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THE HEALERS' FORUM
Vol. 1, No.2 May 2004 475 Tola Ranch
Road, Soquel, CA 95073
HONORING THE PAIN EXPERIENCE
By Deborah Allen
Many great spiritual teachers tell us that human learning
comes from two primary teachers: pain and pleasure.
In the United States, it is estimated that over one
hundred and fifty million people suffer from chronic
daily pain. (Let us hope they are also enjoying daily
doses of pleasure.) In my work as a pain consultant,
I am privileged to witness the courage and tenacity
of people struggling to understand their pain and find
ways to transform it. I also share their frustration,
anger, and depression.
Perhaps the most profound truth I have uncovered about
pain is that it is more than a sensation. It is a series
of multi-layered perceptions that create how each individual
actually experiences the pain.
The pain experience, therefore, is something we can
learn about, modify moment by moment, and eventually,
begin to transform.
What are the elements of the pain experience?
Our work is based on the idea that people, given supportive
conditions, will choose healing over ill health. We
differentiate between "healing" and "cure."
The word healing is used to describe a process,
an ongoing education about our deepest inner needs and
desires; a daily balancing and re-balancing of all parts
of the self. Philosophically, we see the body, emotions,
mind and spirit as interpenetrating parts of the same
whole. What affects one affects all of the others. In
the process of healing, many physical symptoms (disease)
will go away (be cured).
The word cure seems to indicate that something
outside of us can "fix" what is wrong. Many
medicines and surgeries are of great help in alleviating
symptoms. But it is the spirit, reaching towards wholeness
that directs the healing process and helps us either
transform our illnesses or learn to live with them in
a new way. Healing does not necessarily mean that we
will no longer have to live with a given disease. But
how we live with it will change dramatically.
Most of us who find ourselves learning through the
pain experience begin our journey at the office of a
physician. Where traditional Western medicine and holistic
medicine are beginning to find common ground is in their
understanding that pain is a complex issue involving
body, mind, and spirit.
Deborah Allen is a health consultant/educator and
healer with a special interest in pain management and
ongoing wellness issues. She has taught workshops for
Dominican Hospital, Hospice, the Menninger Foundation,
the American Cancer Society, and the American Arthritis
Association, among others. She facilitates several ongoing
education and support groups as well as maintaining
a private practice using energy medicine in Santa Cruz.
Deborah is a graduate of the Barbara Brennan's HealingScience
Training Program. Currently, she is on the faculty of
the Snowlion Center School of Healing in Trimurti, France.
A PHYSICIAN'S PERSPECTIVE: CHRONIC
PAIN
Bruce Eisendorf, M.D.
As a family physician I've had the opportunity over
the past few years to work with many people in chronic
pain. Having received very little training in medical
school or residency on chronic pain management, I had
to do much exploration on my own, with individual patients.
At the same time, I had attended many conferences and
talks by physicians and researchers working with chronic
pain. What is evolving is a much better understanding
of the process and an understanding of what is most
helpful to facilitate a shift out of chronic pain.
First I'd like to share some recent research on the
subject. "Chronic Pain" is being seen now
not so much as a disorder of the back, or the neck,
or the head, or whatever part of the body is in pain.
But, "Chronic Pain" is being recognized as
a systemic disorder. A condition affecting the entire
body and mind. For one reason or another - serious injury,
surgery, severe stress, or even mild head trauma - the
pain receptors of an area of the body were stimulated
(the person felt pain) for a period of 8 weeks or more.
This led to a depletion of certain hormones and chemicals,
particularly serotonin. Thus markedly lowering ones
"pain threshold" while simultaneously producing
sleep disturbance and susceptibility to depression and
anxiety.
It is important to understand that these are the biochemical
effects of chronic pain. It has been a natural response
of physicians treating individuals in chronic pain,
to offer medications when a client is experiencing pain.
While these medications may be helpful for acute pain
or intermittent pain, we are beginning to understand
why they are of such limited benefit with chronic pain.
