Friend Mac has been having bad muscle pain in his thigh since walking regularly. Doctors aren’t getting anywhere except taking x-rays and prescribing painkillers and telling him to stop walking.
This isn’t about torn or damaged muscles but tense or painful ones.
We discussed some other approaches:
Theory of pain
Vipassana Meditation
Feldenkrais (Awareness Through Movement)
Calanetics
Sensory tapping
Theory of pain:
This view holds that pain (and pleasure) are simply information that the body needs to be able to make an accurate assessment of itself in the area and then to formulate management to heal that area. The pain (or pleasure) travels along nerves to the brain. There is so much noise and stuff going on at once that it is easy for the brain to be overwhelmed. What it needs is a clear signal selected out of all the background noise. So it needs aware focus on the pain point paying attention to the feeling. Nothing more. Providing the brain gets that information clearly it will then initiate appropriate changes. This is not an intellectual thinking matter. Our thinking minds aren’t powerful enough for this. It involves trust in the body to let it follow and unravel the pain and change it to something else. Just watch and don’t block what happens. Surgery that cuts nerves interrupts the information pathways. Painkillers dull the information signal needed to self-heal.
Vipassana Meditation:
A Buddhist meditation technique quite difficult to learn. Typically taught through a 10-day supported retreat where the first 3 days focus on developing skill in single-pointed attention by focusing on the breath going in and out at the nostril. For the next 7 days this single-pointed awareness is transferred to single-pointed awareness of the feeling in the body and this is moved systematically through the body. Support given is for a complete silence (no-talking) no eye contact or physical contact and all distractions like music pictures TV games phones removed. Simple meals provided. Meditation practice from about 5am to 9pm daily mainly done cross-legged sitting in a darkened room without moving. Yes a little tough! But the skill once learned never seems to be lost and is a powerful skill to have. When being aware of feeling at a single point just observe. It will change but push away thought desire or any intention to change. Awareness and observation are enough.
Feldenkrais (Awareness Through Movement):
Seeks effortless graceful movement. We learn to move as babies and there are many different combinations and pathways of muscles to achieve a movement but most are inefficient and will lead to wear and tear and pain. One or a few will be graceful and effortless. Feldenkrais classes are very gentle and peaceful and apparently very very slow. Students will typically be lying or sitting and focused on practising some small movement of an arm or joint. It doesn’t hurt. Themes like: ‘If you are trying you’re going in the wrong direction’; ‘If you feel pain back off’. The graceful pathway will not have tense held muscles or blocks across it. It will feel easy. Movements are very very tiny played with explored. Watch how the movement begins. If there is a painful part explore around the pain from different directions to see if there is a way through or where it all lets go and flows. If we have hurt or damaged ourselves we will avoid that area and often use an inefficient pathway which will then establish itself indefinitely. Working on these can heal wounds that are decades old. It becomes a life philosophy – trying is the wrong pathway. Seeking effortless grace is the pathway.
Calanetics:
Like Feldenkrais this works with tiny (no more than 2mm) movements. These can begin by putting the body in a posture (much like a yoga posture or holding some muscles under tension) then moving in a tiny pulse to stretch and lengthen and get these muscles working efficiently. This tiny pulsing movement is the key skill to take away from this.
Tapping:
This is being used in emotional healing and gets some quite remarkable results. It also works extremely well with pain management in muscles. If a muscle has pain or is put under some tension to the point where areas of pain are easily identifiable then tapping can be used to relax and release and work through the pain. It enables the body to lengthen the muscle and find the effortless path. A vibrator can also be used – use stretching to make the painful part obvious then let the vibrator work precisely where it is needed.
What we do with our bodies is our responsibility. We are our own best healers. No-one else can do this deep work for us. No-one else can take responsiblity for the choices you make in managing your body even if what you choose is to hand over to someone else and let them do whatever they do to you. You choose to do what they suggest or not. You make a judgment about what they say. You are the one who gets to be you.