Healing Chronic Pain Through Self-Listening
/If you’re experiencing chronic pain right now, my heart really goes out to you.
When I was 20, I developed extreme chronic wrist pain which prevented me from doing the thing I loved most in the world - playing the guitar. I thought I was destined to be a professional musician and was stopped dead in my tracks.
The tremendous fear, the resistance, the anger I felt toward the world and myself for this happening; it all led to a pretty dark period for me. I tried everything I could find in the medical model: doctors, PTs, chiropractors, acupuncturists...No one was able to help me.
I eventually discovered that what was really needed was that I learn how to listen to my body so that I could help myself.
Our bodies are giving us messages all the time. When we are hungry, our bodies let us know. When we are tired, our bodies let us know. Similarly when we are in pain, there is a message trying to be communicated. Chronic pain is typically a bit more complicated than just eating a sandwich to make hunger go away, but in essence it works the same way.
When we are able to receive and respond to the messages our chronic pain is trying to give us, the pain will no longer have a need to speak to us.
There are 3 main reasons why we aren’t able to hear the messages our pain is giving us:
We were never taught the art of listening to our bodies.
We have so much resistance to our pain that no messages can get through.
We’re not being kind to ourselves.
We were never taught the art of listening to our bodies:
In many cultures and spiritual traditions, the body is viewed as having tremendous wisdom to be tapped into. Our western culture however has lost track of that, and now we often view our bodies as fallible vessels that get in the way of our busy lives when they start to break down. If our body is speaking to us in the form of pain or illness, we often override it, avoid it, or shut off the communication completely with painkillers or something similar.
Listening to our bodies is a skill and we have to start practicing it to get good at it. The good news is that when we begin to develop the skill of listening to our bodies, we not only are able to work through our chronic pain issue, but we also develop a skill to more quickly understand and work through many other physical challenges in the future.
We have so much resistance to our pain that no messages can get through:
When I couldn’t play any guitar because of my wrist pain, I was consumed with aversion. I felt so weak, so incapable...“Get me out of this!” my mind was incessantly screaming. I would constantly avoid all sorts of sensations in my wrist, and so I certainly could not hear what it was actually saying.
Turning to listen can be really scary, but when I gradually was able to do this more and more, the answers that I received transformed my life. The wisdom that came through was not just how to make the pain go away - the pain was just the method of communication. The actual message for me had a lot more to do with fear, insecurity, putting immense amounts of pressure on myself, and a call to learn how to use my body in a much less taxing manner.
In my experience, these messages are different for everyone and can only be fully discovered from you listening to you, not from someone else telling you. A practitioner can, however, help you learn how to listen to your body and carry out what the messages are asking for.
Through learning to listen to our bodies with openness and curiosity, we become the best authority possible for what is right for ourselves. This leads to greater physical, mental, and emotional health, and a deeper connection with our personal truth.
We’re not being kind to ourselves:
When in chronic pain, along with the aversion often comes coldness or anger toward our bodies. We also often harshly drive ourselves on, “Keep going! Keep going!,” even when our bodies are begging us to pause and care for ourselves.
Does someone who feels hurt, pressured, and not listened to want to open up and share authentically with you? Certainly not. Likewise, before the body will start to speak up, it needs to feel safe and cared for.
When we can learn to bring openness, tenderness, and warmth to our listening, the body can begin to feel safe again, tension begins to soften, and messages of what the body needs can start to come through. Learning to be kind and compassionate to ourselves is a practice in and of itself and can take some time to cultivate. In time though, it can transform our lives and contribute immensely to our overall health.