Research is showing that people or animals given drugs
that block serotonin subsequently get little or no pain
relieving effects of morphine. This explains the poor
results that most people with chronic pain get from
using narcotics.
This information, combined with our understanding
of the biochemical effects of chronic pain, lead us
to say that chronic pain is a systemic condition. It
is much more than just a "strained back" or
"frequent headache". And when we actually
study the muscles or nerves in the affected areas, we
do not see very much "damage". What we see
is a markedly lowered pain threshold in these
individuals. If we fail to understand this, then we
will continue to fail to provide the relief and assistance
that individuals need.
One of the great risks of using "pain medications"
to treat chronic pain is that they lead to further imbalance
and depression of helpful chemical transmitters in the
individual's body. The more narcotic-type medications
that are used, the less natural opiods the body will
provide and the lower the individual's pain threshold
will become. Anyone who has experienced chronic pain
is well aware of the "vicious cycles" that
can develop with chronic pain and medications.
So what are we left with? First, and most important
is education. Understanding, that for most people with
chronic pain, it is not so much a disorder "of
the back", or whatever particular body part that
feels pain, but a condition "of the body and mind".
Second, if medications are to be used, then most important
are those which help to restore serotinin levels, which
include a number of antidepressants. Restoring sleep
is crucial. We must address those factors, which further
deplete the body, such as stress, and how we respond
to it. One of the reasons that chronic pain becomes
so depleting to the body is because of the fear, anxiety,
grief that gets generated in reaction to pain. These
emotions must be recognized and addressed in a constructive
manner.
Diet is also important - it can be either depleting
or restorative. It is known that the use of caffeine
can markedly lower pain threshold. Getting inadequate
nutrients, the body will not have the building blocks
to restore normal chemical balance.
There is much that is not yet fully understood about
the mind-body connection and the experience of pain.
John Sarno, M.D., author of "Healing Back Pain",
has been quite successful treating chronic musculo-
skeletal pain. He proposes that much of our physical
pain, especially chronic pain, is taken up in the body
to distract the mind from unpleasant or unacceptable
thoughts or emotions. While it is unacceptable to have
anger or resentment towards ones parents, it is quite
socially acceptable to have chronic back pain. He postulates
that the entire process is subconscious, and that no
one with chronic pain really "wants" the pain.
His 95% success rates can not be ignored. Helping to
shift people's focus from "the back" or whatever
area of the body feels pain, to the mind, makes sense,
if we view chronic pain as a systemic condition. It
is a difficult shift to make, from focusing on the back
or the head, to focusing on the mind or the whole mind-body.
But, a necessary shift if we are to move from "chronic
pain" to wholeness and healing.
Dr. Bruce Eisendorf, a family practice physician
at the Santa Cruz Medical Clinic has a keen interest
in the phenomena of chronic pain.
With Dr. Bob Stahl, he teaches the Awareness and
Relaxation Training at the Santa Cruz Medical Clinic.
Based on the work of Jon Kabot-Zinn at the University
of Massachusetts Medical Center, the program is designed
to complement the medical management of chronic pain
as well as enhancing and promoting healthy living, wellness
and stress management. Call 458-5824 for more information.
THE FIRST SLAP
by Shelton Ivaney
The thing I gotta get out of my system more than anything
else is that whole feeling of having multiple sclerosis.
I never really touched it, inside. But I fear it every
time I feel bad. This is a bad sign. If my eyes hurt
or my neck hurts or I feel pain in my left arm, here
it comes again.
It could come back tomorrow, could come back in 20
years.
It's the shock, the whole thing was like a shock, the
most brutal shock of my life, getting into that car
and not being able to see where I was driving and then
going home and just hibernating for a couple of days
and hoping that this strange blurry feeling, this double
vision and off balance feeling in my body would go away
and it's some kind of flu or some bullshit and finally
it got to the point where I called Sandy and she took
me to the hospital and I remember trying to get out
of the cab. Couldn't do it, I couldn't walk without
her holding me. It was so humiliating, I had experienced
nothing like that.
