While still in bed you might consider one place to soften in your body.
Notice where you feel some tension or tightness. Stiffness or rigidity. Perhaps you can begin to soften your jaw a little, your eyes, or maybe soften your breath.
It might be useful to imagine or bring to mind a memory you have of a safe, warm, lovely place. I imagine my toes in soft sand, and that they are as soft and supple as when I was a wee toddler.
I turn over and feel the softness of the duvet cover, my pillow.
Maybe I imagine something soft like the these strange little plants (pictured above) that I seem to be obsessed with. Of them blowing softly in the breeze.
Maybe I imagine the soft snow, landing on my face, as I go out for a walk.
Life is hard enough. Might we move towards, bring in, feel in some way, a touch of softness to it.
As you wake in the morning, before anything else, can you notice your first thoughts? Before you look at your phone, even open your eyes. Notice what it is, you’re thinking about.
And consider that. How do these initial thoughts begin or influence your day?
Maybe you can catch a glimpse, almost before you’re even fully conscious. Or maybe you won’t notice anything at all and that’s okay too. But you might want to practice this a little.
For some, with a little practice and curiosity you might find a creative spark or some new insight within these early morning thoughts.
Perhaps, to start, you might just notice that… here you are.
“Here I am, again.”
It is morning. I am awake. This is a new day.
Allow yourself a few moments. Some time and space to just be… with whatever, before the rush of the day draws you forward and up.
That might be enough.
You’ve received another day in the world. And that might be something to notice.
Such a beautiful tray of food. No wonder eating comes naturally to me. Rather like breathing. But it may not be so for you and I suggest that perhaps our breathing is not always natural either, but is rather responsive and adaptive.
I experience this in other areas of my life, as well. For instance, everything about being a mother did not always come naturally for me. It began with a struggle to breast-feed our first born. I became anxious, stressed and upset when this did not go according to plan. I had to make a call for support and learn from someone. All was well, soon enough.
Next, however, was being home alone all day in the dead of a cold Canadian winter with a baby, requiring so much time and attention. Not only exhausting (compounded by sleepless nights) but the social isolation I experienced was new to me as well, and did not come naturally. Knowing what to do, how to best raise this human being was a challenge. Parenting as being ‘natural’? In some ways, yes, of course. In many ways, not so much. When it didn’t feel natural, I felt like I failed, somehow.
Back to food and eating though. As I said, it does come quite naturally to me. In fact it comes to me far more often than I might need. Hard to resist when images like the one above, presents itself.
Mostly, we don’t pay much attention to these natural things we do until they become a problem, an issue somehow, in how we might like to live our life.
For today’s exploration let’s combine breathing with eating. How might that go?
Much to my family’s dismay I have a tendency to choke, fairly frequently, when eating. Part of it, I’ve noticed, I’m often rushing. Second to that, I’m often talking. Our dinner time is ‘family time’ and usually consists of our coming together prepared for much debate about the events and/or news of the day. When given the opportunity, I do as well, love to talk. Rather similar to the eating thing.
Meanwhile, what’s more important to survival than breathing?
Breathing is going to sneak in ‘as needed’ whether we want it to, whether we make time and space for it, or not. Whether we’re conscious of it or not.
I wonder how eating might go for me if instead of paying attention to what I eat, how much I eat, or when I’m talking, I might just notice how I breathe when I eat.
What might that bring to my awareness?
Perhaps there is something around eating that might be noticeable for you. Maybe instead of choking like me, perhaps you have a tendency to over-eat, or it could be you under-eat. Or perhaps you have some digestive issues.
Try this: Set aside one meal a day in which you do not feel any time constraints. Let yourself breath slowly as you eat. Notice how it feels to allow your belly to release as you chew and swallow your food. Monitor your breathing if you can. Notice what you feel during and after your meal. Again, try not to judge anything. Perhaps there is nothing to notice or perhaps there is.
Curious, isn’t it?
Check back on Friday when we’ll do one more exploration and it is a worthy one, I think. Also, I wonder how the movement and breathing exploration went for you, from earlier this week. You can sign up below to get all these posts.
