Pain and Listening to the Body
Listen, we started as 1 joined cell, so 𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙍𝙔𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙂 is connected.
I could trace many pathways of fascia or muscle lines or ligamentous pathways between the shoulder and the hip, the eye ball and the toe, the finger and the colon. Connect things based on the nervous system or the vascular system, or the lymphatics, or how the brain interprets our body, movement, and function.
However it is all a 𝙎𝙏𝙊𝙍𝙔. It’s made up based on a combo of your beliefs and your knowledge of anatomy and biomechanics. Sometimes there may be weight to it, it may have something to do with why things hurt or why “dysfunction” is present or why there “disease”.
As healthcare professionals we are seen as an expert in all things body, so when we tell a story to someone about what the pain is from they believe it. Even though it may have no truth at all.
The client and our body for that matter, we have learned to outsource our trust. Instead of trusting what we 𝙁𝙀𝙀𝙇 𝙄𝙉𝙎𝙄𝘿𝙀 of use we look outside. That is the problem, we have lost the trust within us, lost the ability to be mindful of what we feel and listen to the wisdom of the body.
As a healthcare professional it is my job to not tell you a story, but honor where the body takes me and follow it. The body. Not the story the human gives me. The receptors in my hands feel the story of the tissues, and the tissues direct me to where the tension or protection pattern is. When I treat there first, the pain or dysfunction that the clients was complaining of often significantly changes or goes away completely.
Is the change anatomical and biomechanical or the ANS feeling safe a granting mobility? 𝘼𝙇𝙇 𝙊𝙁 𝙄𝙏, because everything is connected. It is not my job to determine the why. It is my job to help the person’s body, change the tissue where it directs me. That is all.
The other part of my job, giving the client permission to trust their body’s wisdom again. To debunk all the expert opinions the have gotten about their own body. There is only one expert in the room and that is there body and their experience in it.
