Pain Relief

One of the biggest misconceptions that I see in my office regularly is the belief that pain means you are somehow “broken” or wrong.

Of course, if you have an injury, then obviously your body needs to heal. If there is a disc in your spine impinging on a nerve, well, you might need surgery — or at least some solid physical therapy.

However…

The tendency is to focus on the mechanical source of pain as the “problem.”

Related:

• The BIG MISTAKE That Will Make Sure Your Pain NEVER Goes Away!
• Psychosomatic Pain: 3 Reasons Why It’s Not Just “All In Your Head”
• 3 Reasons Why Your Doctor Can’t Help You Get Back Pain Relief

It’s not the problem.

And when there is no “cause” of pain — i.e. nothing is showing up on your MRI as diagnosably wrong — then the pain really isn’t the problem.

You’ve heard the Einstein quote before that goes something like:

You cannot solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it.

This is basically what I’m saying when it comes to pain.

Because that mechanical cause — the bulging disc, the tight hip flexors, the rigid feet — those didn’t happen all of their own accord.

They’re a result of something. A pattern.

The pain that stems from the injury is a signal that the pattern is out of alignment for you. It’s not in your best interest.

We see pain as something that we really need to fix or change. We get laser focused on that problem.

But actually…

Pain is your greatest opportunity.

What I mean is that pain is the opportunity to see where things are out of alignment in your life. Because really what it means is that something you are doing is not working for you.

And it might be as simple as the way you’re holding your leg. Or that you’re sitting too much.

Those things might be out of alignment for you in your life.

But it could be even bigger than that.

It could be that you’re showing up to a job that you hate and you’re stressed out all the time. You’re in an unhappy relationship.

And you’re just not doing the things that feed your soul — your life’s isn’t where you want it to be.

The way that your body is communicating that to you is through physical tension and pain.

And yeah, it’s not a pleasant place to be when you’re in pain.

But look at it this way…

If your fire alarm is going off, you probably want to put the fire out. You don’t care so much about the alarm going off.

You’re not going to turn off the alarm and sit in your living room filled with smoke because you haven’t solved the real problem — that your walls are on fire.

And that’s what pain is doing — it’s alerting you to the fire in your life.

Like I said, it can be something really simple like holding onto tension from a broken leg you had fifteen years ago or guarding your neck after an invasive surgery.

Just simple shifts to your neuro-motor patterns. (Although if my clients are any indication, these shifts have big impacts on their lives.)

But sometimes it’s much more holistic than this. You have to stop hiding. Stop processing emotions for other people. Stop being the crutch everyone leans on. Stop showing up to a toxic work environment.

Stop being someone you’re not.

And I think this is why I see such huge transformations in my clients. As you let go of tension in your body it becomes more and more difficult to stay in a life that doesn’t align with how you’re feeling.

Curious about this? Want to go deeper? Head on over and join our free Facebook group Pain Free Naturally where we can talk, chat and interact. All questions welcome!

I’ve been chatting with lots of people about their biggest blocks to resolving their pain, improving mobility, flexibility and posture.

And interestingly, what I’ve heard over and over from people struggling with pain is absolutely the biggest way to make sure your pain not only persists, but also gets WORSE.

What is it, you ask?

Related:

• The Important Thing No One Is Telling You About Pain
• How To Pain-Proof Your Body For Good
• Psychosomatic Pain: 3 Reasons Why It’s Not Just “All In Your Head”

The Number One Block to Healing Your Pain

Waiting until you feel MOTIVATED to start stretching, start mobilizing, start exercising and start taking care of your body.

A lot of people will spend years or even decades of their lives living with uncomfortable symptoms and uncomfortable problems — shoulder aches, back pain, plantar fasciits, etc. — because they’re waiting until either it gets so bad that they need severe medical intervention to function or they have to start taking drugs to manage the pain.

Or, worse, the damage is so severe in your body that you’re going to be looking at invasive surgery with potentially drastic side effects.

And in the meantime, you’re missing out on so much of your life.

You are missing out on hikes.

You’re missing out on family activities — being able to go swimming with your kids, or walking your dog even.

I have had people even just tell me that they can’t go upstairs to tuck their kids in at night because they’re just in so much pain. They’re laid up on the couch with a heating pad.

How awful to miss those amazing opportunities to build connection with your children and develop a solid relationship with your family.

