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This month’s we’ve been focusing on non-pharmaceutical approaches to pain relief. (If you missed the previous articles you can click to read part one and part two.) The Chinese Medicine concept that’s been central to our discussions is that all forms of pain are caused by stagnation, and furthermore, that the mind and body are inseparable. So, many of the holistic approaches I’ve mentioned are beneficial for both psychological and physical pain. Let’s look at some more ways to promote movement in order to alleviate stagnation and pain.
- Exercise. Exercise can be a delicate subject when it comes to treatment of pain, since many conservative doctors still advocate immobility, especially with injuries. But immobility tends to exacerbate stagnation. And long term immobility due to pain can be a nail in one’s coffin, since it often leads to weight gain, poor circulation, as well as loss of strength, balance, and flexibility. We must keep moving, even when we’re in pain. There are always ways to move that are non-damaging. If you can’t come up with an exercise regimen that works for you, consider seeing a physical therapist.
In recent years, progressive trainers and doctors have even employed immediate controlled movement for injuries such as sprains, with athletes often making astoundingly rapid recoveries. Moving the traumatized area is vital for promoting movement of stagnant lymphatic fluid. Meanwhile, in the psychology community, there has been an impressive rise in the recognition of the value of exercise in psychological pain – such as anxiety and depression. Moving the body moves the mind, helping us to get out of an uncomfortable rut.
- Visualize. A great way to mobilize the mind is through the deliberate focus on a desired state rather than our usual tendency to focus on what we don’t like and want to be different. If you’re in pain, thinking about the pain itself and how much it sucks only makes it worse. What we focus on naturally grows to dominate our experience.
There are all sorts of useful ways to visualize for pain. A good starting point is to imagine yourself happy and pain-free, doing something you love. Spend five minutes a day doing this with your eyes closed. Really try to build the feeling you’d expect to have in this state – relieved, grateful, ecstatic, triumphant. See it, touch it, taste it, rev it up. If nothing else, it will be a five minute break from the usual despair, but I believe it’s likely to do much more. You need to have a clear sense of your destination if you want to get somewhere, and this exercise will really help with your pain, whether it’s physical or psychological.
- Stop Resisting. As I touched on in the first article of this series, resistance just begets more stagnation. As often as possible, try to catch yourself resisting your pain, fighting it with your body and mind. The pain is like a crimped hose, and the resistance is like clenching your fist around the crimped hose – it certainly doesn’t make it better, and can often make it worse. When you catch yourself tightening up inside in response to the pain, the most efficient thing to do is just stop and relax. Breathe. Let it go. Then choose a new focus – like whatever task you’re engaged in, or helping someone, or making music, or learning, or playing a game. Don’t let yourself feel bad that you’re not over it yet. Don’t blame yourself for resisting again. Don’t try to figure it out. Just let it go, then let it go again, then let it go again.
This isn’t a technique that you’ll just do once and your pain will disappear forever. It’s a discipline that you commit yourself to. But as simple as it seems, this alone can be profoundly life changing. Resisting your pain is like arguing with reality; you can’t win – you can only make it worse. Letting go of this fight isn’t the same as giving up or asking for more pain. It actually frees up your energy and lets the pain run its course.
Even if you’re not in pain, I invite you this week to try to notice when you’re resisting your circumstances – the external happenings, or how you feel, or your own thoughts – and without doing any thinking about it, let go of the resistance. Tell me what happens.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Unlocking Pain, Part Three – Keep Moving
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What an amazing time to be alive, isn’t it?
I was meditating last week and a little story popped into my mind. I was a soul not yet born into this body. I was looking down at the world with some kind of guide and the guide said, “Are you sure you want to be a human right now? During your lifetime there’s going to be a pandemic and it will be scary and sometimes tragic. The world will be forever changed. Plus, there won’t be much toilet paper.”
I can’t say for certain that this is how it works, but if it does then we all made this choice. I like to believe that I made the choice to jump in because I knew I would have the faculties and resources to manage whatever might happen, and to thrive and make a positive difference in others’ lives. I have a feeling that a part of you (maybe all of you) feels the same way – even if your mind tells you otherwise.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to lose sight of this core truth. Fear is contagious and it has a frequency which (especially when resisted) can be intensely jarring. After all, that’s its job. It’s the emotional mechanism of our survival instinct. It’s trying to convince you that the only thing that matters right now is security. But humans evolved the ability to experience these animalistic impulses without letting them control us. One way is to open our eyes and notice all that’s good in the world – all of the evidence that our mind’s irrational concerns are untrue. Here’s some good news that’s come about through this tumultuous period.
- There is greater appreciation for the working class. More than ever before, many are recognizing that these beautiful people – the grocery store clerks, the UPS drivers, the garbage collectors, the utility company technicians – are keeping our world running. Let’s show them our gratitude.
- There is a pause in the habit of filling ourselves up with stuff. Sure, we’re stocking up on beans and rice, but for lots of people who have a habit of shopping to self-soothe, this period has initiated a rare break. It’s a time when we’re prompted to make do with what we have. Perhaps to repair, instead of replacing, what can be fixed.
