Why Pain?

So in my 30 years of practice in the healing arts, this is one question I get consistently.  I often ask this of my own self, why pain, why does this hurt, why does that hurt?

We can look at it truly on a physical level.  Let’s say you have been working outside then all of a sudden your back has a sharp pain.  I love it when people tell me that there backs went out.  I want to ask out where?  to a party? to the neighbors? LOL.

It may feel like it was all of a sudden, but as I ask them questions they realize that actually they may have felt it tighten up a few days ago and ignored the pain due to the fact they had to get things done. the signal was there, they just ignored it.  Pain is the language of the body, we need to learn how to listen in.

Then all of a sudden it is there.  They can’t move, they put on a brave face, suck it up and carry on.  I know I have done this many times myself.  I have even pretended not to be hurt to show my own braveness.   Now I have realized that what is best at the time is to feel it, truly feel it.

I remembered one time biking out in Colorado going down a hill at high speed and hitting my front brake to make a curve.  As I hit the brake I flew over the handle bars skidded face first stopping within a foot of a cactus.

My husband came back to get me.  In all of my training I knew to just lie there and feel all of what was happening in my body.  The shaking, the trembling the heart racing, all of it.  There was a nursing convention and the nurses walking would try to get me up to get me going.  I had to ask Tim to leave me alone.

As I walked my bike back at times my body would shake.  I would stop and just allow this to happen.  It was as if this is how my body was trying to shake off the trauma.  It truly was way cool to have that understanding of it rather than the fear of it.

A client the other day came with a hurting back.  As I questioned him he realized it had been tight for awhile.  He had things to get done, so he ignored it.  Up in his head with the “to do list” . Then with one twist it came into his awareness.  Funny how much we can ignore the little signals until we get the proverbial Whack!  and we have to pay attention.

So this is the physical part of the pain.  The body can become distorted out of center.

Then we have the mental part of the pain…the story we tell ourselves about the pain.  This actually is what is called suffering;-).  Well it happened because… or if only …..or it was not my fault.  I have used them all.

Then we have the emotional part…the feelings we feel about it.  The story above of the client, he was feeling frustrated, worried, anxious and bewildered.  All of these emotions cause a “stress response” to turn on in the body.  The body does not heal when this is on. period.

So, when in pain what I have learned to do is go slowly.  Get curious about how it happened.  I love the question of “how did this show up on my game board, and what am I learning”?

The bike incident…well, I was angry that I had to cut short my vacation and was determined to ride around the lake before I left! So in that “I am not changing my plans state ” the Universe swooped in and said “yes” you will.

I had to surrender to the pain, learn from it.  It is a signal for us to pay attention to a need in us.   Not to make it something to fix or get rid of as we do so much in the Western world.( yes I did take the appropriate self care things, clean up the road rash, get chiropractic, massage, etc)

Pain can be a great gift, when we don’t fear it, get curious about it and hold it’s lesson with  a compassionate heart.