the twelve to fourteen migraines that I was plagued with every week for more than nine years. Each day I spend in near constant pain while dealing with severe equilibrium issues and adjusting to the experiences of extensive nerve damage. Besides pain, I’ve had to deal with depression, anger, despair, and learn how to come to terms with my condition every second of every day.

I’ve had many moments of drama, trauma, and turmoil just like everyone else whose health changes suddenly. I have spent many days complaining about what physical pain has taken from my life. But, in these years I have learned to not let the pain rule me, and that includes complaining about it. The negativity of ill health and the difficulties in life are hard enough to live through, but these changes do not define us, it is how we lift ourselves because of them which defines us.

I know that there are many people who are or who have been faced with much worse health issues than I have. I know that there are also many people who have lives that have gone from one day being normal to the next day being torn apart by ill health. Their lives changed so quickly that they became controlled by their pain. I know that I did. I also know that there are people who barely show any signs of physical pain, people who have learned how to mentally live with pain for the necessity of survival and not for much else.

Life without inner happiness and peace is motion without direction. Sometimes we need to go nowhere many times before we can learn to find a new direction. More often than not, the toughest roads to our healing, to our happiness, and to our inner peace, are the ones which we refuse to admit that we are already walking upon. It doesn’t matter who you are, we all have to find our own ways for dealing with our pain or be ruled by it. Many of us have to learn first-hand that while living with pain you are still able to enjoy your life and have many moments of happiness and joy. When my joy became stronger than my pain, it became my way of life.

The chronic pain that I live with started eighteen years ago and is with me still. It takes over my ability to function and to do simple normal tasks such as driving a car, shopping in a store, taking a shower, and many other simple everyday tasks that we all take for granted. Even reading a book causes me great distress. Most of the time, thirty to forty-five minutes is my limit before the pain from my neck and shoulders becomes too intense for me to endure sitting while holding a book or bending my neck. Many times, despite the pain, I will read for as long as I can stand it and then I deal with the consequences for the next several days, but for me it’s worth it. My joy for reading is greater than the pain that it causes me, so I enjoy reading if only for forty-five minutes at a time. Each time that I do anything with little regard or attention towards my pain is my victory and my joy. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t push my pain envelope very often. I have come to learn my limitations and how much I can push them, but it’s always at a cost of pain. I have decided which is more important to me, and the gifts of my joy and happiness far outweigh the prices of any pain.

I also have discomfort and pain throughout my face when I laugh. The more I laugh, the more I can feel the screws and the plates in my face and the hints of nerves spiking like needles. Laughter means love to me. If laughing means paying for it with some discomfort, it’s worth every moment. Laughing heals my heart and strengthens my soul. I will warn you that I do have a sense of humor which sometimes gets me into trouble. Humor has always been a part of my nature. I can be the class clown and the fool to get a smile out of people. The pain that I live with is my constant reminder to find those reasons to laugh, to live in gratitude, and to be happily present throughout my day.

Because of my health issues people often ask me, When were you in a car accident? My reply is always the same. I have never been in any type of physical accident. Although many times it has felt as though a very slow-moving Bus has been gradually running me over for the past eighteen years. In these years I have had to face many health issues and I had to learn how to face myself in them. It is because of all of these life-changing health issues and surgeries which once tore me apart and held me down, that I have learned to embrace each and every second of them for bringing me to find and to live in my present life with inner peace, with joy, with gratitude, inner healing, spiritual growth, creativity, and with heartfelt happiness.

When I first started writing the story of my journey with chronic pain and ill health, it started out as more of an exercise for me to put into perspective the many years of change, upheaval, personal growth, spiritual growth, and healing which pain and ill health had brought me to find within myself. Early on in my writing, I began to realize that by sharing my story and my processes for conquering chronic pain and enjoying my life, that I have the ability to help others to learn to do the same for themselves.

This book is my testament to show everyone that we all have choices whether to live in our pain and its negativities, or to learn to conquer ourselves in it. If you live in anger and resentment of your pain and ill health and you wish to focus on your inner peace and happiness. Or if your goal is to learn to relax your body and calm your pain. If your goal is you wish to change yourself in your pain and learn to change the way that your pain emotionally and mentally affects you. Or if your goal is to dedicate yourself to finding personal and spiritual growth through healing yourself from within. I believe that this book is capable of helping you to achieve all of these goals for healing.

Paths and Passages to Conquering Chronic Pain is a guide to seeing yourself differently within your pain, and learning how to change the way you let pain mentally and emotionally affect you. To heal yourself in your pain is to conquer it and yourself on many fulfilling and rewarding levels. I don’t have the cure all for pain, but I have taken the negatives that pain has caused me, and I’ve changed them into the foundation of my healing and strength. Taking painkillers and other drastic medications didn’t work for me. Finding a better way to cope with my pain was a matter of survival, and in doing so, my whole life changed for the better. I am not saying for anyone to not take the medications prescribed to them, especially those that help you to better deal with your chronic pain and other health issues. Always do what you and your doctors decide is medically the best treatment for you. However, I do believe that most people are mentally capable of changing the way that they let chronic pain affect them, and as they do, they may learn to gain more enjoyment in their everyday life throughout the process.

Acute ill health issues are ones which happen suddenly, such as an asthma attack, whiplash, or a broken bone. Chronic health conditions are the result of long developing conditions such as heart disease, cancer, asthma, and any type of arthritis. However, many acute conditions may have physical and or psychological complications which may become chronic.

The words Chronic Pain are only words to most people, but for those of us who live with it, chronic pain is a way of life that can mean isolation, chaos, and fear, or it can mean a life of gratitude, blessings, and happiness. The mindset and the frequencies that you live in, the parts of your psyche which you face to learn about yourself from, and the perspectives that you will come to see yourself differently from, are all affected by your own choices to live in your pain or to find your very personal ways to live a happy life with it. Chronic pain can be your downfall and destruction, or it can be your awakening saving grace to find and to accept your power for your own healing.

Chronic pain means it is constant and ongoing, but that doesn’t mean that I allow it to be