Gosh this is so big, where to start? I’ve discovered the ability to experience pain as a body sensation that is NOT painful.
I’ve been experiencing arthritis off and on, with some pretty intense pain periodically, for way over 2 years now. I’d fix it – after all, I’ve spent my life as a healer successfully reversing arthritis – I’d even be feeling really good, thinking that the job was done and then it would come back, usually in another part of my body.
Photo – I’m going to have to find a nice current photo of myself – I’m 63 years old now!
I ended up doing a dummy spit about the merry go round I seemed to be on. And underneath all that was … WTF? I can support others to clear up their arthritis, why can’t I fix my own completely? There had to be some reason for this merry go round – in my 24 years of experience as a “healer”, there is ALWAYS a reason.
At some point after the dummy spit I developed an ENORMOUSLY painful shoulder, couldn’t lean back in the chair on it, couldn’t get comfortable to sleep on it and every time I sneezed there was a STABBING pain in under the shoulder blade. (You wouldn’t typically think that this was a good change place, but it certainly was!) If you’ve done horse work with me or the Happiness program you’ll get that “change place” reference. It’s a bit too big to explain here, we’d end up with a blog bigger than the old Ben Hur movie!
It turned out that the missing part was the pain itself.
Starting from this shoulder pain experience, I am now reliably able to transform pain into non painful body sensation. So instead of experiencing pain, for example, I can feel the clenching of the muscles instead.
Yeah I DO get how big that is…
Pain is a paradox
Dealing with pain successfully is a paradox (something that seems to be a contradiction, but isn’t really). On the one hand, it’s our body in overwhelm and we don’t want to experience pain. Well derr… it bloody hurts! On the other hand – and here’s the paradox – by being unwilling to experience it, we resist it – and what we resist hurts.
The pain is actually coming from our resistance.
It’s the same for physical pain, as it is for emotional pain. We’ve been dealing with emotions differently in our horse work for many years now, including the different ways we have of uniquely Feeling – and we’ve also learned about that same Emotional Intelligence on the Happiness program over the last 2 0r 3 years too.
Here’s how it is for me right now. I’m at the stage where I can reliably transform pain by sitting down, BEing Present to it and welcoming it in. For me it’s bigger than the act of observation – it’s the welcoming, curious energy / almost a light hearted attitude with which I am observing it. And yeah THAT didn’t happen overnight! 🙂 But I CAN coach others to their own version of this unique experience and we’ll talk about how we’re going to do that below.
We can’t truly “fix” anything until we’ve embraced the understanding of it. Indeed, the fixing has to come a vast second place to embracing it. I know it’s weird, but bear with me. I’ve done it, I KNOW you can do it too.
Pain is a message from our bodies – somethings wrong. But the bit we’ve missed, is that the message is something for us to know or do or change. For those of you who’ve been on the Happiness program with me, we’ve experienced that emotionally with overwhelming emotions, mentally with overwhelming worries, energetically with overwhelmingly pent up, stuck or stagnant feelings or with the overwhelming despair that the Heart Feel people can sometimes feel when they’re in overwhelm. Pain is our Physical Feel in overwhelm.
Pain is simply our physical self in overwhelm
I laughed a little there at the word “simply”!
I am at the stage now, where I can reliably sit down quietly and transform the pain to sensation, and understand what it’s trying to tell me. The “what it’s trying to tell me” is seriously a far second though, to being Present to the pain and the “what it’s trying to tell me” happens automatically when I’m Present. Being Present to the pain is the priority from which all else flows easily.
There’s been four kinds of pain that I’ve been experiencing:
- Discomfort – I’ve been able to dissolve that for ages, inspired by Narel (on staff here) who transformed her very old hip pain into relief. But until recently I could only do it with discomfort, not actual pain.
- Then there’s constant and strong pain. I’ve got a handle on that now, with the ability to transform that into sensations instead.
