Non-obvious sources of pain and ways to overcome them.

I remember once in a shop I witnessed a conversation between two friends, both in their early forties. One of them complained about back pain that had been going on for months and that doctors were unable to do anything about it. The other listened to her with sympathy, but was unable to offer any advice. – Well, at our age it must hurt – one of them concluded the conversation. – Well, at least when you wake up in the morning and it hurts, you know you’re still alive – the other laughed.

Maybe you know such situations from your own life? Maybe at the moment you are reading this article you are experiencing pain, or maybe someone in your family is experiencing it? Maybe you have ever wondered where this pain comes from, why it lasts so long, why no one can find its cause? Or maybe you are curious why you are reading about pain on a website dedicated to psychology?

I was inspired to write this article by Nick Potter’s book The Meaning of Pain: A radical new approach to overcoming chronic pain. This book will certainly help you understand what pain is, what its causes are, what it wants to tell you and what you can do to heal yourself.

We live in a world where chronic pain is becoming the norm for more and more people. – writes Nick Potter in his book – (…) The Pain in Europe study, which involved 46,000 people, showed that one in five adults experiences persistent pain, and one in three households has someone with chronic pain. Interestingly, the percentage of women and men was roughly equal, but more women (64%) reported to clinics (…) Of all people reporting pain, 80% reported it in the musculoskeletal system, most often the back.

I remember how at the beginning of the pandemic, together with physiotherapist Kasia Szumal, we talked about pain that “lives” in the head. We were both fascinated by the subject, the latest discoveries in this field and holistic work with patients struggling with pain. Today, the subject comes back to me with redoubled force. Although we know more and more about pain, research shows that so many people still struggle with it every day. Tired, helpless and frustrated, we reach for more advice, pills, hoping that we will find relief in them. I observe this in people who come to my office, hoping that someone here might help them.

We live in a very “fast” world. Our days have sped up, our calendars have become filled with deadlines, “to do” items, goals, plans and dreams to fulfill. We feel the pressure to be the best version of ourselves. The world is calling us to be eternally young, effective, successful, smiling, with passions that we pursue 24/7. Maybe this is a very exaggerated image, but sometimes when I look around I have the impression that this is not the case at all. The world is rushing, and we are rushing along with it. All this is very stressful and exhausting. We meet expectations, climb the career ladder and above all we worry and are afraid. On top of that we carry baggage filled with painful experiences from our entire lives. Unexpressed, unprocessed, stuffed somewhere deep down they cry out to be noticed and healed. Our bodies and minds cry out for support. And this cry is often the pain that accompanies us every day.

In the book The meaning of pain you will find a great and very accessible description of the phenomenon of pain, I will not summarize it, because I have the impression that it is described there really well. I will focus here on the basics.

Pain is an evolutionary mechanism that informs, warns and protects us from danger. And although it is not pleasant, we need it. Pain exists mainly in the nervous system and all of its parts. And as Nick Potter writes – It is what we experience when the brain decides to notice it, and usually when it understands that the stimulus is a real or potential threat and when it wants us to understand that some defensive reaction is necessary. So in its evolutionary assumption, pain is good. I know that this is difficult information when we struggle with pain or watch loved ones suffer because of it. However, often looking at pain from this perspective allows us to see the whole process from a different side. Because it is obvious that when we slam our finger in a door, it hurts, and this pain “tells” us to remove our hand so that a greater injury does not occur. In the future, the brain remembers this event and we will be careful not to repeat the situation. It is also obvious that when we have a toothache, it is important information for us that “something is happening, we need to go to the dentist”, or when we have a sore throat or another organ, we consult a specialist, who can implement the best treatment. Through pain, the body informs us about the “threat” and in a way motivates us to act. How else would we recognize inflammation or other diseases in our body if we did not receive any signal?

However, sometimes there is pain that has no obvious cause. Everything seems to be fine, but it hurts. We go from specialist to specialist and no one can find the cause, and we suffer for weeks, months or even years – like many clients I have worked with. It turns out that this pain also has a cause, but for years this area of ​​work was completely ignored.