So many people just keep waiting, telling themselves things like, “I know I should stretch more,” or, “I know I should do yoga.”

I know I should, but I just don’t have the time. I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the incentive to do it (because it’s not bad enough yet?).

And I don’t have the motivation.

That’s a big problem because your body is not static. It’s either getting better or it’s getting worse. There is no standing still.

You’re Either Growing or Dying

A lot of people think about their bodies as though it were an object, but the reality is that your body as a process. It’s always either building up (anabolism) or breaking down (catabolism).

So if you’re not addressing things that aren’t working well — misalignments that are causing friction, for example — they’re going to simply keep causing friction and pain.

If you’re driving a car with the tires misaligned, the longer you do that the more severe your repairs are going to be and the higher the bill. You’re going to have to spend a lot more money and potentially time to get the car fixed if you wait until things fall apart.

So here’s the thing…

Motivation Isn’t Actually The Problem. (Gasp!)

The old way of approaching health and wellness is to use willpower and determination and grit to push you past your resistance to do things that will make you healthier.

That’s what we see in fitness culture today — no pain no gain, just do it, knuckle down, the juice is worth the squeeze, etc.

But there’s a very fine line between self-love and self-hate, right?

You can only hate yourself through a workout or an exercise plan or stretching program for so long before your willpower runs out ‘cuz willpower is a finite resource.

You will just simply run out of it and you’ll just stop because the reason you’re not doing the thing that will make you healthier is not because you don’t have time, energy, motivation or incentive.

It’s because “being healthy” somehow doesn’t line up with your identity. Or there’s a fear or a belief that is creating resistance to the action that will make you feel better.

So this really has less to do with a lack of motivation, but rather resistance to feeling better.

And that might be hard to hear, especially if you’ve poured a lot of time, money and energy into solving this problem in the past.

You might have thoughts in your head right now like, “No, I just need to do it, I just need to get up earlier so I can stretch.”

But you’re NOT doing it.

Why We Resist Feeling Good

The thing is, if you are holding onto resistance, or if this pain is serving you in some way (yes, I know, even though you definitely don’t CONSCIOUSLY want to be in pain, sometimes there are fringe benefits that our subconscious minds hold onto), no matter how hard you try to shake it off, you’ll somehow sabotage the results.

Or repeat the same habits and patterns that caused the pain in the first place.

Leading you to believe that the pain is here to stay. A permanent houseguest.

I’ve been having a ton of conversations over the past few days and this is the number one thing holding people back who are dealing with pain on a daily basis.

You don’t need another video tutorial on how to sit at your desk, or an article on how to stretch your hamstrings!

If more information we’re going to solve this problem it would be solved ‘cuz we all have Google.

I’d like to propose a different way of approaching this that is going to be much more sustainable for the duration of your life. Because the way I look at it I want to get better as I get older.

I don’t want to become less mobile. I want to become more flexible, agile and capable. I continue to feel better with every passing year, much more flexible and balanced than I was even as a teenager.

So if that’s something that you want for yourself as well, we’ve got to find a more sustainable way because otherwise you’re always going to fall off the wagon.

The No-Wagon Method of Getting Healthy

And I would like to propose that not only can you not fall off the wagon using this method but THERE IS NO WAGON. We’re not going to get on a wagon. There’s no reason to.

Instead, we’re going to take a hard look at why you are resisting feeling good.

What is this resistance all about?

How is the identity of I am healthy, I am mobile, I am active, running counter to the current beliefs about who you are and how you relate to the world?

And I get that those beliefs are subconscious. So I’m not saying that you’re, like, waking up in the morning and choosing beliefs that hold you back. But we learn these beliefs  as we go through life and we don’t know we hold on to these stories about ourselves until someone shines the light on them.

You wouldn’t know you were breathing oxygen if you didn’t learn that growing up. You just wouldn’t know air existed until someone drew your attention to it.

Well, you don’t know you have these beliefs either.

Bad Habits Might Not Actually Be Bad

A lot of people say they have bad habits, and that those habits are holding them back. But habits aren’t really “good” or “bad.” Those are judgements we put on them.

“Bad” habits are the ones that don’t align with the identity of the person you’d like to become…but they do align with an identity that you hold, or they wouldn’t be your habits.

Your beliefs determine your behavior and your behavior determines your results. So if your results aren’t what you want then we have to look at the behavior.

And what shapes behavior?