It doesn't sound right because everybody gets sick
and everybody gets helpless. But for me, it was the
worst thing that could happen because to get sick and
to get helpless and to be taken into that emergency
room and the doctors looking at my eyes and feeling
them wobble back and forth was like, this is it, now
you're defenseless.
Anything can happen to you man, some bum can get you,
some punk can get you, some wimp can get you, some woman
can get you, your family can get you. Or everybody is
going to have pity on you, feel sorry for you man. You're
going to be one of the people that they're going to
talk about. "Did you hear what happened to Shelton,
isn't that a shame, wasn't he a nice guy".
I was lying in my bed dreaming that my eyes were going
to come back together again. I got presents from people.
It's so pathetic. This could never happen to me, that
I could get sick like this, some kind of sickness where
there is no cure, something that has no explanation,
total mystery. It doesn't even have a diagnosis. "It's
a symptomatic kind of diagnosis based on elimination".
I didn't know what the fuck I had. All I knew was when
that shithead told me that I had MS and Sandy was sitting
there; we both went into shock. It was like finding
out that my father was dead.
Let me lie down now and blank out and escape, put on
the television and just stare off into the distance,
nothing exists. I ain't going to be able to walk or
talk or be a father or be a lover, be a friend, be nothing.
I'm just going to be a cripple for the rest of my life
and slowly decline. I ain't even going to have the decency
to take a quick dive.
Shelton has been meeting with the Chronic Pain Management
and Education Support Community for the last eight months.
And your doubt may become a good
quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it
must become critical. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil
something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs
from it, test it, and you will find it perplexed and
embarassed, perhaps, or perhaps rebellious. But don't
give in, insist on arguments and act this way, watchful
and consistent, every single time, and the day will
arrive when from a destroyer it will become one of your
best workers - perhaps the cleverest of all that are
building your life.
-- Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
ENERGY MEDICINE
Deborah Allen
In "energy medicine" (a new name for a timeless
set of ideas), we work with the belief that pain is
blocked energy. In itself, this blocked area that we
call pain is neither good nor bad. Instead, it is energy
that is not flowing freely. Acupuncture is the most
widely known energy medicine in America at this time.
Needles are used to unblock the "chi" or life
force and encourage it on its way again. There are many
other disciplines that work with balancing vital energies,
including hands-on healing, Reiki (a Tibetan/Japanese
energy practice) shiatsu and polarity, body-centered
therapies, and more.
Choosing to accept the idea that pain is blocked energy
has some definite advantages. It means we can develop
a more neutral relationship to the pain itself. Our
belief that the pain is evil, cruel, out to get us (beliefs
we see constantly surfacing in the pain groups) adds
another level of stress to an already stressed system.
The energy blocked in "pain," once released,
becomes energy that works for our well being.
Energy medicine can start us on the path of empowerment.
We can learn to unblock energy ourselves and notice
a decided decrease in pain level. Every moment that
we feel we can move the pain towards a neutral state
is a victory.
How does energy become blocked in the first place?
With chronic pain - where the system is having trouble
returning to wholeness - our emotional lives often play
an important role. What does energy medicine have to
say about the relationship between emotion and illness?
Working through the emotions around the pain - can
feel like a perilous journey. Many of us have closed
down our feeling centers as a survival tactic, using
whatever means are at hand - food, alcohol, pain killers,
smoke, or more simply, using the mind to cut off avenues
that lead to feeling. ("I don't want to feel that;
it's not okay to feel that, I hate that feeling.")
A FAIRY TALE:
GET YOUR LIFE BACK FROM THE "MONSTERS UNDER THE
BED"
Dan Buffo
Once upon a time, a small child lived in a White House
with her parents and a cat. She thought having her own
room was neat; and that the cat was her friend. And
sometimes she thought that the adults, including her
parents, took advantage of her.
She saw them get what they wanted simply because they
were bigger. Once she felt very hurt and angry. It was
unbearable, and the adults were no help. She wished
for an adult on her side; one to make them do what she
thought was fair. But there was no one to help.
