The Moment You Realize You’ve Been Protecting Yourself From Hope
- Renee Moten
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
For years, you manage the symptoms: the sharp twinge when you stand up, the stiffness after a long car ride, constant stopping while hiking, the dull ache that makes climbing the stairs feel like a minor expedition. You invest in braces, try physical therapy, and collect an array of comfortable, sensible shoes. You learn to live around the pain.
But in doing so, we often fall into the trap of protecting ourselves from a much more powerful emotion than fear: hope.
When constant physical discomfort becomes a daily reality, we subtly, unconsciously begin to lower our expectations for our own lives. This isn't a conscious decision; it’s survival. We stop signing up for the weekend hike with friends. We decline the invitation to dance at a wedding. We choose the aisle seat at the theater so we can stretch our leg. Each decision is a small act of self-preservation, designed to avoid the physical pain, yes, but also the emotional pain of wanting something (like a pain-free hike) and being physically betrayed by our own bodies.
You’ve told yourself:
“The pain doesn’t bother me every day"
“It only hurts when I sleep”
“I can exercise as long as I shift my weight away from the pain”
These words feel safe. They make you feel responsible. They protect you from disappointment, from trying again, spending money on yourself and from allowing yourself to truly believe that relief is possible.
The truth is: hope isn’t the enemy. The real risk lies in staying stuck—ignoring your body, avoiding movement, and letting pain quietly dictate your life.
The moment you realize you’ve been protecting yourself from hope doesn’t always happen in a doctor’s office. It often happens in a quiet, unexpected moment:
You see an old photo of yourself hiking a mountain trail with ease.
You watch a commercial for a fitness retreat and feel an unfamiliar pang of desire, rather than immediate dismissal.
Your granddaughter asks you to play basketball, and for a split second, before the "no, honey, my knees hurt," you imagine drippling down the court.
In that fleeting second, a simple, dangerous thought slips past your guard: What if this isn’t my forever? What if things could actually get better?
Stepping Into the Open
To embrace hope in the face of chronic pain is to choose vulnerability. It means accepting the risk that a new alternative treatment might not work. But this vulnerability is where recovery lives. The "safe," protected life you’ve been living—the one carefully curated to avoid spending money, looking at alternatives beyond the medical industry—is not truly living; it’s waiting for the next flare-up, secure in the knowledge that you minimized your emotional investment in your own future.
The moment you realize you've been avoiding hope is the moment you can choose to embrace it. It is a choice to prioritize the possibility of movement and joy over the certainty of emotional safety. It is scary, yes, but daring to hope again is the most powerful stride you can take toward healing.
"You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both."
-Brene Brown-
You do deserve to feel safe in your body again, to regain confidence in movement, and to experience relief that feels real.
You are not broken. You are not weak. You are ready when you are ready.
Lets go in to 2026 with hope and posssilities