- The environment is healing. How else could we have gotten the whole world to drive less? In such a short period of time we’ve seen the canals of Venice become clear enough to see fish and dolphins swimming in them, and the cloud of pollution over China has mostly disappeared. These may be short lived miracles, but it’s important for the world to witness that the environment is resilient. When this pandemic runs its course, environmental issues will still be here, and hopefully this vivid display of the impact of human activities will inspire us to develop permanent solutions.
- Everyone is working together. The world has never been so united in a common cause. We’re seeing unprecedented stories of cooperation. In England, there was a call for National Health Service volunteers and over 400,000 people signed up in the first 24 hours.
- We’re reminded of the value of our elders. Who could forget that line from Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi (1970): “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” The threat of losing our senior citizens had helped the world recognize just how important they are. The young are helping the old. Stores are offering special hours for seniors only. This period has also highlighted how isolated many of our elders are, and it’s prompting a collective desire to honor them, to care for them better, and include them more.
- We’re recognizing the importance of community. The bigger and faster the world gets, the easier it is to feel disconnected. But social distancing has been a (sometimes painful) reminder of how much we need and value each other, and all sorts of novel ways of connecting have emerged from this crisis. We’ve seen virtual sing-alongs, virtual dinner parties, video chat board games, meetings in parks (maintaining six feet of distance) to make eye contact, tell jokes, and (non-contact) dance. People have been doing the “reach out and touch someone” thing with folks they haven’t been in contact with for years. We need each other.
- Unprecedented generosity. We’ve seen offerings of free products, free counseling, groceries, donations of medical supplies, sharing of toilet paper, help with yard work, and so many other ways in which people are stepping up to contribute.
- Teachers are getting the recognition they deserve. For all of the parents who are suddenly forced to home school their kids, there’s a mass awakening happening as to how hard it is to be a teacher and how much we depend on them, not just to educate our kids but to keep them safe, to hold space for them to develop and grow, and to create a healthy classroom culture for them to discover who they are and hone their gifts.
- We’re reminded of how many heroes there are. People everywhere are putting their health (perhaps their lives) on the line to serve others. Doctors, nurses, medical staff, caregivers of all kinds, receptionists, and everyone who continues to show up at jobs in essential businesses – these dedicated humans are putting the good of the community first and we should all be grateful for them.
We would love it if you’d share some good news in the comments below. What silver linings have you discovered? What’s beautiful in the world that’s being revealed in this crazy time?
Be well,
Peter and Briana and Everyone at The Dragontree
[post_title] => {Good News} 9 things to celebrate right now
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I bet that if I said, “Let’s start the process of dealing with your psychological baggage,” most people would tense up a bit and expect that they’re in for a “heavy” experience. It’s funny, because if we’re carrying around this baggage all the time, it already represents a certain “weight” that we’ve gotten used to, and the “dealing with it” part should amount to feeling lighter and freer.
While writing our book, The Well Life, we felt it simply wasn’t possible to guide people to the wellest of lives without encouraging them to resolve and/or release the stuff from the past that may be undermining their best efforts to be healthy and successful today. But we anticipated that some readers might react to this agenda about as well as if we offered to give them an amateur root canal.
I don’t have enough space in an article to explain our whole methodology – not to mention the approaches we use before and after to prepare for and stabilize this work. But I’d like to share an except on how we introduce this process, which I hope will help you feel ready to liberate yourself:
“Now, before you think, “Oh boy, this is going to be heavy,” we want to tell you that this doesn’t have to be a heavy experience. In fact, it’s an opportunity to feel lighter. It’s just that, between the heaviness and the lightness, there’s often something that one of our former teachers calls a “veil of discomfort.” The discomfort is only a veil because it’s really quite insubstantial. As soon as we become willing to experience it, we readily pass through it. And on the other side is lightness and opportunity!
Let’s talk about how these loose ends from your past can undermine you. One thing that may happen when you prepare to go for something big (whether it be a new relationship, a career change, or a cross-country move) is that your mind quickly runs through all your baggage—unresolved issues, past traumas, mistakes, losses—and tells you this is a bad idea.
Rather than hating your mind for this, it’s important to remember that you programmed this mind. You started out as a baby with a clean mental slate, and little by little you trained your mind to look out for things that might threaten your survival or happiness. That’s how your mind is built to work. It just happens that most minds are overly eager to do this job (especially if it means that your mind gets to monopolize your attention).
The more intense the bad experiences of your past, the deeper the groove they cut in your mental record. The mind looks for anything in your present that even remotely resembles these past experiences so that it can steer you clear from repeating them. It produces warning thoughts and initiates intense emotions to grab your attention.
So what can you do? Thank your mind for its efforts to protect you, but inform it that it’s working from outdated beliefs and overly generalized data. There’s no purpose in blaming yourself for how your mind functions. You’ve done your best with the resources that were available to you in each moment. But if you want the freedom to show up to each moment without being restrained by your past, it’s imperative to recognize that your baggage impedes this. Limiting beliefs and the echoes of past emotions are an intrusion on your space and the peace that lies within.
