Your Pain Can Lie to You

There’s a phenomenon in the human body where our physical pain can be amplified more than necessary in order to bring our conscious attention to the affected area. This often makes us think that we have re-injured ourselves when in fact we may have merely tweaked it a bit, or simply opened up a stuck area, and our body is asking us to pay attention.

This isn’t to say that you should not seek medical attention if you feel it is warranted. People are often mis-diagnosed, and as we both know and have experienced with either ourselves or loved ones, pain is often dismissed as being all in our head. While we can learn to consciously dial the pain down, it’s important to listen to our intuition – when we might need medical attention, and when our body is amplifying it because it’s trying to tell us something.

Pain often stops people from doing activity. How often do you wake up and notice that something hurts, and then let that pain stop you from working out or training that day?

While it isn’t good to push through pain or push ourselves to extremes all the time, it’s important to understand that in order for the pain to move through our body, we have to actually MOVE our body. More often than not, we find that doing a Qigong set or some Bagua circle walking gets the blood and qi flowing, and lo and behold – the pain dissipates. By getting the blood flowing, the joints, muscles, and tendons moving, we create a better state for our physical body. You cannot create this state from a still position on the couch!

When that happens, it’s a clear signal that your body needed to release something. We often stop ourselves from doing anything when we hurt because we don’t want to injure it. But are we really injured, or just opening up what was stuck there?

Pain reminds us to pay attention to something. It reminds us to be gentle with ourselves. Should we take the time to listen, pain shows us what we are holding onto and where and what we need to let go of. Being stuck in our pain, or complaining about it, doesn’t actually move it.

Acknowledging it, and moving through it either physically or emotionally is important for us to move forward in our lives – pun intended. Pain doesn’t want us to stop living but we can get so caught up in our pain that we forget to live. Often we outsource our power by looking to other professionals to fix our pain for us, and when it doesn’t work we can become frustrated and upset, thus adding to our physical distress.

Sometimes we need to seek a professional to release and care for the tissue. We’ve found osteopathy, chiropractic, physiotherapy, and massage therapy to be beneficial to us. Other times, we recognize that the pain is more emotional in nature, and then we have to do some other healing work to help. By learning to listen to your body, you can better determine its messages.

We have so much more control over our bodies than we think we do. The next time you feel pain in a particular area, ask yourself a few questions:

• Is this pain new?
• Does gentle movement and/or stretching alleviate the pain?
• How often do I feel this pain?
• Has this pain ever been diagnosed?
• When did I first notice pain in this area? How was I feeling at the time?
• What emotion is arising from this pain?
• Would seeking professional help make this better or worse?

We have many ways to help people work through their pain. Check out our classes and other services.

In health & wellness,

Kellie & Kelly