Why do so many people suffer with ongoing backpain? In my work with thousands of people I’ve found that…
Most people want consistency. They’ll continue down the same path even when it is a path of pain and suffering, because at least it’s familiar… at least they know what to expect.
They’ll curse the pain, numb the pain, push through the pain and stay the course because that’s the course they want to follow. Whether they’re using pain-killers or alternative methods, their goal is the same: To rid themselves of the “annoyance” and keep doing what they want to do.
Do you know any people like this?
But the real purpose of pain is to get us to:
1. Pay attention
2. Change our behavior.
If you were going to invest in a company, you’d want to first assess their business plan or strategy. You wouldn’t invest in a company if you knew that it was on a course to certain bankruptcy.
Yet people invest so much time, money and energy into trying to get rid of their pain, without first assessing where the current course they’re on is really leading them.
What if pain was your body’s last resort to get you to pay attention and change your behavior (because you’d missed the more subtle cues)? Would you address pain differently?
What if you just stopped what you were doing and put your hands on the part of your body that was hurting and gave it your full attention, acknowledgement and acceptance instead of cursing it and trying to get rid of “IT”?
After all, there really is no “IT”. When we say, “I’m fine expect for my back…IT is the problem.” what we’re really saying is “I can’t connect to the energy in this part of my body, so I’m creating an illusion that IT is somehow separate and the cause.”
There is no IT. There’s just one whole you.
My experience with back pain varies. It's not as important what I think as what my client's think. Some clients are open to receive information about how their back pain is related to their mental/emotional body and they find relief through mind/body therapy.
Other clients cannot receive that information. We discuss simple methods for low back pain like exercise, abdominal work, losing weight or diagnostic tests if it's chronic.
No one gives up pain they want to keep.
I agree with Pixie and this post. My experience has been very similar. Very few chronic pain sufferers are unable and/or unwilling to connect with their bodies long enough to find "natural" ways of healing.
My observation has boiled it down to one or all of the following 3 underlying emotional blocks: 1 – the need to be taken care of (victim), 2-the inability to find "quality" help (control), and 3-secondary gain… all the "benefits" that come from being in chronic pain, ex. handicap car tags.
~Liz
Dear John,
I completely agree with you. All pain is a way of getting our attention. We hold traumas in various parts of the body because at the time the traumas happened we could not cope (process) with whatever was occurring, especially at very young ages so our bodies stored the trauma for later processing. Our bodies are amazing friends to us (if we could see that instead of seeing the body as the enemy). The traumas do not get processed very often as we become so afraid of feeling these scary feelings; the proverbial black hole that will swallow us up. The body whispers, then talks, then shouts if we don't listen. Paying attention (observer effect) to pain is sometimes the only thing that is needed to dissolve that pain, it feels heard. But there are so many things that can help us process and feel that hurt and pain. The feeling of wanting to 'get rid of something' is so common, it really is a metaphor for not accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now and taking responsibility for creating that.
Thanks for your interesting posts on this subject.
Noreen.