Also, just to let you know, I’ll soon be announcing a new 6-week online course where breath is one of the things we’ll be exploring and working with. One piece of the puzzle, when we explore various aspects to consider if you experience pain. You can learn more about the ‘Creating New Pathways’ program by clicking the link below.
When looking at this picture, I imagine I may have been holding my breath in the moment. Quite a natural response, if I felt I didn’t have quite the stability and balance required to make it to the other side without falling. Perhaps I did feel able, comfortable, and so my breath flowed easefully at the time. For the most part, whatever occurred was probably not something I noticed or was aware of at the time.
It’s interesting to note how our breath might fluctuate throughout the days based on different needs or experiences.
Last week I suggested rather than bringing awareness to how your breath moves, which is often what we’re asked to pay attention to I suggested we might also focus on when it doesn’t. When you might be holding your breath. I wonder how it went for you? Did you notice anything?
This week, let’s explore this a little more.
Today and tomorrow, why not pay attention to your breath while you’re moving or doing an particular activity. It might be during a time or activity from last week, when you noticed this momentary breath-holding.
Choose something where you are not pressured or rushed for time. Maybe it’s when you’re making your bed in the morning, or perhaps brushing your teeth. Another might be when your moving from sitting in a chair to standing up. Practice, allowing your breath to move freely as best you can, as an integral part of the activity. Notice, if the activity or movement is made easier or more difficult when you breathe freely. Try not to judge it as good or bad. Just be curious.
I’d love your feedback about what you notice.
Then on Wednesday, we’ll explore this in another specific activity in our daily life. You might be surprised. Check back then, or sign up below to regularly receive these blog posts.
A half hour in a dentist chair or a 6 hour drive. Both feel about the same to me.
Why might that be?
Though dentist chairs these days are made to be pretty comfortable, the tension, breath holding that goes on there, remains. At least for me, it does.
A 6 hour drive? Well, though probably not tense I sure can’t move around very much. And for someone with really long legs the cramped space and low seat really does me in.
Now imagine you’re at work, sitting with your laptop in front of you, working on a project that has you so engaged you don’t notice how 4 hours has passed. Or maybe 6 hours. Since you … literally … moved. When you do finally move or stand up your back, neck and shoulders are complaining. A whole lot. You might say to yourself, “ach, this back. Acting up again. When will this pain go away? Probably never. It’s always there, always going to get worse as the years go by.”
Or a similar scenario, but maybe your supervisor is breathing down your back. “Get me those numbers! Why aren’t you finished already? You know how important this is… why is it taking you so long?” I can well imagine those back, neck, shoulder muscles are having a say in how you’re feeling throughout your day, as well.
You might even find it hard to breathe at times. Do you even notice that happening?
What stresses might you have in a day? Why do we call it stress, anyways? Might it be this ‘stresses’ your body, as well as your mind?
What are those little niggly things creating sensations in your body that you’re not really aware of? Not listening to. Paying attention to.
Maybe it’s not the tension, tightness, pucker, hold-your-breath, kind of stress.
It might be more subtle. The slight contraction of your jaw muscles. Shoulders lifting ever so slightly as the minutes are tick, tick, tick, moving along. The gripping of your toes, or perhaps your butt muscles.
What consequences might these create in your body over long – periods – of – time?
This is not to say that all stress is bad. We need to stress the body. That’s why people hit the gym, run for miles on end, love – love – love a sweaty yoga class. Stress can be a good thing. Create a good feeling.
What we don’t want however, is the long – slow – drip by drip – neverending – periods – of – stress.
I bet you notice the BIG periods of stress in your life. Maybe what’s happening right now, for instance. The little, or more subtle ones? Likely not so much.
And if we begin to notice, what might we do to move out of this stress state? Do we have the flexibility, variability to do so?
Pause.
Notice.
Respond.
Repeat. Over and over.
Can we shift, from one state to another? Might we even begin to notice our ‘state of being’?
Difficult. Maybe if we slow down, find some stillness, time or space. Find that pause.
A 4-week Workshop to notice what’s ‘Just Right, For You’.