- Then there’s sudden stabbing pain, which is a whole new ball game. The universe sent me a sudden and very intensely agonising shoulder pain so big, that when I sneezed, I would sneeze and scream involuntarily at the same time. Poor hubby got so startled in the beginning, he came rushing in to see who was killing me! I wouldn’t have normally thought of that much pain as a gift, but it sure turned out to be one. <3
- Pain in movement.
- And of course from our horse work, those with Physical Feel as a natural talent will sometimes Feel their horse’s pain as strongly as if it was their own. Pick up the free lessons The 9 Keys to Happiness with Your Horse if that’s a new concept to you.)
The sudden stabbing pain – now I can very often transform that into sensation – that took longer than the sitting quietly with steady pain. It was a BIIGGG moment when I realized that I was feeling the stabbing shoulder pain as a clenching of the muscles in under the shoulder blade as I sneezed – and mannn… the universe sent me a LOT of sneezes! Woohoo! It’s a work in progress that doesn’t feel completely reliable yet.
And right now, I’m still working on being able to be Present to pain in movement. I can find the right place sometimes but not frequently. I think there’s two keys to it – slowing down to a very slow movement that I can be intensely Present to – and sitting down, finding being Present to it and then moving again, which happens in a different posture, which changes the pain experience.
So how did I find the ability to transform pain?
So how did I find it? I think this was the key – in that dummy spit I wanted to know the Truth. Was my whole healing work / practice of fixing arthritis a wank? Or is the ability to heal arthritis a Truth? Is is REALLY only resistance to pain that hurts or was that a wank too? Is pain “just” a message from our bodies that there’s something to know or do and that when we attend to that it goes? Is that true or is that a wank?
Please don’t go looking for the definition of the word “wank” if you don’t understand it. I’m sure it will say something different to the way I’m using it, which is Australian slang for “an utter waste of time / load of crap”. I’m laughing here at the thought of how many of you will run out and find the other definition! And my husband says I don’t have a sense of humour…
Back to the subject at hand… From that cry for answers, and being intensely Present to everything that came up, came clear answers to my questions and the outcome that I’ve written about here.
So how can YOU find that transformation from pain to sensation to healing?
It’s SUCH an individual thing that emphatically needs to come from our OWN Truths and each of our OWN Inner Guidance system – being Present to ALL our OWN feelings.
But I’m not just dumping you in it to find your own way.
My Truth – that pain only hurts because we resist it – is only useful as inspiration for you, to know that it IS possible. When the crap hits the fan MY beliefs and MY Truth won’t mean anything to you. But if I can find this place of transforming pain to body sensation, then you can too. Plus it turns out that I’m good at explaining this sort of stuff.
The path to transforming pain will be in the new Happiness book, which is coming out in a world first format that is so unique and easy to read / do / and be a part of. If you experience pain, then I guarantee your path to that pain was different to mine. ALL our paths are unique and ALL our paths out of it have to be unique too.
Our horse work here has enabled me to come up with a way to lead people down their own unique path to dealing with their feelings – whether it’s emotional feelings or physical feelings. In the “book” ( I can’t wait to share that format with you! ) will be a whole process to support people to find the unique and individual changes that THEY need for THEIR unique path – so that pain can be something that EVERYONE can experience as sensation, that EVERYONE can use for their own healing, that everyone can use to make their own choices, create their own change. And pain is only one part of the book that I’m already falling in love with.
The “book” is a project that is well on the way already and I’ll keep you updated as I’m going along.
In the meantime…
In the meantime, sit in connection with your own horses, who when they are relaxed, will reduce your stress, your breathing, even out your heart rate and reduce your blood pressure – and that WILL reduce your pain. If you want to know how to get you and your horse relaxed enough to get those benefits, then grab 21 Days to a Quiet Mind – it’s only $47 and if by some serious stretch you can’t afford that, then email me on the Contact at the top of the page and I’ll give it to you. 21 Days to a Quiet Mind
If you’ve found your way here and you don’t have horses, then our 3 day Talk to the Animals program at only $7 might just be your cup of tea.
And if you haven’t seen our free lessons The 9 Keys to happiness with Your Horse yet, then you’ll find them at the green link at the top of the Training Page.
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