Eckhart Tolle absolutely rocks. Norman Vincent Peale too. Much of my core philosophy is sourced back to Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, George Berkeley, Bertrand Russell, René Descartes, Jean-Paul Sartre, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and of course Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.
And of course, wait for it, the Bible (KJV) rocks me no end. <GRIN> Absolutely ton's of paradoxes and impossibilities just waiting to be taken up and meditated on.
I'm very much a man of do or die when it comes to philosophy. All the above has great personal meaning for me, both when I was drinking, and after quitting drinking.
How does all this work for pain control? Pain is after all just another sensation, and sensations can be managed, and if they can be managed, they can be super-managed, and if so, they can also be managed out of the awareness of the present moment. They can be "sent elsewhere"
It all starts with being in the moment, and embracing the pain as much as possible, and slowly realizing that fighting the pain sensation weakens me more then does accepting the sensation for what it is: physical pain.
Weakness does not diminish the pain, but rather amplifies it, and additionally creates fear. Fear is a mind killer, which creates more weakness, and so on.
Staying present, and strong, facing the fears and the pains is counter-intuitive at first, but with practice, the pains can be moderated enough so as to experience relief and satisfaction with that relief. It's not a cure, its just management, and it requires effort and attention to detail of the task at hand.
It's difficult to put into words on a computer screen. And I'm a bit hesitant to get too personal, after my experience with Robby's thread, lol.
Anyways, all I can give is my own experiences, and they were, and continue to be, successfully woven into my life.
My amputation was elective. I could have done it early, but then my walking would have permanently ended. I loved walking. When I was 10 or 11, I walked 17 miles out of 20 for a charity walk-a-thon. My leg was bleeding in my steel and leather brace, and adults would chastise my dad for letting me walk. I was even interviewed for the city paper, lol. This was before I became a drinker at 12. After the experimental corrective surgery age 12, which went way wrong, I couldn't even walk a hundred yards, and even that was way difficult. For the first time in my life as a crippled kid, I finally knew what it felt like to be crippled. Alcohol saved me and yet dammed me, all at the same time.
Anyways, I really loved walking, and although I never again walked as good as I did as a kid, I still managed to sober up and walk, even though it was painful to no end, because of the failed surgery. From this I moved ever closer to my successful amputation. Haven't looked back since, hahaha.
As a matter of fact, I became a member of SR in June 2008. I also quit walking that same time. The pain was just too much. No amount of meditation was working. I also "suffer" from spinal-stenosis, scoliosis, advanced arthritis, post-polio syndrome.
"Suffering" is an entirely subjective experience too, of course.
Anyways, I've been able to deal with all this and keep a quality life going forward. Alcoholism recovery was almost "just another thing" for me to finally achieve. Naw, it was harder then that, lol. Just puliin' your LEG, ahaha.
Sorry. A sense of humour is often an excellent tonic for what ails me.
Anyways, if your interested, I can make a few suggestions. Perhaps it might help, and perhaps not, I dunno. It works for me, without fail, is my experience. Let me know by pm or in your thread here, either way, what your worst pain experience/sensation is on a daily routine basis, and that is where we start.
I understand not everybody can talk as openly as I enjoy talking, so no problem if this does not interest you. I'm only responding because you mentioned an interest in some advice from me in your post, and because I do have empathy with you, Davey. Pain blows big time. I hope for you all that is good and well, in your search for pain relief. A noble and worthy journey, absolutely.