Nevertheless, she was determined to survive, and she
did. She stuffed the hurt and anger deep into a part
of herself, locking it away, as if it were some frightful
"Monster", behind a door she envisioned of
oak planks and iron locks. She used the worst of her
feelings to paint a warning on the door lest she wander
into this helpless place again. Then she left, never
went back, and pretended it never happened.
For awhile, this worked, but soon after she was hurt
again. This time she just locked that "Monster"
up with the first one, and survived. Over the years
she developed and refined this method for defending
herself from unwanted emotions. Sometimes she used that
first door; sometimes she invented new doors. She forgot
how many doors there were, or how many "Monsters".
Some doors were used for only one kind of emotion, while
others held a variety of scary hurtful "Monsters".
As an adult, she continued to react toward unwanted
emotions in this helpless way. She did not use the power
of the adult, which she had so desired as a child. She
felt that something was wrong, but whenever she got
close to those doors, she felt the helplessness, anger,
and hurt she had left as a warning.
So she avoided the doors. For example, whenever her
mate expressed anger, she did not respond as an adult.
Instead, she felt as if the "Monster" named
"Abandonment" had escaped. She quickly locked
him up again and did not tell her mate about her trouble.
She did not heal with herself or her mate. There were
other side effects...
Like, each "Monster" (emotional charge) was
actually her very Life Force, frozen "behind a
door" somewhere within her energy field. The more
energy she locked away, the more awareness she lost.
Eventually her awareness was reduced to the level of
reacting without thinking, every time she noticed unwanted
emotions. As more and more of her life force became
locked within this block, she forgot herself and lost
control of her habit.
Another thing: keeping this entire going meant pretending
the doors were not there. She had to withdraw her attention
and awareness from a portion of her own energy field
(aura). She stopped using that part and did not acknowledge
input from it. The result: she was out of touch with
much of herself!
Finally, many of the doors and much of the imprisoned
life force was located in that part of her energy field
known as the second chakra; the one which she could
have used to support the creation of her Life, including
healthy emotions and sexual expression. She didn't use
it for that because she had never really learned how.
She had lost her awareness to the "Monsters under
her bed."
As a result, despite her best efforts, her life lacked
fulfillment in many areas including sexuality, abundance,
and relationship. She was always feeling like she didn't
have the energy to manifest what she wanted. And without
energy, how could she return this habit to awareness?
-THE END
I have met many people who identify with this tale.
Their "Monsters" are not limited to the second
chakra. They suffer discomfort of spirit, mind, emotions,
or body for want of the Life Force frozen throughout
their energy system. They forgot their "Monsters"
too. I notice that when they get energetic and emotional
support, and regain much needed awareness, they often
heal themselves.
Energy work can play a crucial part in this type of
healing because the more Life force you receive into
your energy system, the more alive you are; the more
awareness you can focus through your attention. Energy
work includes grounding and hands-on transmission of
Universal Life (Force) Energy, through a channel, to
you. Usually, you receive the energy while lying, fully
clothed, on a massage table.
During a session, I often notice the recipient's awareness
increase as Life Force increases within her energy field.
This is the key to how the Life Force provided by the
energy healer can unblock stored emotions and lead to
lasting healing. With appropriate support, she can apply
this awareness to new insight. She can choose to claim
the power of her adult and change unsuccessful childhood
survival strategies. She can choose to stop blocking
information from her field, thus restoring perception.
Great personal growth and integration are possible with
the increased awareness and improved perceptionbrought
by receiving more energy into your aura.
I encourage the recipient to reclaim the frozen Life
Force. Once reclaimed, it is instantly available. Once
the Inner Child is empowered, when she opens the door,
she will notice that the "Monster" is not
so scary. That is, she is no longer so helpless. The
Child will no longer want or need to block the emotional
charge. And once she realizes that she has the power
of choice, she will not do so. Life Force then floods
the blocked portion of the energy field, creating a
great feeling of relaxed nurturance, and occasionally,
a few tears of relief.
Once the Inner Child becomes aware of this process
she becomes willing to seek out the doors and face the
"Monsters under her bed" because she can get
the healing she wants. To do this she needs a few things.