Unhelpful beliefs about LBP are associated with greater levels of pain, disability, work absenteeism, medication use and healthcare seeking. Unhelpful beliefs are common in people with and without LBP, and can be reinforced by the media, industry groups and well-meaning clinicians.”
The purpose of the editorial (made free due to popular demand, read it here) and the infographic is to “identify 10 common unhelpful beliefs about LBP and outline how they may influence behavioral and psychological responses with pain”.
The authors are also “calling on clinicians to incorporate these into their interactions with patients.”
This is so important. It’s why I always include a touch of education and information as part of my Pain Care Yoga classes. When people are in pain, it’s difficult to understand why it might be safe to move, how important it is to move and how movement “doesn’t mean you are doing harm – FACT #5”.
I hope these FACTS will bring some curiosity to your beliefs. I hope you might consider what you believe and how they might influence your experience of pain, either positively or negatively.
Sometimes, however, information is not enough. I, we, can give you all the ‘FACTS’ but often until you experience that you CAN move without pain it’s difficult to change beliefs.
As called for in the editorial, I am personally committed to bringing evidence-informed information and education to the people I work with and hope to provide a new experience to get you moving again, with confidence.
Foster NE, Anema JR, Cherkin D, et al. Prevention and treatment of low back pain: evidence, challenges, and promising directions. The Lancet 2018;391:2368-83.
Buchbinder R, van Tulder M, Oberg B, et al. Low back pain: a call for action. The Lancet 2018;391:2384-8.
Like many people my age, we’re not looking so much to get more stuff. Rather, we’re hoping in some small way, we might make a contribution. Help others.
What does this mean for you?
Here’s the thing,
Do you suffer from persistent or chronic pain? Or know someone else who does? Are you tired of finding only short-term relief from pain?
Most people think that pain is inevitable as we age. I used to think so. Now, I know that pain can change. I see it all the time in the people I work with. Science, also tells us this is true. You can learn a bit about my own story of pain and how it changed a little later, but first here’s the deal FOR YOU!
Starting today November 25th until December 2nd,receive 30-40% off my regular pricing.See how you might change what is getting in your way, limiting your life, the contributing factors to your experience of pain. Check this out!
$58 for an initial 90-min session (approx. 40% discount) if you book this week!
$58 for a follow-up 60-min session (approx. 30% discount) if you book this week! (All appointments to be scheduled between Nov 25th, 2019 and Jan 15th, 2020)
Book your first 90-minute session for $58 (regular price is $95)
Book a follow-up 60-minute session for $58 (regular price is $85)
Book a package of 4 sessions, 1-90 min and 3-60 minutes for $280 (regular price is $335)
BONUS:You’ll also receive a FREE audio recording of a slow, guided awareness practice. With the usual busy, stressful holiday season soon upon us, this can be used for relaxation, to help guide you into to sleep or rest or just notice what you feel, what you might need on any given day.
GIVE BACK:I will donate $5 to *Chrysalis House for each session booked, whether a first or follow-up session. Chrysalis House provides a safe and secure shelter to aid in helping and support those affected by domestic violence. Which tends to escalate around the holiday season. Together, helping others.
Email me at info@yogatoolsforlife.com or you can contact me here to book a session or for further information. To learn more about individual sessions, click here.
NEW LOCATION: I have a new location for my private 1-to-1 sessions. Various opportunities presented themselves but when I heard about this space called “Comfort Corner” it sounded just right. Thanks to my local community for providing all the leads and contacts in/around the West Ottawa area when I went looking for recommendations. People helping people.
Pain is surely complex. Which is why looking for the ‘thing’ to ‘fix it’ usually doesn’t work.
You truly are unique. Each person I work with comes from a unique background with unique experience and their own history, body, circumstances and environment. We’ll work together in partnership to
explore what might be contributors to your pain,
how you might change things up,
create new patterns of moving without pain,
learn to move with more ease,
experience how YOU CAN modulate your pain
My goal is to help you learn to ‘be your own best resource’. So you don’t have to rely forever upon me, or other health care professionals. You’ll have the tools, resources, information and practices to help you through the inevitable journey of life’s ups and downs. To live a meaningful and purposeful life, no matter your situation or condition of health.
