Understanding Pain - Pt. 1

Pain is not something we learn a lot about when we’re growing up, except that we don’t like it, we see others curse it, wish it away, see it as a problem, often an enemy, as an affliction, something being forced upon them from some external place. We learn to be afraid of it, rather than taught to understand it.

I remember as a child, the pain of sore throats and ear infections, cuts, scrapes, the loss of skin on knees and knuckles in hockey matches; the pain of a broken nose in cricket – all of these physical injuries or illnesses, infections and the like.

I was riding in a taxi recently whilst interstate teaching and said to the driver who had asked the reason for my visit that I was running a workshop on “pain”. After a pause, she said, now there’s something I hate. This said a lot for me. It’s our relationship with pain that is so important in being able to change it.

If you hate it, you reject it and then it’s hard to understand it and heed the message it is offering.

I appreciate now that there are many contributions to pain and that pain has a purpose. It is not the enemy, and although it is unpleasant, it is very unpleasant for a reason, because it is a message about a problem. It is essentially a message from myself to myself, and if I listen to the message and understand it I may be able to grow, heal, prevent recurrence of the pain and often times prevent further illness and even death.

Pain is part of our survival armory; it is like an alarm system, a response to perceived, actual or potential danger.

Pain is unpleasant – and is so for a good reason. We’re meant to pay attention to it. If it weren’t so uncomfortable, we wouldn’t pay attention to it.

I have come to learn also that pain does not exist in the tissues of the body. Although I feel that pain is in my thumb when I hit it with a hammer, it is not. It is in my brain. It is created there by centres of the brain that have interpreted messages coming via the nervous system, from the squashed tissues in my thumb.

Pain exists in the brain and is part of a much broader response to the perception of danger to the tissues of my body. These include:

·       Tension, which might be splint to protect an area of the body that has been damaged

·       The sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which drives the fight and flight responses through the body including chemical responses that kick start inflammation and healing pathways.

It is these neural and chemical interconnecting message systems between mind and body that mean that I can no longer allow myself to perceive that the mind and body are separate

Pain is an experience; it involves sensation, memory, and emotion and is unique and subjective to each individual.

Say I apply a light pressure to my thumb, a message is sent by a mechanically compressed nerve ending (well many lightly compressed nerve endings to be honest), to my spinal cord and then on up into my brain where it travels to many centres including the somato-sensory cortex, at the top of the brain. This is where the map of the body exists in the brain. This is how I know that it is a pressure applied to my thumb and not my big toe.

If I were a soldier, and had gone to war, and were involved in a skirmish and got shrapnel in my hand which got infected and had to be amputated I could years later still feel pain in my hand that no longer existed because the messages were still moving between these centres of the brain. This phenomenon is known as phantom limb syndrome, and proves again that pain is not in the tissues.

To be continued in “Understanding Pain – Pt. 2”

Written by Adam Cootes of Arising Self

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The Body Is Always Responding to Perception.

Can you be grateful to your body? For it is your home. It is the home of your senses and therefore of your experience in this life. It is your gateway into this reality.

If you cannot, why can you not? Why do you resent it or hold a grudge towards it? Do you feel that it brings you pain and suffering? Do you feel that it gets in the way of what you want to do or achieve?

Is it perhaps that you do not understand it fully? Is it perhaps that you have not been taught yet how to listen to it and to know the messages it offers to you?

What is your relationship with your body? Do you feel separate from it? Do you live in a “you” and “it” paradigm? Your body is not separate from you. It is an integrated part of the whole of you.

Do you respect your body, value it, and nourish it? If you do not, how can you expect it to function optimally? Are you taking ownership and responsibility for your health and how you feel?

Consider that your body does not have its own mind. It only has yours. Your body is always responding to perception. That is what it does. When you perceive threat or danger your body is naturally instructed to prepare for fight or flight. Even if this perceived danger is not a physical one but a psycho-emotional one, the body’s response to perception will still be the same. It does not interpret a difference between a dog looking to attack and a crowd to whom you are speaking publicly that you fear will be judging you.

Take time to feel what your body’s response to different perceptions is. What happens in your body when you feel anxious or frustrated or upset or overwhelmed? If you feel pressure at work or are unhappy in a relationship or feel powerless in your life how does your body respond? What tension does it hold to guard or protect? In what way does it feel burdened, heavy or dragged down? In what way is it responding to your desire to run away or hide?

Much tension gets stored in the body because we don’t follow these desires for movement and expression into action. We tend not to run away when we won’t to or lash out or truly speak our mind when we feel frustrated or angry. Here, the body receives two messages: One that says: “speak up, hide, fight or run” and another that says: “Don’t do that, you’ll look silly or it won’t work, it won’t go away or it will lead to more trouble”, and so, there is an equal and opposite force in the body blocking the first desire for movement and action. Tension results: a conflict within the body, two opposing stories.

Watch your body, feel your body, learn about it and the way it responds to stress and trauma; the way it responds to perception. Change perception and you will change your body. Don’t fear your body. Come to know your body. Listen to it. It is a storehouse for your learning, a well pool of self-discovery. 

Written by Adam Cootes of Arising Self

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Slow It Right Down.

I’ve joined “Still Yoga” in Silverlake, Los Angeles. I’m really enjoying all of the Yogi’s teachings so far and I’ve had a different teacher every time. I first tried yoga in 1999 and became more committed in 2001. Since then I’ve moved states, moved yoga schools and had quite the exposure to different teachings between Australia and the USA. What I appreciated the most about this mornings teachings were the following lessons: “To not rush. To go slow: Slow absolutely everything in and about your movements and breath right down”. When the body slows down, so does the mind. It’s not uncommon to “power” through a yoga session, but this morning, every single movement of ours was encouraged to “slow down”. It took me a while to realise, but throughout this process, of course my breath slowed down, my mind switched off and before I knew it, the class was over and I barely recalled doing a “yoga” class. It was the first time that I was able to entirely “still” myself without too much focus on powering through the physical. So in your everyday life, don’t forget to slow it all down. Don’t wait for your meditation or yoga class to fall still. Do your very best to remind yourself to slow down your walking pace, how fast you eat, talk, shower, get dressed and all of the other daily activity we endure. Make more time to simply ‘be’.