What if the pain you expect to feel in a movement doesn’t have to be there?
“Lately I keep getting this burning pain in my shoulder,” a client told me. He’d been doing strength training for a while and felt stronger, but in some movements this pain had started showing up out of nowhere, and he wanted it gone.
As always, we went back to the basics. Exploring and feeling small movements of the shoulder without going into the pain. Tightening and slowly releasing the muscles of the back. Moving hip and shoulder toward each other so one side shortens and the other gets to give space. Inviting room in the body with attention, rather than forcing it with a stretch.
At one point he was lying down with his arm up, and as he brought it slowly down he noticed something. His head was expecting pain, and his body was bracing for it before anything had happened. But because the movement was slow, with attention, an invitation rather than a demand, his whole system had a different experience.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said, “but I don’t feel any pain.”
That is the intention of yoga therapy. Your body has learned that a movement hurts, so it protects itself before you’ve even moved, and the protecting becomes the pain. Slow it down enough, and the body gets a chance to find out whether that’s still true.
What movement does your body brace for before you’ve even made it?
Tomorrow evening at 18:00 CET I’m giving a free 90-minute workshop on Insight Timer where you can find out for yourself.
And from next Wednesday, Yoga Therapy to Ease Your Back, five weeks on Zoom, where I can see you and help you feel what I see.
much love,
Rianne