I would love to work with you!
Group Classes are helpful for chronic pain but this 1-to-1 work can make all the difference. Why not see if it’s right for you? Or if you have family, friends or colleagues who you think might benefit, please share with them as well.
Email me at info@yogatoolsforlife.com or you can contact me here to book a session or for further information. To learn more about individual sessions, click here.
*Chrysalis House is a safe and secure 25-bed shelter in Western Ottawa. It is a place where a woman can go to protect herself and her dependants from violence and abuse. In this supportive environment, a woman can focus on her personal needs and choices, as well as on her dependants’ needs.
Often, when someone has persistent or chronic pain, what’s almost forgotten amidst the assessments, tests, diagnosis, and treatments, is the person. This person is not just a body with all these parts. Rather, someone who has a unique story, history, perspective and perception about what is happening with them. How pain affects almost every aspect of their life. Their worries, concerns, uncertainty about the future.
The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) launched it’s Global Alliance of Pain Patient Advocates in 2018, stating “this initiative seeks to better integrate the patient voice to inform pain research and its translation into new interventions to treat pain.” Below, Joletta Belton, tells her story:
I’ve been following Joletta for a long while now. Not only an advocator for the person in pain, she writes a blog over at mycuppajo, and co-founded Endless Possibilities Initiative (EPIc), which is a “nonprofit organization intent on changing the way people get access to science-based information about pain.”
She writes “My protective responses not only affected my breath, but my movement too. My muscles would tense up, my joints would become stiff, my movement braced and rigid. Being rigid and stiff affected the way I moved, the way I walked, the way I sat. The way I existed in the world. The tenser and more guarded I was, the more pain there was, so I started moving less. The less I moved, the more painful movement became. Fear of more pain, of more damage, made me move even less. A vicious cycle.”
She goes on to share what helped her most over the years. The first two, on her list:
“feeling heard and believed, supported and empowered
feeling understood, as well as understanding and making sense of my pain.”
“When we live with pain, it changes who we are as people. It changes how we see the world and how we relate to that world. We protect ourselves through isolation and withdrawal, through guarding and tension, through altered thoughts, beliefs, and movements. We disconnect from the people, places and activities that are meaningful to us.”
“It is hard.”
In her conclusion, she also goes on to say “… I want you to know it takes hard work to get out of those dark places, too. I want you to know that change is possible, but it’s not easy. It takes time and persistence, compassion and courage. … there is so much that is possible, so much that can be done, no matter how long someone has lived with pain, no matter how many limitations they may have.”
Jolette also recently contributed, wrote, the first chapter in the Meanings of Pain, Volume 2, released last month. The interdisciplinary book – the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk “aims to better understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them”.
In my work as a yoga therapist and Pain Care Yoga teacher, probably the most important part of my work is to listen to what the person in front of me is saying about their pain, their story, their life. Provide safety and support, work to empower the person in pain as they might learn to move, breathe and renew their own sense of meaning and purpose in the world.
If you are someone who suffers from chronic pain, know that there are people out there willing to listen. There is hope. Your pain CAN change.
Let’s all continue to advocate for, educate and push for more services and support for the 1 in 5 Canadians who need it most. Each and every person, in pain.
What if you could learn how to move safely? To live your life again, with more ease.
What if you could learn how to tune into your body’s signals in a way that can best guide you?
Pain is definitely complex and there can be a whole range of contributors to your individual experience of pain. It’s usually not just one thing which is why looking for the ‘thing’ to fix the pain doesn’t usually work. Particularly over the long term.
What if you had a safe place to practice what yoga offers?
gentle movement practice
breath practices
meditation or mindfulness practices
awareness practices
What if you had a community of others to be with who face similar concerns, uncertainty and questions, while you explore this?
What if you could learn that you are capable of changing or modulating your pain.
What if you could learn a little more to understand pain, what might be contributors, and what might best help to change your experience of pain?
What if you could learn how to work with your breath to help modulate your pain?
What if you could learn to notice stress and muscle tension which may contribute to your pain? Often, these lay just under your current level of awareness.
