How do we break the pain cycle and (re)learn wellbeing and ease?
“The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout;
the tower of nine storeys rose from a small heap of earth;
the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.”
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Because pain and other symptoms arise as emergent phenomena in a complex system involving biopsychosocial and spiritual domains, the treatment also needs to address all of these. Different things will work for different people, and you’re invited to get curious about what your own recipe for healing (h/t Rachel Zoffness) will be. The most useful approach will be responsive to your particular story and honor your lived experience, values, needs, strengths, and resources.
There are usually no quick fixes, nor is there a one-size-fits-all approach (though exceptionally some people will spontaneously recover after simply reading about the neuroscience of healing), but there is so much hope for recovery through mind-body practices. Bodymind (re)learning for wellbeing and ease involves learning and practicing new skills and strategies, and a new way of being-with our experience, including discomfort. We cultivate patience, persistence, lovingkindness, compassion and courage, and start from a place of acceptance, respect and appreciation for our bodymind’s current way of looking after us.
Learning about positive bioplasticity and neuroplasticity, and about how we can repattern our neural pathways is an important element of this approach, in addition to reclaiming “real-estate” in our bodymind through joy, play, gratitude, lovingkindness and compassion, and creating an experience of greater safety - absolute safety is an impossibility as a human being living in this world, but we can actively become more resourced and resilient, and offer our bodymind more flexibility in shifting to states of greater ease and wellbeing.
A mindbody approach addresses many domains in your experience: decision making, pleasure, planning, problem solving, autobiographical and emotional memories, self-soothing, emotional awareness and expression, mindfulness, self-compassion, sleep and nourishment, exercise, connection and engagement, empathy and physical activity, experiences of embodiment, boundaries, and more. For many of us, it will also include support to heal the imprint, or living legacy, of adversity and trauma in our bodymind. Repeating cycles of different ways of thinking, feeling, acting and being helps to grow healing pathways, with lasting change over time.
If you’re interested in a consultation to find out whether/how a mindbody approach can help you (re)learn bodymind wellbeing and ease and find freedom from persistent pain and other symptoms, click here to learn more about working with me and how to schedule a session. I’d love to be your partner in this healing journey.