You got it…beliefs.

So if your behavior isn’t what you want it to be and the results aren’t what you want, we have go deeper and uncover the beliefs that are shaping the behavior.

How to Get Your Beliefs in Line (Easier Than Herding Cats, Promise)

Inside of my Pain Free Naturally Facebook group — it’s a free group, you’re welcome to join us — I’m going to run a 5-day challenge to overcome your resistance to doing the things you already know you need to be doing to get healthy.

We’re going to unpack this resistance and move past it, once and for all. Because I know I don’t have any moments of my precious life that I want to spend being held back by my body.

And I’m sure you don’t, either.

The challenge is totally free, and it’s going to kick off inside the Pain Free Naturally group, so you do need to join if you’d like to participate.

Just click the link and request to join. I’ll get you in lickity-split.

Can’t wait to see you there!

Have you ever heard of psychosomatic pain? It’s a condition where your symptoms are caused by your mind alone — there is no physical injury.

And unfortunately, a lot of people who experience pain without any specific diagnosable cause are often told that they have psychosomatic pain.

Which is taken to mean that they’re “making it all up.”

While it’s true that your brain can get tricked into feeling pain that’s not really there, that doesn’t necessarily mean your symptoms aren’t real.

So if you’re experiencing frustrating pain and are only being given vague diagnostics that describe symptoms but don’t tell you anything about the root cause, you might be wondering: can this pain be all in my head?

But here are three reasons why psychosomatic pain isn’t just made up:

Related:

• The Important Thing No One Is Telling You About Pain
• How Can I Keep My Diagnosis From Creeping Into My Belief System?
• What the heck is going on in there?! 3 Reasons Your Body Holds onto Tension

Your Brain Makes Pain

Do you know how pain sensations actually work? While you feel pain at the site of an injury, that’s not where the sensation comes from.

Pain is your brain’s interpretation of data sent in by the body.

When you hold your hand over a hot stove, for example, sensory nerves convey info to your spinal cord and brain where the sensation of pain is registered and perceived.

Your brain interprets the data “tissue is burning” and produces the sensation of pain to motivate you away from the threat — in this case a hot stove.

This is pretty simple in this basic case of cause and effect.

But electrical signals can get scrambled for many reasons. Your brain can get confused about what it’s “hearing” from your sensory nerves and think you’re in danger when you’re not — thus making you feel pain.

This is what happens in cases “psychosomatic pain.” It’s not that you’re crazy or making things up. The part of your brain that interprets sensory input from your body is just off kilter.

Chronic stress can contribute to an increase in perception of pain, so if you’ve been up against it for a while, that’s definitely a factor.

Pain Can Become Your Brain’s Habit

Once your body experiences pain, it’s more sensitive to the sensation.

Meaning:

You’ll start to hurt more easily and from seemingly minor incidents that wouldn’t cause other people much pain at all.

This phenomenon is called “central sensitization” and it’s far from being psychosomatic pain.

Since as stated above pain is a sensation generated by the brain and not stemming from your muscles, tendons and bones at all, a lot of pain can get wonky when your nervous system is out of balance.

This seems to be the case in central sensitization where your brain almost starts to hallucinate pain symptoms as a result of normal touch and pressure.

Again, while this is happening in your brain, it’s a physiological result of crossed wires between mind and body — NOT a sign that you’ve lost your marbles.

Your Brain Uses Pain to Self-Locate

Amputees often experience phantom pain in missing limbs. Since there are no nerves to convey sensation to the person’s brain, this is most definitely an example of “psychosomatic pain.”

But there’s a catch…

Amputees aren’t making it up. Imaging shows that their brains still maintain sensory-motor maps of the missing limbs which activate when a person “moves” their phantom limb.

Crazy, right?

What causes this phantom limb pain? Scientists aren’t totally certain. But what they conclude is that a missing limb can’t send data to the brain.

In the absence of data, your brain realizes that something is wrong and produces pain signals…for a limb that’s no longer there.

It gets weirder…

Using a mirror to visually simulate the lost limb, a person can trick their brain into perceiving the missing body part — and the phantom pain stops.

So it seems that when body parts are “lost” to your brain — as in, your brain stops perceiving sensory input — it generates pain almost as a “map” of the missing area.

