Sensing Pain
AKA We Are... Wyld Stallyns!
Happy Saturday! It’s officially summer here in NYC and I’m treating myself to a clean backyard and some fantastic shows at the Vanguard and Jazz Gallery. I may be a saxophonist, but I’m not gonna say no to Kurt Rosenwinkel, Peter Bernstein, and Gilad Heckselman (3 guitarists).
I’m expecting some face melting tunes in the near future. If you haven’t heard of these guys - cats - I strongly suggest you look ‘em up.
Pain and Your Inner Sherlock
In my previous articles, I’ve asked you follow a few “simple” rules when going about this whole business of uncovering who and what you are. They’re worth a refresh:
No Pulling. No Pushing
Don’t hold your breath
Don’t get attracted to good or bad outcomes
I could rephrase these things 100 times over and I likely will. In fact, all of them could be reduced to…
Don’t fixate yourself
It doesn’t matter what kind of catchy phrase or mantra I cook up. These words are ultimately meaningless without context! So today I thought I’d talk about a very common thing for folks, the sensation of pain and how we deal with it during the day.
A Little Exercise
After you read today’s article, I’d like you to take 5 minutes to sit, stand, or lie down quietly. You’re not going to start thinking about allowing your neck to free or allowing any bit of you to release tension and thaw. Instead, you’re going to simply wonder how much fatigue you have and if you can allow yourself to feel every ounce of it.
If you’re one of my students, there’s a high likelihood that you typically have some feeling of persistent low level pain. I do not want you to suppress this pain in any way shape or form. Instead, really allow that sense of pain to do whatever it wants. There are times when this can feel like pain is running around within us as if it’s a wild stallion.
I’d like you to let it run rampant.
The reason for this is that it is extremely tempting to try and catch the stallion with your mind’s eye and push the pain out. The level of temptation is so high for most of my students (and meeeeee tooooooo) that even when have a thought like, “Let the neck be free of tension.”, or “Do I have tension in the neck?”, or even the simple, “What am I sensing?”, we secretly send out another thought…
“I’m gonna sit here and figure out this pain and make it stop. NOW.”
I think the temptation to do this is so astronomically high that I am extremely skeptical of anyone who claims they’ve never had that sneaky manipulative thought AND been injured.
Wild Stallions and Secret Pain Thoughts
When we have persistent pain and we have the dirty secret thought of making the pain stop, we are unwittingly releasing a SECOND horse. This one is now chasing the first and attempting to wrangle pain under control. Unfortunately for us, this second horse is a COMMAND from the brain; a command that can only create co-contraction in our muscles and stiffen our joints.
This is a complete betrayal of our intention to feel better AND likely makes us control our breathing.
Back to the Exercise!!
With that context in mind, let’s go back to our simple observation. I’m going to ask that you allow yourself to feel every ounce of fatigue that you have. You may simply and quietly add the thought that no fiber of your being needs to be held in place, but even that thought could be too much. It should take you roughly 15 minutes to just feel your energy level and let yourself be as bone quiet as possible.
If all goes according to plan, stuff and things will begin to happen all on their own…
Get In Touch
Have a question about this post? Ask in the comments below or hit the like button. You know, all those good social interaction things for the algos!
If you’re in NYC, you may learn more about my private teaching practice at johndalto.com.
If you’d like to book any lesson time with me, you can find my booking link here.