Sensing body, body awareness and expressive body are important concepts in expressive movements and arts. But these mindfulness based, somatic experiencing and other body-mind techniques are not just great for healing mental trauma, they are also extremely useful to alleviate unrelenting chronic pain.
If you suffer from chronic pain (headaches, backache, muscle pain, etc that goes on for years without responding well to treatment), consulting specialists after specialists, getting scans after scans, but never really finding the solution to it, then you need to understand what causes chronic pain. Long after the injury is gone, or many times even without a significant injury, this pain arises and persists. Scans only show minor issues that many people have at your age, without any pain. Or scans may show nothing, and the doctor tells you that there is nothing wrong with you. There is no persistent damage, no ongoing illness, no lifelong disease, and yet the pain does not go away.
You feel shame, anger, helplessness and sadness about your chronic pain. It affects every aspect of your life, relationships and career. And you live everyday in pain. You feel you cannot participate in this activity called life that everyone else seems to be enjoying. Every journey; a change in routine; sudden increase in stress, responsibilities and activities - all these lead to aggravation of pain for days and weeks. The worst thing about it is its invisibility. People don't see it, believe it or understand it.
If these resonate with you, perhaps it is time you start exploring your pain to know more about chronic pain. If you have not read about it previously, you may find it shocking to know that your pain arises in your brain. You may immediately feel defensive and wonder if it implies that your pain is not real and if it is all in your mind, like perhaps some people tell you?
No, if you are feeling pain, it is real enough. What is not real is the cause you might be attributing to the pain. Pain is felt by the brain, no matter what the site of the pain. But sometimes, the brain feels a pain at a site in the body where there is no injury and no real pain causing issue. It is not that injury you had years ago, which is the source of the pain. The pain is arising from the brain itself. This is called neuroplastic pain.
And the treatment for that is not medicines but holistic body-mind interventions. And once you start understanding this and take the steps towards healing chronic pain with body-mind healing techniques, you will see a huge shift in your own life, thoughts, beliefs, and pain.
Here are some books that you will find useful in your journey to heal chronic pain:
1. The Way Out: A Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven Approach to Healing Chronic Pain
by Alan Gordon
[If you want to read just one small book, then read this one by Dr. Alan Gordon]
2. The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain
by John E. Sarno
3. The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
by Gabor Maté, Daniel Maté
4. Outsmart Your Pain: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion to Help You Leave Chronic Pain Behind
by Christiane Wolf
5. Break the Chronic Pain Cycle: A 90-Day Program to Diagnose and Eliminate the Root Cause of Pain
by Sheetal DeCaria
6. The Pain Management Workbook: Powerful CBT and Mindfulness Skills to Take Control of Pain and Reclaim Your Life
by Rachel Zoffness
There are many more books and resources you will discover once you step into this journey. But the important thing is to take the first step. And if you have not found a solution from conventional medicine for your chronic pain, what harm is there to read a few books? Our brain "constructs" our realities, but these constructs can be changed.
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