Body Pain = Stuck Emotions
How subconscious work, flower remedies, and embodiment helped me release chronic pain.
I have spend thousands of dollars on chiropractors and massage therapists over the years. There was a point in my late twenties/early thirties, when I was working as a corporate merchandiser, that I was in so much physical pain, I needed to see the chiropractor multiple times a week, paired with a weekly massage. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to spend so much money—and time—on something that only brings relief for a few days. Needless to say, I have spent A LOT of time wondering what is wrong with me. Why does my body crumble, when I need it the most?
Last summer was one of the worst flare-ups I’d ever experienced. I started having persistent pain in my left collarbone and my left shoulder. It was so painful, at times, I could barely move my left arm. I felt so vulnerable, scared, and frankly, really f’ing annoyed. What was I supposed to do? I started by visiting my amazing chiropractor (no relief there), then a neuromuscular therapist (super painful, which was typically followed by relief the next day—but ultimately no relief there either), then a regular massage therapist (finally, some relief, but only for a week-ish at a time).
You know when you’re trying to solve a problem and you wrack your brain for any possible solution? Well, at some point, I remembered that a friend had recommended a book called ‘Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection’ by Dr. John Sarno. He says that TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome), caused by stress, anxiety and other repressed emotions, is the cause of chronic back pain. What TMS does is it causes mild oxygen deprivation in the muscles and nerves, which causes pain in the body, thus distracting your mind from having to feel any emotions you aren’t keen on feeling. It’s essentially your subconscious minds way of protecting you, even though it ends up not protecting you at all (funny how that works!). Anyway, the friend who recommended the book had been dealing with low back pain since her messy divorce a number of years earlier. She said once she was able to sit with those feelings, her back pain went away and never came back again. I was extremely heartened to hear this!
However, I didn’t know where to begin—I didn’t have an inciting incident like a divorce to point to. So what emotions could I have suppressed so far that they were causing this terrible chronic pain? Enter last summer’s To Be Magnetic (TBM) challenge around healing your biggest block. This challenge not only put me in touch with my biggest block—not feeling safe—but it also gave me tools to help calm my nervous system, so that I could move through the fear. Then, a few weeks into the challenge I got a ping (an intuitive hit) to start taking an Alexis Smart flower remedy called Safe And Sound. Lastly, a different friend suggested I see a physical therapist. This sent me directly to Google, which led me to book an appointment, with a woman named Shannon, at Awareness in Motion. Her many years of physical therapy experience combined with her philosophy of ‘embodied wholeness through care, connection and movement of body & spirit’ felt very in line with my own holistic beliefs.
At our first session, she was able to assure me that my body was in beautiful working order and that there was nothing wrong with me from a physical therapy standpoint. She also told me that it wasn’t uncommon for someone my age (I had just turned 40) to be experiencing pain in my left collarbone/shoulder, as the left arm is connected to the heart chakra. She asked me if there were things that my heart wanted that I hadn’t yet done in this life. This felt like a HUGE question, something I had been circling for years but hadn’t wanted to touch directly. It was just too scary to really, fully acknowledge all the things my heart yearned for.
So I spent some time, sitting with my heart and asking it “what do you want?”. The first thought I had was “I want to write a book!”—which has been a dream of mine since I was a child, when I used to write and illustrate my own stories. I have a number of phone notes with novel ideas and a few Pages docs, started but never finished, with scattered scenes written, but I haven’t finished a story since I was a kid. But if my heart wanted me to write, then I needed to write!
Over the course of the next six to eight weeks, I continued to see Shannon, did the subconscious reprogramming work with TBM, and wrote—and I noticed that the pain just disappeared.
Each of these pieces were strong on their own—but combining TBM with the right Alexis Smart remedy and a wonderful practitioner who guided me through those deep places where emotions had gotten stuck in my body was (and remains) a truly winning combination! Plus, I cannot discount a number of other factors that I have built into my life over the last many years. Things like: daily walks, stretching, drinking enough water, eating nourishing foods, having good sleep hygiene (reduce blue light by using night shift on my iPhone, no phone usage while in bed, consistent bedtime, read for one-two hours to wind down), taking magnesium glycinate, along with vitamins D, B12, and C.
I don’t want to make this seem like a happily ever after situation, where I rode off into the sunset and never felt pain again. The truth is that this is an ongoing process, something I keep my eyes on. I do still fall into old patterning—forgetting that I have the tools to take the pain away. When that happens I try to give myself lots of grace. I try to remember that my body is incredible and it tells me what it needs—even when I’m not able to read the signs correctly (even when it has to yell to be heard). I am so thankful for my beautiful body and all of the miraculous things it does for me. Everyday I strive to be more fluent in its language!
Thoughtfully,
Shannon
Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor, so you shouldn’t take any of this as medical advice. Think of me as a friend, sitting across the table from you, drinking a cup of tea and telling you what I’ve learned about myself lately. You might be able to translate some of these things into your own life, and you might not. Take what works and leave the rest!
💗 Thank you 💗