Here’s why this is important for you, a non-amputee…

Psychosomatic Pain And Dissociation

Many people are dissociated from their physical selves, meaning they’ve cut off feeling in their bodies. This happens for many reasons — trauma, body image issues, accidents and injuries, charged emotional experiences, etc.

And, of course, my favorite: you’ve been domesticated by our culture to ignore your body.

In our society, it’s the intellect that gets all the shine. Your body is just a dumb meat suit that’s constantly malfunctioning in inconvenient and embarrassing ways.

That means that physical sensations get ignored, dismissed and disregarded.

You turn down the volume until you can’t feel yourself.

You might do this to a particular area of your body — a shoulder, say, or a hip — or you may just shut down physical sensation altogether.

In any case, when you “turn off” the signals from your body, your brain senses that something is wrong…and it sounds the alarm with pain.

Which you try to stretch, massage and possibly even medicate away.

What actually seems to work, though — at least in my clinical experience — is reconnecting the brain to the body and restoring sensory input.

Basically, hooking up the data flow again between mind and body — getting the brain to perceive your physical sensations again.

If this sounds complicated, it’s not. Anyone can do it, and the results are pretty quick, too.

As a bonus, I’ve also found that emotional symptoms such as anxiety and depression tend to dissipate along with the pain and tension — although everyone is different and your mileage may vary.

These are the practices I cover in my Posture Rehab program.

It’s not just another how-to-stretch system, but rather a road map back to yourself. It helps you hook your brain back up to your body so your nervous system can stop freaking out about pain…and you can rest easy knowing you’re not losing your mind and making up symptoms that aren’t there.

Trust me. I believe you. The pain is real.

But the cause isn’t.

Posture Rehab can help.

Click here to learn more >>

By far the most common advice that my clients have received for back pain is to focus on core strength.

Everyone from doctors and physical therapists to Pilates instructors, personal trainers, yoga teachers and Nancy who sits three cubicles down at work recommends strengthening your core to support your spine.

Core strength exercises are those that target the muscles around your abdomen, back and pelvis — more or less what a corset would cover. Strong core muscles support your spine, making it easier to do physical activities without injuring yourself. Or so the theory goes.

But interestingly…

A lot of people don’t get any back pain relief from doing core strengthening exercises. I have clients who have tried all the usual suspects — planks, side planks, dead bugs, you name it — with no results.

But it’s a basic law of physics that core strength provides support for your back. So if getting a stronger core isn’t helping your back pain, what’s going on? And should you keep doing the core strength exercises or try something else completely?

Here are three reasons that strengthening your core isn’t helping your back pain:

Related:

• What Kind of Shoes Should I Wear for Healthy Feet and Posture?
• If You Must Sit at a Computer, At Least Do This…
• What is Perfect Posture and How Do I Get It?

Your Core is Too Rigid

Core strength has become the darling of the fitness industry in the past few years. And for good reason. A lot of people lack integrity in their midsection, leading to spinal instability.

However, core strength has a dark side. It seems that most fitness professionals follow the axiom that if a little is good, a lot must be better.

And that’s where we run into huge problems…

Because your core is supposed to MOVE. In fact, a lot of our problems with back pain arise from a faulty model of the spine. Even our language talks about the spinal “column,” as though it’s a stiff strut.

Actually, your spine is made up of 33 bones, most of which have multiple joints to allow movement. Your spine functions more like a spring or a slinky than a strut.

In fact, Serge Gracovetsky, author of The Spinal Engine, studied the spine extensively and found that your spine actually initiates gait. Meaning: your legs aren’t the only thing doing the walking. It starts in your spine.

So when people crank down on their cores with too many tension-generating exercises, all that ensuing rigidity results in a spine that can’t move.

And that means that the impact of your foot on the ground when you walk doesn’t translate up through the core the way it’s supposed to — it gets jammed somewhere, ultimately resulting in wear and tear on your back muscles which take up the slack.

You’re Only Doing Static Core Strength Exercises

So many core strength exercises don’t translate into real life. Planks are one of those things. I’m not opposed to the occasional plank, and side planks do have some benefit (especially for scoliosis).

But, as in all things relating to the body, your core isn’t a single entity. It connects and relates to the rest of your body.

Exercises that teach your body how to engage core muscles while still maintaining movement are preferable to those that only hold one isometric position. An isometric contraction is helpful for “turning on” a muscle — basically, helping the brain to find it.