The key to identifying past incidents that get priority cleanup status is that when you bring them to mind and then check in with your body, you don’t feel altogether light and clean. Instead, you might feel heavy, tight, agitated, or constricted. Or a negative emotion might come up, such as guilt, fear, shame, anger, regret, sadness, or grief.
It’s possible that something you did that was objectively bad, like stealing the Statue of Liberty and burying it in your backyard, doesn’t actually provoke an especially strong physical or emotional response when you focus on it. In such cases, it’s important to remember that the objective “sin rating” of an event is less significant than how much of a hook it has in you. On the other hand, you might have accidentally thrown away your child’s first finger-painting and experience a tremendous feeling of guilt when you think about it—this would be something worth addressing.
Think of this process like cleaning your living space. When your house is filthy, there are piles of documents, dishes, laundry, and areas needing repair. It can feel so daunting you don’t know where to begin. You don’t even want to begin. But once you start, and then you have one room that’s clutter-free, it feels more manageable. Eventually, the whole house is pretty well in order, and then it’s fairly easy to stay on top of it. In the same way, as you clean up your life, you’ll find it both easier and more appealing to continue to clean, and to nip any new messes in the bud so they don’t impede your future.”
If this sounds good to you, I encourage you to let go of something right now. If you feel into your body, are you totally at ease? If not, is the unease associated with something that’s unresolved? Something you want to be different? Something you’re holding onto? Why not let it go – even if just for this moment? First try feeling it without any resistance, welcoming the feeling completely. Then take a breath into the feeling and as you exhale, let it go.
If you’re intrigued by where we’re headed, check out our book.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Losing Your Baggage
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This month’s we’ve been focusing on non-pharmaceutical approaches to pain relief. (If you missed the previous articles you can click to read part one and part two.) The Chinese Medicine concept that’s been central to our discussions is that all forms of pain are caused by stagnation, and furthermore, that the mind and body are inseparable. So, many of the holistic approaches I’ve mentioned are beneficial for both psychological and physical pain. Let’s look at some more ways to promote movement in order to alleviate stagnation and pain.
- Exercise. Exercise can be a delicate subject when it comes to treatment of pain, since many conservative doctors still advocate immobility, especially with injuries. But immobility tends to exacerbate stagnation. And long term immobility due to pain can be a nail in one’s coffin, since it often leads to weight gain, poor circulation, as well as loss of strength, balance, and flexibility. We must keep moving, even when we’re in pain. There are always ways to move that are non-damaging. If you can’t come up with an exercise regimen that works for you, consider seeing a physical therapist.
In recent years, progressive trainers and doctors have even employed immediate controlled movement for injuries such as sprains, with athletes often making astoundingly rapid recoveries. Moving the traumatized area is vital for promoting movement of stagnant lymphatic fluid. Meanwhile, in the psychology community, there has been an impressive rise in the recognition of the value of exercise in psychological pain – such as anxiety and depression. Moving the body moves the mind, helping us to get out of an uncomfortable rut.
- Visualize. A great way to mobilize the mind is through the deliberate focus on a desired state rather than our usual tendency to focus on what we don’t like and want to be different. If you’re in pain, thinking about the pain itself and how much it sucks only makes it worse. What we focus on naturally grows to dominate our experience.
There are all sorts of useful ways to visualize for pain. A good starting point is to imagine yourself happy and pain-free, doing something you love. Spend five minutes a day doing this with your eyes closed. Really try to build the feeling you’d expect to have in this state – relieved, grateful, ecstatic, triumphant. See it, touch it, taste it, rev it up. If nothing else, it will be a five minute break from the usual despair, but I believe it’s likely to do much more. You need to have a clear sense of your destination if you want to get somewhere, and this exercise will really help with your pain, whether it’s physical or psychological.
- Stop Resisting. As I touched on in the first article of this series, resistance just begets more stagnation. As often as possible, try to catch yourself resisting your pain, fighting it with your body and mind. The pain is like a crimped hose, and the resistance is like clenching your fist around the crimped hose – it certainly doesn’t make it better, and can often make it worse. When you catch yourself tightening up inside in response to the pain, the most efficient thing to do is just stop and relax. Breathe. Let it go. Then choose a new focus – like whatever task you’re engaged in, or helping someone, or making music, or learning, or playing a game. Don’t let yourself feel bad that you’re not over it yet. Don’t blame yourself for resisting again. Don’t try to figure it out. Just let it go, then let it go again, then let it go again.
This isn’t a technique that you’ll just do once and your pain will disappear forever. It’s a discipline that you commit yourself to. But as simple as it seems, this alone can be profoundly life changing. Resisting your pain is like arguing with reality; you can’t win – you can only make it worse. Letting go of this fight isn’t the same as giving up or asking for more pain. It actually frees up your energy and lets the pain run its course.
Even if you’re not in pain, I invite you this week to try to notice when you’re resisting your circumstances – the external happenings, or how you feel, or your own thoughts – and without doing any thinking about it, let go of the resistance. Tell me what happens.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Unlocking Pain, Part Three – Keep Moving
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