What if you could learn ways that might help you to sleep, as we do know sleep is often a factor in the experience of pain.
What if you could learn more about your nervous system and your brain and how adaptable these are? What part they play and how this means your pain is adaptable as well.
If any of this is of interest, resonates with you or you’re curious to find out more there is still time to register for the next series of Pain Care Yoga Classes. You can find more information here, or feel free to send a question here or by emailing me at info@yogatoolsforlife.com
** Tuesdays and Thursday mornings in Stittsville, starting November 5th.
Similar to the current biopsychosocial model used in the medical community when working with people suffering from chronic or persistent pain, yoga therapists utilize a comparable framework or philosophy, that being the panca maya kosha model.
The felted model above (by my colleague @meyogalune) beautifully illustrates how we might look at, explore and peel back the many layers of our existence when working with someone therapeutically. We are, after all, more than a body of tissue and matter.
What does this mean, exactly?
Let me provide a very general, simplistic idea of what each represents:
Annamaya kosha. You can think of this generally, as the physical layer.
Pranamaya kosha, or the energetic layer.
Manomaya kosha, or the mental/emotional layer.
Vijnanamaya kosha, or the mind. We might also refer to this as intellect or wisdom.
Anandamaya kosha, or the spiritual, blissful layer. What I prefer to call the meaning and purpose of someone’s self, or life.
What happens sometimes in our current medical system is the person is looked at, evaluated by and treated in terms of the physical layer only or from a biomedical model, rather than a biopsychosocial model. This can be due to a multitude of reasons but I’ll highlight just a couple, below.
One, that may be surprising to you, is how many of our medical professionals are provided little training, specifically, in pain. (1) “In a review of 10 Canadian Universities across 7 provinces… 68% of programs were unable to specify any designated hours for pain educationand veterinary students were shown to receive 2-5 times more pain education than that of health science students (Watt-Watson et.al., 2009). Educational content also typically lacks integration of biological aspects with the psychosocial factors that contribute to the experience of pain (Wideman et. al., 2019b).”
Another reason might also be lack of time that’s allocated to people given our over-burdened system and/or accessibility into “self-management programs that educate people about their condition and build their capacity to take action.” (2)
What is now understood about pain and as stated in the IASP definition, pain is “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage. ” You might think of it as an ‘actual, or potential threat to the system’, that system or organism, being YOU. Your whole person.
And often these threats to the system are just under your level of awareness. Or as David Butler says “DIMs and SIMs can hide in hard to find places”. Referencing DIMs as being the Danger in Me, while SIMs as being the Safety in Me. (If you want a brief explanation of this concept, here’s a link.)
We will experience pain when our credible evidence of danger related to our body is greater than our credible evidence of safety related to our body. Equally we won’t have pain when our credible evidence of safety is greater than our credible evidence of danger (Moseley and Butler 2015, pp14).
People sometimes think that their pain problem is, or must be, something physical. Or, sadly, they think or are told, that its all in their head. Pain is complex and by bringing a sense of curiosity to explore many areas, layers or koshas and how they might be affecting you either positively (perhaps a SIM) or negatively (maybe a DIM) we might just change this human experience, we call pain. Your experience of pain.
If you’re interested in exploring this further, I offer both private sessions or group classes utilizing this approach. Along with awareness, exploratory and gentle movement practices, I always add in an educational aspect or some yoga philosophy in line with what we know about pain and how you can learn to be your own best resource. Click here, to see my current schedule.
References above are from ‘A Report by the Canadian Pain Task Force, June 2019’. You can read the full report here, if interested.
(1) “…the current state of pain education in Canada remains inadequate across disciplines, with significant knowledge gaps in both pre- and post-licensure contexts (NASME, 2019; Thompson et. al., 2018).” On page 21 of the report.
(2) “Research in 2005-2006 indicated the median wait time for a first appointment at a MPTC was 6 months….. In a recent update to this work, researchers found little change in the wait times, noting in 2017-2018 the median wait time still hovered around 5.5 months, with some people waiting up to 4 years to access to multidisciplinary pain care (Choinière et. al., 2019).” On page 18 of the report.