It doesn’t necessarily help the body to engage the muscle while doing everyday tasks, though, like hefting groceries and toddlers. Or bales of hay and water buckets, if that’s more your thing.

Core Strength Goes Against Your Beliefs

This one is probably my favorite, and the one that’s most likely going to require you to keep an open mind.

Did you know that the tension in your body is the physical manifestation of your thoughts? Some people even say that the body is the subconscious mind. While your body doesn’t “store” emotions per se, it experiences them alongside your thoughts.

In fact, your physical experience is inseparable from your mental and emotional experience. You cannot have a thought without having a corresponding physical reaction.

And interestingly, your body will be unable to do something that doesn’t align with your beliefs.

For example, if I ask you to hold your arm out straight and say, “My name is _____” inserting your name in the blank space, your arm will hold strong if I press it firmly but gently downward.

If, however, I ask you to say, “My name is Sukie,” your arm will become weak when I press down on it lightly. You’ll be unable to hold it up.

Presuming your name is not Sukie, of course.

We all carry subconscious programming about our identity. These are subconscious thoughts and ideas that we picked up from our experiences in early life or from strongly charged emotional events — things like car accidents, a terrifying medical diagnosis, emotional shock, and even severe trauma.

All of these experiences write a sort of operating code on your brain that you integrate into your sense of self. And then that shapes how you move through the world — physically and metaphorically.

So, what does all of this have to do with core strength?

If strong, whole, healthy and functional do not align with your beliefs about yourself, you will not achieve that state no matter how much you try to affect your physical body through stretching, strengthening and whatever other means of exercise.

If your belief about yourself — your self identity — aligns with “I’m broken,” which is a paradigm perpetuated by the western medical system, then it becomes impossible to align with “I’m strong and healthy and whole.”

And the western medical model does a bang-up job of focusing our attention on the areas where we’re broken. That is essentially the western medical model in a nutshell: find out where you are broken, and if you are in pain, you must be broken.

The notion of brokenness comes in many forms. Some people may feel that they’re not fully whole, or that they are/have been shattered. I’m not good enough is another version of I’m broken. When you align your identity with not enough, you put yourself into a position of having to become something else, to fix things about yourself in order to be loved, to be deserving of love, of attention, of affection, all these things.

And a lot of us have that tape playing on some level in our heads. Even if it’s not the totality of your identity, it might be your self-identity in an area of your life, like I’m not a good athlete, I’m not good at food, I can handle this area of my life but I can’t handle my diet.

So let’s just sum all these various beliefs up as “I’m broken.”

If “I’m broken” is your identity on a deep, deep level — we’re talking sub-sub-conscious, cellular biology level stuff — and then you try to fix yourself by strengthening your abdominals, your muscles will resist getting stronger. Or you’ll constantly injure yourself at the gym.

Ever met that person who just gets one workout-sabotaging injury after another sometimes in the weirdest and wackiest of ways?

If strong and whole are concepts that are out of alignment with your self identity, you have to shift the identity for the core strength exercises to take effect.

(Umm, you still have to do the exercises, by the way. You can’t just sit on your couch and think “I’m so strong” while popping back donut holes. I wish. But alas, it doesn’t work that way.)

Ack, So How Do I Fix This?

If your core is rigid, static and you’re starting to become aware that you’ve got a few less than ideal beliefs about yourself, don’t panic.

Also, keep your towel close by. (#nerdreference)

Here’s the good news:

It’s relatively easy to restore dynamic movement to your spine and core. My clients often feel results after just a single session with me.

And because spinal mobility is so freaking vital for a pain-free life, I’ve included several spinal twisting practices in my Posture Rehab program.

These will defrost your frozen spine so that it moves naturally again.

From the belief angle…

You probably already know that your mind affects your body. But did you know that your body also affects your brain?

Moving differently causes you to think differently. That’s because, as I said, the body is your subconscious mind. When you shift the physical, your thoughts and feelings follow suit.

But just going to the gym won’t do it. Nor will yoga in front of the tv.

To really get results, you have to show up with your mind and body. You’ve got to move slowly and intentionally. You’ve got to feel the movements, not just go through the motions.

And that’s why Posture Rehab is unlike anything else you’re going to find out there. It’s not just another list of how to sit in a chair and what height to set your computer monitor at.

It uses investigative movement practices to dig underneath years of accumulated tension to basically hit the neural reset button on your body and brain.

Want to try it out?

Go here >>