Mainstream healthcare says: “Let’s patch you up with drugs / surgery”.
Somatic Therapy says: “Let’s explore your stress and emotional baggage so we can address your pain at the root cause”.
Let’s revisit stress. Stress is an inevitable part of life, in moderation it is a good thing, stress motivates us and keeps life interesting. However, too much stress can prime your brain for chronic pain. This is because, the more your fight / flight response stays activated, the more sensitive your brain becomes to unpleasantness.
Stressful events early in life (eg neglect, abuse, bullying) get compounded by stressors later in life (eg difficult relationships with coworkers or family, accidents). Multiple stressful events can result in chronic activation of fight / fight which is, to the body, living in fear.
Fear triggers pain and pain triggers fear. So the cycle continues. To resolve the pain we must resolve the fear.
Unfortunately we can’t change events from the past. However, our past is in fact our memories of the past; that is, our explicit memory (our memory of the actual event) and our implicit memory (our emotional response to the event). It is the implicit memory / the emotional response to the event that triggers your fight / flight response in the present.
The good news is we can use a trauma informed somatic therapy like Embodied Processing to address the emotional response to the past event, reducing the fear stemming from the past event and interrupting the fear / pain cycle described above.
Often, feelings from stressful life events are repressed. Trauma typically occurs to those who cannot defend themselves so, at the time of the event, anger may not have been expressed, instead, it may have been held in the body. Roll on to the present day, you may be experiencing pain, anxiety, depression; or your repressed feelings may be channelled into angry outbursts, an eating disorder or addiction.
Are you open to the possibility your pain has an emotional connection? I can help.