Pain: The gate, the key, and the path beyond

 Pain is a message from the depths of your being, which is relayed to the crests of your conscious awareness, that something is askew. The body is continually utilizing resources to heal and rebuild. Problems arise when there is a disconnect, or miscommunication, between the conscious functionings and the unconscious processes.

For example, an individual who experiences chronic neck pain. They've gone through all the standard medical processes, but have gained no relief, and don't want to risk surgery. If instead, they were to create a time and space, where they really paid attention to the pain and to the sensations of the body throughout, over time, they would find that the cause did not originate from the neck. The causes or origination points of the pain are different for everyone, but due to our biological form, there are areas of the body that are easily predisposed to problems due to poor posture.

There is another layer to this process. Memories are not stored solely in the ridges and folds of the brain, but are propagated throughout the body at large. So in the example of our individual with neck pain. After some time, they find that the neck is not some isolated part of the body, like the carburetor is to a car, but that the neck is an area of the body that we have segmented intellectually to better understand its complexity. In reality, it is interconnected with every other part of the body. In our example, let's say the individual finds that it is not just one singular cause to the neck pain, but that there had been a whole host of things which had previously been unconscious. When the individual goes through the process of focusing greater and finer awareness of their consciousness toward the pain and interconnection with the rest of the body, they experience sudden and strange emotions, memories, smells, etc. Usually areas of the body that are weak, tight, atrophied, etc also contain intense emotional memories.

Each individual has a predisposition to either work through this process from the emotional vantage point, or the postural. Each way works, but when used in conjunction, that's where the magic happens. Synergy emerges when postural work and emotional work combine to allow the individual to heal, grow, and transform.

Some common problem areas for posture:
Neck and head too far forward, ears should be aligned with shoulder.
Hips rotated too far back,
head slightly tilted to left or right,
shoulders too far forward.
Spinal and general thoracic rigidity.
The list goes on and on.

After this period of work, which can last years, then the individual is able to begin a new practice. I'm sure there are words for it in other languages and disciplines, but I am currently unaware of what they are. The practice is simple in conception, but it is always easier to say, than to do. Anyway, the practice is this: To be simultaneously fully aware of your bodily sensations, from the tips of your hair, to the tips of your toes, from the pit of your guts and organs, to the circumference of your skin.  While simultaneously fully aware and functional in your daily life.