Pain is a Sign you’re Ready for More Choices

I'm sitting down to write this email to you tonight with my usual conundrum of being a human with my own unique challenging psychological patterning.

I desire to be embodied and nourished when I write, market, and relate to anything regarding my business. I'm offering modalities and ways of being with people that are supposed to be healing after all.

And yet I often find that the parts of myself that have kept me stuck in my own cycle of chronic pain and trauma tend to come back online, and they really want to sit in the driver's seat.

My internal perfectionist part. The self critical part. The anxious part that turns the pressure on to "get it all done". The part of me that doesn't feel safe if I don't urgently keep up and maintain productivity.

All of these parts have resulted from and also feed anxiety and chronic pain related symptoms in a "chicken or egg" fashion.

I have learned over time that these parts of myself, as much as I want to "release" them, aren't going to fully go away. They have served as necessary protections earlier in my life, and they strongly know how to do their job, even if their job is hurting more than helping now.

And just like for most people, the more I try to push them away, the louder they get.

How can you learn to have agency with your symptoms and internal blocks/parts, without pushing them away or avoiding them?

And more importantly, what is the energy or embodied state you want to feel more of?

"Pain is a Sign you are Ready for More Choices."

I believe that's a quote by Moshe Feldenkrais.

This may mean that you are ready for more external choices in your life, such as changing relationships, jobs, where you live, etc. Or it could relate to your internal world in the way that you have become psychologically organized. When it comes to working with chronic pain, the internal and external both have a strong impact on our pain experience.

In Pain Reprocessing Therapy, we learn to not only allow the symptoms to be here, we also learn how to allow other challenging emotions and other uncomfortable sensations to be here while reorienting to them from a perspective of safety. We also look at habits and behaviors that are keeping us stuck in a pain cycle.

In Hakomi Somatic Psychotherapy, we learn how to really slow down, and study our automatic reactions and impulses that go underneath our conscious awareness, while in a state of mindfulness.

Transformation occurs when our center of gravity shifts from unconsciously protecting the wound, to consciously trusting new possibilities.

The first step, after we become aware of a pain symptom, an uncomfortable emotion, a block or barrier, is to accept that it's here. Don't fight it. Let it sit down on the kindergarten carpet, as Nicole Sachs says. For everything that shows up, allow it to have some space.

This is the first step of reprogramming your brain from being dominated by the symptom, to being WITH the symptom. And it takes SO MUCH COURAGE! It's simple, but certainly not easy, and it is a process. Especially when it comes to trauma and pain.

Then we have to cultivate the internal spaciousness and capacity to really sit with the discomfort without being overwhelmed by it. In other words, we have to learn how to cultivate a deeper sense of safety within.

Once we have enough safety cultivated, we can start making different choices, and orienting toward new possibilities. And it's a process that requires diligence, a lot of self-compassion, and an orientation toward how you desire to feel and live your life.

In sum, as I sit here typing, I can still feel my various internal "parts". I'm not pushing them away. I know them well. I honor their protective intentions. And, I have enough spaciousness to let them be here without being overwhelmed, a capacity that I have had to learn to cultivate.

I also know that I want to embody a soft heart, fluid body, and core integrity. I have a felt sense that I aim my attention toward. At any given moment, I ask myself if what I'm doing is supporting or inhibiting that felt sense, and I make choices accordingly.

Lastly, when an old pain symptom tries to come up, I now have a choice to let it in, or let it go. And that is quite an empowering experience after living with chronic pain for over 15 years!!