Pain: A limiting palette
Pain is a tricky word. It conveys something, but it also leaves out a lot of detail. It’s kind of like asking your friend how their day was and getting the response, “So so.” What does that mean? So so… bad? So so… hilarious? So so… exciting I can’t wait to tell you all about it? We have to tease out the real story to be able to get a sense of what actually happened to them that day.
The word ‘pain’ is like that for me as a Structural Integrator. It’s kind of a non-word. Is it red hot? Is it sharp? Is it buzzy or dull? Is it loud and brittle? Is it pulsing? Is it a place that feels foreign, like someone else’s body part?
There are so many ways we can describe sensation, it just takes a moment to sink into the actual feeling in that particular area before we can start to narrate. Once we are paying attention, with open-ended curiosity, we can notice that what we might once have called “pain” is actually an irritating, achy, dull, wants-be-stretched, gray zone that every once in a while sends a little ping! sensation up the back. (Btw, that description is me type-narrating and paying attention to my own little spot in my back left hip that likes to put out lots of information.)
And what’s even MORE trippy is that once we start paying attention to the actual sensation (not the story, to be clear), we start to notice that it is changing. All the time. Even something that feels like it’s the energizer bunny of pain and it just keeps going and going and going and…. it changes. Maybe it goes faster or slower or louder or spikier or crinklier, but I swear to you: It Changes.
So this thing we are calling “pain” is a constantly-transforming sensation landscape. And that is something I want to pay attention to.
I feel like using the word pain for all unpleasant sensations is like a painter only having red on their palette (I know, I know. Mark Rothko. Amazing. But hopefully you get my point). Or it’s like a chef who only seasons with paprika and nothing else. Gross! And also, boring!! There is a whole universe of colors and spices out there for us to explore.
Next time you stub your toe or whack your knee on your dresser, if you can remember to try this out, pay attention to the sensations. (You could also apply the laying of the hands like I talked about in the other blog post) What can you describe? How is your body communicating with you via a sensation-rich experience? What are you able to listen to and notice?