First, she needs to be safe when she opens the door.
This can be done with the help of her "Adult"
self, who will hold her hand and anchor her to the present
moment of safety; and the help of a healer to provide
the energy needed to regain awareness.
Even after the child has released the emotional charge,
the door remains. What will happen the next time her
button is pushed? Will she change the habit and retain
the power to choose her thoughts and emotions? Or will
the Inner Child panic, and stuff a new "Monster
under her bed?"
First, a few mistakes will be made out of habit. Eventually,
she becomes aware of the habitual reaction before it's
over. Then, she will become aware earlier and earlier
in the cycle. Finally, she will become aware of her
habit as soon as it is initiated and act out her conscious
choice instead. Clients often report the block, and
the "door" (that is the habit), gone within
a few weeks.
By Dan Buffo. Copyright,
June, 1994
THE FACE OF FEAR
I stand at the window
looking out at the world.
Wondrous and exciting things
are there.....outside.
Behind the glass
I see it all....
I yearn for the freedom to be a part
of all there is...
The glass is keeping me apart
from all there is...
Why do I not just step outside
and into life?
Why do I allow the glass to hold me in?
What is this big heavy ball I feel inside
my gut?
Why is my heart pounding?
I am dizzy with desire
as fear struggles within me.
I cannot move....
What hold me Back?
My father will yell at me...
My father will scowl at me...
My father will not allow me to be
in the world.
I can only stand inside...and look out.
My father is keeping me safe!
My father left this earth
thirty-five years ago.
I am no longer a child.
Yet...I am still trapped
behind an invisible glass
of irrational fear.
I am a wife...A mother...A grandmother.
Some even say I am a wise woman.
Still...I am not safe...
Fear lives inside this woman.
I breathe deeply...again...I breathe
in.
I send roots from my feet
deep into the earth...
I begin to feel life...
and strength in my body.
I visualize...
Huge, strong, cutting shears in my hands.
I sever the unseen cords
connecting me to my fear...
to my father's hold on me.
The cords which tied me are now separated
flapping in the breeze.
I am released!
I experience a strange lightening
inside me...
My heart is unfolding...opening...
I am surprised by ripples of joy...
Like bells ringing
through my inner being...
I am aglow with light...and life:
It is a new, bright and shiny day:
Outside...I look up...clouds
shaped like ribbons
flutter in the wind...
Then dissipate...
I think my father fear is waving...
a farewell to me:
Again.....
I stand...looking out...
But now...there is no window
No glass to reflect my face...
My face of fear.
This is truly the first day
of the rest of my live:
- Lee Miller
Lee has been meeting with the Chronic Pain Management
Community for over two years. She is now a part of an
on-going Wellness Group.
4 PARTS OF A HEART
1. the sky
contrasted against
the white window frame
is the color of iris
and in the near distance
in someone's back yard
is a flagpole
with a weathervane on top
farther still
telephone poles
wires swaying
in the wind
carry messages
this can be seen only
from the vantage point
of the woman lying on her bed
resting her hollow bones
this morning
she'd walked
several blocks
with no one making
eye contact
and a child looked
curiously at her cane
they can't see it
but she can feel
her aura
reach out like wires
needing the flow
of understanding
between strangers
2. she writes these twists
and curves of words
sobbing
remembering when a rapist
forced his stalagmite dick
into her
cut through her sweet iris flower
into her cave of secrets
time held pain in her bones
bones and muscle hold that pain
scream for her to heal
not alone
she couldn't do it
alone
3. i found a flyer
with the name Deborah Allen on it
it said "Chronic Pain Group"
i went there
Deborah gave me
red orange yellow
green blue indigo
white gold pink
circles to spin
spin into
through chakras
found earth's center
my center
my cave of secrets
lighted by gold heart lamp
spreads where healing needs to go
4. women in circles
holding hands
pass light
one to the other
until
all are one
roots reaching
a common center
healing
healing
- juanita miller
march 1994
Juanita is a member in long standing with the Chronic
Pain group that has transformed into a Wellness Group.
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