Where Does Your Pain Live?

Where is Pain?

The part of your brain where pain sits in the unconscious part of your mind.

It’s something that is triggered by unconscious mechanisms as a protective measure, to provide feedback so that we become consciously aware of the sensation in order to attend to it.

Our system, our unconscious 50 trillion cells organism, is doing its best to manage all its daily tasks to keep us alive but has to warn us when something within or approaching that system could be dangerous to it. It being you.

It has the ability to monitor all of the internal systems at once and the external system, based upon what it understands about it.

All this goes on while we either pay attention to things inside or around us or we don’t.

Pay Attention

The more we pay attention to that the better we get at picking up on things which may be harmful to us. The more finely turned that system becomes.

If we are practically ignorant of those warning signs or override any we do pick up on, then we risk our system giving us a more alarming warning of that danger soon after. 

Pain is part of that warning system and its driven by the unconscious protective mechanisms of the organism we call ourself.

So if we agree that its an unconscious system, why do we not consider the implications of this when we design or deliver many of the treatments for those patients in persistent pain?

The Conscious Mind is the Window

The conscious mind is the window through to the unconscious system. It is the guardian on the gate to give meaning to what is being sensed. 

So many times we give that conscious mind the wrong information to filter and pass on its unconscious counterpart, responsible for triggering pain. It makes it more likely that the pain will persist than desist.

Many of the treatment approaches have been focused on identifying a physical problem causing persistent pain, then doing something physical to fix that problem or damage. 

If the initial assumption that pain is due to damage, structural change or one form or another according to the particular medical practitioner, then its basically the start of a wild goose chase. 

That physical abnormality/anomaly detected identified or diagnosed may have relevance and should be respected as it may be an entry point into retraining that dysfunctional pain mechanisms that have developed.

Focus on Damage

But if the focus is on damage or fixing something that is broken, then the conscious mind of that individual filters that based on what they believe about the things they are being told.

In some individuals that may represent very scary thoughts, feelings and emotions.

If the pain that the patient is experiencing is actually due to an excess of negative emotions or stress in their life, then the medical or treatment process potentially can and often does worsen the situation.

A failed treatment or intervention, a dismissive interaction, poor communication or misunderstanding of the person’s experience, can all contribute to ongoing negative emotions which are actually the true driver of the patient’s pain.

Often a stress event or time in that person’s life may have been the precursor to the developments of persistent pain.

This may be a cumulative level of stress which the person didn’t even realise existed because they enjoyed that lifestyle and would describe it as normal.

Physical or Emotional Trauma

It could be a physical or emotional trauma that is easily recognisable, which resulted in that person having an experience of ongoing physical pain, long after any physical tissue damage if there had been any.

It is most likely that it is something in the makeup of the person entering the point of experiencing the onset of persistent pain is what defines whether they will stay in it..

How they process what is happening to them, how they interpret and understand the feelings they experience.

If their conscious filter of that information, is repeatedly worried thought, feelings and sensations then that is the core message which their unconscious system hears. 

So despite a particular treatment approach target that physical area of pain, it is destined to failure in most case of persistent pain, due to the scene in which it is set.

The practitioners often don’t see that scene, and maybe haven’t been trained to see it, had time to look for it, or time to listen for it.

Pain Beyond Treatment

The output from the unconscious system is one of pain beyond the treatment. It may drop a little as a clue that the patient attending to themselves, receiving care, being listened to on some level. But any improvement with these approaches rarely lasts. 

There is a finite number of times that the medical community rub, inject, cut out, prod, align, manipulate, etc before they and the patient give up on it.

Give some excuse for the patient not responding and this is not usually anything the practitioner admits as being responsible for.

They may not necessarily blame the patient directly, but just not understand why they didn’t respond to that treatment when many others receiving the same approach did.

The result then is to accept pain and say that the person is so badly damaged that they have to live with it.

The best that can be offered is the pacing of their lives. And the only medical option available is to use some form of pharmacological or alternate drug therapy to block the perpetual unconscious protective signals known as pain.

Conscious Mind is a Window

If we could just understand that the conscious mind is a window to access this unconscious system but that has to be approached extremely carefully to make sure the filtered information passed onto the unconscious system is given correctly. 

Misunderstanding pain is often the first error of both the patient and the clinician.

If we can get past that, which is no mean feat to start with, then we can really start to feed the right information through the conscious system to retrain the unconscious mind where the pain originates. 

New thoughts, breathing patterns, and movements and only then will we start to consistently receive the concomitant feelings from the unconscious system aligned to recovery and reducing pain.

Cycle can be broken

The cycle can be broken and has been in many.

Pain is an unconscious protective mechanism that can be accessed and influenced through targeted conscious thought, breathing and movement.

Understand how to generate this input as a treatment philosophy provides a clear opportunity for removing persistent pain.

Using principles of neuroscience and behaviour change, it is possible to do it.

The Pain Habit guides you on that journey. It helps you understand the truth behind your pain shows you the path to your recovery.

What’s next?
Take Your First Step to Recovery.

• Join our FREE private Facebook group, The Pain Habit Community, to see how others have successfully returned to a pain-free life. Get support on your journey.

• Subscribe to The Pain Habit YouTube channel. 

• Buy The Pain Habit book. Releases 1 January 2021. Pre-order here.