Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/77400
THE BRAIN AND BODYWORK for healing. At this early stage of treatment, doing less is achieving more. Body Sense Exercise Find a quiet place to sit or lie down, coming to rest inside yourself. Let your body sink into gravity as much as you are able. Locate the painful area and feel the boundaries of the pain. Is it, for example, the whole leg, just in the thigh, or localized to just above the knee on the inside of your leg, etc.? Your headache may be just behind your right eye, or just over your left ear. Shift your awareness between painful areas and adjacent non-painful areas. Notice the differences. Let the non-painful parts talk to the painful parts. This is often enough to start the pain to move or soften. Now forget the pain and focus on your breathing, the sense of your body connecting with the surface on which you are sitting or lying, or on some other constant and reliable presence that feels safe, stable, and supportive. These are your resources. Other resources could be the non-painful parts of your body, the trees over your head, a clock ticking, someone's hand that you are holding for support, a bodywork practitioner who is touching you, a stuffed animal, a mental image of a person you love, or even your sense of God's presence. Make sure you can locate these resources reliably, because you'll need to come back to them anytime the pain becomes too much. Now, localize the pain again; then access your resource. Practice going back and ALLOW THE CLIENT TO FEEL THE PAIN WITHOUT ACTING ON YOUR OWN DESIRE TO FIX OR MAKE IT BETTER The self-regulatory neural network has to be able to locate the pain in the body before it can marshal the appropriate neurochemicals, hormones, and immune cells to address it. Many sessions may be required since this is a developmental process—literally regrowing parts of the self-regulatory neural network. If you can stay present with your own worries and questions and not act on them, you can get out of the way and let clients have their own feelings. It may seem as if you are causing the pain, but if you are fully present with your touch, what you are really doing is giving the client the opportunity to feel the pain, with you as a witness. forth between the pain and the resource. Finally, with your resource in mind, come back to the pain, and this time, go into it. Really try to feel it. You may not be able to do this at first. Your pulse may quicken, you might cry or sweat, your breathing may become shallow, and you may gasp for air. This is your sympathetic (arousal) nervous system's response to feeling threatened. Come back to your resource. See if you can let your parasympathetic (relaxation) nervous system help you settle down. Try again. This is a process. It may take multiple tries and multiple sessions. If your resource stops working for you, try a different one. You can have a whole collection of resources—no limit—if that helps. REDUCE INTENSITY, PRESSURE, OR MOVE AWAY FROM THE PAINFUL AREA AS NEEDED You are primarily working with the client's neuroregulatory system and teaching about shifting between feeling pain until it becomes intolerable and then shifting to feeling something more comfortable. By touching adjacent and pain-free areas, you are reminding the client's nervous system that there are resources beyond the pain: comfort, relief, and hope. BEGIN DEEPER, OR MORE ADJUSTIVE; WORK ONLY AS PAIN TOLERANCE INCREASES OVER TIME When addressing previously painful tissue, working more deeply has to wait until the nervous system can handle it. This could take weeks, months, or longer, depending on the person and the source of pain. It is essential to stay in touch with earn CE hours at your convenience: abmp's online education center, www.abmp.com 59