The Mindful Migraine

I tend to avoid ‘bang-crash’ movies, but the other night I was feeling good, so I watched the first half of Marvel “Avengers”.   Suddenly something occurred to me.  Other than the Mark Ruffalo character (who has the potential to turn into the Hulk if he gets aggravated), everyone else in the movie carried themselves in a super-confident way.  The heroes always stand tall with a ram-rod spine, their heads held high and unblinking eyes locked onto friends and foes alike.  The bad guys also swagger with machismo, their chests pumped up and their arms held out at right angles so everyone knows they’re alpha-males who mean business.  Even all the ‘background’ characters, the army officers and scientists who make everything happen behind the scenes, even they moved with efficient purpose and head-held-high self-assurance. 

What made me realize this, was when I noticed the opposite.  There was a scene, about ten minutes into the movie, where all the good guys are evacuating Headquarters as it implodes spectacularly.  Everyone rushes towards an army Humvee-truck and they clamber into the back.  As the main character is phoning his boss about the disaster, a scientist behind him leans forward and briefly holds his head in one hand.  It’s an incredibly ‘normal’ thing to do; to be in shock, to take a moment, to let your head fall with fatigue and confusion.  But it seemed so out of keeping with everyone else’s body posture that it jumped out and caught my attention as ‘unusual’ or ‘odd’.

Power poses are nothing new.  I remember watching a video decades ago to improve my confidence on male-dominated construction sites.  The basics were: spine straight, shoulders back, chin up, maintain eye contact and use a non-wavering voice. Standing with legs apart and hands on hips helps too; it makes you ‘wide’ and visibly present.  No pug-puppy face or hunchy-scrunchy body allowed.  Even if you don’t feel confident, you appear as if you are, and over time, the fake-it-til-you-make-it approach starts to take hold, and you begin to believe it yourself.

When you think of you own chronic-pain-posture, I’m guessing it involves the exact opposite of a power pose: curved spine, rounded shoulders, slumped head, drooping eyes and a faltering voice.  I understand why – it was my go-to physiology too.  In fact, it might even be Mother Nature’s way of protecting us while we heal. 

My little-lady-dog curls up into a ball whenever she sees a big dog on the beach; she makes herself as small as possible in the hope that they might not notice her, or if they do, then she will appear as non-threatening (non-edible?) as possible.  Everything about her says, ‘please leave me alone’.

The trick with chronic pain is that if you keep perpetuating the hunchy-scrunchy-I-wish-I-wasn’t-here posture, you risk training your brain that this situation is ‘normal’ rather than ‘unusual’.  In the same way that I learnt about power poses to convince others that I was tougher than I felt, you need to remind your brain that you have an inner superhero with a will of steel (even if it’s not yet totally true).  Instead of a submissive posture that whimpers ‘please leave me alone’, you’re aiming for an assertive pose that loudly (but silently) states ‘NOT TODAY MIGRAINE’.

Choose your favorite superhero and see if you can’t replicate their ‘k!ck-@$$’ pose.  Black Widow or Wonder Woman, Captain America or Superman – you’ve got this.

Go on; make today the day you reclaim a little (super) power. 

Chin up lovelies, Linda.

PS: Here’s a decade-old video that is pretty similar to the one I remember from years ago:

(18 mins) Amy Cuddy: Power Poses (youtube.com)