Pursuing Symptoms In Healing

One thing we do in healing that is misguided is trying to heal the wrong things.  I don't mean to make it sound like a mistake, even if it is.  I mean that we focus and pursue healing symptoms more than we do in healing the entire mind, body, and spirit.

Every licensing year in the massage world here in Florida, I see the "new" modalities and classes come through.  Everyone out there is promising relief from pain, relief from this situation or that situation.  Use this electrical stimulation device and get rid of the pain.  Use this technique and alleviate the pain.  Provide pain relief with this modality.

While there's some truth and benefit to all of those things, many of them are so misguided.  Sometimes they offer a placebo effect all the time proving to you that the system works.  They get so caught up in their own paradigms of what is going on that they miss the bigger picture.

It meant painful discoveries...

Take, for instance, if I would have focused only on the symptoms of Conversion Disorder that I was experiencing, I would have not made it very far.  No, I had no clue how to heal my life, but it was in that never ending questioning that I found ways to heal.  The symptoms of paralysis, seizures and a numbed body were not where I needed to focus to heal.  I had to go to the core of those issues and yes, it meant some painful discoveries.

Another instance of when this applies is when I had a full body rash.  I could have focused on the symptoms only but little progress would have been made.  While I was trying to find anything that helped alleviate the itching of the rash, I knew that something was kicking it up.  Through deep work into the mind and body, I soon discovered what was fueling the rash.  No, it wasn't easy to go into this space of healing, but without it, I would still be fighting the symptoms.

Stress to a Physical Stressor

One time I was working with a client, doing to their office and doing weekly chair massage.  One of the ladies would often complain how torqued her back felt and how painful it was.  I would work on the symptoms while I was there and often alleviate it.  However, the next week I went back, it would be as if I had done nothing.  I soon discovered that the way she had her computer positioned on her desk was twisting her back.  When you apply the stress of the day to a physical stressor such as this, you're going to get pain.  If I would have just focused on the symptoms of pain in her back and not observing what was behind it, I would have missed the healing part.

There are times of course that you have to focus on the symptoms because you or others need relief.  We need to know that we can get out of that pain.  Sometimes, it is just a moment of "please take the pain away".  Unfortunately, if we're just treating symptoms, we're going to miss the bigger picture of healing.

I kept asking the questions...

I would have never made it out of Conversion Disorder and paralysis if I would have not kept asking the questions that I needed or searching for what could help.  I looked for ways that would physically help me and make a difference, noticing that they helped me heal to my core.

Sometimes we just get caught up in the symptoms as we so badly want them to go away, but more often than not, this does very little for us.  It numbs us.  It helps us disconnect from it, but it doesn't go to the core issue of what is causing it.

Medications and medical procedures don't always do what we think they are doing.  I knew a lady that had 52 surgeries in 48 years.  No one stopped to think about the overall big picture.  They were treating the symptoms.  When she started on healing her core mind and body, it is then that her body started to heal and surgeries and medications were no longer needed.

I know this probably sounds too easy to be true.  I know some will read it and say, "but you don't understand my condition" and "you don't know what I have to live with".  To that, I can only say, no I don't.  I just know what I've seen in my own life and that of many others and I will urge and prod you to go deeper, dig further, and work toward healing the symptoms, not necessarily treating the symptoms.

---

Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

---

Intense Back & Shoulder Pain, Part 1

In the middle of the night, I woke up with some intense back and shoulder pain. It is a burning pain that feels like prickly needles are stabbing me one right after another. It is pain that hurts so badly and actually made it very difficult to lay in the bed or sleep. I have not experienced pain this intensely or this hurtful for a long time.

For anyone that knows me, I no longer reach for pain pills or pain relievers to deal with pain such as this. I now realize in my life that doing so will not really take "the pain" away, it will just mask it. Yes, there are times when I just want to say, I don't want to feel the pain but I know deep down that this is misleading. I'm sure there are many that are reading this that what I am saying makes absolutely no sense. There are others reading this that some of what I am saying makes sense.

One of the things that I have learned is that pain is a messenger in our body. It is a connection to something that is trying to get our attention. Attempting to determine what that is may not always be easy and in fact it often seems more difficult than we want it to be.

Usually when pain comes up, our first reaction is oh my gawd, what is wrong with me? We may answer it in ways such as "I slept wrong last night", "I worked out at the fitness center too much", "I did to much physical work" or a number of other explanations. You can probably come up with a million more that fit for your own life. Remember, pain is a messenger in our body and is a connection to something that is trying to get our attention.

After we have gone through the first reaction, we normally start looking for things to relieve the pain. It may be through pain relievers, pain pills like Oxycondone, Darvocet and others. It may be through various forms of body work that only focus on "relieving" the pain rather than going into it. We might even turn towards alcohol and other drugs to numb ourselves from the pain.

Who can blame anyone though for reaching for something to try and numb the pain especially if it in the back, shoulders and neck. These pains feel debilitating and paralyzing. They are scary and they limit our functions in life. Many times they are also exhausting. There is nothing like back, shoulder or neck pain to stop you dead in your tracks. However, if you understand that pain is a messenger, than an episode like this does not have to keep you down.

One of the biggest things that keeps us down is the fear that comes up with these episodes of pain. Fear disguises itself in many ways from the misdirected actions in what may start the pain or what actually relieve the pain. Instead of stopping and listening to what is the underlying message to the pain, we turn to things to numb ourselves from the pain. While that is a short term fix, it will not ultimately connect us to that which the body is trying to tell us. We may believe it does and we may feel "healed" in the moment, but this is a false illusion. At some point in the future, the message will come back until we listen, heed its purpose and release whatever is stored in our body.

Before anyone thinks that I'm just being strange or radical in how I view this, I have been through moments where I had to go to the Emergency Room to get injections so that the pain and muscle stiffness would subside. I've been through moments where my body shut down so badly because I wouldn't listen to it and I was paralyzed to the point of almost breathing my last breath. I know first hand what can happen to a body and I know first hand the pain pills, pain relievers and other methods I used to numb myself from the pain.

I see so many healing bodywork modalities that focus on telling people they "relieve pain". As well intentioned as these people are, they are missing something. I do understand that people go through these things and the pain or situation "disappears". It may disappear for a long time but that does not mean it is gone. If you have not listened to or dealt with the message, it still has residence in your body. It is still stored energy that is locked within your body and your mind. To just relieve the pain, is an illusion. I realize that many do not like to hear this said but it is the truth and there are many people including myself that can give evidence to this. It is not some new age thought. It is a real concept based upon science.

So, lets get back to my situation for a moment. As I write this, I feel the intense pain in my body. It is consuming my energy and I feel miserable at this moment. However, I know that I need to stop today and listen to the pain. I need to allow myself to not go into the fear but to just connect with whatever it is that is coming up through my body. I have an idea of what it may be but I will be in the moment, just allowing it to shine through. For I know from my past experience, that if I allow myself to connect with it, I can move through it. Any other method of numbing the pain is not going to make this happen. I can try to fool myself like our society is so trained to do or I can look past the illusion and really bring forward some deep healing.

Stay tuned of course for the follow up to this. As this unfolds, I will write more about what came up and what I did to allow that to happen. Most likely, I will get on my massage table today and just allow myself to go into some of this to bring it on through my body and release it. Numbing myself or going into fear by trying to just relieve the pain is not going to get me to that point. Sure, I could do those things but at some point, these messages from within will get my attention.

Further Reading: Intense Back & Shoulder Pain, Part 2


(Above Picture taken Chiacgo, IL - (c) 10/19/10)