For centuries, according to the Cartesian approach, the body and the psyche were treated as separate entities. This is also how humans were perceived until the 1970s, and we still live with the remnants of this approach to some extent. It is similar with pain, for centuries it was assumed that its existence was purely physical, *separated from humans and caused by external factors. However, the knowledge we currently have shows that this is only part of the truth. We are increasingly approaching the biopsychosocial model, according to which, as Potter writes: *pain is an experience resulting from deep connections between three spheres – biology, psychology and sociology. These three areas affect our mental and physical health. When the balance between these areas is disturbed, pain and suffering appear. We must therefore look at chronic pain holistically. Not only “where does it hurt”, but also “since when have you been hurting”, “please tell me your story” and “what has happened in your life recently”. *The challenge of our work is to discover which place in the system is the source of pain. Only by locating and healing that spot can we heal the pain, Potter explains.

And that’s good news, because we have a chance to work with chronic pain and not be doomed to years of suffering. There’s also the “harder” side, because it means there are no shortcuts. Many of the issues that contribute to pain have their source deep in the subconscious and come from both the present and the past.

This theory is gaining more and more supporters, and the work I do in my office confirms that chronic pain has an element of many emotions. And as Nick Potter adds: – It is necessary to develop the ability to cope with your own feelings and desires, to protect yourself from feeling bad and from pain. We need to feel and express emotions, understand our emotional states. We need to be aware of our authentic needs and satisfy them. Sometimes we need to slow down, verify, think, look into places we have not wanted to look for years, take responsibility, gain strength and change what is difficult.

You can do it. You yourself, for yourself. Sometimes also with the support of a specialist.

Let’s remember that pain, like the stress response, is good in its evolutionary assumption and protects us. However, we live fast, often under pressure, cut off from our emotions and needs. Our bodies are tired and tense. Pain is important information for us, “notice me”. I do not agree that “it has to hurt with age”, “that after forty it is like this”, “that when you hurt in the morning, it is a sign that you are alive”. If it hurts, it means that something is happening and you need to act. You need to look at your life holistically and find the causes. And they can be from the simplest, such as: lack of exercise or too much exercise, too little water that you drink every day, too short and interrupted sleep, too many hours at the computer, etc. Through those related to daily duties, work, family, relationships with loved ones, to events that took place in your life years ago, and you still emotionally carry them with you. There is no golden advice here that would be effective for everyone. Each of us is completely different, therefore each of us has a unique story, as well as the story of our pain. We need to know it well in order to heal it.

**We live in a reality in which we learn from an early age that feeling and expressing emotions is bad. It is bad that you cry, that you get angry, that you are afraid of something. We live in a reality in which our mental and physical boundaries are violated every day. No one teaches us what emotions are and how to express them. No one accepts that we have emotions at all. So we often do not have this awareness. We do not know what is happening inside us, we do not know that stress or unexpressed emotions cause tension in the body and, as a consequence, pain or illness. We simply do not know. If we had learned as children or teenagers that this is the case, if our parents had this awareness and cared for our well-being, most of us would not have these tensions, or would have the necessary knowledge and tools to deal with them.

That is why we need to talk about it. That is why we need to teach tools that help release emotional pain, tensions and stress “living” in the body.

All that I am writing about is just a small part of the vast knowledge that we have about pain. Nick Potter devotes a lot of attention to this aspect in his book. He explains, clarifies and proposes simple tools and solutions that can improve your well-being. He devotes a lot of attention to back pain, migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome and fibromyalgia. You can and must act, and the book “And After Pain. Non-obvious Sources of Pain and Ways to Overcome It” can be a great first step for you to understand what it is all about and implement the first actions on a new path of life, one without pain. Good luck!

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Nick Potter is a well-known and respected British osteopath. He became interested in medicine when he suffered a spinal injury. In 1993, he graduated from the British School of Osteopathy, and also has a diploma in medical acupuncture. He has been helping people for thirty years: he specializes in the treatment of injuries and pain and studies the causes of pain. His patients are both ordinary people and famous athletes or people from the front pages of newspapers. His colleagues call him Nick-the-Neck because he specializes in cervical spine injuries, as well as pain syndromes of the head, neck, and face.

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* the quote comes from the book The meaning of pain: A radical new approach to overcoming chronic pain by Nick Potter.

** the quote comes from the text “On the pain that lives in the head”.